Flex Stuff by Gilles Guillemin

This blog post is related to My LFPUG Presentation about Mate blog post.

This is the sixth of a series of gradually more complex examples on how to use Mate. If you haven’t done it yet you should have a look first at our previous examples: #1, #2, #3, #4 and #5.

Today we’re going to add another useless functionality to our already useless application: a reset countdown. It’s a timer that resets all the counters when it reaches 0. The point here is to illustrate the communication (other than using data binding) between a manager and the rest of the application.

Here is the demo (source is available by right-clicking on the demo after launching it):

#6 Reset Countdown (part 1) (click to Launch)

As you can see, it’s pretty much the same application as before (visually speaking) except that there’s now a countdown showing up next to the MainView title. When it reaches 0 all your amounts, subAmounts and globalAmounts are reset to 0.

Continue Reading…

This blog post is related to My LFPUG Presentation about Mate blog post.

This is the fifth of a series of gradually more complex examples on how to use Mate. If you haven’t done it yet you should have a look first at our previous examples: #1, #2, #3 and #4.

In the previous example, we added the capability to add/remove counters to the Tile component dynamically. Now let’s imagine that each counter is now embedding two subcounters, each one being capable of interacting with the other, but without affecting the subcounters in other counters.

The demo should probably be clearer (source is available by right-clicking on the demo after launching it):

#5 LocalEventMap (click to Launch)

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This blog post is related to My LFPUG Presentation about Mate blog post.

This is the fourth of a series of gradually more complex examples on how to use Mate. If you haven’t done it yet you should have a look first at our previous examples: #1, #2 and #3.

In the previous example, we manually added four counters to a Tile component. Let’s now add/remove those counters dynamically.

But let’s have a look at the demo first (source is available by right-clicking on the demo after launching it):

#4 Counters created dynamically (click to Launch)

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This blog post is related to My LFPUG Presentation about Mate blog post.

This is the third of a series of gradually more complex examples on how to use Mate. If you haven’t done it yet you should have a look first at our first example and at our second one.

And now let’s have a look on the demo (source is available by right-clicking on the demo after launching it):

#3 Multiple Counters (click to Launch)

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This blog post is related to My LFPUG Presentation about Mate blog post.

This is the second of a series of gradually more complex examples on how to use Mate. It’s still a fairly basic one and visually it looks just the same as our previous example.

But let’s first have a look on the demo (source is available by right-clicking on the demo after launching it):

#2 Databinding and EventHandlers (click to Launch)

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This blog post is related to My LFPUG Presentation about Mate previous blog post.

This is the first of a series of gradually more complex examples on how to use Mate. It’s a fairly basic one. You’ve got 2 “counters” with 2 buttons to increase and decrease the value of 2 variables: amount (which is specific for each counter) and globalAmount (which is shared by the two counters).

But let’s first have a look on the demo (source is available by right-clicking on the demo after launching it):

#1 A very basic injectors example (click to Launch)

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[Update #1 (06/08/09): Added a list of various resources]

So, my Mate presentation for the London Flash Platform User Group the other day went obviously better than what I was initially afraid of. At least nobody threw shoes at me which is a great success already.

Now I’ve promised I would publish the presentation content along with the examples and various linked and resources I cited during that (long) hour so here is first the presentation itself. To view it you need to download XMind, a pretty cool mind mapping software I’ve started to work with a few months ago. The free version gives you access to pretty much everything useful and you only need to subscribe if you intend to use the presentation functions (which are pretty cool) and use some specific export tools. You should most definitely have a look at their demos.

My Mate presentation in XMind

Resources:

• Useful Articles:

  • FrameworkQuest 2008 | InsideRIA (code examples are a bit outdated but it’s still worth a reading):
    • Part 1 – Introduction
    • Part 2 – Get Control with Cairngorm
    • Part 3 – Framework Agnostic Views with PureMVC
    • Part 4 – loC with Swiz
    • Part 5 – Mate, the Pure MXML Framework
    • Part 6: The Exciting Conclusion
  • Choosing a Flex framework | Adobe Developer Connection
  • MATE: Responding to events
  • Mate Framework and Flex 4 sdk

• Mate’s Documentation (the documentation is not necessarily regularly updated so you sometimes need to do some digging in order to find relevant information about new tags, functionalities, etc):

  • Documentation homepage
  • API Docs
  • What’s new in 08.8
  • What’s new in 0.8.6
  • What’s new in 0.8.5
  • 360|Flex presentation (a very good introduction to what Mate is and what it’s capable of)
  • MATE CacheSetter.. a quick and dirty introduction
  • Mate Forums (too often the only solution to find an answer about some random property nobody said a word about in the “official” documentation [sigh])
  • PureMVC Mediator equivalent (perfect illustration of what I just said above)

• Some Examples:

  • mate-examples on googlecode
  • CRUD Demo example (Source)
  • flex-ioc-examples, all frameworks not just Mate
  • example on two options for repsonding to Mate events within views.

• Mate and other Frameworks:

  • Mate
  • Cairngorm
  • PureMVC
  • Swiz
  • RobotLegs AS3
  • Flight Framework
  • Spring ActionScript
  • Parsley

• Various:

  • Follow MateFramework on Twitter
  • Mate UserVoice (ask here for new functionalities)

You can also access those resources by clicking on the 2nd tab at the bottom left of the document. I’m a bit short of time to write a more complete post right now but I’ll update it in the next few days.

For the same reason, I’m also going to write separate posts with the different examples (I intend to add a few new ones as well, like Two-ways databinding or Mate with versioned applications) so keep an eye on this post and on the new ones.

• Mate examples: #1 A very basic injectors example
• Mate examples: #2 Databinding and EventHandlers
• Mate examples: #3 Multiple Counters
• Mate examples: #4 Counters created dynamically
• Mate examples: #5 LocalEventMap
• Mate examples: #6 Reset Countdown (pt 1)
• Mate examples: #7 Reset Countdown (pt 2)
• Mate examples: #8 Modules Example (pt 1)
• Mate examples: #9 Modules Example (pt 2)
• Mate examples: #10 Presentation Model
• Mate examples: #11 Mediator (or Passive View)

And, of course, thanks to all of you who came around the other day, that was cool.

Some of you might have heard of my recent difficulties, but the Show Must Go On and I’m glad to invite all the Londoners (and the others if they are willing to come around) at my little causerie for the next London Flash Platform User Group gathering. It’s called Mate Framework: The Pleasures And Pains. I wanted to call it Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Mate * But Where Afraid To Ask but apparently, according to Tink who gently invited me, it didn’t fit. What a pity.

Anyway, it’s the 30th of July, at the CosmoBar and I’ll be preceded by Matthew Press who will talk about UML for AS3. Yes indeed. So click here if you want the details and set a bookmark in your agenda if you want to come to see me make a fool of myself.

Ok, now let’s start thinking about what I really am going to speak about…

When you compile and run a project with Flash Catalyst beta 1, it uses your default browser. In my case, it is Firefox, but for some reason I needed it to use Safari instead. But rather than changing my system default settings I would rather change Catalyst preferences, the way you do with Flex / Flash Builder. Both software are based on the Eclipse Platform so it shouldn’t be too difficult. Except that even if the Preferences menu is indeed there…

The useless Preferences menu

But of course there’s a way, through the backdoor, or I wouldn’t be here writing this article.

So just follow these steps (click on the images to get the details): Continue Reading…

For the past few days, I’ve started – like many others – toying with the new kids on the block: namely Flash Builder 4 and Flash Catalyst. As I’m going back to implementing the Tailgate Platform, I’m considering switching straight ahead to the new versions, even though they are not fully completed. But before jumping in the dark (and into a possible nightmare) I’m weighting my options. Among the potential issues / greatness is the Flash Catalyst / Flash Builder workflow.

It seems that this famous seamless workflow between designers and developers is the selling point for Adobe. But it’s not quite there yet, unfortunately. Continue Reading…