Psyked*

it’s easy once you know how.

My Splash Screen example - updated with ApplicationInfo class

Posted by James - 02/12/08 at 01:12:50 pm

As I’ve been playing around with the ApplicationInfo class, I thought my Splash Screen stuff would be so much nicer if it were a little more… generic?

So with that in mind, I’ve updated my Flex Splash screen project to impliment the ApplicationInfo class, and use that to load information such as the version numbers, application names and application icons.  Maybe it’s not the most efficent way to do things, but what the hell, it’s a good example for implimenting the ApplicationInfo class.

Download the updated Splash Screen example Flex project here.

Resize multiple images and package them for e-mail transmission - introducing ImageSizer!

Posted by James - 02/12/08 at 12:12:30 pm

Or should I say, finally introducing ImageSizer.  If you’ve been here previously in the last couple of weeks, you might have noticed that a couple of links to an ImageSizer application have been floating around.  Back in September (at Flash on the Beach) Mark, our far-to-clever-for-his-own-good student showed me the inital work on an application he’d been working on for a couple of days - the subtley named ImageSizer.

Two months later and I’m finally getting around to implimenting what I offered him then, that we’d post it online and see what people think.  Well, here it is.

Continue reading Resize multiple images and package them for e-mail transmission - introducing ImageSizer!…

ADM - Application Descriptor Manager

Posted by James - 02/12/08 at 10:12:22 am

Application Descriptior Manager is another application like the AIR Badger and Icon Generator - a development tool, built in AIR, for developing AIR applications.  It’s useful, functional and has reassuring touches like auto-backup, or version upgrade buttons.

Once installed, you point it at an AIR application descriptor file, which it reads in, and displays the contents in a few simple flex forms.  Of course, editing the XML yourself isn’t something that’s out of the question normally, but the ADM application makes it all easier to manage - just like the AIR Badger does for the application install badges.

Download the ADM application from Flex My Day.

Getting your source code hosted on Google Code…

Posted by James - 01/12/08 at 06:12:58 pm

Well, I’ve finally gone and done it - I’ve now got a project on Google code and I now feel like a proper part of the coding community.  We’ll see how long that lasts.  I’ve just uploaded the first version of my AIR ApplicationInfo class, and no doubt I’ll be adding, extending and improving on it in the future - with the added bonus that now I’m not the only one who can contribute.  You can access the project here.

How did I do it?  Well, it’s really all thanks to Internet Duct Tape’s “Getting Started with Google Code Hosting, Subversion, and TortoiseSVN without feeling like an Idiot” article, which does exactly what it says on the tin.  I got a Google Code project, learnt what the hell TortoiseSVN actually does, and did it all within 10 minutes.

Awesome.

Application Information Class for AIR

Posted by James - 01/12/08 at 09:12:29 am

Extracting the application information for an AIR application is in some ways a simple process - it’s not like the process is too difficult - it’s a bit of E4X on some data that is readily accessible from the application itself.  But if you’re like me, then repeatedly accessing this information is a bit of a tiresome process.  So, I made a class that can do it for you…

ApplicationInfo, as I’ve so cunningly called it, is a class that gives you information straight from the application descriptor file - including application name, version, description and even the filepaths to the application icons.  I wouldn’t say it’s perfect - projects in their first iterations rarely are - but it’s a start.

Download

Download the ApplicationInfo class.

Continue reading Application Information Class for AIR…

Darn them XML namespaces!

Posted by James - 01/12/08 at 09:12:17 am

Ugh, this E4X stuff is all a bit new to me - I’m still not used to namespaces and stuff.  For some reason I’ve had trouble extracting data from XML when I’m using a namespace.  I have no idea why, but it seemed that with the namespace in use, my attempts at extracting data from the XML returned blank data.

Never fear!  It seems that either removing the namespace or replacing it with a wildcard would let me access the data.  Kudos to the blog posts of Riley (Got RIA?) : Remove Annoying XML Namespaces in Flex / AS3 and Getting around unknown namespaces in Flex / AS3.

So until I get my head around how namespaces work, I’m going to be using the techniques described in the links above.  Until then, if anyone can explain this to me - I’d be very greatful!

Interesting things in Adobe Labs - Adobe Wave

Posted by James - 27/11/08 at 09:11:59 am

Adobe Wave is just one of the interesting projects on the Adobe Labs site - a “one-line API call” for displaying desktop notifications, built on Adobe AIR and hosted by Adobe.  Adobe are certainly committed to making AIR a success, and one of the ways they’re doing this is by developing and releasing applications like this.

Continue reading Interesting things in Adobe Labs - Adobe Wave…

AIR Applications: