Flex SDK : Skinning in Flex 4 (Codename: Gumbo)

The Flash Player is the delivery mechanism for some of the most creative work to be found on the web today. Flex applications however have gained a reputation for looking too similar to each other, as many developers choose to use the Flex default look and feel (known as Halo) as opposed to applying extensive styling or skinning. Research performed by Adobe shows that only 46% of our frequent Flex users do extensive skinning while only 22% even do major style adjustments. This is not to say that customization never happens, but Adobe found that it remains too challenging to create a truly custom experience. It is therefore a priority for Gumbo (The new version of the Flex SDK) to make easy customization of Flex application experiences the norm instead of the exception.

Exciting stuff... Check it out...
http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Gumbo+Themes

Adobe Flex : Flex 3 Compiler Design Document

Now there is a design document available at the Adobe site... nice move :)

http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Flex+3+Compiler+Design

Adobe Flex Resources Tool Suite

I plan to implement a small set of tools to facilitate handling of resource files in Adobe Flex.

I will address the following objectives:

1. objective
It must allow editorial staff to update and manage resources.
* Client should be implemented in AIR / Flex.
* Server should be implemented in .NET

2. objective
It must allow editorial staff to compile resources to their final output.
* Should use the Flex SDK compilers based on Java.

3. objective
It must allow editorial staff to deploy updated resources.
* Should be possible to do 24/7 without causing downtime.

4. objective
It could facilitate that editorial and technical staff can work in parallel, respectively translating and updating resources to their initial values by the editorial staff and creating the points in the application where each resource will be used by the technical staff.
* Points still needs to be determined.

Configuring Flex Builder to use the HellFire compiler

Clement Wong has created an excellent post on how to do RPC compilation of Flex Applications, Modules and Libraries.

The results he has been able to obtain are very thought-invoking and definitely something I will give a shot the first time I get 5 minutes to spare...

Check it out for yourself...
http://stopcoding.wordpress.com/2008/06/17/hellfire_compiler/

Adobe Flex : Cross-versioning

The "Marshall Plan" is the nickname for the SDK feature to support cross-versioning.

The nickname comes from the aspect of the feature that uses shared events and/or the SandboxBridge to marshal objects across ApplicationDomains. Marshalling was popularized in Windows as a way of transcoding objects so they can be shared between applications in different address spaces.

If the vision comes true, the "Marshall Plan" will define a post-3.1 Flex that liberate developers from having to have all of their code compiled by the same version of Flex.

Read more about this initiative which are planned to be part of the Flex 4 release.
http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Marshall+Plan

Adobe Flex : Linkreports

An important tool when trying to examine an application with the objective to divide it into modules and libraries or generally if you want to understand your application better, is the linkreport compiler option.

Adding the following to your compiler options will print a linkreport upon a successful compile. A linkreport is an XML file which lists all type definitions included in the output as well as the classes it depends on, but has not included.

-linkreport=[FileLocation][Filename].xml
eg. -linkreport=../reports/Linkreport.xml

It will generate the file on disk relative to the BIN directory, so if you want to place the linkreport in a separate directory on level with the BIN directory you have to append ../ to the beginning of the value.