jun :: realeyes

We’ve updated the REDbug site with the latest beta build 0.57.  New in this build are:

• Support for sending log output to Firebug with the same call
• Support for custom log level coloring
• Minor UI Enhancements
• As always, no need for running in debug mode!

Also, we’ve created a client-side library for Flash CS3 and ActionScript 3 developers.

Finally, we’ve updated the usage examples sections.  There’s now one for:

• AIR
• Flex 3
• Flex 2.0.1 hotfix 3
• Flash CS3
• Flash 8

Check out the latest at http://www.redbugtool.com/

Part two of my performance considerations series has been posted to InsideRIA this morning:

http://www.insideria.com/2008/04/flex-ria-performance-considera.html

If you’re new to startup optimization, or looking for examples this would be a good one for you to check out.  Full sample apps with view source and all! 

If you’re a veteran, you might find some interest in the seven frame Flex app experiment that I worked on.  Just scroll down to the section titled “EXPERIMENTAL: Take Advantage of the Stream”. 

The seven frame Flex app in that section was an effort on fleshing out some concepts covered by Dirk Eismann:

http://www.richinternet.de/blog/index.cfm?entry=FF295F89-DAD8-CCDC-960413842BC0D478

Anyway, have fun and hope you enjoy the post!

Beatport Downloader, a download utility application for electronic music was released yesterday.  I worked on this application with my dev team at RealEyes and with Beatport…it was definitely an interesting ride building an AIR app at the same time AIR was evolving through it’s beta cycles through 1.0 release.

Anyway if you’re into electronic music, check out Beatport: https://www.beatport.com 

Or, if you already use Beatport, check out the Downloader http://www.beatportdownloader.com/

Brian Holmes started a new Flex User’s group up there in Fort Collins. 

http://blog.smashedapples.com/2008/04/fort-collins-fl.html

If you’re in Fort Collins and you develop Flex you should definitely check it out…too bad I’m over 75 miles away with a ’97 Subaru complete with ”Check Engine” on.   Good luck Brian and keep up the rockin blog posts!

I just got accepted to speak about the Flex Builder 3 Profiler at the upcoming 360 Flex. I’ve very excited about this because 360 Flex conferences are outstanding!

Here’s the link to conference info:

360|Flex San Jose, CA. August 17-20 2008

Here’s my session summary:

Level: 300
Title: Using the Flex Builder 3 Profiler
Detail: During the session the functionality of the Flex Builder 3 Profiler will be explored through both background lecture, and most importantly various Flex Builder projects tuned to highlight key features of the Profiler.

Now, if the above excites you as a developer, feel free to hit me up with a comment if there’s anything in particular that you’d like to see.

See you in San Jose!

Last Tuesday I gave a user group presentation on AIR Windows, Menus, and System Tray. Although I got a chance to post the slides last week, it took me a little while to get a hold of a Mac and verify my sample application’s functionality. Well…with a couple little code mods it’s working how I wanted on the Mac.

Couple notes on the sample app:

• I enabled view source
• This app will require you to input a Yahoo Developer Network AppID before you can use it…sorry, I’m already using my 5,000 queries a day.
• If you want to see the bounce() functionality on MacOS, you need to CTRL+Click the DockIcon and select HIDE from the Dock Menu (It’s running on a 2 second timer)
• I am not an artist…hence the 5th grader quality icons, graphics, and styling
• Disclaimer: This is just an example app and was slapped together. It should not be construed as a best practices effort
• Disclaimer: I’m not sure if what I’m doing to embed Napster is legit…but you know it’s just an educational research endeavour.
• AFTER INSTALL: To invoke hair metal, use the Window, Application, Dock, or SystemTray menu

Anyway, you can get the app with this embedded AIR badge below, and if you still wanted to see the slides, they can be found here:

http://www.iheartair.com/?p=117

Enjoy, and rock, rock till you drop!

Thanks to everyone for showing up to the RMAUG meeting last night. Also, an extra thanks to Greg for posting a summary of last night presso. He took some good notes:

http://www.artfulmedium.com/blog/index.cfm/2008/4/9/AIR-Windows-Menus-and-the-System-Tray–RMAUG

If you’re still interested, here are the slides I used last night, with a couple revisions…enjoy:
http://www.iheartair.com/samples/rmaug/2008_04/2008Apr_rmaug_Windows_Menus_SystemTray.pdf

On a side note, the issue with trying to reopen closed NativeWindows also exists on Mac, I tested it.  I know it was a question during the meeting.

Finally, in reference to the example app…I’ll post it very soon…probably tomorrow…with view source enabled even. (Making a couple tweaks. Taking my Yahoo appid key out and a couple other things.)

I decided to upgrade my Adobe AIR-based AMP beta to the release version today.  The player’s pretty slick and there’s a lot of content available on launch.

As I was upgrading my wordpress this morning I had it running in my second monitor, and got to check out some Jimmy Cliff and also discovered a new band that sounded pretty cool called The Heck. (They are in the CrazeTV channel.)

Anyway, if you get a chance, you should check it out: http://get.adobe.com/amp/

As far as the whole guitar virtuoso comment, listening to The Heck and other recent bands, it makes me happy to hear that the friggin’ wicked guitar solos are coming back in style.  I remember the days when Joe Satriani, Alex Skolnick, Marty Friedman, and Vernon Reid were just as popular as any of those Ok Go’s and Frou Frou’s out there…

Also, since we’re talking about music…I’m gonna show my age now.  For those loyal readers, here’s a tidbit about myself, I was a grunge rocker in Tacoma, WA back in the good ole days.  If you’re feeling like some nostalgic hair and flannel check out my old band’s page on MySpace. (I was the singer)

http://www.myspace.com/buckettacoma

Thanks to Matthew Reinbold RIADevShed was a rockin’ event in Salt Lake City!

Here are the event deets:

http://riadevshed.com/

I enjoyed the intimate setting of 50 attendees. The food was great and so was the wifi. I also thought that he had picked a great group of speakers and topics for the event.

As far as my presentation was concerned, as Matthew had stated during, I was “pinch-hitting”. So on somewhat short notice, and being pretty swamped lately – as we all have been – I ported a Flex presentation to be an AIR presentation. Long story short, there were still a couple Flex remnants in the presentation and examples.

Anyway, I have finished porting the slides to be 100% AIR. They can be found here:

http://labs.realeyes.com/default.cfm?cnt=presentations

For those that attended my presentation, thanks for coming, I hope you got something out of it, and here’s the slides you should have seen.

For those who didn’t, if you’re in Salt Lake and get a chance to go to a RIADevShed, do it!

Anyone else, feel free to pull my slides.

Although the link above works, here’s a direct link to the PDF:

http://labs.realeyes.com/labs/downloads/JunHeider_RIADevShed2008__AIR_Debugging_Tools_Techniques.pdf

Thanks again Matthew, for a great event!

So I had it on my TODO list to blog about invisible AIR applications, and then MXNA introduced this recent blog post of Shigeru Nakagaki:

http://shigeru-nakagaki.com/index.cfm/2008/4/7/20080407-How-to-create-air-app-which-does-not-appear-in-taskbar

I guess it's time for me to stop procrastinating...

The good news for me is that Shigeru came up with a completely different way of tackling the issue than I had used. First, I'd like to thank a couple blog posts that helped me during my task:

• Jeffry Houser and Saskovic Radovanovic:
  • http://www.jeffryhouser.com/index.cfm/2008/1/8/How-do-you-put-an-AIR-App-in-the-System-Tray
  • http://www.saskovic.com/blog/?p=5

So here is what I came up with. Basically the window launches then on applicationComplete it closes. The other things to take into account is preventing default actions on the event and then to make sure the AIR app doesn't autoExit.

[EDITED: The initial code highlighting wordpress plugin I installed jacked up the code. I changed the pluging and re-added the code. START]
Here's the code.

[EDITED: The initial code highlighting wordpress plugin I installed jacked up the code. I changed the pluging and re-added the code. END]

Here's a link to the app.

http://www.iheartair.com/samples/exampleair/InvisibleApp_1.0.air

Btw, since the app runs invisibly, the only way you'll have to close it once it's running is to use an operating system tool such as Task Manager on Windows or kill in the Mac terminal to stop the "InvisibleApp.exe" process on your system...can you say evil? Gwa-ha-ha...