Flex 4 and Chromeless AIR applications

I’ve been working on a class for some of our higher education community members. I take the class from an Illustrator comp, through Flash Catalyst, then Flash Builder, and Flex to a Flex Application, then on to an AIR application. Because I’m starting in Catalyst, when I get to the AIR application I don’t really want to use AIR’s chrome. Rather, I’d like to go chromeless and let the UI handle things like closing the application and whatnot.

I found a good tutorial on doing chromeless AIR applications. But no matter what I tried, I couldn’t get rid of this big blank whitespace in my application, despite following the directions to the letter.

After a lot of trial and error it turns out that the old way of making the Application background disappear using CSS (step 6 in the article) doesn’t work with the new component model. Instead you have to use a custom skin on the WindowedApplication tag.

The following skin works for me. I’m by no means an expert at this skinning stuff yet, but it gets the job done.








Now let me make it clear. There may be another way to do this. There may be a better way of doing it. It’s also possible that this is the flat out wrong way to do it. But when I searched for this, I got nothing. So I figured, I could at least help somebody just get the job done, and worry about “the right way” later.

User Group Tour – Clarification

A few people have asked me about the tour and the status of their city.

Allow me to explain a little more. Adobe is doing a whirlwind tour of 119 cities over two weeks. We will be talking about both Flex 4 and ColdFusion 9. Since we are going for a short intense tour, there are many of us doing our own unique tour agendas. Tours are being done by more people than I can name. If your city is not on my list, it may very well be on someone else’s list.

Luckily there is a reference of all of the stops, check out Ted Patrick’s blog entry on the tour.

User Group Tour

Ben blogged it so I guess I’m free to now.

We’re doing a multi-city tour of ColdFusion and Flex user groups. I’ll be talking about the next version of both products, currently code named Centaur and Gumbo respectively. Here’s the schedule:

  • Albany, NY – 6/16
  • Hartford, CT – 6/17
  • East Lansing, MI – 6/18
  • Bloomington, IN – 6/22
  • San Antonio, TX – 6/23
  • Houston, TX – 6/24
  • Austin, TX – 6/25
  • Dallas, TX – 6/26

Flex BugQuash 2: Wrath of Bateman

A few months back we held our first Flex BugQuash. This event brings together Flex developers and Adobe staff, both remote and local, in order to start knocking bugs out of the SDK.

It was so successful that we’re doing it again. This time it will be the day before 360Flex in Indianapolis (or May 17th)

You do need to register. You don’t have to be going to 360Flex to participate, but you do in order to be part of the local group doing it.

ColdFusion Flex Roadshow Dallas & Los Angeles

I’ll be doing the ColdFusion Flex Roadshow in Dallas and Los Angeles this coming week. The point is to give ColdFusion developers a jumpstart in Flex.

If you have always wanted to know how to get started in but haven’t gotten over the initial learning curve, this event is for you. Even better – the event is free. So come on and check out the ColdFusion Flex Roadshow.

  • April 21, 2009 9:30AM – 2:00PM in Dallas, TX
  • April 23, 2009 9:30AM – 2:00PM in Los Angeles, CA

Register online beforehand.

Flex Builder Free for the Unemployed

A few weeks ago I tweeted about getting free licenses of Flex Builder for victims of the current economic craptaculon. It was an informal test balloon while we got the formal plan in place. I’m pleased to announce that as of Friday, Adobe has formalized this program. Here are the details:

Today we have launched an updated https://freeriatools.adobe.com/ and it now includes a link for “Flex Builder for unemployed developers” https://freeriatools.adobe.com/learnflex/.

A cool additional piece is that when you apply you also get 60 days of free access to Safari Books’ collection of Adobe Developer Library titles.

ColdFusion Flex Roadshow – San Francisco & Denver

Just a note, I’ll be doing the ColdFusion Flex Roadshow in San Francisco and Denver next week. If you have always wanted to know how to get started in Flex but haven’t gotten over the initial learning curve, this event is for you. Even better – the event is free. So come on and check out the ColdFusion Flex Roadshow.

  • April 1, 2009 9:30AM – 2:00PM at San Francisco, CA
  • April 3, 2009 9:30AM – 2:00PM at Denver, CO

Register online beforehand.

ColdFusion + AIR applications

I’m just getting started into this evangelist thing, and I’m having trouble figuring out what AIR applications out there are being powered by ColdFusion on the backend. The only one that comes to mind for me at the moment is Broadchoice.

Can the ColdFusion community help me find the following?

AIR applications using either Flex or HTML/JS that use ColdFusion for any part of their backend

Please send URL’s and any commentary to the comments of this page. Alternately, contact me through my contact page if you’re willing to help, but can’t talk about these things publicly.

How to Get Started With Flex

Due to a recent tweet of mine, I’ve received an influx of requests on how to get started with Flex. Here’s how to get started with Flex:

Go to the Flex Download Site to download the 60 day free trial version of Adobe Flex Builder 3.

Then to learn Flex, check out the following:

  • Flex In a Week is a free video training course that will help you get the most of your new Flex Builder software in just a few days.
  • Flex.org is an invaluable portal with links to all sorts of Flex information, know-how, learning, opportunities, and more.
  • Tour de Flex is a desktop application for exploring Flex capabilities and resources, including the core Flex components, Adobe AIR and data integration, as well as a variety of third-party components, effects, skins, and more.

Anyone else have good resources for learning Flex?

Flex Camp Miami

If you’re looking to get a leg up on your Flex knowledge, or see a preview of what’s coming in Flex 4, you should head to Flex Camp Miami on March 6th.

Flex Camp Miami
March 6th 8am – 5pm
BankUnited Center
University of Miami
Register

Flash Camp

Flash Camps are technical showcases for the Flash platform. At these events top speakers from both Adobe and the Flash Platform community show off both code samples and demos, to both help jump start new developers and inspire proficient developers with new areas to explore.