Flex-ology :: Flex, AS3 and more!

Setting width of DataGridColumn as Percentage

Venkat Viswanathan — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:10:36 +0000

Have you ever tried setting the width of a DataGridColumn in percentage value? Something like width=”20%”??? I did that today and was shocked to see a compile time error. After doing some research, I found this solution:

When you set the width in decimals, it automatically converts it as percentage!!!

Now thats BAD!!!

What’s Different – LiveCycleES LiveCycleDS BlazeDS

Venkat Viswanathan — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 16:36:20 +0000

Although I had a fair idea about the three products, it was never crystal clear for me how the three are different – especially whats so different in LiveCycle ES and DS. After doing some research, now I have a very clear picture in my mind. The post on Greg Wilson’s blog is very useful to understand the differences…

http://gregsramblings.com/2008/03/27/livecycle-ds-vs-livecycle-es-clearing-up-the-confusion/

Flex 3 Certification Guide

Venkat Viswanathan — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 18:19:36 +0000

I successfully passed the Flex 3 with AIR certification on 8th November 2008. If you notice the date on which this post is blogged, its almost a month and a half later. Well, that shows my laziness to blog! Anyways I wanted to blog this experience particularly as I am very sure that it will help many of the Flex developers who aspire to become certified for Flex 3.

What will you find in this post: In this post, you will find the steps you could follow to get prepared for Flex 3 certification. You will also find reference materials that you may use for studying

What you will NOT find: You will NOT find any questions that I got in the certification exam. You will NOT find clues, hints, tips, secrets to clear the exam. You must know that there are no shortcuts to success.

Where should you start: Well, if you are preparing for the exam, first read Anand Vardhan’s blog on getting certified for Flex 2. Don’t think that he had written it for Flex 2 and you are preparing for Flex 3 certification. The most important learnings from the post are still very much valid. Taking forward from where Anand had left…

What’s different in Flex 3 (as compared to Flex 2 certification): One big difference in the two certifications is the inclusion of Adobe AIR. There are around 10 questions on AIR. Other than that, all that has changed in Flex and its SDK from 2.0 to 3.0 are different.

Tips for Preparation: The best way to learn something in and out is to do a full project on it. Same applies for Flex 3/AIR as well. If you want to learn it, do some project on it. Create some kind of an application that uses the full power of Flex and AIR. This way you can understand the nitty-gritties and complexities of the tool. Apart from this, read any book on Flex 3 like Programming Flex 3, Learning Flex 3, and Flex 3 Cookbook. And also read ActionScript 3.0 Design Patterns. Apart from these, there are tons of other reading material on the Internet like blogs, discussion forums, devnet etc which will help you enhance your knowledge. Also visit Adobe’s official site for Flex 3 certification.

How easy or difficult is it: This is something that depends on the skillset of the person attempting the exam. Adobe has set a very “achievable” passing percentage of 67%. But at the same time, the getting all the questions correct will not be a cakewalk. From my experience, what I found was that I could answer almost 50% of the questions because I had practically faced the scenario sometime or the other. So it really helps if you have hands-on knowledge on Flex 3. This doesn’t mean that people who have not worked on live projects will not be able to answer the questions. But its just that it makes the life easier for those who have used Flex in the day-to-day life!

The Last Word: I would like to wish all aspirant Adobe Certified Experts for Flex 3 with AIR a very whole hearted BEST OF LUCK. Prepare well and come out with flying colors. Please feel free to ask me anything about the certification and I will update this post itself with the answers.

Custom Right-Click ContextMenu in Flex

Venkat Viswanathan — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 17:16:32 +0000

Ever wanted to get rid of the typical context menu that you get when you right click anywhere in Flash Player? Well Flex API does not provide any feature to stop this. However some genius mind created a hack to not let the Flash Player know that the right click has happened. Instead, just call a Flex method using ExternalInterface. And in this method, create the menu (or do whatever else you want).

Run Demo

Download Demo/Source
Download Mirror 1
Download Mirror 2

P.S: All credits to custom-context-menu creators for developing the functionality!

Space Between Tabs

Venkat Viswanathan — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 07:12:16 +0000

Someone in Chennai FUG asked if it is possible to space out tabs. The first thing that came into my mind was a big NO. But later as an after-thought, I got this idea as a workaround solution.

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DateField as ItemRenderer

Venkat Viswanathan — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 07:10:18 +0000

If you try to put the dateField as itemRenderer for a DataGridColumn directly using mx.controls.DateField, the chances of getting a runtime error is very high. In fact 9 out of 10 times, you will end up getting an error saying that it is unable to convert string to date. Here is a solution to that.

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Loading Animated GIF in Flex

Venkat Viswanathan — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 17:56:13 +0000

Loading Animated GIF in Flex is something that has always been the most wanted thing for Flex Developers. Doug McCune has made a component, Animated GIF Loader which actually loads animated gif. But the only drawback is that it costs $50!

Here is a free solution. There is a free component AS3GIF. The example shown with the code was made in Flash CS3. I ported it for Flex. Here is a sample…

Run Demo
Download Source | [Google Pages Mirror Link] | [Freehostia Mirror Link]

***
P.S: As many of you have reported that the 10gbfreehost link doesn’t seem to work, I have added a few other mirrors where I have uploaded the source zip file. One of them should definitely work!

Flex 3 for Dummies

Venkat Viswanathan — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 13:56:22 +0000

The book is out.. and I hope that it is as good as any other book of the Dummies series! Its available at Amazon for $19.79…

Visit Amazon

Two Input Boxes in DataGrid’s ItemEditor

Venkat Viswanathan — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 13:52:17 +0000

Alex has created a wonderful workaround in scenarios where you will need two or more input boxes in a single itemEditor in a DataGrid. Have a look:

See it on Alex’s Blog

Thanks Alex!

DataGrid Showing Date Difference in ToolTip

Venkat Viswanathan — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 07:18:43 +0000

Again a request from Flex India group, I created a DataGrid which has two columns showing dates. And the tooltip for these colums show the difference between the dates in days as a ToolTip.

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