Tom Cornilliac » admin http://www.tomcornilliac.com Flex, AIR and Rich Internet Goodness Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:40:49 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.2 360 Flex Wants Your Opinion http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2007/10/360-flex-wants-your-opinion/ http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2007/10/360-flex-wants-your-opinion/#comments Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:07:00 +0000 admin http://tomcornilliac.netfirms.com/blog/?p=16 The fine folks over at 360 Conferences are soliciting our input to help shape the future of the 360 Flex conferences. If you’ve ever been to a 360 Flex or if you’re simply and opinionated conference attendee please take a minute to complete the short 3 question survey.

]]> http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2007/10/360-flex-wants-your-opinion/feed/ 0 Ruby on Rails VS. ColdFusion http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2007/10/ruby-on-rails-vs-coldfusion/ http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2007/10/ruby-on-rails-vs-coldfusion/#comments Wed, 10 Oct 2007 20:53:00 +0000 admin http://tomcornilliac.netfirms.com/blog/?p=17 A friend of mine IM’d me with a link to this hilarious video, done in the spirit of the Apple Mac VS. PC ads. Now don’t read to much into my posting this on my blog, I like both of these technologies and I’m not choosing sides here. I just like funny when I see it. Video after the jump…

Credit for the production of this video goes to Rails Envy.

]]> http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2007/10/ruby-on-rails-vs-coldfusion/feed/ 0 How to use Eclipse Fast View http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2007/08/how-to-use-eclipse-fast-view/ http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2007/08/how-to-use-eclipse-fast-view/#comments Fri, 31 Aug 2007 21:06:00 +0000 admin http://tomcornilliac.netfirms.com/blog/?p=18 Eclipse Fast View is a very handy feature that enables docking and undocking of Eclipse views. If you consistently find yourself looking for more room in Eclipse then Fast View is for you. The screencast after the jump demonstrates Fast View in action. 


By the way, I created this screencast on OS X with Jing, a very cool piece of freeware from Tech Smith.

]]> http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2007/08/how-to-use-eclipse-fast-view/feed/ 1 Next Flex Beta in Oct, Shipping in Early 2008 http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2007/08/next-flex-beta-in-oct-shipping-in-early-2008/ http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2007/08/next-flex-beta-in-oct-shipping-in-early-2008/#comments Mon, 13 Aug 2007 17:20:00 +0000 admin http://tomcornilliac.netfirms.com/blog/?p=19 Ted Patrick, during the 360 Flex keynote, announced that the next Flex 3.0 beta will be available in October. While he didn’t go so far as to specify when in October I’m hopeful that the timing will coincide with MAX. In addition Ted announced that Flex 3 and AIR will ship in parallel sometime “very early in 2008″.

]]> http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2007/08/next-flex-beta-in-oct-shipping-in-early-2008/feed/ 0 [360 Flex Seattle] “Practical Patterns in Flex” Don’t miss this session http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2007/08/360-flex-seattle-quotpractical-patterns-in-flexquot-dont-miss-this-session/ http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2007/08/360-flex-seattle-quotpractical-patterns-in-flexquot-dont-miss-this-session/#comments Mon, 13 Aug 2007 02:52:00 +0000 admin http://tomcornilliac.netfirms.com/blog/?p=20 I just arrived at 360 Flex (I’m in room 1209) and I’m going over my schedule for the conference. The session topics and speakers are outstanding and I’m having a hard time deciding. Of all the great sessions one in particular stands out to me and I want to point it out here; it’s “Practical Patterns in Flex” by James Echmalian.I’ve had many a Flexy conversation of the last few years and the topic of Design Patterns seems to come up regularly. There’s a real need for knowledge when it comes to implementing design patterns in Flex so I’m happy to see this session on the schedule.

]]> http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2007/08/360-flex-seattle-quotpractical-patterns-in-flexquot-dont-miss-this-session/feed/ 0 How to: Creating an AIR Express Install Badge http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2007/07/how-to-creating-an-air-express-install-badge/ http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2007/07/how-to-creating-an-air-express-install-badge/#comments Thu, 12 Jul 2007 16:53:00 +0000 admin http://tomcornilliac.netfirms.com/blog/?p=21 Creating an AIR express install badge is relatively simple. Adobe has done all the heavy lifting for us, our part consists of a little prep work and configuring some Flashvars. It is our part that I want to focus on in this tutorial.

What you will need to create a badge:
  • AIR SDK (Freely available from Adobe Labs )
  • Image editing software
  • Flash Authoring (only if you want to modify the default badge)
  • Your favorite text editor or IDE

Put simply, the AIR install badge is a SWF that detects the presence of the AIR runtime, if the runtime is not present it downloads and installs it before it downloads and installs your AIR application. The whole experience is remarkably similar to the Flash Express Install so most users should feel comfortable with the process. If (like me) you’re curious as to how the badge functions technically you can view the ActionScript 2.0 source and Badge FLA which are included in the SRC directory of the AIR SDK

Note: At the time of writing the AIR SDK contained an outdated version of the badge. The original badge had some debug code in it and the looks were a little underwhelming (hey it’s beta!). Fortunately Adobe has already updated the badge with amongst other things, a much improved look, just like the AIR samples page. The updated badge has yet to make it into the SDK but you can download it from Adobe. I’ll be using the updated badge for this tutorial.

1. Create your background image for the badge

Create a 215px x 100px image to be used as the background for the badge. The default size for the badge is 217px x 180px, if you deviate from this you will need to adjust your image size accordingly. 

2. Configure the badge SWF

The badge accepts 5 parameters in the form of Flashvars:

 

  1. appname: The name of your AIR application.
  2. appurl: The URL to your AIR application. (http://www.mydomain.com/myAirApp.air)
  3. airversion: Currently “1.0.M4″
  4. buttoncolor:  Hex value of color for the Install button (default is gray)
  5. messgagecolor: Hex value of the color for the text message(s) below the badge (default is black)
  6. imageurl: URL of the background image(step 1) for the badgeThe badge code will end-up looking something like this:
codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=7,0,0,0"width="217" height="180" id="badge" align="middle">value="appname=My%20Application&appurl=http://www.mydomain.com/myAirApp.air&airversion=1.0.M4&buttoncolor=CC0000&messagecolor=000000&imageurl=test.jpg" />name="badge" align="middle" allowScriptAccess="all"type="application/x-shockwave-flash"pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"FlashVars="appname=My%20Application&appurl=http://www.mydomain.com/myAirApp.air&airversion=1.0.M4&buttoncolor=CC0000&messagecolor=000000&imageurl=test.jpg"/>

Of course most all of you are going to want to use some type of Flash detection script. Adobe has provided one in the samples directory of the badge SDK, but I prefer the most excellent SWFObject.That’s basically it. As you can see the process for creating a badge for your AIR application is painless and unless you want to modify the stock SWF you don’t need Flash authoring. If you’re creating an AIR application for distribution I highly recommend taking time to create a badge, believe me your users will thank you.

]]> http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2007/07/how-to-creating-an-air-express-install-badge/feed/ 2 More Pownce invites for the taking http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2007/07/more-pownce-invites-for-the-taking/ http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2007/07/more-pownce-invites-for-the-taking/#comments Tue, 10 Jul 2007 17:45:00 +0000 admin http://tomcornilliac.netfirms.com/blog/?p=22 I’ve got 6 Pownce invites to give away. As usual, the first 6 comments will get them. Please don’t forget to leave me either an email address or your blog URL where I can find an email address.

]]> http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2007/07/more-pownce-invites-for-the-taking/feed/ 0 Setting the MIME type of an Adobe AIR file http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2007/07/setting-the-mime-type-of-an-adobe-air-file/ http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2007/07/setting-the-mime-type-of-an-adobe-air-file/#comments Tue, 10 Jul 2007 16:58:00 +0000 admin http://tomcornilliac.netfirms.com/blog/?p=23 If your web server refuses to serve-up your shiny new AIR app, the problem just might be the MIME type or lack there of.  Mike Chambers posted on this topic awhile back and I bumped into it again yesterday (how quickly we forget!) so I thought I’d blog it for my own sake and yours.

The correct MIME type for AIR apps is:

application/vnd.adobe.air-application-installer-package+zip (sheew that’s a mouthful!)

Consult the documentation of your preffered web server for instructions on setting MIME types.

]]> http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2007/07/setting-the-mime-type-of-an-adobe-air-file/feed/ 0 How to: Extending your Flex Builder 3 beta beyond 30 days http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2007/06/how-to-extending-your-flex-builder-3-beta-beyond-30-days/ http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2007/06/how-to-extending-your-flex-builder-3-beta-beyond-30-days/#comments Tue, 12 Jun 2007 00:08:00 +0000 admin http://tomcornilliac.netfirms.com/blog/?p=24 Let me preface this by saying I’m a typical guy, I don’t read a lot of directions, especially beta directions. I’m usually too darn excited to play with whatever the new toy is. All this is to say what I’m covering here might well be documented somewhere. I just haven’t found it yet.

I was wandering around Flex Builder 3 today (6/11/07) and noticed that my beta copy expires in 29 days. At the time I didn’t know whether to be excited at what the short time span implied or disappointed at the short beta. With a 30 day beta window I would hesitate to give Flex Builder 3 a serious run.

Not to fear though, if you enter your Flex Builder 2 serial it will extend your trial out another 112 days for a total of 142 days from the day you install. Just in time for beta 2 maybe?

]]> http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2007/06/how-to-extending-your-flex-builder-3-beta-beyond-30-days/feed/ 0 onAIR Summer Bus Tour Announced http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2007/06/onair-summer-bus-tour-announced/ http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2007/06/onair-summer-bus-tour-announced/#comments Mon, 11 Jun 2007 05:24:00 +0000 admin http://tomcornilliac.netfirms.com/blog/?p=25 For those of you that have been suffering night terrors ever since you passed on the opportunity to attend Apollo Camp San Francisco, redemption is at hand.

Mike Chambers just twittered/announced the onAIR Summer Bus Tour. Looks like a motley crew of Flex, AIR and Javascript developers are going to pile into a 12 person Prevhost bus and travel to 18 cities over July, August and September.  They’ll be hosting free developer conferences for anyone interested in learning more about Adobe AIR.

Checkout the onAIR Tour web site, it has quite a bit of info even at this early date. They’ll have a “Live From the Bus” feed (oh that should produce some interesting entertainment!) and there’s even an API for the Tour.

I’m excited to see that my nearest “big” city of Portland Oregon is on the tour schedule. Hopefully some of my peeps from COWPU will join me on a trip over the mountain in July.

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