Ria Flex

Autosizing of the DataGroup component

2011-03-29T13:28:00.004+01:00

After unsuccessfully trying to use the Spark List component in combination with a TileLayout I decided to try it in combination with the DataGroup component. This worked fine apart from the fact that the DataGroup didn't auto-size correctly.The following trick solved the problem:

Prevent changing the cursur position in TextInput fields

2010-04-21T14:49:00.005+01:00

Ever tried to prevent the user from changing the cursor position using the arrow keys (or other keys that normally change the cursor position)? In that case you probably already know that event.preventDefault() and event.stopImmediatePropagation() won't help you out. The code below seems to solve the problem:private function keyDownHandler(event: KeyboardEvent): void{ switch (event.keyCode) {

Trouble accessing data from another server?

2010-02-26T20:27:00.004Z

Of course you know about crossdomain.xml and you made sure that it's accessible. But you still get an error when you try to access data when doing an http request? If you're setting http headers through your Actionscript code then that is most probably the reason. Try specifying the "allow-http-request-from" attribute in your crossdomain.xml file.

Adobe Flex and commercial component libraries

2009-10-26T18:22:00.003Z

Do you also think that Adobe Flex lacks a component library update? Yes, I know Spark is around the corner but after more than 2 years I'm not looking for less, I really need more. New components, new functionality within the existing components.As far as I'm concerned Adobe doesn't have to come up with these components itself. Third party components with a decent licensing scheme (comparable to

FP-444 and other neglected Adobe Flex jira bug/feature posts

2009-08-26T19:25:00.004+01:00

Did you also read the recent blog post by Ted Patrick that resulted in lots of comments on the fact that nothing seems to happen with most of the Adobe Flex related bug/feature posts? The most notable throughout all the comments was FP-444 (possibility to catch global exceptions - let alone that the Flash Player starts ignoring events after such an exception...). It's open for years and a lot of

Launch of Geniográfico.com

2009-06-08T22:38:00.003+01:00

I've been pretty busy lately. Last weekend we released the result of all this hard work: www.geniografico.com. I'd love to get your feedback and I hope you want to help me spread the news!

Auto-sizing the height of a TileList

2009-02-23T11:04:00.003Z

Would you like the TileList component to auto-size to its content? If you have a fixed width OR height you could use the following hack (the example is based on a fixed width of 4 columns):private function upd(): void{ var rc:

Dynamic objects and the Flex profiler

2009-01-26T11:33:00.003Z

In certain situations it can be handy to use dynamic objects. The advantage of dynamic objects is that you can add properties at runtime (something you can't do in Java or C#). Dynamic objects are slower than 'normal' objects but there's another problem: if it's an object of type 'Object' (for example because you wrote { id: 123 } to create a dynamic object on the fly) it doesn't show up in the

Adobe Flex - Silverlight compiled size

2009-01-21T15:55:00.002Z

I promised to provide some details on the compiled size of the application I built in Adobe Flex and Silverlight:Flex applicationFlex framework = 551 KBApplication = 279 KB Total = 830 KB Silverlight XAP file = 994 KB --> application DLL + AppManifest.xaml = 85 KB (compressed) --> Silverlight framework = 348 KB (compressed) --> Telerik controls used = 560 KB (compressed) Some remarks:The Telerik

Size Matters (when comparing Adobe Flex and Silverlight)

2009-01-20T11:47:00.003Z

I've been developing an administrative application the last couple of weeks. I actually developed it twice: the first version was done using Adobe Flex, the second version was done using Microsoft Silverlight.Because Silverlight was new to me (I know, use and love .NET however for server side development) I couldn't compare development time. Therefore I decided to compare the size of a number of

Some objective comparison of Adobe Flex and Microsoft Silverlight

2008-12-23T10:58:00.001Z

In the past I've read a number of posts comparing Silverlight to Flex. Often the authors remain very vague on why Flex is better than Silverlight. We all know by now that the Silverlight plug-in isn't near the installed base of the Flash player but there's more than that. Therefore I think it's about time to give an overview of my recent experience. I've been developing a proof of concept

Flip book using the nice component built by Ruben Swieringa

2008-12-14T21:36:00.002Z

I've created a mini-site for a family member using the flip book component built by Ruben Swieringa:http://klepsydra.vdeprojects.com.What do you think? Would it make sense to build a Flex-based CMS solution for creating this type of projects? Do you think there's a demand for a CMS to build this type of mini-sites?

Why is it called Flash Catalyst???

2008-12-02T11:26:00.004Z

Why are the project names always better than the names the marketing department can come up with???? Thermo is now called "Flash Catalyst". Can someone explain to me why "Flash" had to be added to the name? "Flash Catalyst" imports Photoshop, Fireworks and Illustrator files and 'converts' them to Flex projects. I don't see any "Flash" in this... Why not simply call it "Adobe Catalyst" (or Ca in

Focus in all cases

2008-11-16T15:45:00.003Z

Have you also noticed that Flex draws a focus border around its components when you give them focus using the keyboard (by using the tab button)?Great but why is the focus border not drawn when using the mouse to give a component the focus?The solution is simple: extend the existing components and force the border drawing yourself:

Discount code for Adobe Max in Milan

2008-11-13T20:36:00.003Z

It seems that those who haven't registered yet for Adobe Max can get in for less than those who registered a month ago. Interested in knowing more? Just contact me.

"Classes must not be nested" error

2008-11-08T14:40:00.004Z

If you ever come across the "classes must not be nested" error (and/or the "internal build" error) then you're in trouble :) There are different possible causes for these errors. In my case it was because I was referring to a none existing component from within an itemRenderer. A good list with a number of potential causes can be found on http://rjowen.wordpress.com/2007/06/21/

FileReference events not firing?

2008-09-27T17:45:00.002+01:00

If the UPLOAD_COMPLETE_DATA event (or any other FileUpload related event) isn't fired after a succesful upload then you need to check whether your page returns something. It's enough that it just returns for example 'OK' but it at least has to return something.

Certified Adobe Flex Developer

2008-08-05T13:50:00.002+01:00

I've waited and waited but it seems that the Adobe Flex 3 certification exam won't come before the release of Adobe Flex 4... Therefore I finally decided to do the Adobe Flex 2 certification and guess what: I passed :) It was a nice bunch of questions, some on UI, some on application design (even some UML) and some on data services. Most of them were 'practical' question but of course some are

Where to put your removeEventListeners?

2008-06-18T14:21:00.004+01:00

Everyone tells you to make sure to execute a removeEventListener for each addEventListener but where do you put this code? Most people put their addEventListeners in the creationComplete event but there's no destructionComplete event...There are 2 options:Or you don't use removeEventListener and make sure that you use a weak reference when doing addEventListener (setting the 5th parameter of

Degrafa component not showing up?

2008-06-18T13:14:00.002+01:00

There seems to be some problem when building a Degrafa component in MXML. It seems that using "Surface" as the outer container results in an invisible component. The workaround is simple: put a Canvas around it but don't ask me why :)

Dynamic (Advanced)DataGrid columns

2008-05-27T09:02:00.002+01:00

Trying to add columns dynamically to your DataGrid or AdvancedDataGrid and having trouble with specifically setting the width of a column?Try the following:var cols: Array = datagrid.columns;cols.push(newColumn);datagrid.columns = cols;// The following line is very important// (otherwise the grid won't be aware of the new columns yet)datagrid.validateNow();// Force the width of a specific

Reducing the space between the legend marker and the legend label

2008-05-15T14:00:00.002+01:00

If you ever try to reduce the space between the legend markers and the legend labels:LegendItem{ horizontalGap: 0; verticalGap: 0;}

Deep object compare

2008-04-21T08:21:00.001+01:00

Ever wanted to check in Flex whether all the public members of an object are the same? You can use the ObjectToString method in that case:public class SerializeUtil{public static function ObjectToString(object: *): String{var ba: ByteArray = new ByteArray();ba.writeObject(object);return ba.toString();}public static function ObjectToByteArray(object: *): ByteArray{var ba: ByteArray = new ByteArray

ChartItemEvent.CHANGE in conflict with IndexChangedEvent

2008-02-14T10:53:00.003Z

Earlier this week I ran into a strange problem when the ChartItemEvent.CHANGE event is raised. It seems that the string behind the constant is 'change' and this happens to be the same as the string behind the IndexChangedEvent.CHANGE event. Probably programmed on monday morning :) Fortunately there's a simple workaround:Put a container around your 'problematic' charting component (for example a

Is your PopupButton suffering from Alzheimer?

2008-01-29T14:09:00.001Z

Recently I noticed that my PopupButton didn't want to popup anymore... Sometimes it worked and most of the time it didn't. The problem is related to a 'fix' Adobe did to get rid of a memory leak. The 'fix' may have fixed the memory leak but introduced serious trouble. Scott Melby seems to have found a workaround that works most of the time. More information on http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/

How to use a percentage for maxWidth or maxHeight?

2008-01-24T10:35:00.000Z

Recently I wanted to set the maxHeight of a component to a percentage. Sadly enough this isn't supported in Flex. There's however a very simple workaround that seems to work all the time: set the maxHeight or maxWidth in the resize event of its container:

Namespaces - aarrghhhh

2007-03-18T20:51:00.000Z

Am I overlooking something or is it just impossible to use an HttpService with resultFormat="e4x" in combination with databinding IF the incoming XML contains a (default) namespace???Preventing the namespace from being sent to the HttpService seems to solve the problem but isn't really a nice solution...Suggestions are more than appreciated!

Interested in server-side session state ?

2007-03-15T11:35:00.000Z

I've been trying to make my Flex based client to end up in the same server-side session upon each HttpService request.Each request to a session-enabled ASP.NET page returns a cookie with the session id. By sending this ASP.NET_SessionId cookie back upon each request you can benefit from the session support built in ASP.NET.There's one problem however: there doesn't seem to be a way to get the

Too enthousiastic Flex caching

2007-03-15T11:28:00.000Z

I've been trying to call a dynamic ASP.NET webpage multiple times (each time the page returns different information).It seems that Flex is, by default, caching the response. The 'ugly' way is to append some unique id at the end of the url to force a new request (http://somewebsite/stockquotes.aspx?ID=1, http://somewebsite/stockquotes.aspx?ID=2, ...).There is however also a 'nice' way to solve the

Welcome, I'm Ria Flex

2007-03-15T11:19:00.000Z

Hi! I'm Ria, Ria Flex (aka Tom Van den Eynde) and I would like to share with you my passion and experiences with Adobe Flex.For those who don't know Adobe Flex yet: it is the ultimate solution to build modern, easy to use, web applications. You can find some examples of applications built using Adobe Flex online:http://www.belgacomtv.behttp://www.intelisea.com/demo/demo.htmhttp://194.229.29.150/