Here are five great Flex 3.0 and AIR books that are worth checking out in the next several months. Programming Flex 2 is an outstanding book and the updated Programming Flex 3 is sure to please. Creating Visual Experiences with Flex 3.0 by Juan Sanchez and Andy McIntosh is a must read and these AIR books also look really awesome. I’m putting these books on my radar for those cold winter (stay-at-home) nights approaching…

Programming Flex 3: The Comprehensive Guide to Creating Rich Internet Applications with Adobe Flex

Authors: Chafic Kazoun, Joey Lott

Available: September 24, 2008

Publisher: Adobe Dev Library

Description:

If you want to try your hand at developing rich Internet applications with Adobe’s Flex 3, and already have experience with frameworks such as .NET or Java, this is the ideal book to get you started. Programming Flex 3 gives you a solid understanding of Flex 3’s core concepts, and valuable insight into how, why, and when to use specific Flex features. Numerous examples and sample code demonstrate ways to build complete, functional applications for the Web, using the free Flex SDK, and RIAs for the desktop, using Adobe AIR. This book is an excellent companion to Adobe’s Flex 3 reference documentation.

More info.

Adobe AIR: A Guide for Developers

Authors: Mark Blair, Andrew Muller, Andrew Spaulding

Available: February 1, 2009

Publisher: Adobe Dev Library

Description:

The only authoritative resource on Adobe AIR’s first full release, with content created, reviewed, and critiqued by Adobe’s AIR team. Lots of resources exist for Adobe AIR and more are on the way, but most try to cover too much information for a technology that’s changing rapidly. What most developers need right now is a definitive introduction to Adobe AIR: How it works and how to develop for it. Written and approved by Adobe experts who know the real story behind AIR, the information in this book comes straight from the source.

More Info.

Professional Adobe Flex 3

Authors: Joseph Balderson, Peter Ent, Jun Heider, Todd Prekaski, Tom Sugden, Andrew Trice, David Hassoun, Joe Berkovitz

Available: February 24, 2009

Publisher: Wrox

Description:

With Professional Adobe Flex 3, put your prior experience with Flash, Actionscript and XML-based language to good use and learn how to use the Flex 3 platform to create rich Internet and Apollo applications. Understand the potential of the Flex 3 platform through practical examples and hands-on advice on topics like developing applications in MXML, creating custom flex components, charting, targeting Apollo runtime, and data interconnectivity. In addition, this book addresses the ways that you can contribute to the development of Flex 3, which is open source.

More info.

Creating Visual Experiences with Flex 3.0

Authors: Juan Sanchez, Andy McIntosh

Available: November 17, 2008

Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional

Description:

Don’t settle for Flex’s boring, standard user interface: set your Flex applications apart with the breakthrough skinning and programming techniques found in Creating Visual Experiences with Flex 3.0. Leading Flex developers Juan Sanchez and Andy McIntosh show how to build Flex and AIR applications that are stunningly beautiful — and amazingly usable. You’ll learn how to apply state-of-the-art branding and visual design techniques that add value to all your Flex applications, no  matter what they do or who you’re building them for.

More info.

Adobe AIR Cookbook: Solutions and Examples for Rich Internet Application Developers

Authors: David Tucker, Marco Casario, Koen De Weggheleire, Rich Tretola

Available: November 20, 2008

Publisher: Adobe Dev Library

Description:

The hands-on recipes in this cookbook help you solve a variety of tasks and scenarios often encountered when using Adobe AIR to build Rich Internet Applications for the desktop. Thoroughly vetted by Adobe’s AIR development team, Adobe AIR Cookbook addresses fundamentals, best practices, and topics that experienced web developers and application designers have inquired about most. This collection also includes solutions for using this runtime environment to build truly innovative applications.

More info;

Autumn is here again and it’s time to review some of the happenings from the summer. Here are 43 hand selected Flex and ActionScript 3.0 libraries, APIs, tips, and tricks.  There have been several new APIs launched, Cairngorm was open sourced, a Flex 3 update was released and Grant Skinner created a new tweening engine. There have been new Flex application development frameworks released. There was a Flex code generator update and there have also been some design pattern updates released. You don’t want to miss out on this link round up!

Introducing Flex SDK 3.1 and Flex Builder 3.0.1
Flex SDK 3.1 is what the team considers a milestone build, a certification of all of that work and a roll-up into a build that is recommended for all users
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/sdk3_fb301.html

Cairngorm Moved to Adobe Open Source
http://weblogs.macromedia.com/amcleod/archives/2008/08/cairngorm_moved.html

Flex Architecture Basics - Models & Data Transfer Objects
Demonstrates a relatively easy way of setting up a small Flex application using a model and a data transfer object
http://nwebb.co.uk/blog/?p=228

Tutorial: ActionScript 3 Dragging Methods
This tutorial is all about dragging an object around the stage.
http://flashmymind.com/Tutorials/Actionscript/Advanced/actionscript-dragging.php

Flex Paginate Component
A little paginator component
http://www.darklump.co.uk/blog/?p=112

ModuleManager and IModuleInfo - loading Flex Modules dynamically
http://lowpitch.com/blog/2008/08/17/modulemanager-and-imoduleinfo-loading-flex-modules-dynamically/

Getting started with Degrafa
Simple code example by Mike Huntington
http://www.mikehuntington.com/?p=22

Advanced CSS with Degrafa
Another great code example by Mike Huntington
http://www.mikehuntington.com/?p=31

Alcon 3
Rewritten for Adobe AIR. This is a little debuger/logger, I used to use this back in the AS2 days and really enjoyed it. I still need to check this out but I’m sure it’s really cool.
http://blog.hexagonstar.com/alcon/

Remove css type selector warnings in Flex Builder
Quick little tip to remove css type selector warnings from the Flex Builder problems panel
http://www.nutrixinteractive.com/blog/?p=135

VBox, HBox with gradient background
http://www.igorcosta.org/?p=160

Flex designer/developer workflow video tutorials
A series of short tutorials that cover using Fireworks CS3 and Flex Builder 3 to create a visual theme for Flex applications.
http://www.ashorten.com/2008/08/11/flex-designerdeveloper-workflow-video-tutorials/

Six reasons to use ActionScript 3.0 - Lee Brimelow
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/actionscript/articles/six_reasons_as3.html

Custom flex skins
Creating web-applications with flex 3 is great. there are a ton of pre-made components, and an open-ended architecture to allow you to create your own.
http://the.fontvir.us/b10g/?id=111

Writing components in Flex, part 1
http://labs.flexperiments.nl/writing-components-in-flex-part-1/

Writing components in Flex, part 2
http://labs.flexperiments.nl/writing-components-in-flex-part-2/

Flash Enabled Blog Actionscript 3 API roundup
http://flashenabledblog.com/2008/08/26/as3-actionscript-3-classes/

Create bitmap data object from a display object
http://www.flexer.info/2008/08/20/how-to-make-a-bitmapdata-from-a-displayobjectuicomponent/

FCG 1.0 (Flex code generator)
Goes final and open source
http://www.dehats.com/drupal/?q=node/45

New ActionScript 3 Singleton Method
Daniel Love’s version using static initializers
http://www.daniellove.net/blog/?p=81

CSKDebugger
AIR debuger for Mac
http://ultra-web.co.uk/?p=178

Fill Colors
Fill Colors is the embodiment of the separation between style and layout in Flex and a demonstration of what’s possible in terms of skinning a Flex application
http://www.fillcolors.com/

gTween
Animation tweening library by Grant Skinner
http://www.gskinner.com/blog/archives/2008/08/gtween_a_new_tw.html

Functional Testing Framework for AIR AJAX apps based on Selenium
http://corlan.org/2008/08/15/functional-testing-framework-for-air-ajax-apps-based-on-selenium

Yahoo! Music API
The Yahoo! Music API gives developers access to the Yahoo! Music catalog of artists, albums, tracks, videos, ratings and more. It provides numerous ways to browse the catalog: through charts, search, similarities, genres, artists, and user recommendations and ratings.
http://developer.yahoo.com/music/

ActionScript 3 Flexible Layout Class
The NpFlexLayout Class is designed to simplify aligning DisplayObjects to stage dimensions and responding to changes in stage dimensions at run time by a user or between different users.
http://www.blog.noponies.com/archives/109

mediacorelib - media core library for ActionScript 3.0
The MediaCoreLib is an Actionscript 3.0 library toolset for playing audio or video files effortlessly. MediaCoreLib allows you to manage a playlist and seemlessly crossfade tracks.
http://code.google.com/p/mediacorelib/

Servebox ActionScript Foundry
An ActionScript 3 / Java framework designed for Flex 2 applications development. Its design is based on several design patterns,
http://www.servebox.com/foundry/doku.php?id=

Flest Framework
Flest is an ActionScript3 / Flex application framework for building enterprise level RIAs. It uses such design pattern as Controller, Factory, Command, etc. High efficiency, simplicity and practicality were set as its mandatory design features.
http://code.google.com/p/flest/

Guasax Flex/AIR MVC - The MVC Flex/AIR Framework
Guasax is an ease of use programming framework to provide ordered and scalable Flex applications. Life cycle of guasax framework is based in the MVC pattern to take on our program actions
http://www.guasax.com/guasax/web/en/index.php

Flex Mojos - HelloWorldTutorial
Tutorial for building a simple Hello World Flex application with flex-mojos
http://code.google.com/p/flex-mojos/wiki/HelloWorldTutorial

Scott Evans - public discussion of new FlexBuilder 4 IDE features
Scott Evans, a lead engineer on the FlexBulder team, has started a new blog - Getting and Setting  that will be for public discussion of new FlexBuilder 4 IDE features.
http://gettingandsetting.com/

dpHibernate - Hibernate lazy loading with Adobe BlazeDS
dpHibernate is a custom Flex Library and a custom BlazeDS Hibernate adapter that work together to give you support for lazy loading of hibernate objects from inside your flex applications.
http://blog.mikenimer.com/index.cfm/2008/5/21/dpHibernate–Hibernate-lazy-loading-with-Adobe-BlazeDS
http://code.google.com/p/dphibernate

Alternativa3D — browser 3D-engine based on Adobe Flash
Create 3D-scenes in Flash: objects, mechanisms, buildings visualization. Import geometry from 3D-formats, upload textures (including animated). Three-dimentional projects and games, basic physics simulation (friction, collision).
http://alternativaplatform.com/en/alternativa3d/

KwikUML - build UML models of ActionScript and PHP classes
A tool to quickly build UML models of ActionScript and PHP classes and interfaces, as well as, SQL Entity Relationship Designs (ERDs). Built on Adobe’s AIR runtime, this desktop application allows you to not only build those models but export PNGs of the models for use in specification documentation and generate stub code from the models to use as a starting point once it’s time to actually begin development.
http://labs.otuome.com/kwikuml

KitchenSync
KitchenSync is an ActionScript 3.0 library for sequencing animations and other time-based actions.
http://code.google.com/p/kitchensynclib/

as3xls - read and write Excel files in Flex
Supports reading text, numbers, formulas, and dates from Excel version 2.x-2003 and writing text, numbers, and dates. Formulas also update to reflect changes in cells they reference.
http://code.google.com/p/as3xls/

ASDebugger - A run-time debugger for AS3 Projects
The ASDebugger allows you to trace variables. It has support for strings, integers, arrays, dates, arraycollections, objects and everything in between.
http://labs.flexperiments.nl/asdebugger/

as3corelib update
This is an ActionScript 3 library that contains a lot of useful APIs for working with AS3.
http://code.google.com/p/as3corelib/

swix framework - Flex development framework
Swiz is a framework for Adobe Flex that aims to bring complete simplicity to RIA development. Swiz provides Inversion of Control, event handing, and simple life cycle for asynchronous remote methods. In contrast to other major frameworks for Flex, Swiz imposes no JEE patterns on your code, no repetitive folder layouts, and no boilerplate code on your development. Swiz represents best practices learned from the top RIA developers at some of the best consulting firms in the industry, enabling Swiz to be simple, lightweight, and extremely productive.
http://code.google.com/p/swizframework/

Gaia - open-source front-end Flash Framework for AS3 and AS2
Gaia is an open-source front-end Flash Framework for AS3 and AS2 designed to dramatically reduce development time.
http://www.gaiaflashframework.com/

Penne Framework - lightweight framework for developing in Flex and Air
version 1.0 of The Penne Framework, a simplified Flex and Air framework, as a second option to the popular Cairngorm Framework.
http://www.flexpasta.com/index.php/2008/04/19/introducing-the-penne-framework-for-flex-3/

An ActionScript Compiler Written In ActionScript
“It’s enough to warm the cockles of one’s heart. ActionScript nerds around the globe can celebrate their graduation to “real programmer” status (whatever that means).”
http://www.brooksandrus.com/blog/2008/08/27/an-actionscript-compiler-written-in-actionscript/

Flex 4: flex.components

Here is a very simple example that displays some of the components that are located in the new flex.components package.  The SWF is interesting because it is visually a little different than the classic Flex theme. No CSS has been altered in this example. Flash Player 10 is required to view the SWF.  The following Flex 4 components can be seen: Panel, CheckBox, List, RadioButton, TextArea, TextInput, ToggleButton, HSlider, VSlider, VScrollBar, HScrollBar.

JPG showing the components: Flex 4 components screehshot

SWF with the functional components: Flex 4 components SWF

Here is the sample source code:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?>
<Application xmlns=”http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009″
layout=”flex.layout.VerticalLayout”
backgroundColor=”white”
xmlns:ns=”library:adobe/flex/gumbo”>

<Script>
<![CDATA[

/**
*
* @project Flex 4 flex.components example
* @author Sean Moore, http://www.seantheflexguy.com
* @date: August 29, 2008
*
*/

private function onButtonClick():void
{
trace(">>onButtonClick");
}
private function onListSelectionChanged(event:Event):void
{
trace(">>onListSelectionChanged");
trace("event.currentTarget.selectedItem="+event.currentTarget.selectedItem);
}
private function onRadioButtonClick():void
{
trace(">>onRadioButtonClick");
}

]]>
</Script>

<Panel title=”Flex 4 flex.components example” width=”500″>
<Button click=”onButtonClick();” label=”Flex 4 Button” />

<CheckBox label=”Flex 4 CheckBox” />

<Group>
<Rect width=”200″ height=”100″>
<stroke>
<SolidColorStroke weight=”1″ color=”#000000″ alpha=”0.5″ />
</stroke>
</Rect>
<List content=”['row one','row two','row three','row four']” selectionChanged=”onListSelectionChanged(event);” />
</Group>

<RadioButton label=”Flex 4 RadioButton” click=”onRadioButtonClick();”/>

<TextArea height=”50″ content=”Flex 4 TextArea.”/>

<TextInput text=”Flex 4 TextInput”/>

<ToggleButton label=”Flex 4 ToggleButton” />

<HSlider />
<VSlider  />

<VScrollBar />
<HScrollBar  />

</Panel>

</Application>

Note that the <Group> element is not required to use the List component. It’s been added to help show where the List is in the example SWF. (Sorry that the code hasn’t been beautified…)

The Nature Conservancy - Protecting Nature, Preserving Life

Thanks to the Adobe Developer Connection for putting together this awesome program! Authors that contributed work to the ADC from June through August in 2008 were each given an opportunity to choose from 5 charities to donate $100 to. The ADC Write and Give Program generated $6200 USD in Q3 of 08!! That’s fantastic! I donated to the Nature Conservancy for my work on the Flex Best Practices series. Shout out to the other authors who also contributed to the ADC Write and Give Program.

Sheri German
http://www.swanilda.com/

Paulo Caroli
http://caroli.org/

Ayo Binitie
http://mrbinitie.blogspot.com/

Louie Penaflor
http://www.restlessthinker.com/blog/index.php

Jonathan Tabak
http://www.panachetech.com/

Jim Babbage
http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?blogger=32

Nick Myers
http://www.cooper.com/

DryIcons
http://dryicons.com/

Tom Green
http://www.tomontheweb.ca/

Kumar Vivek
http://blog.i2fly.com/

John Wylie
http://www.activata.co.uk/

Samir Dash
http://www.mobilewish.com/

David Tucker
http://www.davidtucker.net/

Bill Bejeck
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/flex_grails.html

Henrik Lindahl
http://www.kodgruppen.com/

Sebastien Arbogast
http://sebastien-arbogast.com/

Zee Yang
http://www.flexlive.net/

Thanks again to Hong Qiu for all the help with the article. The second part of the Best practices series is in the works and should online in the next couple months. Thanks to Edward Sullivan the Product Manager at the Adobe Developer Connection as well.

Additional information can be found on the ADC Blog.

Just a quick post regarding Flash Forward 2008. There is a killer line up this year including: David Carson, Erik Natzke, Grant Skinner, Keith Peters, Lee Brimelow, Paul Ortchanian, Tinic Uro, Luke Bayes, Stacey Mulcahy and Branden Hall to name a few. David Carson should certainly have some interesting insight for the Flash community. I am extremely fortunate enough to have acquired a pass to this incredible event. If you want to chat or grab a coffee hit me up. Contact info follows:

email: info@seantheflexguy.com
twitter: http://www.twitter.com/seantheflexguy

Extra-mega-super thanks to Phillip Kerman for the hook up.

Hope to see you there…

Here is a great book from Manning about AIR development that you might want to check out. Topics include: windowing, menus, file system, drag-and-drop, local databases, SQLite, HTML in AIR, network connectivity and also updating/distributing apps. Flex and Flash based AIR development techniques are covered. “Adobe AIR in Action introduces AIR to developers familiar with Flash and Flex, showing them how to build solid AIR-driven desktop applications. Using examples, the expert authors walk web developers through the new topics they will need to develop AIR applications for the desktop.”

You can download two free sample chapters from the book in PDF format here:

Introducing Adobe AIR (1.7 MB)

Applications, windows and menus (3.1 MB)

You can also check out the Table of Contents here.

Shout out to the great authors: Joey Lott, Kathryn Rotondo, Sam Ahn and Ashley Atkins. (And an extra special thanks to Kathryn for sharing that other source code.) Props to Karen Tegtmeyer as well for coordinating my involvement with the review effort.

Visit the companion website here:
http://www.manning.com/lott/

I actually had the extreme pleasure of doing some technical reviews of the book while it was being written. As a thank you Manning placed a quote from me on the back of the book. In addition my name appears in the acknowledgments. This is a huge, huge honor and I am extremely thankful. Thank you very, very for the opportunity.

Here are some photos of my copy of the book.

Adobe AIR In Action - Manning

Adobe AIR In Action - Sean Moore Quote

Here is your chance to win a free copy of: Total Training, Adobe Flex 2 - Advanced Visual Programming. Some highlights from the DVD are: Discover how to create data bound drag and drop functionality for virtually any Flex control. Learn to create mouse-aware application features. Understand loose component coupling, implemented through bindings and events. Get inside tips on optimizing file size through programmatic shape creation. See how to implement and skin Flex components directly in ActionScript 3.0.

Be the first person to email me with the answer to the following question and I’ll mail you a copy of the training DVD.

What are three application development frameworks that can be used for the development of Flex rich internet applications?

Sorry but this giveaway is for US residents only at this time.

Good luck!

Here is an article on Flex best practices that I had the extreme pleasure of recently writing for Adobe’s Dev Center. The article explores a number of things you can do to help clarify your Flex development process. The article was a community based effort and input was collected from quite a few prominent Flex, Flash and ActionScript developers. I would like thank Hong Qiu for a ton of great input and direction. Also many thanks goes out to the Flex team for their time and input. Lastly, many thanks to Dolores Joya, Eric Feminella, Matt Chotin, Jesse Warden and Chris Griffith to name a few, I couldn’t have written the article without your input, help and support.

I’m currently working on another article in the Flex best practices series. I’ve done a TON of research for the next article so it should be really good. Keep an eye out in the Adobe Dev Center for that sometime in September or October.

It was really, really, really cool to have an article published in the Dev Center, something I have wanted to do since at least 2002. Thanks again to Hong and Adobe for the opportunity!!

Some screen shots from the Adobe website:

I wanted to post a link to this article that I had the pleasure and opportunity of writing for Flash Magazine about the Mate framework for Flex. Mate is an awesome framework used for developing applications using Adobe Flex. I’d like to thank both Jens from Flash Magazine and Laura from ASFusion for their help reviewing and getting the article together and published. I’ve wanted to write for Flash Magazine a very long time, so massive respect for the opportunity!! I was also unclear on a couple of things about the framework and Laura’s input was a huge help and greatly appreciated.

You can check out the article here:

Mate: Event driven framework for Flex
by: Sean Moore, July 2008 for Flash Magazine
http://www.flashmagazine.com/Reviews/detail/mate_event_driven_framework_for_flex/