Two Best External Debugging Tools for Flex / Flash Applicaitons, updated

Script Debugger icon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Below is the list of external debugging tools for Flash / Flex 

1. Monster Debugger (http://demonsterdebugger.com/)

an open source debugger for Adobe Flash, Flex and AIR for the desktop, the web and the mobile. Its made in Flex and AIR, It was donated by De Monsters as an open source debugger to Adobe Flash Community and is avaialble for free.

To take a tour of its debugging features visit: http://www.monsterdebugger.com/tour

2. Fxspy

A visual tool in Flex 3 that's able to read and modified the properties and styles of a running application (http://code.google.com/p/fxspy/ ). Visit the URL: http://www.mieuxcoder.com/data/2007/12/FlexSpy-1.2/dashboard.html for live demo of this tool.

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• Flash Builder 4.7 and Adobe Scout 1.0 Released (inflagrantedelicto.memoryspiral.com)
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Six Best IDEs for Flex / Flash Application Development, Top Five alternates for Adobe Flash Builder

Flash Builder 4 Branding (Photo credit: Adam Tuttle)

Below is the list of IDEs for Flex with debugging support

1. Powerflasher FDT 

Homepage Link: http://fdt.powerflasher.com/
Check my blog PowerFlasher FDT 5 - Yet Another IDE for Flash/Flex/Air (practicalflex.blogspot.com) for further details.

2. Amethyst 

Homepage Link: http://www.sapphiresteel.com/Adobe-Flex-IDE-Amethyst-Beta-2

3. Adobe Flash Builder 

Homepage Link: http://www.adobe.com/in/products/flash-builder.html

Port of Adobe Flash Builder 4.5 to Linux - http://code.google.com/p/fb4linux/ - 

4. IntelliJ IDEA - Ultimate Edition 

Homepage URL: http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/features/flex_ide.html)

5. Flash Develop

Homepage URL: http://www.flashdevelop.org/

Overview - FD is free and open source. It is also being developed actively, it has got lots of good features comparable to that of FDT like the debugger and profiler. For mobile development there are lot of resources from the community, like sample project files for e.g. (How to build an app for iphone or ipad with flashdevelop - http://www.lorenzonuvoletta.com/build-an-app-for-iphone-or-ipad-with-flashdevelop/)

6. Realaxy ActionScript Editor 

Website: http://realaxy.com/

Related articles

• Adobe Flex Builder 4.6 Extras(practicalflex.blogspot.com)

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• Flash Builder 4.7 and Adobe Scout 1.0 Released(inflagrantedelicto.memoryspiral.com)

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• PowerFlasher FDT 5 - Yet Another IDE for Flash/Flex/Air(practicalflex.blogspot.com)
• Amethyst 2 - Visual Studio based Flash and Flex IDE(overdigital.com)

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• FDT4 is fully supported on Ubuntu(mrbinitie.blogspot.com)

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• Develop for Adobe Flash/Flex in Amethyst for Visual Studio(itwriting.com)

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• Importing Flash Builder projects into FDT(stackoverflow.com)

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• Setting up FDT to look and behave like FlashDevelop(stevensacks.net)

• Apache Flex and Adobe AIR with IntelliJ IDEA (inflagrantedelicto.memoryspiral.com)

Adobe Flex Builder 4.6 Extras

Adobe Flash Builder Extras includes:

1. Flash Catalyst CS 5.5 installer
2. ActionScript Code Coverage Plug-in for Adobe Flash Builder (Eclipse Plugin)

Note: The Adobe Flash Builder 4.6 Extras are not included in the Electronic Software Distribution (ESD) download. They need to be separately downloaded from the URL http://www.adobe.com/go/fb46_getextras

Introduction to MVC Architecture of Cairngorm

A simple diagram depicting the relationship between the Model, View, and Controller. Note: the solid lines indicate a direct association, and the dashed line indicate an indirect association (e.g., observer pattern). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: This diagram depicts how the Model View Controller Architecture works. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: The model, view, and controller (MVC) pattern relative to the user. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Cairngorm is based on Model View Controller (MVC) framework, specifically designed to facilitate complex state and data synchronization between the client and the server. Cairngorm separates implementation of the view layer from the Model (data) implementation.

View layer throw events and bind to data stored in the Model. 

Components on the View can bind to Value Objects or other properties in the Model (data) layer.

Value Objects (VOs) are used to store related properties, simple variables can be stored as direct properties of the ModelLocator class. 

A static reference to the ModelLocator singleton instance is used by the View layers to locate the required data.

he Controller layer is implemented as a singleton class FrontController. The FrontController instance receives every View-generated Event and dispatches the events to the assigned Command class based on the event's declared type.

The Command class processes the event by calling the Command class' execute() method, which is defined in ICommand interface. 

The event object may include data if required. The execute() method can update the central Model, as well as invoke a Service class which typically involves communication with a remote server. The IResponder interface is also implemented by the Command class, includes onResult and onFault methods to handle responses returned from the invoked remote service.

Game Development in Flex

Below is the link to Whitepaper on Adobe's view of Flex and its road map for future: 

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/whitepapers/roadmap.html

A whitepaper about Flash's runtime is available at url: 

http://www.adobe.com/go/flashplayer_roadmap

What is Starling ?

URL: www.starling-framework.org

Starling is a ActionScript 3.0 framework for building 2D games, based on Stage3D.

It takes advantage of GPU resulting in better performance and faster frame-rate. 

It is a port of sparrow framework for iOS. 

Related articles

• Starling Framework "Insider Tips" at CODAME (Aug 1)(games.codame.com)

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• Starling Deep Dive(slideshare.net)

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Let's Install & Test Apache Flex 4.8.0 SDK in Flash Builder

Below are the list of important resources which would help you getting started with Aparche Flex 4.8.0

Announcement: Release of Apache Flex 4.8.0 

http://lnkd.in/Vvu4_E

Apache Flex Installer

http://flex.apache.org/installer.html - The Apache Flex SDK Installer simplifies the download and installation of the latest Apache Flex SDK and its components onto your computer for anyone who might not be familiar with compiling from source code but wants to use the latest release of the Apache Flex SDK and prepares your favorite IDE such as Adobe Flash Builder or JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA by downloading its binary distribution from apache.org or its mirrors, and install it . 

Blog on "How to install Apache Flex 4.8.0 in Flash Builder"

http://lucamezzalira.com/2012/07/24/how-to-install-flex-4-8-0-sdk-in-flash-

builder/

Install Apache Flex

http://people.apache.org/~bigosmallm/installapacheflex/

Did you got it running.. please share your experience by commenting on this blog.

Related articles

• Beginning to Flex!(dashoftech.wordpress.com)

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Build an SAP backend Flex Application using LCD Services

SAP Headquarters, Building 1 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This video demonstrates how to build Adobe Flex applications that fetches information from SAP R/3 backend system using the new feature of Flash Builder and a new SAP Connector component in Adobe LifeCycle Data Services.

 
try this feature and share your feedback if you find this information useful.

Related articles

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Building Web & Mobile Applications for SAP Backend using Adobe Flex, updated

Development

SAP Provides following development tools for Adobe Flex application development:

•SAP Visual Composer (VC)

•SAP Business Objects Xcelsius

Integration

•Adobe Flex applications built on Adobe Flex Builder can be integrated to SAP WebDynpro Java & ABAP using SAP Flash Island technology.

•Adobe Flex applications built on Adobe Flex Builder can be deployed over SAP NetWeaver Web AS Java and could be made available to end users using SAP NetWeaver Portal (formerly Enterprise Portal).

How to connect to sap from mobile using flex ?

With usage of Flex complex business processes are simplified and more interactivity is introduced dealing with display of rich data. Oracle, SAP, Business Objects, and other enterprise software companies are also integrating Flex technology within their enterprise applications.

SAP NetWeaver Gateway technology provides a standard based simple approach to connect devices, environments and platforms to SAP applications & solutions. It enables development of innovative people centric solutions for SAP solutions into new experiences such as: 

• social and collaboration environments, 
• mobile and tablet devices and
• rich internet applications. 

It offers connectivity to SAP R/3 application using any programming language or model without the need for SAP knowledge by leveraging REST services and OData/ATOM protocols.

Adobe® Flash Builder Plugin for SAP NetWeaver Gateway Services enables Flex developers to build web and mobile applications that access SAP data via NetWeaver Gateway Services (NGS). 

The plugin provides features that enable Adobe Flex developers to more easily build web and mobile applications that connect to SAP systems through SAP NetWeaver Gateway. The plugin works within the existing Flash Builder Data Centric Development (DCD) workflow.

Simple wizards allow developers to

1. connect with and browse a Gateway Server’s Service Catalog 
2. generate ActionScript service wrappers and value objects for selected services
3. Flash Builder Data Service Panel and Design View drag-and-drop integration

The new Adobe Flash Builder Plugin for SAP NetWeaver Gateway can be downloaded from the link below: 

Adobe Flash Builder Plug in for NetWeaver Gateway

Read the document below for details about the installation instructions & how to use this plugin.
Getting Started with Adobe Flash Builder Plugin for SAP NetWeaver Gateway Services

Below is the video of how to use Adobe Flash Builder Plugin for SAP NetWeaver Gateway Services

Related articles

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What's New in Flex 4.6 SDK and Flash Builder 4.6

Below is the Blog link from Adobe Developer Connection about  - What's new in Flex 4.6 SDK & Flash Builder 4.6:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/whats-new-flex-flash-builder-46.html

Key Improvements include:

• New UI Components
• Support for latest Google tablet platform and iOS 5
• Enhanced Tooling (including monitoring and unit testing of mobile applicaitons)
• Performance Improvement

This is the final official Adobe release of Flex. Future versions of Flex SDK will be managed as an independent project by Apache Software Foundation (ASF).

New Features in Adobe® Flash® Builder™ 4.5 (codenamed "Burrito")

Adobe® Flash® Builder™ 4.5 includes the following new features:

• new cross platform development features
• enhancements to Flash Builder and 
• support for the Adobe Flex® 4.5 SDK (codenamed "Hero").

Key themes for Flash Builder 4.5 includes the following:

• Developing mobile applications
• Developing multi-screen applications
• Accelerated coding
• Improved designer/developer workflow
• Updated platform support
• Better performance.

You user Flash Builder to perform the following activities while developing Web and Mobile applications.

• write code in source mode
• layout the UI
• style and application 
• implement an skin 
• apply a theme

A video on Building your First Mobile Application in Adobe Flash Builder.

Building Simple Application with Flex

EBA AJAX Grid + Flex Charting Component (Photo credit: Andre Charland)

Working with Containers

Lets now learn about the most important MXML tag in Flex.

Applicaiton
Description: root container for an Flex application

Properties:

layout, define lay out for its child components, possible values for this property are:

1. vertical - automatic top to bottom in order layout
2. horizontal - automatic left to right in order layout
3. absolute - no automatic layout, (x,y) location based layout

Note: The default layout, BasicLayout renderer doesn't respect the transformations that occur in the object's width/height/position during rotation. It still tries to layout the objects as if they were not rotated. However, if you use any other layout, like VerticalLayout or HorizontalLayout, the objects new dimensions after rotation is used.

style, defines formatting for the child components

1. backgroundGradientColors
2. verticalGap

How to Use Absolute Layout in Flex

More DIY videos at 5min.com

How to Use the appropriate Layout Type in your Flex Applicatoin

More DIY videos at 5min.com

Also visit blog to learn about adding inline ActionScript in MXML code

• Using Inline ActionScript in Flex

Related articles

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Preparing Adobe Flex Development Environment (Part 2), updated

Image by TuttleTree via Flickr

Download Adobe Flash Builder (its a pretty big download of around 300 MB, please feel free to read ahead while download is progressing)

- Flash Builder 4 is available for Windows and Macintosh platform.

- During installation you will be required to close your browser(s) so that the installer can upgrade your version of Flash Player to the debugger version so that you can use the full debugging capabilities built into Flash Builder.

You can also install Adobe Flash Builder as a plugin over an existing Eclipse installation, while doing so it is recommended that you edit the eclipse.ini file for your Eclipse instance, so that it includes the following settings:

-vmargs -Xms256m -Xmx512m -XX:MaxPermSize=256m -XX:PermSize=64m

Highlights of Adobe Flash Builder 4.5:

“Adobe Flash Builder 4.5 can be used to Build for Android™, BlackBerry® Tablet OS, and iOS mobile platforms using a common code base”.

• Based on an Eclipse™ Plaform
• Rapid development of expressive mobile, web, and desktop applications
• Support for ActionScript®
• Building applications using open source Flex framework. 
• Supports for mobile application development and testing. 
• Development of applications using common code base to build apps for Android™, BlackBerry® Tablet OS, and iOS mobile platforms while sharing code from web applications.

Tips

• You can install a copy of Flash Builder 4 standalone with Flex Builder 2 or 3 installations on the same machine, it will not interfere with each other.
• Workspaces created in Flex Builder 2 or Flex Builder 3 are not supported by Flash Builder 4.
• You can import existing Flex Builder projects in Flash Builder 4, but a project modified by Flash Builder 4 will no longer open in Flex Builder 3 or Flex Builder 2.

Related Articles

• Adobe updates Flash Builder, Flex; unveils LiveCycle-CQ integration (infoworld.com)

• Building Web & Mobile Applications for SAP Backend using Adobe Flex(practicalflex.blogspot.com)

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Apache Flex Overview, updated

crazy with the books (Photo credit: leff)

What is Flex? 

Flex is a highly productive, free open source framework that provides enterprise-level components for Flash Platform for designing, building and maintaining expressive mobile, web and desktop applications that deploy consistently on all major devices, browsers, desktops, and operating systems.

Flex allows you to build web and mobile applications that share a common code base, reducing the time and cost of application creation and longer term maintenance.

Flex Overview

Adobe has donated the Flex SDK to Apache Software foundation. [Adobe Donating Flex to Open Source Foundation (infoq.com)]

• Flex 3 Getting Started - Animated Overview on Adobe Learning Resource 
• Flex 4 Getting Started - Getting Started page for Flex 4 (current release) on the Flex Developer Center.

What is Adobe Flash Builder ?

Adobe^® Flash^® Builder^™ 4.5 software (formerly Adobe Flex^® Builder^™) is an Eclipse^™ based development tool for rapidly building expressive applications for the following platforms:

1. mobile, 
2. web, and
3. desktop

using the following technologies:

1. ActionScript^® and MXML
2. the open source Flex framework. 

Adobe Flash Builder 4.5 introduces new support for mobile application development and testing that enables use of a common code base to build apps for the following platforms: 

1. Android^™,
2. BlackBerry^® Tablet OS, and
3. iOS mobile platforms 

while sharing code from web applications. It includes support for the following features: 

• intelligent coding, 
• interactive step-though debugging, 
• application profiling, and 
• visual design of the user interface layout.

Can I learn Apache Flex (previously Adobe Flex) ?

Below are the Prerequisites for learning Adobe Flex includes basic understanding of following topics:

• Basic understanding of any programming Language ( for e.g. C#, Java, C / C++ etc..)
• HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language)
• XML (eXtensible Markup Language)
• JSON (JavaScript Object Notation)
• CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)
• Exposure to any server side technology (like ColdFusion, Java Servlet/JavaServer Pages, PHP, .NET) is recommended but not necessary. 

Which languages does Flex Framework supports ?

A Flex application consists primarily of code written in two different languages

• ActionScript - a fully object oriented, strictly typed, ECMA Script language. It is is used for describing the event handlers and custom application logic.
• MXML - an XML based markup language. It is used to provide description of the appearance  and components that make up the application.

What is Flash Catalyst ?

An additional product Adobe® Flash® Catalyst™ (code-named Thermo)  a professional interaction design tool for designers to create complex RIA user interfaces and interactions by using a visual editor which will create Flex application code that the designer and developer can share. Adobe Flash Catalyst is a tool for rapidly creating user interfaces without coding.

Future of Flash Catalyst & Flash Builders

Following the decision of Flex moving to the Apache Foundation, that Flash Catalyst will be discontinued. Flash Builder will also have features the following features removed in future:

• Design View,
• Data Centric Development (DCD)
• and Flash Catalyst workflows. 

Adobe has stopped sales and development of Flash Catalyst tool, Adobe is now focusing mainly on creating tools for native applications using AIR and HTML5 for e.g. 

1. Adobe Muse (http://muse.adobe.com)
2. Adobe & HTML (http://html.adobe.com/)

As an alternate to Flash Catalyst it is recommended to use Adobe Creative Suite Master Collection. (refer http://www.adobe.com/in/products/flashcatalyst.html for details)

Further Reading:

• Future of Flash and Flex
• Life After Adobe Flash Builder(drdobbs.com) - Developing Flex with using Microsoft's Visual Studios IDE

Learning Resources:

• Flex 3 LiveDocs - Flex Help Documentation
• Tour de Flex - A desktop application for exploring Flex capabilities
• Flex Developer Center - collection of resources on flex
• flex.apache.org - Apache Flex website
• Flex Showcase - list of desktop and mobile applications written in Flex
• Flex Cookbook - collection of solution to common problems

Related articles:

• Talking about: Flex Gumbo (Flex 4) - new features (psyked.co.uk) - Flex 4 was codenamed Gumbo

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• FlexJS: Flex for HTML/JS/CSS(flexcloset.wordpress.com) - A next generation flex sdk that cross compiles MXML & ActionScript into HTML, JS and CSS.

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• Apache Flex 4.11 Released!(blogs.apache.org)

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• How is Flex Doing? Quick Start Guides and Tutorials(jetbrains.com)

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• Flash Platform Rundown - Week of October 27th, 2013(inflagrantedelicto.memoryspiral.com)

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• Alex's Flex Closet Lives On!(flexcloset.wordpress.com) - yet another blog about flex.

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• Thumbs Up for Apache Flex(robsondesign.com) - success story about migration from Adobe Flex 4.5.1 SDK to Apache Flex 4.10.1 SDK.

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• Flash Platform Rundown - Week of October 20th, 2013(inflagrantedelicto.memoryspiral.com)

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