Rich Internet Applications | Flex | Flash | AIR

I recently worked on a Flex mobile project where the mobile app was required to sit on browser as well.

There is no official way of converting the flex mobile project into a flex web application right from within the Flash Builder. I used this post to get the ball rolling http://www.riagora.com/2011/08/flex-mobile-in-the-browser/ I managed to get my mobile app working on browser but..

As I navigated away from the home screen I started getting run-time errors for StageText. I immediately noticed that I had spark TextInput and TextArea on the view. I took them out and everything was fine again. Changed them to mx for a minute and it was fine with that too but it just won’t like me using spark TextInput and TextArea. Since I had changed the theme to be mobile theme for this app (one of the required steps of the initial setup), I thought that might be forcing the spark TextInput/TextArea instances to use StageText. I changed the skins for TextInput and TextArea to use spark skins rather than the default (mobile in this case) and it worked fine.

As you can see in the video I keep getting compiler errors which I got rid of by cleaning the project a couple of times but I wasn’t sure what was the cause. I used Flex 4.6 SDK with AIR 3.3.

I just passed Flex 4 ACE exam. Scored 81%. Unfortunately, the score is not as good as I hoped but I still get a good feeling for crossing a very long overdue to-do!

Here is the breakdown for the score I received.

I used Attest 3 and Adobe documentation to prepare for the exam.

You want to read the documentation thoroughly (and memorise quite a lot of it as well), which I think is the biggest advantage of taking this exam as it only makes you a better developer as a result.

If you haven’t done it already, go, do it! It’s quite a good challenge to take and it’s fun.

All the best!

Unbelievable!

I had a nice little flex mobile app I built for Android with all the Spark goodness in and later it was required to put on iPhone. That was exactly what I was waiting for since Flash Builder 4.5 release.

But.. no joy! I cannot believe there is no support straight out of the box for creating Flex Mobile Project for iOS right now. It wasn’t in the FB 4.5 pre-release but I was hoping that Adobe will definitely get that feature in in the release. It was a long wait after all! Obviously, I appreciate all the other features in FB 4.5 though. I just hope now that Flex Mobile Project for iOS feature in FB 4.5 update becomes available soon.

For now though, this link should help.

http://labs.almerblank.com/2011/03/using-ant-to-compile-a-flex-mobile-project-for-ios/

If you’ve read my earlier post then the next question is how to actually use OSMF?

Here is what I think I will do from now on. If I need a sophisticated custom video player then I will use Strobe Media Playback (SMP) and if I need just a quick video player with all the standard functionality(‘right out the box’) then I will use Flash Media Playback (FMP).

Strobe Media Playback (SMP)

You need a reliable video player that has been built already but you would like it to look and behave how you want then you want to add the OSMF.swc to your project and go through this guide and just a couple of lines of code and you have got the video player you wanted! How cool is that!

Project is hosted here.

Flash Media Playback (FMP)

Flash Media Playback is exactly the same as Strobe Media Playback but it is hosted by Adobe. Say you have a video file hosted somewhere and you want to put that up on your blog or website quickly without investing any time at all then you can use FMP Configurator and grab the HTML code from there and stick it on your blog or website. Job done!

Final thought: I don’t think I will be wasting my time anymore building the flash video players from scratch. I am first going to look at both the options above (SMP and FMP) and I am confident that they will sort me out in most cases.

Adobe Certified Experts (ACEs) set themselves apart from other IT professionals. They consistently demonstrate expertise with Adobe products and platforms, and add value to colleagues, managers, and their own careers.

The Flex 4 ACE Exam is based upon the most critical job activities that a Flex developer performs. The skills and knowledge certified by this examination represent a professional level of expertise for a certified individual.

Here is the link with the details. http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/flex_certification.html

Number of questions have gone up from 50 to 59. The passing score remains same as before – 67% minimum to pass the exam.

This is quite a challenge!

There are undoubtedly different ways of preparing for the exam but in my view going through the langref from back to front and reading the actual classes (.as files) from the sdk is the best way.

One more thing gets added in my long list of To-Dos!

Paras