« March 2009 | Main | May 2009 »
April 25, 2009
Wordle
I can't remember the last time I used a Java applet, and so I couldn't help but post about Wordle, a fun (and perhaps useful) way to spend a few minutes.
The site provides a lot of options for creating word clouds from text or links. The image above is from the site and is created from just entering http://deitte.com. The one annoying part of the site is that I had to use a screen capture program, Bug Shooting, in order to get the image to embed. But you can link to word images you create on their site.
Wordle can also be helpful for surveys or other text from customers to visualize the responses. I found the site via Caren Cioffi at Brightcove through Yammer, and she was using it for this purpose.
The Demand for IFrames in Flex
No matter what I've tried, the demand for iframes in Flex doesn't go away. Recently there's been a number of interesting comments on an old post of mine about Embedding HTML in a Flex application using an IFrame. Dennis wrote new instructions for using the code in Flex Builder 3, ariel linked to an issue with Firefox zooming, and Kedungwuluh linked to an example application.
All of these comments come after I've essentially stopped commenting on the iframe posts that I've written. There's also some great alternatives, as linked in the Embedding HTML post, which have had more active development than my solution. And most importantly, I've written Don't Use IFrames for HTML in Flex which I prominently link to in the Embedding HTML post.
But my passive and active attempts at moving people away from the iframe post hasn't worked at all. The post is consistently the most popular on this blog, getting about 3500 views a month, and the 159 comments keep growing. Of course, writing all this new information isn't going to help, but I don't think it really matters. Obviously the solution is good enough for a lot of people. And there's a lot of people still searching for a really good solution for HTML in Flex.
April 20, 2009
Brightcove and Adobe Announce Alliance
I was happy to see the announcement of a strategic alliance between Brightcove and Adobe. The alliance will focus on a few areas: long-form HD video, content protection for video, Adobe Creative Suite integration, collaboration on Adobe's new player framework (known as Strobe), and some sales and marketing collaboration.
Since I came from Adobe about two and half years ago and use Flex and Flash every day, it's not too surprising that I'm excited to see Brightcove have an even stronger relationship with Adobe. I'll also be very interested in checking out Strobe more to see the ways that we can work with it.
You can read some more about the alliance in an interview with Jeff Whatcott.
April 12, 2009
Boston Flash Platform User and Design Patterns and Beer at Brightcove Group
The Flash platform user group at the Brightcove office has been going through a bit of an identity crisis lately. The sessions used to be focused on design patterns, but lately we've been veering off into the general Flash platform territory. This has led to some great talks, but it's a little confusing. It can't be called the Boston Flash Platform Group, as this is an offshoot of the meeting in Brookline. So how about my name in the title of the post? Everyone will remember BFPUDPBBG.
In any case, the group is always looking for good speakers, whether it's talking about design patterns, a new open source project you're working on, or anything else you can dream up about Flash and Flex. Want to talk? Send an email on to boston.flash.platform@gmail.com, and Sam Robbins (or if he's busy, Doug Martilla or me) will get back to you.
Want to learn more about the group? Join the mailing list, which will also tell you about the meetings in Brookline.
We're always happy to welcome new people to the group, whether for one meeting or every month. You'll always learn some new things, have some pizza and beer, and can join us at Characters after the meeting. Check the mailing to make sure, but they almost always occur the first Wednesday of the month at 7pm. They're at the Brightcove office, which is right near the Kendall Square subway at One Cambridge Center. Just go inside the building and tell the security officer why you're there. You can then go up to the 12th floor and someone will let you in.
Bindable Getters and Getting Faster
We had a "bring your questions" session at our last Boston Flash User Group meeting at Brightcove, and I thought three of the items I answered would be helpful for more people to read.
Bindable Getters: If you're creating a component for someone else to use, you don't have to expose a setter for a bindable property. It's not very obvious that you can just expose a getter from the documentation, but it's simple to do. When you set up the getter, name the event for the Bindable property:
[Bindable(event="changeMyProp")]
public function get myProp():String {
return _myProp;
}
Then when you set the value for the property, dispatch the named event. That's it:
_myProp = "my value";
// dispatch the event so that bound listeners know about the change
dispatchEvent(new Event("changeMyProp"));
Public MXML: Also on the subject of creating components, it was asked whether one should choose MXML or ActionScript for a class that's being used as a component. In general, I suggest to use ActionScript. This is because of all the public variables that are exposed when you use MXML, since all of the UI elements set up in the XML are public. This violates the open/closed principle and can be a problem for components that are used outside of a small project.
Fast and Stable: If you've been unsure if you can use the Faster
Flex SDK for your own project, it should make you feel better that it's being used to build the Brightcove players that run on the New Yorks Times and many other major websites. So if you're concerned about the stability of the changes, I wouldn't worry about it. It's also being used at Brightcove to build some very large Flex manager applications without any problems.
