I dragged myself into the smartphone era in 2010 with a HTC Desire. After a number of years use, it is time for a change. In the end, I found the Desire quite slow, Flash compatibility wasn’t all that useful and being dependent on the Network to eventually deploy updates frustrating. So I am happy to move from Android to iPhone with a nice new iPhone 6s.
"flash"
Flex4.6 mobile maxChars bug/problem and workaround
Bug-note to self, and workaround while waiting for the bug-base to migrate from Adobe to Apache.
I’m using in a Flex 4.6 mobile project and found that setting the maxChars property to 512 caused exeption:
Main Thread (Suspended: ArgumentError: Error #2006: The supplied index is out of bounds.)
flash.text::StageText/set viewPort [no source]
spark.components.supportClasses::StyleableStageText/updateViewPort
spark.components.supportClasses::StyleableStageText/commitProperties
mx.core::UIComponent/validateProperties
mx.managers::LayoutManager/validateProperties
mx.managers::LayoutManager/doPhasedInstantiation
mx.managers::LayoutManager/doPhasedInstantiationCallback
However setting maxChars to something much smaller (e.g. 10) was fine. From experimentation, seems that the biggest number to which maxChars could be set without causing the problem was 481. I have no idea what that number relates to. Anyway the database field my TextInput corresponds to is 512 chars max so that’s the number I need.
The workaround:
Setting maxWidth on the TextInput seems to solve the problem. But rather than insert a constant I want the TextInput to flex to the width of it’s container, so the following seems to avoid the problem:
<s:TextInput
id ="textInputId"
maxWidth ="{skinableContainerId.width}"
maxChars ="512" />
The future of Flex :
Which width? (AIR on devices)
Within the Flash APIs is there there are many similarly named properties which provide subtly different results based on their spec and the state of the application. Width and height are such properties.
Having just read of Mike Jones’ recent article: 10 Tips When Developing For Multiple Devices, and tip #1: Check screen dimension on initialisation, it includes a couple of lines of code to get the landscape height and width of the device screen using a boolean expression to determine the longest dimension. For me this begs the question, why can’t I simply get the right values directly from the API? Especially if my app.xml properties state the app should only display landscape, full screen.
The properties examined here:
- stage.width
- stage.height
- stage.stageWidth
- stage.stageHeight
- stage.fullScreenWidth
- stage.fullScreenHeight
- stage.orientation
Although accurately described in the reference, it isn’t necessarily easy to visualise the differences in behaviour for these properties from the documentation alone. So herewith, a simple HelloWidthHeight app to trace out the values upon initialisation. Included in that app is a class implementing logic based on Mike’s as static methods. The results of debug sessions executed on my HTC Desire are detailed for comparison in the table below.
Key app.xml <initialWindow> properties used were:
- <visible>true</visible>
- <aspectRatio>landscape</aspectRatio>
- <autoOrients>false</autoOrients>
- <fullScreen>true</fullScreen>
A | B | C | D | |
---|---|---|---|---|
stage.orientation | default | rotatedRight | rotatedRight | rotatedRight |
stage.width | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
stage.height | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
stage.stageWidth | 480 | 800 | 800 | 800 |
stage.stageHeight | 800 | 480 | 480 | 480 |
stage.fullScreenWidth | 480 | 480 | 800 | 480 |
stage.fullScreenHeight | 800 | 800 | 480 | 800 |
Oriented.landscapeScreenWidth | 800 | 800 | 800 | 800 |
Oriented.landscapeScreenHeight | 480 | 480 | 480 | 480 |
Oriented.portraitScreenWidth | 480 | 480 | 480 | 480 |
Oriented.portraitScreenHeight | 800 | 800 | 800 | 800 |
- Screen inactive, phone held in any orientation
- Screen active, phone lying flat on the desk
- Screen active, phone held landscape, mic to the right (this is the intended orientation for the app)
- Screen active, phone held portrait, mic to the bottom
In conclusion, unless the application is only ever launched while the screen is active (though that would be the norm), the safe way of determining an oriented width and height is to use a boolean expression along with the fullScreenWidth and fullScreenHeight properties.
UPDATE (20-July-2011): The following table runs the same code in the BlackBerry PlayBook Simulator:
A | B | |
---|---|---|
stage.orientation | default | default |
stage.width | 0 | 0 |
stage.height | 0 | 0 |
stage.stageWidth | 1024 | 1024 |
stage.stageHeight | 600 | 600 |
stage.fullScreenWidth | 1024 | 1024 |
stage.fullScreenHeight | 600 | 600 |
Oriented.landscapeScreenWidth | 1024 | 1024 |
Oriented.landscapeScreenHeight | 600 | 600 |
Oriented.portraitScreenWidth | 600 | 600 |
Oriented.portraitScreenHeight | 1024 | 1024 |
- Simulator initially landscape
- Simulator initially portrait
Note: Behaviour is slightly different on the PlayBook simulator in that the orientation of the application is set before the initialisation code runs. Therefore unlike on the HTC Desire, fullScreenWidth and fullScreenHeight are correctly returned as the orientation of the application expects.
If anyone else cares to run the code, I’d be interested to hear how variable other devices are in their results, or if this is showing a bug when run on HTC Desire. Running AIR 2.7 here.
Apple Cinema HD 23inch dies, then resurrects
This morning I was greeted with a blank screen and the power light flashing short-long-short, and groaned at how expensive today was about to get.
The Apple support page states that this flash pattern indicates the wrong power adaptor is being used with the display. I’m using the original 90W adaptor supplied with the screen and keep it powered via an APC UPS.
Fortunately with a bit of googling I found the ‘paper w’ solution here. Essentially by using a strip of paper to blank off the middle of the 5 output pins from the power brick, the display is back to life.
From reading through comments made by others in both forums, and scanning over the power adaptors page, I’m forming the following conclusions. (Note: these are my guesses based only on my interpretation of other’s anecdotal evidence rather than anything authoritative).
1. I suspect the middle pin is used only to allow the monitor to sense which of the 3 Apple power-bricks is attached. If so then it seems more concerned with protecting the monitor from a low power brick, rather than from being overloaded somehow.
2. A number of people have indicated that simply replacing the brick like for like or with the higher power version makes no difference. This suggests to me that the fault is within the electronics of the monitor, when detecting the power source at switch-on, rather than in the brick.
So while this is far from an ideal solution, it is cheap, simple and quick to implement compared with trucking everything back for repair. However if in doubt, get it repaired by Apple – don’t blame me if your house burns down.
Adobe AIR 2 runtime s for Windows, Mac and Linux publicly available
Spreading the word based on Adobe’s notes…
The AIR 2 release includes many new features including:
- Native Process API
- Open documents with the user’s default application
- Microphone data access
- Mass storage device detection
- Updated, faster WebKit with enhanced support for HTML5 and CSS3
- Multi-touch
- New networking support including UDP and server sockets
- Screen reader support
- Reduced CPU usage on idle
- Up to 30% reduction in memory usage without recompiling an application
- + more
Links:
- Download AIR 2
- Official AIR 2 blog post by Arno Gourdol
- AIR 2 Release Notes (references the list of new features)
This coincides with the final release of Flash Player 10.1…
hello desire
So, it’s good-bye to my trusty and slightly crumbling Nokia 3100 (recently a source of amusement and pity amongst my peers)…
Hello HTC Desire…
It could so easily have been hello iPhone. I do have iPod Touch which I enjoy using. But fundamentally as a Flash/ActionScript/Flex/AIR developer it made no sense at all to get a smartphone on which Flash has been nobbled.
(My own brief comment and observation on the iPhone/Flash debacle : It looks to me that both companies have incompatible business strategies with regard to delivery of RIAs on mobile devices. Discussion outside of the these strategies is in my opinion a deflection. It was disappointing to read Steve Job’s thoughts on Flash, which to my mind are ill-informed and based on half truths – out of character in those regards. It was also disappointing to watch Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen’s response in interview with the Wall Street Journal where, in my humble opinion, he was far from convincing and by the end was sounding more like a parroting politician. Disappointing too that past quality and performance issues with Flash player gave Apple an easy ammunition to exaggerate and exploit. As an avid Apple Mac and Adobe Creative Suite user I hope the two companies can return to a professional relationship which doesn’t leave customers of both companies, like myself, out in the cold.)
So back to the HTC Desire, some first impressions…
The good
- It looks good, feels good
- Nice bright responsive screen
- Call quality is good
- Better quality camera than I expected
- The main reason for getting this device – Flash based apps are allowed!
The not so good (compared with my iPod Touch experience)
- There are too many buttons. I find myself pressing the wrong one most of the time. Sometimes a button press is required. Sometimes not. The whole thing is less intuitive than the iPod Touch with it’s single button.
- It seems all too easy to initiate a call at random while scrolling through the contact list.
- Text selection/cursor positioning is awful
- There is no out of the box easy way of syncing Address book, Calendar, tunes, photos etc with my Macs. Looks like I need to purchase Missing Sync. That said, I did previously purchase Mobile Me to keep my Mac / Mac Book Pro and iPod Touch all in sync.
- The Mail application is crap. I use a self-signed SSL certificate on my mail server, so I immediately hit the problem of a silent fail when trying to add connection details to the mail application. The hack in the forum thread worked in fixing it, i.e. turning off my router’s WAN connection, while inputting the connection details. Also it doesn’t list the mail folders on the server – all I get is the inbox. Apple’s Mail app by comparison is a doddle and reflects the structure of my mail account.
Fingers crossed for Android 2.2.
Anyway, looking forward to setting up some kind of tether to share the data connection with my MBP and more importantly getting something running in AIR for Android on there.
Flex 4 Spark VideoDisplay (measure, overlay, skin)
In a previous article I described some of the steps required in Flex 3 in order to keep an overlay position in sync with a VideoDisplay component. With the release of Flex 4, VideoDisplay
is one of the components to be updated. Via VideoPlayer
, it gets a Spark makeover. Internally its core, or ‘view’, has been reimplemented using Open Source Media Framework. For anyone wishing to keep an overlay in position over the view, however, the same key issue remains:
None of the various width or height properties of the VideoDisplay component describe the width or height of the contained view.
So, to get the properties of the view we need to delve deeper into VideoDisplay and use the mx_internal namespace. Even then, the ResizeEvent.RESIZE event is broadcast by VideoDisplay before it’s view dimensions (column B) have been updated to the new site.
In that previous article I observed that if, after each resize, I added an Event.EXIT_FRAME
listener, I could guarantee that the VideoDisplay’s view had been sized by the time it was called. I observed that the same is true in Flex 4. However EXIT_FRAME
didn’t feel like the right place to be doing this. So with a closer look at the component life cycle we can see that handling the FlexEvent.UPDATE_COMPLETE
event is more appropriate. Column C shows the view’s width/height after UPDATE_COMPLETE
has been broadcast. It colours red when a value disagrees with column B (RESIZE
). And so, it is column C that contains the values we want to use while managing our overlay.
Using this information and Flex 4’s new component and skinning architecture, we can build quick and simple to use video overlay component rather than messing about with external listeners and calculating positions as we did in the previous Flex 3 examples.
Reviewing what Flex 4 includes ‘out of the box’…
VideoDisplay
: a non-skinable component that wraps an osmf ‘view’. It translates much of the osmf api and events to what we are accustomed to with Flex 3.VideoPlayer
: A skinable component provides hooks for skin parts. A required part is an instance of VideoDisplay. The others are the buttons and controls we’d normally expect when giving the user control of the video.
The VideoPlayer and it’s skin are overkill for this example, so we’ll create something far simpler…
VideoDisplayOverlayContainer
: A container component who’s children will overlay a VideoDisplayVideoDisplayOverlayContainerSkin
: A simple skin, providing the required videoDisplay skin part.
This way, overlaying the video is as simple as giving the container some child components and a layout (defaults to basic layout). In the example that follows we overlay a label instance to each of the four corners and the centre of the view…
<components:VideoDisplayOverlayContainer id ="videoDisplayContainer" source ="VideoSampleForFlex.mp4" width ="100%" height ="100%" > <s:Label text="A" top="2" left="2" backgroundColor="0xffffff" backgroundAlpha="0.4" /> <s:Label text="B" top="2" right="2" backgroundColor="0xffffff" backgroundAlpha="0.4" /> <s:Label text="C" bottom="2" left="2" backgroundColor="0xffffff" backgroundAlpha="0.4" /> <s:Label text="D" bottom="2" right="2" backgroundColor="0xffffff" backgroundAlpha="0.4" /> <s:Label text="O" verticalCenter="0" horizontalCenter="0" backgroundColor="0xffffff" backgroundAlpha="0.4" /> </components:VideoDisplayOverlayContainer>
Flex builder 4 help system (CHC) and backups
(Edit: Of course this should have been titled Flash Builder 4)
One of the changes with Flash builder over previous Flex Builder products is in the help system. The help files are no-longer bundled and indexed by eclipse help. Instead a new help application is installed which attempts to combine the documentation with community content.
I must admit to not receiving this application particularly well in the first instance. However I have seen it develop over a number of weeks and as an AIR application it is expected to continue to develop independently of major product release cycles.
Since it is a new product, some rough edges can be expected. There is already a technote (cpsid_83103) relating to getting context-sensitive help working correctly in a fresh install of Flash Builder 4.
Randy Nielsen’s post on using the help client provides a good orientation for new users.
However I think there are some other things that system administrators at least (and users who backup their user-directories – particularly to the cloud) should be aware of…
1. The many names of adobe help
On a Mac it installs application “Adobe Help” into /Applications/Adobe. The main application window when running is titled “Adobe Community Help”. And you will see this application widely referred to in Adobe communications as CHC or Adobe Community Help Client. If you ever look for the preferences files for the application, you’ll find them in ~/Library/preferences/chc.xxxx.1 (where xxxx is a 40 digit hex number). Note: missing is the usual “com.adobe.” prefix.
2. Downloading the help files.
The help files need to be downloaded to your local system in order for the application to work. The current version of the application (3.0.0.400) only displays local content if the network is not available. Otherwise it always displays content from the web. This seems slightly wasteful and slow. Though we can expect an option to default to local content irrespective of network connectivity in future versions.
3. Help file size
You can manually control the downloads via Preferences>Updater settings then “Manage now”. This will show a table of help files, whether they are current or not and their size. The size however is slightly misleading. It refers to the zip file size and therefore the network bandwidth required to download the help package. Once unzipped however, the disk-space used is a considerably larger number. I find that the help packages for Fb4 and associated stuff expand to use 563Mb.
4. Where the help files are stored
On a mac the help files are expanded and stored in the user’s preferences folder. ~/Library/Preferences/chc.xxxx.1/Local Store/Help
To me this is not the right place to be storing such content. Help content is not preferences and is not necessary ‘per user’. Preferences are usually backed up. There is absolutely no need to be backing up this content – to do so is a waste of storage, network bandwidth and machine time. Once all Adobe products are integrated with CHC, the help folder will be considerably larger than my current 563Mb.
In summary
Adobe Help, Adobe Community Help Client (CHC), is currently in its infancy as an application, but will be soon in the hands of many, many users. As an AIR application, the development team have far more flexibility to make releases between major product cycles. I hope and believe that the points I highlight (and location of help files in particular) will be addressed in coming releases – they have all been submitted to the team – not just blogged here. However they are blogged here because I think storage suppliers could be in for a field day unless sys-admins are made aware, and add rules to their backup process to omit the help files.
my first Flex 4 spark : component + skin = ResizeableTitleWindow
With Flex 4 having been in beta for ages and hopefully soon to be released, it really was time I started to get my head around the spark components and how to approach to skinning them. Rather starting off with the usual button, I thought I’d kick off with getting a ResizeableTitleWindow going. Of course a few others have already created variants. I think everyone using Flex at some point needs a resizeable version of TitleWindow. To that end, looking at the TitleWindow specification page of the Flex 4 wiki, clearly Adobe planned on implementing resize behaviour on the TitleWindow. It doesn’t seem to be implemented yet. So in the meantime my version is as close as I think I can get to that specification.
The end result (view source enabled):
My 1st spark skin
In the running example above, window ‘A’ is a normal instance of spark.components.TitleWindow. This leads me to my first spark skin. If you are viewing on a windows or linux platform it won’t look any different from normal. In that case it is simply using spark.skins.spark.TitleWindowSkin. However if you are viewing on a Mac you’ll notice that the close button is located at the left of the title bar rather than the right. This is where a Mac user will expect it to be – but the default in Flex is currently to the right, no matter what platform. This was achieved through the most basic technique of skinning a spark component : clone an existing skin, adapt it and apply it. To that end, spark.skins.spark.TitleWindowSkin was cloned to creacog.spark.skins.TitleWindowMacSkin, and a couple of lines changed swap around the closeButton and title. We switch skins if we are on the mac platform by loading the compiled Mac style sheet in the preinitialize handler of main.mxml.
This technique of cloning is one thing that initially feels slightly wrong with spark. It leads to a lot of duplicate code which is something developers normally do their best to avoid. The reasoning seems mainly to facilitate Flash Catalyst workflow, where skins are predominantly the domain of interaction designers for whom duplication is the norm and code re-use doesn’t really figure. However until and unless Flash Catalyst matures into a product that can support round-trip editing, there’s a good chance that developers will be making a lot of use of diff tools and duplicate code across skins is something we’ll probably just get used to. The subject has been discussed in detail in a number of other blogs and their comments:
- Flex 4 skinning ignores developer needs
- Using Flex 4 Skin Inheritance To Make PictureButton Component
Implementing and skinning ResizeableTitleWindow
We now need to know a little more about the mechanics of spark skinning. I must admit having previously read some blogs and watched some video posts of how simple spark skinning is – and I got it until sitting in-front of an empty editor scratching my head – where to begin? The key thing that crystallised it for me was to read the skinning contract.
So, first was to create the component class. This extends spark.components.TitleWindow. It adds a new optional skin part of resizeHandle of type UIComponent. Essentially we need something the user can click on no matter what it’s appearance. creacog.spark.events.TitleWindowBoundsEvent was created extending spark.events.TitleWindowBoundsEvent with the new event constants for resizing. Using the creacog package is the main deviation from the specification – for obvious reasons.
Catalyst was used to create the ResizeHandleSkin. A simple custom component with two states: up and over. It has a semi-transparent white background that transitions it’s alpha on mouse over. Importing ResizeHandle.fxpl into the flex project resulted in slightly odd packaging. Simply moving ResizeHandle.mxml to the creacog.spark.skins package brought it into structure consistent with the rest of the project.
spark.skins.spark.TitleWindowSkin was again cloned, this time to creacog.spark.skins.ResizeableTitleWindowSkin. To that 3 new lines is all that was required to add an instance of the resizeHandle skin part – positioned front-most and at the bottom right corner. It could be any size and positioned anywhere, but the logic behind resize adjusts the width and height of the component, leaving it’s x and y untouched.
creacog.spark.skins.ResizeableTitleWindowMacSkin is a further clone, this time with the closeButton skin part positioned to the left for mac users.
Finally we use styles (being careful of the new namespace syntax) to the notify the flex framework to use creacog.spark.skins.ResizeableTitleWindowSkin (and substitute creacog.spark.skins.ResizeableTitleWindowMacSkin on the Mac) whenever a ResizeableTitleWindow instance is drawn. If we omitted this step, the ResizeableTitleWindow instance would be created, but it would fall back to using the TitleWindowSkin which does not include the resizeHandle skin part and therefore the resizing functionality would be ignored.
Summing up
This new approach to skinning components feels far superior to what we have been used to in Flex 3. I’m slightly scared that the workflow from designer via catalyst could result in inflexible skins (at least in the short term), as post-production work is required of the developer if the skin is intended to take on runtime styling for example. Lack of any sign of round-trip capability means skin production is currently one way from catalyst. i.e. tweaks or changes within catalyst will create a new output and it will be for the developer to merge the changes with additions s/he may have implemented on previous skins.
Looking forward to getting going on some real flex 4 projects.