Humor4u

Resize Adobe AIR Windows through Custom Flex 4 Effects Interpolation , the next and verbosely entitled episode in the gripping and suspenseful series CodeDependent , is now available from Adobe TV . In this show, we see how to apply what we learned about arbitrary type interpolation in a previous episode to the specific use case of resizing an AIR window. The ability to animate properties of arbitrary type is one of the key new features in the Flex 4 effects system, and it comes in handy for this use case where animating the x, y, width, and height properties of the native window aren't good enough. Instead, we need to interpolation a Rectangle object so that we can atomically set the bounds of the native window with each animation update. Here's the video: Instead of embedding the application like I normally do, I'm just going to provide this link to it . It's a link to an AIR application which you would need to install and run locally, because that's the way that...

Custom Type Interpolation in Flex 4 Effects , the next episode in the gripping and suspenseful series CodeDependent , is now available from Adobe TV . In this show, we see an introduction to the new system of type interpolation in Flex 4 effects. The ability to animate properties of arbitrary type is one of the key new features in the Flex 4 effects system. Previously, in Flex 3, the effects system dealt only with numbers. It was great at animating any properties of components at all ... as long as those properties were numeric. In particular, it knew how to calculate a numeric value during animations, given start and end values. Calculating these values is important, of course, because animations are specified with start and end values only (or, in the case of the new keyframes in Flex 4 effects, a series of intermediate values), and any other value that the property takes on during the animation must be calculated as a product of these start/end values plus the elapsed fraction of th...

I think there's a fundamental flaw in the Drunk on Software strategy. If you're actually drunk at the time, it is all too probable that you'll end up with interviews that don't seem quite as interesting, provocative, and hilarious as they did at the time. Nonetheless, Jon and James continue to produce these shows, unhampered by my petty theories and centuries of research on the effects of alcohol on coherent conversation and job security. We all got together at MAX a couple of weeks ago and had a chat about the conference . Fortunately, I think we were all sober enough to speak in complete sentences. Maybe this should go into a new series that I'm proposing: "Drinking Responsibly on Software". Our branding experts are still working on the title. Check out the interview at Drunk on Software .

Flex 3 Easing with Flex 4 Effects , the next episode in the gripping and suspenseful series CodeDependent , is now available from Adobe TV . This show is basically a recap of an earlier blog article I wrote, Penner for your Thoughts (named for the author of the Flex 3 easing functions, Robert Penner ), except this time it's in video form (for the reading-impaired). The topic is about using the old easing functions in Flex 3 through the new IEaser interface that the Flex 4 effects require. See the article for more details about the whys and hows of this rather neat hack. Meanwhile, here's the video: Here is the demo application: And here is the source code . Be sure to check out the blog article for more details on how the code works. Finally, here's where you can find the CodeDependent videos on iTunes . Enjoy.

Custom Easing in Flex 4 , the next episode in the gripping and suspenseful series CodeDependent , is now available from Adobe TV . In this show, we see an introduction to the new approach to easing in Flex 4 effects, using the new IEaser interface. "Easing" is a term in Flash and Flex that means changing the way that time is interpolated in animations, to give more interesting and natural movement. In Flex 3, different easing behavior was applied by assigning easing function references to to the "easingFunction" property in effects. This was a powerful and easy-to-use mechanism, but we've changed the approach in Flex 4 to make easing more flexible and also simpler to customize. This video shows how we can write and alter a simple easing implementation to get arbitrary, custom easing behavior. Here's the video: Here is the demo application. Note that the real action here is in building the application and playing with the CustomEaser implementation. The dem...

Shashank Tiwari (co-author of AdvancED Flex 3 ) and I chatted about Flex 4, effects, MAX, and books at the MAX 2009 conference last week. Check out the interview on the RIA Revolution site.

Effects in Flex 4 , the talk I gave earlier this week at Adobe MAX , is now available from Adobe TV . This is pretty awesome; I've never known talk recording to be published so soon after the actual event (in this case, actually published while the event was still going on). The talk covers the overall architecture of the new effects in Flex 4, covering all of the new effects classes and also (my favorite part) the underlying details of how it all works, using the Animate class, the underlying Animation class, and all of the low-level helper classes. Lots of nitty-gritty details for those that care (and those that don't). If you saw my FlashCamp talk that I posted last June, you'll recognize some of the information and demos, but this talk goes into a lot more detail on the architecture and underlying details since I had more time to do so. For the code-hungry folks in the audience, I showed many demos throughout the talk to illustrate how the concepts and classes actuall...

I'm sure you'll be at Adobe MAX next week. I mean, all the stuff going on there, you have to show up, right? Besides, all the cool kids will be there. But suppose, just for a lark, that you can't make it. Maybe your leg gets caught in a wood chipper and you miss your flight. Maybe you can't find "Los Angeles" on a map. Maybe you'll be having so much fun playing with Flex 4 effects that you forget to go. What to do? Well, how about watching MAX online? There are lots of conference goodies that will be posted in realtime and real-soon-time, so that you can watch them online. In particular: Keynotes: The keynotes on October 5th and 6th will be streamed live. Top Sessions: The top three sessions each day will be recorded and posted by 8 P.M. California time that evening. All Sessions: All of the technical sessions will be recorded next week and will be posted on Sunday, October 11th. For all of these things, go to the online site to register ( http://max.adob...