New AIR/Java app Piano Marvel hits the AIR Marketplace!

Written by Nate on 25.08.2009 | AIR, Flex, Java

Over the past year at Rain Interactive, I have spent all my time and energy as project manager and lead developer on the most revolutionary piano teaching software to date called Piano Marvel (not that I’m biased or anything .  This unveiling also reveals the inspiration behind most of my posts over the last year.  Our team’s goal was to [...]

Add alpha transparency to your DataGrid using StyleableDataGrid

Written by Nate on 01.08.2009 | Flex

Recently, I ran into another issue with DataGrids.  I received a design comp from one of our designers who wanted alpha transparency in a DataGrid for alternating rows, the header, and highlight/selection.  Basically, he wanted something like this (I added a red gradient and vertical stripes on the background to make the alpha more apparent):

After [...]

YouTube Embedded Player HTML Component

Written by Nate on 26.07.2009 | AIR, Flex

A few months ago, I needed a quick way to include YouTube video content into an AIR application I was making.  Initially, I looked into creating my own video player and trying to use the as3youtubelib, however I ran into people who had many issues with YouTube changing their API which lead to broken videos.  I decided to [...]

NestedDataGrid version 2.0 – XML dataProviders

Written by Nate on 27.06.2009 | Flex

A few months ago, I created a component called NestedDataGrid, to address the annoying issue with DataGrids not being able to support nested properties within objects.  This component allows a DataGridColumn’s dataField property to contain a property chain such as:  “object.property.propertyList[2]“.  This is something that wasn’t possible with a default DataGrid.  However, being busy with school (just [...]

XML syntax highlighter for FlexBuilder

Written by Nate on 20.06.2009 | Flex

So a few days ago, I began a quest to find a good XML syntax highlighter for FlexBuilder.  Up until now I have been content to limp by using Eclipse’s standard text viewer for XML files, but if I am trying to debug a huge ant script or configuration XML file, the non-colored code just [...]

Creating a bundled AIR / Java Installer on a Mac

Written by Nate on 15.05.2009 | AIR, Flex, Java

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post detailing how to use Merapi in a Production Environment. That tutorial was primarily written to address managing Java and AIR on a Windows Platform including creating an installer that installs both the Adobe AIR Runtime, the Java-side of an application, and the AIR-side of an application. However, [...]

Making Yahoo’s AutoCompleteManager work with defaultButton

Written by Nate on 29.04.2009 | Flex

I recently came across a discussion on LinkedIn about what AutoComplete solutions are out there for Flex. I never realized how many AutoComplete implementations are out there! As for myself, I have only tried two… the first was Adobe’s AutoComplete component and the second was Yahoo’s AutoCompleteManager.

Variable SampleDataEvent is not defined

Written by Nate on 17.04.2009 | Uncategorized

So a few coworkers of mine ran into a problem on an AIR project we are working on.  Our application involves a lot of music and sound generation which required us to use the new SampleDataEvent class in Flash Player 10.  Anyways, for some reason, 2 of my friends at work would get a random [...]

Flex and Web Analytics — Recording User Interaction

Written by Nate on 26.01.2009 | Flex, Web Analytics

In my Web Analytics class today, we discussed tracking user activity in a Flex application.  My professor who currently works at Entice Labs talked about how he implemented Web Analytics for a Flex landing page.  He recorded any mouse or keyboard events that the user performed while on the page and sent data back to the [...]

Creating a Custom Lifecycle for your Flex Components

Written by Nate on 16.01.2009 | Flex, Uncategorized

Currently, I am working on music rendering in Flex. This is not a trivial task to say the least, considering how screwed up music notation can actually be. Plus, to make things difficult, there are various dependencies with chords and other music notation such as accidentals, beams, ties, slurs, etc. and if you aren’t careful, [...]