Next week FlashForward will be held in Austin, TX and I’ll be there giving a session on Component Development in the Flex World on Tuesday, September 12, 2006 3:00-4:15 in Salons D/E.
The FlashForward crew have been working hard with every event to grow, making great changes, and listening to suggestions. One thing that I’m especially looking forward to (other than visiting Austin for the first time and hanging out with friends) is that the length of the sessions have been extended by 15 minutes. I know in the past I’ve found it difficult to finish on time when trying to dig into more details on a topic. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one that asked for this and am looking forward to seeing how it works out.
My session will be an introductory session on developing components in Flex. I will cover when you might want to build an MXML vs Pure ActionScript component, setting up the structure of a component, implementing styles, events, databinding, and packaging a component. There’s no way I could cover everything about components even with the extra 15 minutes but this session should help Flash and Flex Developers get a good understanding of component development in the Flex world.
One thing to note, this session won’t be focused purely on advanced component development like previous sessions that I have given. I will also touch upon Component Based Development principals, as Flex Framework and MXML are an ideal platform for such a development process which has many benefits to UI programming.
See you all in Austin, and if you will be there pass by and say hi!
I’m posting this for myself and in case anyone finds it useful. There currently is no stand alone native Flash Intel Mac Player, so I resort to dragging SWF files to Firefox often. One thing that bothered me was the inability to drag a SWF onto the Firefox icon in the Finder or selecting Firefox as the default file handler for SWF files, instead you have to drag the SWF file to an open Firefox window. Turns out it was an easy change. After a look at the contents of Firefox.app and adding swf as a supported file type, it turns out to be a quick change. And rather than having to do this manually each time I upgrade Firefox, I decided to create a patch file that way I can just quickly add back the support after I upgrade Firefox
Steps
- Download the archive (Firefox Patch)
- Expand the archive
- Open terminal and navigate to the folder
- Assuming Firefox is in your applications folder, execute the command “patch -uN /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/Info.plist ./firefox.patch”
- For the Finder to pick up the change in the support file type you have two options
- Restart your mac
- Create a copy of Firefox, delete the original, and rename the copy back. Creating a copy causes the Finder to re-evaluate the support files types without needing to restart your mac
I’ve used this with Firefox 1.5.x and 2.0 beta1-rc3 with no problems.
For the first time, FlashForward will be held in Austin September 11th to the 14th, and I’ll be there speaking on the topic of Component Development in the Flex World. Flex is the ideal component based development platform, and I strongly believe in the power of knowing how to develop them, even if they are basic and will not be distributed. Component based development helps break down large problems into achievable ones, while still maintaining excellent quality (here are some thoughts I had back in Sept 03 on the topic).
If you haven’t build components before, never built component in Flex, or just interested to see how easy it is to get started, then you’ll enjoy this session
Session Description:
Flex is an ideal Flash® application development platform that takes great advantage of built-in and custom-made components. For this reason, developing a good understanding of Flex components will help you build better applications faster, with fewer bugs.
In this session, Chafic will detail the internals of how components are structured beginning with the basics, walking through the process of building a first component and providing details about the different development options. Attendees will gain insight into what makes up a component as a basis to extend existing components or develop their own.
Topics covered include: the hierarchical structure of the Flex Component Framework, component development with MXML and ActionScript 3.0, component development with ActionScript 3.0 only, building custom events, implementing data binding, implementing style support.
Prior experience with Flex is not required, although helpful.
This will be my first time in Austin, if you are attending make sure to say hi
I’m preparing to move over to WordPress in the coming two weeks. Just wanted to let everyone know in case there is any downtime. This will also include a re-design of rewindlife and more regular posting
My session titled “Intro to Flex 2.0″ at FITC 2006 went pretty well. Included is the presentation as well as all the code seen during the session. You will need MXMLC at least to build the different samples, or FlexBuilder.
Download Presentation
I’m in Amsterdam this week for Spark Europe and will be speaking on “Introduction to Flex 2.0″.
In the session give a good overview of what Flex 2 is all about, how it relates to the rest of the Flash Platform, briefly cover the new player, ActionScript 3.0, MXML, the Framework, and even attempt to build a simple application on stage. My goal with this session is to give people a good understanding of all the components and what their role is in Flex and allow them to get up to speed more quickly because of it. Flex 2 is a big step that any RIA developer will be interested in
Spark looks to be an excellent event. It has been very well organized and thought out, the speaker lineup and session are excellent and the venue rocks. If you will be attending make sure to say hello!
Just wanted to point to http://labs.macromedia.com/ which just went live. Will post more thoughts later. Let the fun begin 
I’m about to head to the airport to catch my flight to California to attend MAX 2005. I wasn’t originally planning on going to MAX this year but changed my mind last minute. This will most likely be the last MAX conference under the Macromedia brand, and the recent Flash platform news is huge.. so I guess I wanted to share in the history making
If you are going make sure to say hi!
I have a position on my team for a kick ass Flash Developer. Here are some details.
Job needs
1. Expert in Flash and AS2
2. Expert in OOP
3. Experience in developing components and component based development is a plus
4. Prior speaking engagements, developer community involvements is a plus
5. Experience with Flash Communication Server is a plus
6. Experience in Flex is a plus
7. Experience in back-end technologies is a plus
Job Description:
The job entails working as part of the development team building Products and Solutions using Macromedia Flash technologies (90% of what we do is product development). This is strictly a development position, although design skills are a plus but not required.
This is an on-site position in Silver Spring, MD (15 minutes from down town Washington D.C.). We are a small, financially stable company with a love for technology. If you are looking for a place to grow, be part of a top-notch team, have your voice be heard, and learn, this is the place. Re-location can be discussed
If interested, please email me chafic at atellis dot com
I’ve been busy for the past few months as a few close friends know setting up a new company called Atellis with my partner Lucas Huang. I haven’t been at B-Line Express for months now but held off on blogging it until everything was officially in place.
So what am I working on? Atellis’s main focus will be product development incidentally using RIA technologies. The plan is to focus most of our efforts on product development and the other on high-end consulting. I’m very excited about it all!
As part of the setup, the new company will be in charge of one of the products I helped build while at B-Line Express for assessing medical students which some might have seen me present about at conferences. I really enjoy working on this product and will continue to enhance, support and sell the product under the new company. Unfortunately I will no longer be involved in BLDoc or the Charting Components and actually haven’t been for a few months.
We are starting up with 9 people and already have a good list of clients from our core product. Now that I have gotten things setup, look for more active blogging too. Lot’s of stuff is happening with Macromedia and I’m looking forward to continue sharing with the community
Visit Atellis (still nothing there, but hopefully in not too long)
Visit B-Line Medical (This is the division of Atellis that will handle the existing product and products focused on the medical industry)
