Adobe is working on a version of the Flex framework for mobile application, Codemane Slider. When I watched the video about the Slider Preview at Max presentation by Ely Greenfield (Adobe), I was totally impressed about the ideas behind Slider. I like the idea how to solve the to integrate into multiple plattforms and Cross Platform developement based on Conditions and Style/Skins. If you want to now what I’m talking about, check the video below. Adobe provides also a white paper at Adobe Labs.

If you wanted to track a Flash or Flex based application with  Google Analytics, you had to use the ExternalInterface to call the function of the JavaScript library. While search for a solution which isn’t using JavaScript, I found out that Google now provides some ActionScript3 libraries for Google Analytics.

You can find the documentation here and the libraries here.

The nice thing about the library is that you have the choice whether you want to use a ActionScript-Only solution or combine JavaScript and ActionScript. The only difference between both solutions is one parameter when calling of constructor of the tracker.

Today, Spring published the first Release Candiate of the Spring BlazeDS Integration. http://www.springsource.org/spring-flex

On time for the World Table Tennis Championships in Yokohama, the website of the German Table Tennis League (dttl.tv) was relaunched last week. The main element of the relaunched website is a new video player, based on Adobe Flex and the Adobe Flash Media Server. You can find all games of the German Table Tennis League in full length, interviews and the top rally of the day.

On May 15th 2009, the first live stream (19th match day of the German Table Tennis League) of the new website will avalaible.

To manage all the videos and streams, the player has a backend system based on BlazeDS, Spring and Hibernate.

Have fun and visit the website of the best Table Tennis League worldwide to see some of the most brillant table tennis players.

While searching for some Flash Media Server informations, I found a PureMVC Skeleton for Flash Media Server Applications on Stefan Richter’s Website. The skeleton provides the logic for the connection to Flash Media Server, but not any implementation of a video player.  I will use the skeleton in a video portal project, which I’m planning for a customer at the moment. Nice stuff.

Last week, I came cross the Flash Viewer for JasperReports. JasperReports is an OpenSource Java Framework to build Reports based on different data sources. We’re using in our projects JasperReports to generate PDF reports, too.

The Flash Viewer Project is using the Flex SDK to render the JasperReports for the HTML or Web based application. All source files of the viewer are available, so that you can customize the viewer for your needs.

But you can’t replace a interactive Flex chart component with the report viewer, because the viewer only generates a static output of the report. You can also using the JFree Chart extensions of the JasperReports, but neither the Charts nor the Text Information are selectable. If you’re changing any data of the report, you have to fill the report again in your Java Backend and rerender the report with the viewer.

So, using the viewer make only sense if you using it as preview of the report or if your reports aren’t as complex and interactive. And the best thing about the viewer is that you can use the same source file for your web and print output.

Additional Infos:

To use the Flash Viewer, you have to setup a Java web server like (Tomcat…) and run the webapp of the Flash Viewer. You get the webapp, if you download the project zip of the Flash Viewer. To display a report, you have to compile the report definition (jrpxml file) and fill the the compiled report. After that, you can use the Flash Viewer to display the report. The project zip contains a sample report, which demostrates how to use the flash viewer.

Today, I decided to write my first blog post in English. The reason for this post is the implementation of Number in current Flex3 SDK. I haven’t used Number as input for a while, the last time about one or one and half years ago. What had changed during this time: You can’t directly parse a String into Number if you using a comma as decimal separator.I used the resource bundle properties to change the decimal and thousand separator.

SharedResources.properties:

# CurrencyFormatter, NumberFormatter, Slider
decimalSeparatorFrom=.
decimalSeparatorTo=,
thousandsSeparatorFrom=,
thousandsSeparatorTo=.

validators.properties:

# Currency/Number Validator
allowNegative=true
decimalSeparator=,
maxValue=NaN
minValue=NaN
thousandsSeparator=.

If you trying parse the String into Number using current 3.2.0 Flex SDK, the result is always NaN. In Flex 2 this transformation worked perfect.

var s:String = “0,5″

var n:Number = Number(s);

=> n = NaN

Also the parseFloat function can’t parse the String into Number. The function cuts off the decimal value of the Number if you using a comma. The only way to do this transformation is using a regular expression to replace the comma with a point and than transform the String into a Number. If you have multiple input fields with numbers, this is no satisfying solution.

When I read some JIRAs at the Adobe Bug and Issue Management System, I found a couple of bugs which are related to this problem. The NumberValidator and CurrencyValidator doesn’t work correct if you using a comma as decimal separator. They can’t validate if the number is in the range of min and max values of the validator. Before comparing the input against the min and max values they transform the String into Number by using following code.

var x:Number = Number(input);

The result of this transformation using a comma as decimal separator is always NaN.  Line 295 of the NumberValidator and line 343 of the CurrencyValidator Adobe uses this transformation. So, the validation of min and max couldn’t work using a comma.

Please, Adobe correct the implemtation of Number.

Heute hat SpringSource den ersten Milestone der Spring BlazeDS Integration veröffentlicht. Informationen zum Spring BlazeDS Integration finden sich jetzt auch auf der SpringSource Webseite, dort werden eine Referenz Dokumentation, eine JavaDoc und natürlich auch den Downloads zur Verfügung gestellt. Zusätzlich gibt weitere Informationen in einem Blog und einem Forum zur Spring BlazeDS Integration.

Sobald ich selber mal ein Auge auf die Integration geworfen habe, folgen weitere Informationen.

Das IoC Framework Prana von Christophe Herreman ist Spring Extension unter dem Projektnamen Spring Actionscript verfügbar. Bei der Entwicklung von Prana wurde Java Spring Framework als Vorlage genommen und dessen Funktionsweise nachimplementiert. Spring ActionScript basiert auf ActionScript 3 und bietet Integrationsmöglichkeiten für MVC Frameworks Cairngorm und PureMVC.

Spring ActionScript hat nichts mit Kooperation zwischen Adobe und SpringSource zur Integration von BlazeDS/LiveCycle DS und Spring zutun. Während Adobe und SpringSource an einer Backendseitigen Integration arbeiten, kann man mit dem Spring ActionScript Framework die gleichen Dependency Injection Mechnismen im Flex Frontend nutzen, welche durch Spring für das Java Backend zur Verfügung gestellt werden.

Link zur Bekanntmachung im Forum des Spring Frameworks.
Link zum Subversion von Spring Actionscript

Wer sich schon mal versucht hat einen Editor zuschreiben, der mehr als die Standardfunktionen des Flex TextEditor unterstützt wird feststellen, dass nicht ohne weiteres möglich. Insbesondere die Erstellung von Texteditoren, die mehr Formattierungen unterstützen als das was htmlText zulässt ist nicht wirklich schön.

Abhilfe leistet die Text Layout Component für Flex und Flash, welche Dank der neuen Text Features im Flash Player 10 neue Möglichkeiten bietet. Will man die Text Layout Compoment bereits jetzt nutzen, dann kann entweder ein Plugin für Flash CS4 installieren oder eine reine Actionscript basteln. In Flex 3.2 lässt sich nur ein Subset per Actionscript Programmierung nutzen. In der kommenden Version 4 von Flex (Codename: Gumbo) ist die Text Layout Component bereits integriert, so dass man alle Features nutzen kann.

Link zur Text Layout Component auf Adobe Labs