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Archive for January, 2012

Apache Flex :: Flex-Dev

January 26th, 2012 Michael Schmalle 6 comments

Hi,

Well I have made it 3 weeks in a row with the flex-dev summaries and then yesterday a nice winter sickness. It’s funny how being in an altered state can get you thinking about things.

For now I am putting these summaries on hold since well, in my opinion Apache Flex is at a stall right now. JIRA migration and full module support is definitely proving to be a slow down for any real progress. I have some other projects that need attention and talking about more or less gossip on the list is not what I call fun.

I hope the issues with Adobe get cleared up sooner than later. I was ready to get going on this project but, there is really not much you can do right now unless you can afford to burn money and time chatting like at a bus stop.

I will be back on the flex-dev airwaves as soon as there is something to talk about.

Mike

Apache Flex :: Flex-Dev summaries 20

January 24th, 2012 Michael Schmalle 2 comments

Monday always has a bit of a bite. Sentiments of Monday followed this with various subjects revolving around inpatients. I guess it’s only natural when your future hangs in the balance of belief.

Logo final round

Well, Doug posted a thread yesterday for the final round of the logo contest. This will decide the winner and communities favorite.

For information on voting see;

http://incubator.apache.org/flex/logo-contest.html

Component cloning

This was an out of the blue request, DisplayObject cloning. I have to admit I have never really needed this in the apps I have made. Alex mentioned and API could be added to create such a feature but the, what are the use cases?

From my perspective, if you can’t create a utility from the outside that calls public API on a component to clone it OR holds state that initializes the component from say an application model, you are trying to do to much.

I don’t think this will ever be an option in the framework. There really are already ways to accomplish this as stated.

Component Behavior Pattern

This topic has been flying around not just in the mailing list but on a couple blogs as well. I am no stranger to behaviors, fact is back in 2008 I wrote a complete framework from Flex 3 using them as a prototype experiment. Didn’t really get any exposure, I did get four favorite stars in google code for it!

So anyway, this subject really relates to the original thread I started on the list about Modularity and Interfaces. As Alex keeps pointing out, we live in a constrained environment(Flash Player), rules have to be bent and broken all the time to provide optimum performance.

There are draw backs to composition as Alex points out. A major consideration is the line between granularity and performance. It’s noted that although breaking a class up into parts allows flexibility, we then incur the cost of calling the proxied methods of the composed object. So here is the problem, there is not a way with the current constraints of the system to actually create a “purist” behavior pattern. Oh the engineers in us wish we could because it would make life 10 times easier, but we have to realize that any design pattern we can come up with is going to have the flaw of overhead in the Flash Player.

State of the project

The state of the project was discussed, what is that you say? State, you know where is it at. What are the future goals, what promises have been made, why are we here. I feel these answer will come in the next couple weeks. The wiki has been created and I think there is an effort to have a page that allows for the community to see the progress of all these questions.

Coding conventions

Coding conventions and best practices was brought again by a new community member, it seems as though that subject has quote “been beat to a pulp”. So a community member was kind enough to use markmail links to guide the new member to the 100′s of threads written on the subject.

Ah, how sweet is that. :)

Tagging on the list

Tagging for list threads was also mentioned for adding more clarity to a subject line of a post. IE [SomeCategory], explains where the subject belongs in a namespace fashion.

Folks, I have had enough experience with forums and mailing lists to say, whatever order you try and achieve will never work. Mainly due to the influx of new members and the fact it’s community driven from all over the world.

Moral of the story is, create email folders like flex-dev, flex-user, flex-commit, setup email filters to push anything from the said emails into the folders. As an added bonus, use an email client that can sort mailing lists by thread when you are looking at them. You good to go using this pattern.

Note; The only flaw with this is when members start new subjects in a reply to another subject. Then threading goes to well you know.

Conclusion

Monday, its definitely not Friday.

Thanks for reading,
Mike

AIR Mobile :: Dialog solutions with components

January 23rd, 2012 Michael Schmalle No comments

On top of the other things I am tackling of late, I am starting a series on components I have developed for commercial sale. The MobileUI Toolkit 1 was released at the end of 2011 and I haven’t gone into to much definition with all of the Apache Flex information I have been throwing around.

I have created this set out of researching some of the most used and unimplemented features for mobile right now in relation to AIR mobile. As we all know Adobe has donated Flex to Apache and will no longer develop mobile components for AIR, the Apache Flex community will be aiming at that.

In the interim Teoti Graphix, LLC has developed solutions to some common mobile component implementations. The Dialog and PopUp are the target of my first introduction.

I have already put a huge amount of time into Apache Flex and trying to show my complete support of it’s future. On the other hand, I am trying to offer solutions with mobile components that you will not see from Adobe. Yes, I am advertising my services but at the same time have shown that as an initial committer to Apache Flex, my livelihood also depends on the success of this project.

If you purchase our component sets, you will be guaranteed top notch support and feature requests to add onto the already heavy functionality our components offer. The components are unit tested and have the option of source code purchase as well. I have been developing components since Macromedia Flash MX, I stand by whatever components we release as professional and documented.

Mobile UI Product Page :: http://teotigraphix.com/components/toolkits/MobileUIToolkit1

To show the innovation here is a screenshot of the DigitalDisplay component set coming up.

The components are fully dynamic and have a huge amount of style variation possibilities. Each component uses a provider so in respect to the grid, it can be configured to create any type of 5×7 digital glyph.

The PopUp Class

The PopUp class is an attempt at an inversion of control for popups. The idea is, the pattern for dialogs and alerts don’t change, so create a class that controls these aspects and composes an actual SkinnablePopUpContainer and configures the component instance.

I actually have the base part of this framework I have put up on my whiteboard for Apache Flex see;

http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator/flex/whiteboard/mschmalle/mobile-popups/

The idea is simple, encapsulate and allow the popup components to function independently of their UIComponents that don’t need to change.

A simple Hello World makeText() example

Use the makeText() method within an event handler.

Code:

PopUp.makeText("Hello World", PopUp.LENGTH_LONG).show();

Simple text PopUp

The above example;

  • Creates a TextDialog
  • Passes the Hello World message to the content
  • Sets the duration on the screen to LENGTH_LONG which is 4 seconds
  • Calls the PopUp.show() method to create and show the underlying TextDialog instance

Text wrapping in the TextDialog

Use the \n character to create newlines in the dialogs message text.

Code:

PopUp.makeText("Hello World, Hello World,\nHello World,Hello World," +
	"Hello World,\nHello World,Hello World, ", PopUp.LENGTH_LONG).show();

PopUp wrapped text

A simple Hello World makeContent() example

The PopUp.makeContent() method allows a custom content to be assigned to the dialog when created.

Code:

[Embed(source="assets/common/android_normal.png")]
private var iconClass:Class;
 
protected function makeContent_clickHandler(event:MouseEvent):void
{
	var content:IconLabelRenderer = new IconLabelRenderer();
	content.icon = iconClass;
	content.text = "Hello makeContent()!";
	PopUp.makeContent(content, PopUp.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
}

Content renderer PopUp

The above example;

  • Embeds and icon for use in the custom content
  • Creates a new MXML declared IconLabelRenderer
  • Sets the icon and text property on the custom content
  • Calls PopUp.makeContent() and passes the instantiated content to be shown within the PopUp's dialog

The PopUp.makeDialog() method

A simple Hello World makeDialog() example

The PopUp.makeDialog() method allows a custom dialog to be created, the popup duration is automatically set to 0. This means the close() method of the dialog will need to be called when interaction is finished.

The method automatically sets the Dialogs;

  • contentRenderer – The IFactory used to display the dialog’s view
  • title – The String displayed in the titlebar
  • icon – The Object displayed in the titlebar

Code:

protected function makeDialog_clickHandler(event:MouseEvent):void
{
	PopUp.makeDialog(new ClassFactory(DeclartiveDialog), "Hello Dialog!", titleIconClass).show();
}

The Dialog can be made using the fx:Declarations tag with a child fx:Component tag;

<fx:Declarations>
<fx:Component className="DeclartiveDialog">
<s:VGroup xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009" 
		  xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark" 
		  paddingTop="10" paddingRight="10" paddingBottom="10" paddingLeft="10">
	<fx:Script>
 
			import com.teotigraphix.ui.events.DialogEvent;
 
	</fx:Script>
 
	<s:Label text="This is a Label" 
			 color="#FFFFFF" fontWeight="bold"/>
 
	<s:Button label="OK" 
			  click="dispatchEvent(new DialogEvent(DialogEvent.DIALOG_CLOSE, true, false))"
			  width="100%"/>
</s:VGroup>
</fx:Component>
</fx:Declarations>

Will result in the following;

PopUp custom Dialog

Note the DialogEvent.DIALOG_CLOSE event dispatched from the click handler of the Button. This event is listened to by the PopUp and dismisses the Dialog when the event is dispatched.

Note also that the fx:Component declaration could easily be moved to a custom MyDialog.mxml file for better reuse.

The next article will be talking about the Alert part of the framework.

If you are curious to find more information right now, be sure to checkout the online help documents here;

http://www.teotigraphix.com/reference

Thanks for reading,
Mike

Apache Flex :: Flex-Dev summaries 19

January 23rd, 2012 Michael Schmalle No comments

Well the weekend was probably the summation of a very active 2 weeks on the list. The main highlights were the SDK being committed without automation and required modules. Moving ahead in conversation today, various community members are voicing their frustrations at Adobe for legal issues regarding the above missing modules.

I have to admit, it’s hard to get on the road to the future when your still looking for the other shoe which is happening right now. On a positive note, what will be will be and the more time you spend talking about what isn’t the less time you talk about what is and will be.

Enough philosophy, my point is the future of a lot of developers ride on the next two months and what will happen to the Apache Flex project as a whole. I can’t stress enough that a project moving from a commercial entity to opensource like Apache is BOUND to have legal problems in the beginning. It’s up to us right now to fix and create a base structure for the time when these issues become non existent.

Adobe and legal statements

It has been asked on the list that Apache Flex get solid answers from Adobe about the missing modules and a time frame when these things will be resolved. Is this actually possible? Nope, and the more time debating who screwed up or where the answers come from just fragments the community further.

Community patches

Here is another area where patients wins. JIRA is the place for the community to place patches for the SDK. Yup, JIRA has not had the Adobe issues migrated yet. We need to wait, well, just wait.

Apache Flex versioning

The most talked about subject since the logo. What seems to be the consensus? Using years is prone to debacle, sticking with Adobe’s versioning scheme sounds like the consensus, so there you go.

Issues with the build

Yes, more issues but the build was not completely tested. The README.txt was tested and does work, so here again to soon to expect inflated tires.

Conclusion

Have you ever tried moving from one house to another? Major stress, disorganization, missing possessions, staled agreements, etc. This is the same dynamic happening with Apache Flex. If you can see the future and that a larger home will benefit, patients will always be the best remedy for issues that are utterly out of ones control.

Thanks for reading,
Mike

Apache Flex :: Flex-Dev summaries 18

January 22nd, 2012 Michael Schmalle No comments

Short and sweet today. The code is in, many different ways of building it are surfacing. From the command line, maven and Flash Builder.

I will get a more comprehensive list this week as the code settles in a bit more.

Conclusion

The calm after the storm. Voting is over, code is in. This next week should be more about the future plans of the project now. What is going to happen to what and where?

Mike

Apache Flex :: Hello Apache Flex SDK

January 21st, 2012 Michael Schmalle 5 comments

Hi,

I just have to post this image since well, it was a first for me actually. I have never once actually built the SDK using the build file when it was opensource at Adobe. I was just another user downloading new versions and updates.

Well, I am a visual person by choice, the command line I try to stay away from at all costs. So I thought for those that haven’t touched the command line in a while would like to know that it is possible to build this monster with Flash Builder. I don’t know if you can just use Eclipse with ANT, I haven’t tried that but I’m guessing there are some settings in FlashBuilder that allowed me to build it so easily.

Basically you need to do this;

  • Download the Open Source 4.6 SDKhttp://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Download+Flex+4.6
  • Choose a location for the new SDK and extract the archive.
  • Open the extracted folder’s frameworks directory and delete all contents.
  • Checkout the http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator/flex/whiteboard/frameworks into the emptied frameworks folder. (this took 15 minutes on a fast connection for me checking out the whole trunk)
  • Open Flash Builder and create a new default Project (just a simple project no natures)
  • Create a new folder in the project, Click Advanced and “Link to alternate location”
  • Navigate to the frameworks directory you just created and select it for the folder location.
  • Open the frameworks folder in the new linked folder.
  • Right click on the build_framework.xml and select Run As Ant Build

You should see ANT’s gears turning in the console. The build took my laptop 5 minutes to complete after it downloaded the air and player dependencies.

You then create a new SDK pointing to the new folder that was extracted earlier(the parent of the frameworks directory). Then create a new Flex Project using that new Apache Flex 2012 SDK!

And voila, we have my first hello world app with Apache Flex binary!

Hello Apache Flex

Note: I used the framework directory link for simplicity since all I was dealing with was the root of the frameworks directory.

There is currently a bug that I want to fix in the build file but I need an answer on which flash player the SDK is using. As of today to get this working you need to change the player/11 directory to player 11.1. This will be fixed soon.

There is a difference in player numbers between the build.xml and build_framework.xml files that needs to be fixed.

Let me know if this doesn’t work for you.

Mike

Apache Flex :: Flex-Dev summaries 17

January 21st, 2012 Michael Schmalle No comments

Well folks, the first drop of the Apache Flex SDK is now in the whiteboard, it’s your job to build it and test in your applications/IDEs. Lets see if anything broke so we can get a first release out sooner than later.

SVN commit r1234192

This will be the commit that has established Apache Flex as a community first framework. Carol managed to commit the framework to the whiteboard/frameworks folder in SVN without SVN with history for now.

http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator/flex/whiteboard/frameworks

The framework does not have the compiler, mustella test suite and automation yet. These modules have yet to pass through Adobe legal and will be contributed later.

JIRA issue migration is the other important factor that is still being worked on as well.

Logo contest

The logo contest is at it’s final day of voting so if you haven’t voted yet, get on the list and submit your vote.

More information for the rules of voting here;

http://markmail.org/message/zfr64u4guwvlumcc

Button.buttonMode = true

Once the source was committed, Omar suggested a first commit and that had to do with the spark Button’s buttonMode property set to true.

This then started a conversation about being careful about version compatibility and breaking someones app or altering the expected user experience.

Alex then suggested creating a style for that change. This way, you keep the default backwards compatibility and also allow developers to use this hand, pointer custom cursor setup in a style theme.

As the conversation proceeded with community members chiming in, it was also noted that on top of the style you could then customize the cursor with Embed or ClassReference.

s|Button
{
    cursor: ClassReference("com.project.CustomCursor");
}

OR

s|Button
{
    cursor: hand;
}

I’m just using this first example as proof of the power in community decisions and brainstorming. Whether this change is committed is up to the community but, one thing is for sure, “It’s up to the community!“.

Faster GroupingCollection

Ryan Frishberg added a refactoring to the GroupingCollection2 in his whiteboard. He says that it’s 1.5-2x faster than GroupingCollection2 and using summary rows tends to be around 50x faster GroupingCollection2.

If community members are interested, he said we could talk about adding it to the main framework once testing is up and running.

Source; http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator/flex/whiteboard/frishy/FastGroupingCollection/

Apache Flex SDK versioning

The sdk versioning is something that is going to need to be figured out and there are really two options.

- Keep using the old Adobe 4.x tradition
- Break from Adobe and call it Apache Flex 2012.x

The last option uses the year as the main version number and also establishes a pseudo version 1.0 for Apache Flex. This option was suggested by Alex and I will quote him;

I just got confirmation that FlashBuilder will not be using years, so my proposal is that Apache Flex uses years. The first release, even if it is just approximate parity with Adobe Flex 4.6 would be called “Apache Flex 2012″. Any other release cut this year would be a point release (“Apache Flex 2012.1

Your duty as an Apache Flex community member

Dear development community, this is the best way to get involved in the Apache Flex project right now, build it!

I haven’t actually done this yet but, you can best bet I will have a visual guide up sooner than later showing people how to do it.

For now, there is the all powerful README.txt in the root of the frameworks folder.

See; http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator/flex/whiteboard/frameworks/README.txt

For now, it will take some one that has some experience building with ANT to get it going. I have on my list of todos to create a visual tutorial to help other community members get on their feet and build with ANT using the README.txt instructions.

The more community members we can get to build this and report back to the flex-dev list about problems, the faster we can get Apache Flex up on it’s feet and get that first release out to show our supporters how solid our development community is.

Conclusion

I have to admit I was surprised to see the code. That was a great surprise though! Now the adventure begins and we can work together to get Apache Flex stable, setup and release Apache Flex 2012!

Thanks for reading,
Mike

Apache Flex :: Flex-Dev Summaries 16

January 20th, 2012 Michael Schmalle 1 comment

The week flew by with the logo contest and voting, huge community involvement, the creation of the flex-users mailing list and some rock solid information on the Falcon compiler.

SVN code commit

Well unfortunately the Flex 4.x source code has not made it’s way into the repository yet. The problem now is the Adobe donated code is staged but it includes a lot of Adobe’s other projects as well that need to be filtered out before Carol is able to hand the source code off to Apache Infrastructure to do the final dump (keeping the history is the major problem along with the sheer size she is dealing with to filter).

So we are keeping our fingers crossed for next week! Again I will say, you have to give it up for Carol and Alex. The amount of time they have put into this source code with legal, worrying about migrating Adobe JIRA bugs, etc. I am sure they are ready for a vacation.

Logo contest voting

The logo contest voting is happening as we read so if you haven’t voted for the new Apache Flex logo, give it a try! The vote lasts until 01-21-2012 around 9PM GMT I think.

More information for the rules of voting here;

http://markmail.org/message/zfr64u4guwvlumcc

and you can see the Flex-Dev 15 for more information as well.

Falcon compiler update

Well this subject was so exciting for me I couldn’t even wait posting about it, see yesterdays blog post.

The short story; Gordon Smith from the Adobe Falcon team was kind enough to update the flex-dev list with enough information to get any parser/compiler freak excited.

Features

- designed from the ground up with cross compiling in mind
- designed to support multiple compiling targets in multiple projects in a workspace
- multiple threads to compile multiple files at the same time
- In memory workspace/project data structures give highlevel symbol table of class/interface/functions etc
- Solid Document Object Model for read/write on the parse tree
- understands .as, .mxml, .css and .properties files
- parse trees for AS consists of about 100 classes such as LiteralNode, BinaryOperatorNode, ClassNode
- MXML parse tree looks the same with nodes such as MXMLDocumentNode, MXMLInstanceNode, MXMLScriptNode
- uses 3rd party grammars to create the various lexers, parsers and code generators with ANTLR, JFlex and JBurg parser generators
- MXML is compiled directly to ABC, not AS source code or AS parse tree

From a tool developers perspective this is such great news. These specs given also allow some prediction that a whole new ecosystem of tools can emerge because the Code Model and DOM is not connected to any IDE!

I’m sure I will be posting more on this subject, stay tuned.

See; ApacheFlex :: Falcon compiler update

Trace & Log

A community member that is well know in the logging community was testing the water to see if there was interest in compile time injection of file and line location of log calls (plus a bit more but I’m not a logging guru).

- Granulate logs to methods or files.
- Less coding for the user. Granulate without currently needed boilerplate code.
- More verbose. Show where the particular log statements have been originating from.

Quote from Martin;

The granularity is important if someone has long files, I am thinking of the UIComponent example right now.

The verbosity (line number and location) is very important for bug tracking or code functionality understanding.

The simplicity is very important for developers who dislike to write a lot of boilerplate code.

Apache Flex wiki

The wiki came up again and looks like there are some community members that could put this to use sooner than later (myself included).

I could see this possibly turning into another group “learning experience” if we do not agree from the start how to structure “places” on the wiki.

I do love the versatility of wikis but, if they are not at least thought out a little bit, navigating them can be a pain in the WIKI. :)

Conclusion

It’s been a fun week, I think about the only thing that didn’t happen this week that the community thought would happen was the source code commit(but we all understand why).

If you were to skim these summaries for the week you would find the following highlights;

  • Logos, logos … LOGOS!
  • Apache Flex Versioning
  • Flex Charts
  • DataGrid Performance
  • DropDownList working on Mobile
  • Spoon Community Call Feb 2nd
  • Falcon compiler source code / Falcon architecture
  • Apache Flex JIRA
  • Method Overloading
  • Source Code Commit
  • Lightweight Event handling
  • Dependency on Adobe
  • Line size determines code quality

Thanks for reading,
Mike

ApacheFlex :: Falcon compiler update

January 19th, 2012 Michael Schmalle 1 comment

Hi,

Wow a blog post that is not a summary, well yeah it is another summary but it’s about something that I am really excited about. I have in previous posts expressed my enthusiasm about the new compiler that has been designed from the ground up with cross compiling in mind. How can you not get excited about something that was designed to take on the new decade of multiple technologies!

Well, Gordon Smith of Adobe and Falcon team member for 18 months just gave the flex-dev list a huge update for compiler fanatics like myself. In previous emails he did express interest in getting the community some Javadocs showing the API of the Falcon compiler. Well today he gave us nuts about as much information as we needed to really get geared up and maintain respectable patients over the issue of the compilers donation.

Enough of the boring talkative post, let’s get down to the nitty gritty of information he provided.

Falcon from the beginning was designed to support multiple compiling targets in multiple projects in a workspace. This means that the team really went out of their way to develop a code model that was independent of an IDE. This is great news because it means there are probably a lot of use cases that can be had outside of an IDE regarding tools.

Falcon uses multiple threads to compile multiple files at the same time! Yes, a multi-threaded parser/compiler, nice. As he said, the more cores you have, the faster it goes.

Data structures such as the symbol table which stores information about the types(classes, interfaces, functions) and the members they hold are shared across the compiling workspace. This means you have access to the high-level DOM of your parsing/compiling project fed with source files and SWCs I would imagine. This reduces memory.

Other critical data structures are maintained in memory (IE parse tree DOM) are available on a per file basis to support things such as code intelligence in an IDE. This also paves the way for intelligent editing of the parse tree! Yes, this is so cool! Basically the team has created a rock solid Document Object Model for reading and writing ActionScript. Being able to read and write the DOM in memory is going to open up a HUGE opportunity for tooling developers.

Gordon noted that in the current Flash Builder setup, FB creates a parse tree and when the mxmlc compiler is executed, the mxmlc compiler creates an additional parse tree, huge waste of memory and performance. We can now see why the Falcon compiler is going to change the game for expectations dealing with Apache Flex.

The Falcon compiler understands .as, .mxml, .css and .properties files currently.

Gordan states that the parse trees for AS consists of about 100 classes such as LiteralNode, BinaryOperatorNode, ClassNode etc. (Wow this really sounds familiar!, jasblocks :) ) I’m not even comparing the two but it’s nice to know the 2 years I worked on studying parsers, lexers and AS DOM is not going to waste. The MXML parse tree looks the same with nodes such as MXMLDocumentNode, MXMLInstanceNode, MXMLScriptNode, etc.

Falcon uses 3rd party grammars to create the various lexers, parsers and code generators with ANTLR, JFlex and JBurg parser generators.

MXML is compiled directly to ABC, not AS source code or AS parse tree.

Well, as you can see this is definitely the land of OZ for tooling developers once this is released. There is always a chance I could be wrong but having enough experience with this parsing stuff, I would say there are some very interesting days ahead regarding Apache Flex’s new engine!

Mike

Categories: apacheflex Tags: , ,

ApacheFlex :: Flex-Dev summaries 15

January 19th, 2012 Michael Schmalle 1 comment

Logos, logos … LOGOS!

By the time these last two weeks are over, I don’t think I will need to say or think about the word logo for awhile. Kind of like the beginning of a box of chocolate, by the end it’s more about finishing the box than enjoying the last ones.

I’m glad this logo “fiasco” happened, for without the mighty grace of the word LOGO there would be 1000′s of people that have no idea what Apache Flex is right now. From the standpoint of advertisement, I think we hit the mark as community members.

For factual information, the LOGO Vote is happening. Ah yes, community votes are coming in right now.

Markmail

Markmail Logo voting Instructions

Apache

Apache Mail Logo voting Instructions

Please vote via mailing list (flex-dev@incubator.apache.org on Topic “[VOTE] Logo contest“).

For now, be prepared to see the subject line “Re: [VOTE] Logo contest” many times if you are subscribed to the flex-dev mailing list.

Spoon

Spoon’s presence and mission was an interesting topic. I had mentioned the open call that Jonathan brought up on the list yesterday. Since this is a world wide project, there seemed to be an understanding in misunderstanding.

Michael Labriola from Spoon also tried to smooth out the wrinkles of misunderstanding. Check out the rest of that thread if you’re interested.

Mike’s outlined Reply

Flex 3.x SDK Support

The topic of the Flex 3 SDK support is something that has come up again. Community members from the enterprise have chimed in stating that a lot of major enterprise flex applications are still using the 3.x SDK. There was an initial question as to whether the SDK will be supported in Apache Flex. This sounds like a no brainer but, it wasn’t clear when this code base was going to be contributed.

Long story short, Alex and Carol seem to be having a little bit harder time getting all the legal preparations and clearances for the Flex 4.x SDK that originally expected. I’m sure once the 4.x version is finally committed to SVN, 3.x will be the next hurdle to jump and will eventually be in SVN as well.

Alex mentions;

Right now, I think there will be a window of time in April and May when I was going to make contributions to 4.6. (After that, I’m hoping to start prepare Falcon for Apache). If we hear enough requests for 3.x vs 4.6 work, I would consider trying to get 3.x donated during that time. It is pretty much up to the community to decide.

Sounds like a JIRA issue and votes to get that going sooner than later.

Apache Flex Versioning

Apache Flex versioning has been an ongoing topic and is also one of the initial issues filed in JIRA. There is debate on “how” to version the next release of the Flex SDK relative to the Adobe Flex version 4.6.

See the thread titled;

Re: jira task to decide on Apache Flex version number needed

There are to many ideas and noise to get you the clear picture in a paragraph. I’ll post more when a conclusion seems close to being reached.

Conclusion

Numbers, pure numbers show the future of Apache Flex. We have proven that there is an overwhelming support for Apache Flex through the logo contest’s ups and downs. Let’s just say this was the silver lining in the dark cloud dissipating from last November.

Through honest effort and community it’s possible to create movement even if we have to get out and push from behind to jump start perception again.

Facts and figures show the flex-dev mailing list just hit 2500 posts in a little more than 2 weeks!

Traffic statistics cover a total of 10 days.
Current subscribers: 237
Current digest subscribers: 3
Total posts (10 days): 1116
Mean posts per day: 111.60

PS I have had A LOT of community members say they follow these summaries and are not subscribed to the list, I think we are growing a community here but, don’t take my word for it. :)

Thanks for reading,
Mike