Category: Flex

I can’t believe it, but I got it to work with some major help from Flexcoders (thanks Andrew Spaulding and Simon Jenkins!).

I’ve never installed, re-installed, toggled services on & off, and tweaked my router & networking settings so much in my life. I can’t believe server people actually like this stuff. I just want a SWF…

Another night of gaining respect and appreciation for server-side Java developers, amen.

• First, I downloaded Flex 1.5, installed with my Non-Commercial Serial Number.
• Second, I installed Apache Tomcat 4.1.30 (since 5.5.x, and 5.0.x wouldn’t start). Additionally, I had already installed the Java 1.4.2_06 J2E… runtime thing, and the JAVA_HOME was already an environment variable.
• I copied my flex.war and samples.war to the Tomcat/webapps folder and it automatically extracted them.
• I then tested my local samples via http://localhost:8080/samples, and it worked cool (I actually typed about 50 combos till I found the right port)
• However, my server computer wouldn’t accept web traffice from my Alienware, which are both behind my router. So, I port forwarded 8080 on my router to point to my server box.
• Then, I turned my Windows XP firewall off on my server box.

She works, but my server is sooooooooo slow to compile my Flex apps vs. my Alienware running JRun. At least now I’m legal.

Someone who uses ActionScript heavily in Flex, I embed my graphics in Flex (since it doesn’t have a Library like Flash) using code, like so:

[Embed(source="../../../images/dice.swf" symbol="d4")]
static public var d4_img:String;

If it was just a PNG or JPEG, I could remove the symbol attribute. That is for SWF files, which I like to use heavily; it removes the amount of images I have in my Flex application folders; 1 SWF vs. dozens of images folders containing dozens of images.

The other way is to merely embed it on the image itself:

<mx:Image source="@Embed(‘../../../images/dice.swf#d6’)" width="41" height="46" />

The problem is, combining these techniques will cause collisions; Flex will not compile your app saying that the image was already imported.

To solve this, I created a library of my own, in ActionScript. The technique goes something like this. You should not use _global variables in Flash, thus, you use static classes with static, public variables. All you then have to do is import the static class, and you can then access it’s variables. If you make 1 class, called “Library”, and do all of your image embedding in it, you can then consolidate, and self-contain all of your image assets into 1 file, thus avoiding collisions where other files try to embed assets already embedded elsewhere.

So, an example class would be:

class com.jxl.Library
{
        [Embed(source="../../../images/dice.swf" symbol="d4")]
        static public var d4_img:String;
        
        [Embed(source="../../../images/dice.swf" symbol="d6")]
        static public var d6_img:String;
        
        [Embed(source="../../../images/dice.swf" symbol="d8")]
        static public var d8_img:String;
        
        [Embed(source="../../../images/dice.swf" symbol="d10")]
        static public var d10_img:String;
        
        [Embed(source="../../../images/dice.swf" symbol="d12")]
        static public var d12_img:String;
        
        [Embed(source="../../../images/dice.swf" symbol="d20")]
        static public var d20_img:String;
        
        [Embed(source="../../../images/dice.swf" symbol="d100")]
        static public var d100_img:String;
}

Example usage for ActionScript:

import com.jxl.Library;

private var image_ldr:mx.controls.Image;
image_ldr.contentPath = Library.d4_img;

Example usage for Flex tags:

<mx:Image source="{com.jxl.Library.d4_img}" width="39" height="46" />

This will hopefully help prevent collisions, keep your library assets organized, and make them easily accessible.

I’m convinced Flex is ok on the server. I’m convinced Flash developers are in no way a part of the Flex vision.

Spoke about Flex & FlexBuilder tonight at the Atlanta Java User’s Group, and when talking about how Flash developers weren’t comfortable with Flex being on the server, but most Java developers I’ve seen on the Flexcoders list are, a lot of audience members were nodding their heads before I even finished the statement. I just met Flex’ target market tonight, first hand.

Macromedia doesn’t encourage prototype usage in Flex, they don’t encourage using Flash to make Flex components, and they condone the use of Flex generated SWF’s outside the browser (Central non-withstanding).

Although my time was my limited, and the speed of my speech accelerated, racing across details at 60mph, I think I got a lot of people at least interested in further investigating Flex. As a whole, I think the Roundbox Media Development team hopefully got many interested in OpenAMF, and Java & Flash integration in general.

Thanks for letting me speak about Flex at your meeting, AJUG members! Thanks for inviting me, Dan!