Some time ago i have written about seaside and squeak on my polish blog - here. reason for that was because people do not always realized that smalltalk didn’t die at the same time as dinosaurs. Anyway, i’m lucky and working not only with one technology so was very happy to find something called Glare. What it is ? This is simple speaking a project that integrate smalltalk (visualworks in that case) and adobe flex. Sounds brilliant at the first look, but when i thought about it, was really confused. Why ? Smalltalk for example in Squeak or VisualWorks implementation is for development the same thing like ipod for music listening. It’s just incredible well thought. Everything is in one place, and we have IDE which is really truly intregrated. This IDE is not like NetBeans for Rails for example -  there are not a big difference to develop with simple editor or complicated IDE. But here IDE is one of the biggest advantage of using Suqeak for example. So now, when you think about it, we have two different style of thinking about web development:

1. Adobe Flex & AS3 - brilliant RIA framework with AS3, which is not the best language ever and comparing to smalltalk really complicated (+ use with puremvc, caingorm etc.)
2. Smalltalk (VisualWorks & Squeak) - brilliant language with DSL, Metaprogramming and IDE which gives us improvement kick.

Last time I hadn’t much time to writing here but it will change now hopefully. First of all we are generally working with PureMVC in our projects. Sometimes I’m wondering if that’s not overkill but in most situations it gives us really productive framework. Anyway my company mate had last time presentation about it on Adobe Flex polish group :adobers.org . Before meeting we collect some materials for people who want to start with PureMVC now so I will past it below, have fun !

Source: ShoutWaves

• http://puremvc.org , PureMVC project

• https://admin.na3.acrobat.com/_a204547676/p41582221/ , Cliff Hall presentation “Introduction to PureMVC”
• http://lab.kapit.fr/display/puremvcconsole/PureMVC+Console , PureMVC console - debugger
• http://www.dehats.com/drupal/?q=node/7 , FCG - Flex Code Generator

There are also few interesting articles about difference between architecture frameworks (PureMVC, Cairngorm, Swizz, Mate, etc):

• http://www.summa-tech.com/blog/2009/01/14/selecting-the-right-flex-application-frameworks, Selecting the Right Flex Application Framework
• http://www.insideria.com/2008/12/frameworkquest-2008-introducti.html, FrameworkQuest 2008
• http://www.dehats.com/drupal/?q=node/26 , From Cairngorm to PureMVC : a quick comparison
• https://admin.adobe.acrobat.com/_a200985228/p12266504/, Flex frameworks

PureMVC tutorials:

• http://www.websector.de/blog/2007/12/25/10-tips-for-working-with-puremvc/ , 10 tips for working with PureMVC
• http://9mmedia.com/blog/?p=10 , How to Setup Your First PureMVC Application
• http://www.actionscriptdeveloper.co.uk/puremvc-tutorial-flex-puremvc-jabber-and-xiff-3-introduction/ , PureMVC Tutorial - Flex, PureMVC, Jabber and XIFF 3:  Introduction
• http://www.adobe.com/newsletters/edge/december2008/articles/article6/, An introduction to PureMVC for Adobe Flash and Flex
• http://hubflanger.com/building-a-flash-site-using-puremvc/ , Building a Flash site using PureMVC

I usually don’t like to copy other’s articles here, but this one is really helpful and made by my friend so enjoy :).

Source: Shoutwaves blog

Some time ago I had a lot of problems with starting new projects. Common tasks had to be made. That’s why I’ve build flashdevelop as3 template with pureMVC, preloader, startup manager (loading fonts, css before everything).

To install template in FlashDevelop ( it was tested on FD b9 ) you need to:

1. Download template 131 ActionScript 3 - AS3 Shoutwaves Project with Preloader.rar
2. Extract it and copy extracted folder to: “C:\Program Files\FlashDevelop\Templates\ProjectTemplates”
3. Run flashdevelop, Project -> New Project
4. Choose 131 ActionScript 3 - AS3 Shoutwaves Project with Preloader
5. Write name, location, package ( without this your project will not work )

Please use it, it’s free for everybody.
Hope will be useful !

FlashDevelop is an open source project, created for AS2, AS3 and HaXe developers to make their lives easier. It’s an IDE which can be a good alternative for a Flex Builder from adobe. The main advantage is that it’s free! It’s also a lot lighter and you can use it to builde ActionScript 2 projects, ActionScript 3 projects (Flex 2 and 3, AIR) and even HaXe projects! It has a code autocompleter, panels for presenting errors, warnings and tasks. It’s very like Flex Builder, but it doesn’t have visual editor - but I think it’s not a problem for more advantage users who uses only code editor. Also if you need to find a help, you will have to use adobe on-line livedocs. If you are thinking about buying FlexBuilder, you should try FlashDevelop in the first place. It’s a beta version and it’s still far far away behind FB, but in most cases it has everything you need!
For persons who are interested in PureMVC, here is a short tutorial how use it with FlashDevelop.

This is the one of the most exciting topic in web development in my opinion. Why ? It’s because Adobe Flex gives us amazing flexible tool for creating RIA interfaces. I mean we can be very productive in creating very very usable and beautiful interfaces for our applications, and what is more it is can’t be even compared to Ajax capabilities. Ok, this is frontend but what about backend ? Here we have another cool and productive stuff in this category - Ruby on Rails. Of course you can now say “ohh now he said that NXD is easier way, that Seaside is great and the only way, and now he’s talking about Rails again” - yes, but everything depends on what problems we have to solve. If it’s unnecessary to implement extremely difficult business logic I prefer NXD (native xml databse) and Flex. But Rails destination is exactly to solve these difficult problems. On other hand sometimes also there is no need to use something so powerfull like Flex - in this case, my favorit is now Seaside and some Ajax stuff like YUI or Prototype and Script.aculo.us So generally how many solutions we know, so many problems we can solve properly.

Back to Flex and Rails, last time I found sth called Flexible Rails: Flex 3 on Rails 2 this is one of the series Dzone Refcardz. But to be honest it’s not outstanting help, there is about 8 pages of pdf lecture. Best start of using Flex and Rails is to read Peter Armstrong’s book Flexible Rails (Flex 3 on Rails 2). I’ve read this book and it’s really good, unfortunately based on Cairngorm framework (rubbish). If the author had mentioned about PureMVC there, it could be simple outstanding. There is a couple examples of different ways of communication between Flex and Rails. First he’s talking about REST in Rails so XML way. Later there is an example of AMF format but with RubyAMF (open source flash remoting gateway for rails) which is much faster than WebORB and easier to use. But there are other solutions e.g. Flex Dynamic Scaffolding for Ruby on Rails, here is also screencast and project site. Interesting is also Ruboss framework but I haven’t tried it yet. From their page ” The goal of the Ruboss Framework is to automate much of the plumbing necessary to use Adobe Flex and Adobe AIR with Ruby on Rails. The Ruboss Framework brings the design principles and productivity of Rails to Flex development, and makes integration with RESTful Rails controllers as simple as possible.” See also announcing enterprise flexible rails book.

Generally Flex and Rails gives a lot of fun and profit in web developing, so try it and have fun

Another really interesting video from Adobe TV demonstrating some of features related to designer/developer workflow that will be coming in Flex 4 and Thermo. There we can see how easy will be creating custom components and generally design of our apps. Like I said some time ago there is no need to use Degrafa (Declarative Graphics Framework for Flex). “If you imagine Thermo writing all the MXML code he types, you can imagine just how powerful Designers are going to be in the next generation of Flex development.” - sounds nifty huh ? Now developing RIA apps in Adobe FLex 4 will be even more exciting than now, so we can only waiting for new Flex verion. Here is a small version of Adobe TV oryginal video, which you can find at this link.

If you haven’t tried yet Adobe TV you should do it now, there are many interesting videos from RIA and Adobe world Here is an example list of some interesting videos from there:

• Building Adobe AIR Applications with Flash CS3 (Lee Brimelow)

• Building a Video Application with Flex Builder (Duane Nickull)

• Third-Party HTML Services with Flex and AIR (Ryan Stewart)

• Get Up to Speed on Flex Messaging Service (James Ward)

• Create a Pulse Effect in Flex (Chet Haase)

• Chet Haase presents Top Drawer (Part 1)

Like I said AsWing is a really good option in RIA applications development, but there is another solution if you don’t like AsWing, called SPAS (Swing Package for ActionScript).

The Swing Package for ActionScript 3.0 (SPAS 3.0) provides a set of “lightweight” classes for making graphic user interfaces (GUI) on the Flash Plateform.

The SPAS 3.0 is fully compatible with both Flash 9 and Flex 2 applications.
It will be the starting point to extend Rich Internet Application to all applications wich are developed using Adobe’s Flash authoring products.

The SPAS 3.0 supply Flex 2 developers a real and efficient “java-like” set of GUI classes to wrap RIAs much better if they had to work with the native Flash Platform components.

Here is a sample application and some examples of using SPAS 3.0 . You can even find there a quick comparison of these plaftorms: AsWing A3 vs SPAS 3.0. Looks really nice

I’ve just read this post about comparing Cairngorm and PureMVC frameworks ( from design GUI side). Author said: “So is PureMVC better then? This is a question, that cannot be answered by this post alone. The UI patterns is just one part of both frameworks, albeit an important one. One could argue, that you get more out-of-the-box with PureMVC, the mediators being a builtin concept of the framework. The mediators and the communication from and to mediators through notifications, have been nicely worked into the PureMVC framework.”. Yes but I already think that PureMVC is much much better than Cairngorm. Why ? I’m working with both, and Cairngorm is for me terrible mess. Everything’s broken in MVC pattern, its so complicated in use and in teach. What is more they probably never heard about DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself), everything must be included thousand times, generally in my point of vision Cairngorm is crap ! PureMVC is relatively simple, DRY, easy to learn (good architecture 101 tutorial and best practicies document) and PureMVC is faster !
So generally i’m still wondering how people using Cairngorm can be productive. Last time i gave you here Silvafug presentation so I’m now using only PureMVC and if you will try it once you’ll never back to Cairngorm, have fun

Today, after few weeks of Flex absent and after installation of Firefox 3, I wanted to debug one of my flex projects. First, there was an error “Flex Builder cannot locate the required debugger version of Flash Player. You might need to install the debugger version of Flash Player 9 or reinstall.” It’s rather normal situation after installation of the new browser, so I went to Adobe site and downloaded newest version. After installation there were no errors, but debug window in Flex Builder showed that Flex App was <terminated>. It seems that I’m not the only one who have this problem. Check this link to see the ticket for this bug. Untill it will be repaired, the only solution is to use other browser or to stay on Firefox 2.

Ponieważ się strasznie wszystko zmienia szybko, warto zwrócić uwagę na to co będzie sie działo w następnej wersji ECMAScript, czyli standardzie językowy, na którym jest oparty Action Script. Żeby to sobie zobaczyć warto odwiedzić i poczytać New In ECMAScript . Możliwe, że będzie za niedługo trzeba się wysilić i skupić nad czymś co będzie się zwało Action Script 4 ? . “Nowością” może też być nowy typ Vector (parametryczny typ danych), który dodano teraz do Action Script 3.

Jeśli chodzi o Adobe Flex 4 (”Gumbo”), to wszystko będzie wiadomo wraz z nadejściem dokumentacji (wtedy tez pojawi się ona dla Flash Playera 10). Ale główne priorytety developerów na dziś to:

• Poprawienie wydajności !!! zarówno jeśli chodzi o kompilacje jak i zasobożerność systemową gotowych swfów.
• Poprawienie IDE, które spisuje sie dobrze w “mało-średnich” projektach, ale w dużych umiera (przebudowywanie workspeceu 30+ sekund?!?!)
• Odchudzenie frameworka - to napewno kluczowe mimo możliwości stosowanie cachowania przez przeglądarke:Flex Framework Caching

Podstawową sprawą jest wbudowanie w Flexa deklaratywnej graficznej biblioteki, czyli zastąpienie roli, którą obecnie spełnia framework Degrafa- budowanie dowolnych kształtów za pomocą znaczników zamiast kodu AS3. Więcej informacji o nowym Adobe Flex (”Gumbo”) i jego pierwszych wersjach beta można znaleźć tutaj:Adobe Flex 4 (”Gumbo”).