MAX Los Angeles 2009

October 3, 2009toOctober 8, 2009

I will be in Los Angeles attending and speaking at MAX Los Angeles 2009

First Android phone with Flash Support: HTC Hero

Today, we announced with our OSP partners HTC that for the first time Adobe Flash Player will be available on an Android phone, HTC Hero. You can find out more about what this means for users and developers on Mark Doherty’s blog, Ryan Stewart’s blog,  Adobe Developer Connection (Adrian Ludwig gives a video introduction on the device), and the press release.

You can see below a snapshot from Adrian’s movie, in which he uses HTC Hero to visit Yahoo! Movies, a site that uses a lot Flash content.

android_flash

I want one of these right now :)

Round-trip Flash Catalyst and Flash Builder 4?

One question I heard a lot in the last weeks was about the round-trip between Flash Catalyst and Flash Builder 4. Out of the box, there is no round-trip between these two products. We do, however, support round trip between Flash Catalyst and Illustrator/Photoshop, and between Flash Builder 4 and Flash Professional CS 4.

Let’s take this workflow:

  1. The designer creates the user interface in Illustrator
  2. Using Flash Catalyst he transforms the static design into a functional design
  3. He hands the FXP project created by the Flash Catalyst tool to the developer
  4. The developer imports the FXP project into Flash Builder 4 and starts to add client logic and data services
  5. The designer has to change something, and wants to work directly on the developer’s project.

This is the message you get when you try step 5:

rs_01

What are the challenges for a round-trip between Fc and Fb?

Why does this limitation exist in the first place? Before answering this question, let me tell you that we definitely want to have a round-trip between these two products, and we might have it in the future (keep in mind that Flash Catalyst is a version 1 product). Now, if you have a look at how a developer can work in Flash Builder 4 you can see two main approaches: Design view, or Code view. Sometimes you create custom components, and you do a lot of tricks and magic in order to create the desired application, and when you switch to Design view, nothing appears on the screen. This is really no big deal, because you can continue work in Code view, and press the Run button to check the application.

However, if you are the designer, and you work in Flash Catalyst, then all you have is the design view. If the design view can not render the application user interface and interactions on the stage, then the designer can’t work at all. Imagine trying to work on an Illustrator file without being able to visualize the document. It is really the same situation.

The solution

After giving this matter some thought, I think there is some kind of a round-trip that can be employed between these two products.

There are couple of things you need to do in order to succeed:

  1. The designer always keeps an instance of the FXP project that will not be touched by the developer. For example when he gives the FXP to the developer, he makes sure that he also keeps a copy of that file.
  2. The developer does his magic on the file received from the designer.

Now, suppose the designer has to modify the UI of the application to accommodate client’s wishes. He opens his FXP project, and makes all the changes. When he finishes, he gives a copy of the project to the developer. It doesn’t matter what kind of changes the designer made; if you look at the project you might find: new files, files deleted, existing files changed.

Which means that the easiest way to merge the designer changes into the developer project is by using a Merge tool or File/Folder Comparison tool such as Araxis. And just to illustrate my point, I added a new button in Flash Catalyst, then I saved the project. After this I unzipped the new project in a folder called v2 and the first version (or the developer’s project) in a folder called v1. Then, using Araxis I compare the two folders:

rt_02

I can see very quickly if there are new files (like Button4.mxml), or if there are changes in the existing files (like Main.mxml). In the next image you can see the differences highlighted for Main.mxml.

tr_05

Finally, there is a way to see the generated code in Flash Catalyst it self, and even to change it. Flash Catalyst offers a Code view (on the top-right corner you can choose between Code and Design view):

rt_04

If you go in Code view, actually you can see the project as it will appear in Flash Builder when imported. While being in Code view, if you open an MXML file, you can see the code, but you cannot change it. And this is perfect, because, as I said, this is a designer tool and designers usually don’t work with code, but with tools. If you really want to play with the code inside of Flash Catalyst (maybe you are a designer/developer), you right-click on a file and choose to open it with Text Editor, then you can actually change it inside of the tool. But keep in mind, you might ruin the Design view by doing this.

Conclusion

I am not saying this is easy to do. But I really think it can speed up the integration of the designer changes into the developer project. And because we are still working on version one of the Flash Catalyst, we are still thinking and figuring out things.

Please, let me know what your opinion is on this matter.

RTMP specification is out

We announced earlier this year that we’d open up the specifications for Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP is the protocol used by Flash Media Server and LiveCycle Data Services). We did it today, and you can read the details here.

Basically you can download the specifications and start implementing your own servers that make use of this highly efficient protocol for sending data between Adobe Flash Player or Adobe AIR apps and various servers.

It is worth noting that we didn’t open up anything related to RTMPe – Adobe’s implementation to secure the content. While you as a developer don’t have access to our implementation, you are free to implement your own secure implementation on top of RTMP.

User Group Tour Zagreb :: Flex + Flash…

This Thursday, June 18th, I have the pleasure of presenting sessions on Flash Catalyst, Flash Builder, and Flex Framework 4 in Zagreb, Croatia. You can find details on the event here. If you live nearby, come and let’s have a great day. See you!

Acrobat.com: new tools available

If you haven’t logged into your Acrobat.com account lately, you might be surprised because we’ve added two new tools: Tables (a spreadsheet tool) and Presentations (a presentation tool).

All the nice features you have in Buzzword (real time collaboration, sharing, versioning) are available for these two products as well. Bellow you can see screenshots with the products (if you want to play with them, just go to https://labs1.acrobat.com).

acrobatcom1

acrobatcom2

acrobatcom3

Working in Flash Builder 4 with Flex and PHP

On June 1st we launched the public beta for Flash Builder 4, the newest iteration of our Eclipse-based IDE for RIAs, formerly known as Flex Builder 3. While you can find both evolutionary and revolutionary features in it, in this article I will touch on the data features and Flex – PHP integration features of Flash Builder 4.

In this article, I will show you how can you use a PHP class that manages a MySQL table (offering CRUD operations) in a Flex project. I will build the Flex project and I rely on Flash Builder 4 to set up the Zend Framework for me(because I want to use remoting as a way to talk with the PHP server). After this I will use the new wizard from Flash Builder 4 that introspects a PHP class and creates the ActionScript code to consume that PHP class.

In the end I should be able to have a simple Flex app that lets me see the data records, edit them, and add a new item. For some of the features I’ll have to write code, for others Flash Builder will generate the code. All in all, I think the application can be created in less than 30 minutes.

PHP code

I have two PHP classes that I want to reuse with my Flex application. One class is a data object that acts asa wrapper for one row from my database (MySQL). Here is the structure of the table:

authors
——————————
id_aut – primary key
fname_aut string
lname_aut string

The PHP data object, called VOAuthor, looks like this:

   1: class VOAuthor {

   2:    

   3:     public $id_aut;

   4:     public $fname_aut;

   5:     public $lname_aut;

   6: }

 

The second class, called Authors, is the class that manages the table, offering CRUD operations. The code is very straight forward, I don’t use any database abstraction layer. I have three methods one each for reading, deleting, and updating/inserting a record. I use the data object, VOAuthor, within these methods. This is the code:

   1: require_once 'VOAuthor.php';

   2:  

   3:  

   4: //connection info

   5: define("DATABASE_SERVER", "localhost");

   6: define("DATABASE_USERNAME", "mihai");

   7: define("DATABASE_PASSWORD", "mihai");

   8: define("DATABASE_NAME", "flex360");

   9:  

  10: //$o = new MyService();

  11: //print_r($o->getData());

  12:  

  13: class Authors {

  14:     

  15:     /**

  16:      * Retrieve all the records from the table

  17:      * @return an array of VOAuthor

  18:      */

  19:     public function getData() {

  20:         //connect to the database.

  21:         //we could have used an abstracting layer for connecting to the database.

  22:         //for the sake of simplicity, I choose not to.

  23:         $mysql = mysql_connect(DATABASE_SERVER, DATABASE_USERNAME, DATABASE_PASSWORD);

  24:         mysql_select_db(DATABASE_NAME);

  25:         //retrieve all rows

  26:         $query = "SELECT id_aut, fname_aut, lname_aut FROM authors_aut ORDER BY fname_aut";

  27:         $result = mysql_query($query);

  28:         //throw (new Zend_Amf_Exception('error', 11));

  29:         $ret = array();

  30:         while ($row = mysql_fetch_object($result, "VOAuthor")) {

  31:             $ret[] = $row;

  32:         }

  33:         mysql_free_result($result); 

  34:         return $ret;

  35:     }

  36:         /**

  37:      * Update one item in the table

  38:      * @param VOAuthor to be updated 

  39:      * @return NULL

  40:      */

  41:     public function saveData($author) {

  42:         if ($author == NULL)

  43:             return NULL;

  44:         //logMe($author);

  45:         //connect to the database.

  46:         $mysql = mysql_connect(DATABASE_SERVER, DATABASE_USERNAME, DATABASE_PASSWORD);

  47:         mysql_select_db(DATABASE_NAME);

  48:         if ($author->id_aut > 0) {

  49:             //save changes

  50:             $query = "UPDATE authors_aut SET fname_aut='".$author->fname_aut."', lname_aut='".$author->lname_aut."' WHERE id_aut=".  $author->id_aut;

  51:         } else {

  52:             //add new record

  53:             $query = "INSERT INTO authors_aut (fname_aut, lname_aut) VALUES ('".$author->fname_aut."', '".$author->lname_aut."')";

  54:         }

  55:         $result = mysql_query($query);

  56:         return NULL;

  57:     }

  58:     

  59:     public function deleteData($author) {

  60:         if ($author == NULL)

  61:             return NULL;

  62:         

  63:         //connect to the database.

  64:         $mysql = mysql_connect(DATABASE_SERVER, DATABASE_USERNAME, DATABASE_PASSWORD);

  65:         mysql_select_db(DATABASE_NAME);

  66:         //add new record

  67:         $query = "DELETE FROM authors_aut WHERE id_aut = ".$author->id_aut;

  68:         $result = mysql_query($query);

  69:         return NULL;

  70:     }

  71:     

  72: }

These two scripts sit inside of a folder called “remoting” in the root of the Apache web server document root folder.

Creating the Flex project and the UI of the app

I have the PHP files in place; now it’s time to create the Flex application. First, I need to create a new Flex project. Having opened the Flash Builder 4, I use the “New Flex Project” wizard to create a new Flex project called FlexPHPAMF. Make sure that in the wizard you choose PHP as the server technology, and you give the correct information for the document root of the web server (absolute path and URL).

Now let’s create the UI of the application. To do this, I chose to go in design mode where I added two buttons and a data grid to the stage. One button is labeled “Get Data” and the other one “Save Data”.

fb_0

Using the data service panel

Finally, I am ready to use the new data wizards.At the bottom of Flash Builder, there is a view called “Data/Services”. Click on “Connect to Data/Service” link. A wizard starts, and you can select the type of the data service.

fb_php_1

Because I want to use the PHP classes I have, I choose PHP and I click “Next”.

fb_php_2 

On this page, you can select to either reuse an existing service from the server, or to let the wizard create a stub for you. Because I have the service, I want to use the Import PHP class option. Flash Builder introspects the service in order to detect the supported operations (in this case, because I am using remoting, it detects the public methods and the return type). But to do so, it needs to install the Zend Framework to your web server.

What is very cool is that you don’t have to worry about the steps needed to install Zend Framework. Flash Builder will do it for you automatically.

fb_php_3

After the Zend Framework is installed, on the last page of the wizard you’ll see the available methods. Click Finish.

fb_php_4

Now, in the Data/Services view you should have a tree, with the root node named Authors. This is the name of the PHP class that you want to use in Flex. Under this node you have Data Types, and the three methods: deleteData(), getData(), saveData().

fb_php_5 

At the same time if you take a look at the project structure in the Package explorer, you’ll notice that new packages and files were created.

fb_php_6

There is a new package called services.authors, and here you’ll find the service class that you’ll use to connect to the PHP class (Authors.as). This class actually extends a base class that implements all the logic using RemoteObject. The reason for this approach is that when you need to do your customization, you’ll do it in the Authors class. If you decide to use Flash Builder to regenerate the code for the same service (maybe as a result of a change on the server side), this operation will not over write your custom code.

The same goes for the data object (or value object). Flash Builder generated the ActionScript value object to match the PHP class VOAuthor. But again, you might want to do some customizations, and you can do it by touching VOAuthor that extends _Super_VOAuthor. All the generated code stays in the _Super_VOAuthor.

And finally, you’ll find a folder called services that gives you quick access to the Authors.php class.

It is time to fill the data grid with the data from the server. To do so, first you need to make sure that the return type for the getData() operation is an array of VOAuthor objects. If you right click on the name of the operation in the Data/Services view and choose Configure Return Type, you have a way to specify the array of VOAuthor:

fb_php_7

To bind the data grid to the result of the getData() operation you have to go into design mode, and then drag and drop the getData() (from the Data/Services view) to the data grid.

If you switch to code view, you’ll see that some ActionScript code was added to the flexPHPAMF.mxml. What you want to do is to grab the line from the function and create a new function that will be called when you click the “Get Data” button and paste the code inside of it. My code looks like this:

   1: protected function getData():void

   2: {

   3:    getDataResult.token = authors.getData();

   4: }

   5: [...]

   6:  

   7: <s:Button x="43" y="220" label="Get Data" click="getData()"/>

The wizard altered the data grid itself, you have the name of the table fields as labels, and the data provider of the data grid is set to the lastResult of the getDataResult object (this object was added to your code by the wizard, in order to help you manage the results of the authors service).

If you run the application and press the “Get Data” button, you should see the data.

Adding editing capabilities

The final part of this tutorial is adding the editing capabilities. I want to be able to edit an existing record using the data grid itself, and I want to have a form and a new button. First go back into design mode, drag and drop an new button on the stage, and change the label to “New”. Then, you’ll use another wizard to generate the form for editing. To do so, you select from the Data/Services view the Data Types node, expand it, and select the VOAuthor node. Right click it and select Generate Form. In the wizard choose “Make form editable” and click Next.

fb_php_8

In the second page of the wizard deselect the “id_aut” property. This value will be auto-inserted by the database itself. Click Finish.

fb_php_9

After the form is generated, you want to grab the form and position it maybe below the buttons. Also, you may want to change the labels. Finally add a new button in the form and label it “Add”.

Switch back to code view. Now, you need to make some changes. First of all (I think it is a bug), the text fields are not editable (they are Text instead of TextInput). So change the type to TextInput to make them editable. Next, give an ID to the Form itself. I want to have the form invisible when the application is loaded, and only make it visible when the users clicks “New”. For that you set the visible property on the form to false, and you add some code to the New button. Here is my code:

   1: <s:Button x="224" y="220" label="New" click="myForm.visible = true"/>

   2: <mx:Form x="46" y="277" id="myForm" visible="false">

   3:         <mx:FormItem label="First Name:">

   4:             <mx:TextInput id="fname" text=""/>

   5:         </mx:FormItem>

   6:         <mx:FormItem label="Last Name:">

   7:             <mx:TextInput id="lname" text=""/>

   8:         </mx:FormItem>

   9:         <mx:FormItem>

  10:             <s:Button label="Add"/>

  11:         </mx:FormItem>

  12: </mx:Form>

And if you look in the code, you’ll notice a new object was created:

   1: <authors:VOAuthor id="vOAuthor"/>

You’ll use this instance of the value object VOAuthor to send the new item to the server (remember, the PHP saveData() method expects a single argument of type VOAuthor).

To do so, you need to create a binding between the two text fields from the form and the properties fname_aut and lname_aut of the VOAuthor.

   1: <fx:Binding destination="vOAuthor.fname_aut" source="fname.text"/>

   2: <fx:Binding destination="vOAuthor.lname_aut" source="lname.text"/>

The last missing piece is the actual call to the saveData() method. This is very simple;on the click event of the “Save” button you add the call to the authors object getData() method, passing the local instance of VOAuthor (vOAuthor) as the argument:

   1: <s:Button label="Add" click="authors.saveData(vOAuthor)"/>

You can add a new record now. What about editing an existing one? For this we will need a little bit more code. First, you want to register a listener on the data grid in order to know when something was edited (if you set the property editable to true on the data grid, then you can edit information inline). The event you are looking for is itemEditEnd:

   1: <mx:DataGrid x="44" y="37" id="dataGrid" dataProvider="{getDataResult.lastResult}" 

   2:         itemEditEnd="dataEdited(event)" editable="true">

Now,let’s define the listener, dataEdited(). Add the following code in the script section of the page:

   1: private function dataEdited(event: DataGridEvent):void 

   2: {

   3:      vOAuthor = event.itemRenderer.data as VOAuthor;

   4: }

This code uses the instance of the value object VOAuthor to store the data used by the edited row.

The last two things you have to do is to create a function called saveData() that is called when the user clicks the “Save Data” button, and to add initialization code for the vOAuthor object when the users clicks the “New” button (this way you avoid updating an item instead of adding a new one if you first edit a row and then add one):

   1: private function saveData():void {

   2:    if (vOAuthor != null)

   3:       authors.saveData(vOAuthor);

   4: }

   1: <s:Button x="224" y="220" label="New" 

   2:     click="myForm.visible = true; vOAuthor = new VOAuthor()"/>

The final code of the MXML file should look like this:

   1: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

   2: <s:Application xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009" xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark" xmlns:mx="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/halo" minWidth="1024" minHeight="768" xmlns:authors="services.authors.*">

   3:     <fx:Script>

   4:         <![CDATA[

   5:             import mx.events.DataGridEvent;

   6:             import services.authors.VOAuthor;

   7:             import mx.events.FlexEvent;

   8:             import mx.controls.Alert;

   9:             

  10:             protected function getData():void

  11:             {

  12:                 getDataResult.token = authors.getData();

  13:             }

  14:             

  15:             private function dataEdited(event: DataGridEvent):void 

  16:             {

  17:                 vOAuthor = event.itemRenderer.data as VOAuthor;

  18:             }

  19:             

  20:             private function saveData():void {

  21:                 if (vOAuthor != null)

  22:                     authors.saveData(vOAuthor);

  23:             }

  24:  

  25:         ]]>

  26:     </fx:Script>

  27:     <fx:Binding destination="vOAuthor.fname_aut" source="fname.text"/>

  28:     <fx:Binding destination="vOAuthor.lname_aut" source="lname.text"/>

  29:     <fx:Declarations>

  30:         <s:CallResponder id="getDataResult"/>

  31:         <authors:Authors id="authors" destination="Authors" endpoint="http://localhost/flexPHPAMF-debug/gateway.php" 

  32:             fault="Alert.show(event.fault.faultString)" 

  33:             showBusyCursor="true" source="Authors"/>

  34:         <authors:VOAuthor id="vOAuthor"/>

  35:     </fx:Declarations>

  36:     <mx:DataGrid x="44" y="37" id="dataGrid" dataProvider="{getDataResult.lastResult}" 

  37:         itemEditEnd="dataEdited(event)" editable="true">

  38:         <mx:columns>

  39:             <mx:DataGridColumn headerText="id_aut" dataField="id_aut"/>

  40:             <mx:DataGridColumn headerText="fname_aut" dataField="fname_aut"/>

  41:             <mx:DataGridColumn headerText="lname_aut" dataField="lname_aut"/>

  42:         </mx:columns>

  43:     </mx:DataGrid>

  44:     <s:Button x="43" y="220" label="Get Data" click="getData()"/>

  45:     <s:Button x="129" y="220" label="Save Data" click="saveData()"/>

  46:     <s:Button x="224" y="220" label="New" click="myForm.visible = true; vOAuthor = new VOAuthor()"/>

  47:     

  48:     <mx:Form x="46" y="277" id="myForm" visible="false">

  49:         <mx:FormItem label="First Name:">

  50:             <mx:TextInput id="fname" text=""/>

  51:         </mx:FormItem>

  52:         <mx:FormItem label="Last Name:">

  53:             <mx:TextInput id="lname" text=""/>

  54:         </mx:FormItem>

  55:         <mx:FormItem>

  56:             <s:Button label="Add" click="authors.saveData(vOAuthor)"/>

  57:         </mx:FormItem>

  58:     </mx:Form>

  59:     

  60: </s:Application>

The delete operation is left as homework for you! Basically you want to get the selected row, grab the object data used by that row and save it into vOAuthor, and then call the authors.deleteData(vOAuthor).

Conclusions

If you are not sure what remoting and the Zend Framework are, you can read my post that explains these matters: Flex and PHP: remoting with Zend AMF. This article uses Flex Builder 3 (the previous version of Flash Builder 4).

You might be wondering about many-to-many or one-to-many associations. Well, at least for now there is no support for PHP (at least there is no wizard that handles any association and generates all the code). Still, I think I could do it much easier using these wizards than without them. Having the glue code generated for me and the Value Object created automatically, being able to have a form generated for a particular data model are all great help. You save time, you save money. Remember with any line of code you write, you might introduce a bug or more. Having more lines generated for you means less bugs :).

If you want to take a look at my project, you can download it from here (you’ll find the PHP files and the dump of the database in the service folder from this archive). If you want to install Flash Builder 4, you can grab the beta version from here and use it.

Finally I encourage you to try this for yourself, and let me know what you think. If you find bugs or you want more features in Flash Builder 4, be sure you go to http://bugs.adobe.com and ask your friends to vote for the bug. In the end, this is a beta product. If we can improve it, why not?

Want to influence the pricing of AFCS (formerly known as COCOMO)?

I know at least some of you expressed your interest in using AFCS in production projects. And you asked me about the pricing model and the availability of the final version.

We’ve heard you, and actually you have a way to influence the final price by completing this survey.  This also means we are one step closer to the release date.

Flex + Facebook = Flex Spotlight app

If you happen to be a Facebook user and a Flex fan at the same time, then this new app called Flex Spotlight is for you. Basically, the app lets people share their Flex projects with other users. You can check the app here.

facebook1

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Flex 4 Tour – Bucharest Pit Stop

This Wednesday we’ll have the Bucharest stop of the Flex 4 Tour. We’ll talk about Flex 4 framework, Flash Catalyst (the new tool for designers), and Flash Builder 4 (the tool for RIA developers).

My part in this event? Well, I’ll try to act as a designer and present Flash Catalyst. After me, Cornel will play the developer role, presenting Flash Builder 4 and completing the project I created in Flash Catalyst. We should have fun :)

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