FlexDaddy » actionscript

Cast a loaded Flex Application to an Interface

Andrew Spaulding — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 05:11:37 +0000

Over at The Question Room (or @thequestionroom) the banditos received a bunch of tweet questions about a problem @gertjansmits was having when loading a Flex application with a SWFLoader and casting it to an interface.

They’ve called on my help to get the answer

Download the application FXP (Flash Builder 4 project) or
Run the application (Right click and View Source)

My simple interface class, TestInterface, implements 3 functions, a simple getter/setter pair and a function called sayHello.

TestInterface.as



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package com.flexdaddy
{
	public interface TestInterface
	{
		function get givenName():String
		function set givenName(str:String):void
		function sayHello():void;
	}
}

You first need to make sure the Application you are loading implements this interface. My root application tag looks like this:

LoadedApp.mxml

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 xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"
        implements="com.flexdaddy.TestInterface"
        width="100%" height="100%">

And then in a Script block I make sure to implement all three functions specified above.

LoadedApp.mxml (LoadedApp.swf)

"1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
 xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"
	implements="com.flexdaddy.TestInterface"
	width="100%" height="100%" >
 
	
		
			import mx.controls.Alert;
 
			private var _givenName:String;
 
			public function set givenName( str:String ):void
			{
				_givenName = str;
			}
 
			public function get givenName():String
			{
				return _givenName;
			}
 
			public function sayHello():void
			{
				mx.controls.Alert.show(  "Hello " + givenName );
			}
 
		]]>
	
 
>

Now when loading the LoadedApp application when using a SWFLoader in the main application we first need to do the following:

Listen for a SWFLoader complete event
Cast the SWFLoader content as a SystemManager
Add an event listener on the loaded content for a FlexEvent.APPLICATION_COMPLETE
When FlexEvent.APPLICATION_COMPLETE we can cast event.currentTarget.application to our Interface

This will make sense in the code below. You’ll also notice that after we cast the loaded Flex application to TestInterface we can directly call on any methods or properties implemented from the Interface. In this case I set the givenName and call the sayHello function.

"1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
 xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml">
 
	
	
 
		import mx.events.FlexEvent;
		import mx.managers.SystemManager;
 
		import com.flexdaddy.TestInterface;
 
		private var myLoadedApp:TestInterface;
 
		protected function swfloaderComplete(event:Event):void
		{
			// the SWF Loader has complete but we need to wait for the
			// Flex application to load
 
			var loadedApp:SystemManager = event.target.content as SystemManager;
			loadedApp.addEventListener( FlexEvent.APPLICATION_COMPLETE, loadedAppComplete );
		}
 
		protected function loadedAppComplete( event:FlexEvent ):void
		{
			// cast the loaded application to the Interface
			myLoadedApp = event.currentTarget.application as TestInterface;
			myLoadedApp.givenName = "Flex Daddy";
			myLoadedApp.sayHello();
		}
 
	]]>
	
 
	 source="LoadedApp.swf" complete="swfloaderComplete(event)" />
 
>

And that’s it!

Download the application FXP (Flash Builder 4 project) or
Run the application (Right click and View Source)

Fuze Instant Messaging built on AIR

Andrew Spaulding — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 00:26:17 +0000

Check out the FUZE all-in-one instant messaging app built on AIR. I’m yet to try it because the install badge isn’t working correctly with the Flash Player 9 Update (Moviestar) installed, so it looks like I’ll need to downgrade.

If you’re using the application, please leave a comment and let us know your thoughts.

Google Gears and Adobe Apollo on SQLite

Andrew Spaulding — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 08:38:54 +0000

From Google Developer Day 2007, Sydney Australia –

This morning (well yesterday now that I’m publishing the post), amongst many other announcements, Google released an open source project named “Google Gears“.

Google Gears (BETA) is an open source browser extension that enables web applications to provide offline functionality using following JavaScript APIs:

Store and serve application resources locally
Store data locally in a fully-searchable relational database
Run asynchronous Javascript to improve application responsiveness

From the press release:

We are releasing Gears as an open source project and we are working with Adobe, Mozilla and Opera and other industry partners to make sure that Gears is the right solution for everyone.

But what does this mean for Adobe?

This was one of the first questions to pop up on the Google Gears developer group, and one of the most exciting questions to answer. The Google Gears local storage module and API is similar to the functionality available in the soon to be released Apollo Beta. With a common API users can move seamlessly from developing a web based application with local storage, to being able to access the same local storage from Apollo.

Does Google Gears compete with Apollo? They both enable offline web applications don’t they?

Well no!

It’s a hard shift to make, to truly understand that you’re now developing a desktop application with Apollo. It’s hard because you develop for Apollo using web based technologies. An offline web application using Gears is just that – an offline web application. Apollo is so much more – a desktop application giving you the ability to have file system access, toast like messaging, native OS support, clipboard access, drag and drop between Apollo and the OS, custom window chrome (to really move away from the rectangular bounds) etc… So don’t be confused, there really isn’t any competition, but more a logical step to move from a browser world with a connected application, to running offline with the same data, to a fully integrated desktop application that can do so much more!

The Google Gears announcement has also been covered by –

Ryan Stewart
Mike Chambers (announcing SQLite in Apollo)

And in the press release.

How about an example?

Well to give you a taste of what’s possible Christophe Coenraets has released a Flex-based SQLAdmin for Google Gears with full source code. Remember to have Gears installed prior to running the example live on his domain.

Enjoy!
gdd07
gdd07au

What’s more than just a Flex Calendar?

Andrew Spaulding — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 05:16:38 +0000

The Flex Scheduling Framework of course! A Flex calendaring component is still one of the highest search terms that pops up for Flex Daddy on Google (flex + calendar). The Adobe Consulting team released this open source framework on Adobe Labs a few months back, but given how highly sought after this kind of thing is I thought it was worth another mention.

Check it out at http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Flex_Scheduling_Framework

Ely also has a great calendaring example over on his blog too!

Cairngorm has a new home

Andrew Spaulding — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 07:32:22 +0000

As promised by Steven Webster, Cairngorm is now available on Adobe Labs!
For simplicity you can use http://www.adobe.com/go/cairngorm/ which will be adopted as the standard URL.

Without stealing the spotlight, I’d like to point you back to Steven’s blog. Well done team!

Flash Player 9 and Flash Professional 9 AS3 Preview

Andrew Spaulding — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 07:22:54 +0000

As part of the Flex 2 launch the new Flash Player 9 for Mac PPC and Windows is available for download on the adobe.com Player Download Center. The updated ActionScript 3.0 virtual machine provides a speedy environment for which your Flex 2 applications will run. Not only will you notice the performance increase for AS3 and Flex 2 applications, but also for existing Flash/Flex applications written for earlier releases. This is a great reason to update your Player version, and to notify your customers too! No doubt they will also experience the added benefits.

Also available on Adobe Labs today is the Flash Professional 9 ActionScript 3.0 Preview! So now not only can we take advantage of the updated ActionScript programming language and performance benefits in Flex, but now in the Flash Authoring environment. This only planned preview of the next version of the flash authoring tool is only available to registered users of Flash Professional 8, but allows access to the new ActionScript 3.0 language and the ability to publish Flash Player 9 compatible applications/swf’s.

Bring on the next generation of rich media and internet applications!

Discover the Flash Professional 9 ActionScript 3.0 Preview in this developer center article.

Visit the Flash Player Developer Center www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/ and for ActionScript 3.0 resources visit the ActionScript Technology Center www.adobe.com/devnet/actionscript/

Next Generation Actionscript

Andrew Spaulding — Mon, 17 Oct 2005 22:07:44 +0000

I just spent the last hour in a session with Gary Grossman who gave a great overview of the new features and changes with Actionscript 3.0 and the API. The biggest points imho were the runtime error reporting, more strongly typed and standards compliant AS language, and most importantly the dramatic increase in performance. Many of you may have heard about E4X, and now it is here Such a nice way to code a read XML code on the fly, and treat it like xpath. Very neat.

Also of note was a light weight class which drops the concept of the timeline from the MovieClip class. The Sprite class is a nice light weight object for creating visual components that don’t need the timeline.

For more on Actionscript 3.0 namespaces see this post over at Blairs Blog.

Hmm .. what else. There was so much to cover that I’m sure I missed something but keep an eye out on all the other blogs who are covering MAX

Resizable, Minimizable/Maximizable TitleWindow

Andrew Spaulding — Sun, 06 Mar 2005 12:33:11 +0000

The TitleWindow component does not support resizing and collapsing the window, at least not until recently. Following on from Manish’s ‘Resizable Title Window’, Jesse’s ‘Collapsable Panel’, and Christophe’s ‘Draggable, Minimizable/Maximizable, Configurable Panel’, I felt the need to combine all such functionality into a single class.

The outcome of this was a Resizable, Minimizable/Maximizable TitleWindow. The component is work in progress, and could be approched in a much neater fashion, so consider it a stepping stone if you’re feeling adventurous!

On the roadmap:

Set the minimum height and width of the window for resizing. Currently the buttons and window title overlap. You can also resize the window less than the header height (whoops)
Modify the backgroundImage’s properties (offsets) to display a ‘wedge’ image in the bottom right hand corner. This will help show that the window can be resized.
Make the resize capabilty a modifiable property.
Combine all image assets into one swf/fla file.

That said, feel free to download the sample app and try it out!