Friendly and fun.
Flex should be as easy to learn as it is to use. And with Hello! Flex 4, it is! This illustrated tutorial builds your know-how from the first Hello World example up to a practitioner level using an entertaining style that makes learning a breeze. You'll learn to make easy-to-use interfaces, eye-catching animations, and powerful data-driven features.
preface
acknowledgments
about this book
about Hello! books
1. Getting started
Why Flex 4?
Session 1 Hello! Flex
Session 2 Dispatching and listening for events
Session 3 The Bindable annotation and data binding
Session 4 Flex application structure overview
Session 5 Spark, Halo, and Flex 4 namespaces
2. ActionScript 3, XML, and E4X
Session 6 Variables, functions, types, and scope
Session 7 Objects, Arrays, Collections, and Looping
Session 8 Interfaces, casting, is, and as
Session 9 Inheritance
Session 10 E4X, XML, XMLList, and XMLListCollections
3. Hello Spark: primitives, components, FXG and MXML graphics, and even video
Session 11 Spark primitives
Session 12 Simple Spark components
Session 13 Data-driven Spark components (Lists)
Session 14 FXG and MXML graphics — building a game
Session 15 Camera and video — a fake Twitter client
4. Spark containers, view states, effects, and styling
Session 16 Spark containers and layouts
Session 17 View states
Session 18 Effects and animation
Session 19 CSS styling
Session 20 Peeking behind the MXML curtain
Session 21 The Spark component lifecycle
5. Halo Flex 4: Using DataGrid, Navigator Containers, and Popups
Session 22 List and DataGrid
Session 23 TabNavigator, ViewStack, and Accordion
Session 24 Alert.show and the PopupManager
6. Building user-friendly forms using Flex formatters and validators
Session 25 Formatters and validators
Session 26 Real-world forms, formatters, and validators
7. Cairngorm in Action: SocialStalkr (Twitter + Yahoo! Maps)
Creating the SocialStalkr project
Getting started with Twitter
Getting started with Yahoo! Maps
Cairngorm
Cairngorm history and motivation
Downloading and installing Cairngorm 2.2.1
Cairngorm event sequence overview
Creating the main application
Creating the ModelLocator
Creating the control package
Creating CairngormUtils and ServiceUtils
Creating the TwitterDelegate
Creating the commands
Creating the visual components
index
About the book
Hello! Flex 4 progresses through 26 self-contained examples selected so you can progressively master Flex. They vary from small one-page apps, to a 3D rotating haiku, to a Connect Four-like game. And in the last chapter you'll learn to build a full Flex application called SocialStalkr?a mashup that lets you follow your friends by showing their tweets on a Yahoo map.
What's inside
- Create engaging animations and transitions
- Handle user input
- Access and display data
- Communicate with the server
- Use open-source components
About the reader
Whether you're a weekend web developer or you want big things from Flex, this book is a great place to start.
About the author
Peter Armstrong is the co-founder and CEO of Ruboss Technology Corporation, a Vancouver, BC area company focusing on Adobe Flex and Ruby on Rails development and consulting. Peter is also the author of the Manning book Flexible Rails: Flex 3 on Rails 2, the book which inspired the creation of the RestfulX framework, the RESTful way to develop Flex and AIR applications that easily integrate with Ruby on Rails. Peter was a key part of the team that won the 2006 Adobe MAX Award for RIA/Web Development, is the organizer of the Vancouver Ruby/ Rails Meetup group and is a frequent speaker on using Flex and Rails together.