David Harris's Technology Blog - Adobe

Adobe Community Road Show Coming to Auckland!

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:32:00 -0500

This Thursday http://www.cfug.org.nz/ and http://www.fxug.org.nz/ are hosting an Adobe Roadshow event with http://www.markszulc.com/blog/2009/06/22/flash-catalyst-builder-cf-tour-headed-to-auckland-nz/,Mark Szulc. Come along to hear more about Flash Builder, Flash Catalyst and CF9! I will attempt to broadcast the meeting on http://experts.na3.acrobat.com/nzcfug/, all going well! Related Links: http://groups.adobe.com/posts/1b5f77b054 http://nzroadshow.eventbrite.com/ http://labs.adobe.com/ See you there!

NZ CFUG: Mark Mandel on Transfer

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 18:27:00 -0500

Only 2 days till the next NZ Cfug meeting. This month we are going to have Mark Mandel giving us his "Introduction to Building Applications with Transfer ORM" presentation live via Adobe Connect. We attempted to have this last month, but due to technical issues last month [cough]VPN[cough] Mark agreed to give it this month. This month we are meeting for the first time at http://projectpartner.com/,ProjectPartner, so a big thank you to them! The meeting will be broadcast via Connect on the URL http://experts.na3.acrobat.com/nzcfug/, so feel free to sit in if you are round @ 6pm (NZ time) on the 6th November. If you RSVP (remote or in person) and are based in NZ, you'll be in the prize draw too! RSVP: http://nzcfug.eventbrite.com/ See you there!

ColdFusion 8.0.1 fixed my bug!

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:38:00 -0500

I while ago I logged a bug for the first time with in ColdFusion 8. http://www.harrisfamily.net.nz/devblog/index.cfm/2007/10/17/cfpresentation-and-attributeCollection-issue,Here is the entry about it. While looking over the 8.0.1 release notes I decide to check... and yes, at the top of page 15, bug number 70594 has been addressed! Thank you!

A couple of Flex Podcasts

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:25:00 -0500

Today I listened to the http://www.coldfusionweekly.com/,ColdFusion Weekly podcast. The topic was http://www.coldfusionweekly.com/index.cfm?event=showArchive#3-07,Flex Frameworks Roundtable Peter and Matt got together the different "voices" of the Flex Frameworks out there and got them talking. Speaking personally the saying, "If all you have is a hammer, then everything is a nail" rings true for my experience with frameworks. I tend to find once I get my head-space in a particular framework I find myself approaching all the problems I need to solve within that framework. In ColdFusion, "Fusebox" was that framework for me for a while, and currently "Cairngorm" is the Flex one. While it is not a bad thing to actually learn a tool/framework well, it's great to listen to well respected members of the various framework communities flesh out what problems their favorite framework is trying to solve, and how. A couple of the things that stuck with me are: - the less "boiler plate" code you have to write to add functionality to an Application, the better - MVC is not a framework, but applications should be MVC, no matter what framework/approach you take [that's a *whole* other blog post I've been thinking about for a while now!] At the end of the day, no matter what framework/style/approach you take, if you are going to create a non-trivial application, there is still a lot of work to do! Even if you use one of the plethora of code-gen tools out there, you will still have a lot of leg work! Near the end of the podcast (64mins) there is some great talking about what these guys would like to see in Flex/Framework in the future. Well done Matt and Peter for setting this up, and thank you! I also listened to this one, which is great for a more in-depth on Cairngorm: http://www.theflexshow.com/blog/index.cfm/2008/4/9/The-Flex-Show--Episode-41-Universal-Mind-Cairngorm-Extensions-w-Thomas-Burleson,www.theflexshow.com: Universal-Mind-Cairngorm-Extensions-w-Thomas-Burleson Enjoy!

Buzzword - first time user...

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 21:09:00 -0500

On the 18th Of March 2008 the http://www.cfug.org.nz, New Zealand ColdFusion User group had it's first ever board meeting. To night I opened Google Docs with the idea that I would put the minutes from the meeting in there for review/recording. Then I thought I would try out http://www.buzzword.com,Buzzword (an online word processor built on Flex) The sign up process was painless, and I was creating my document within 5 mins. Once I was getting near to completing it, I added 2 users, 1 as a reviewer, who can read the doc and add comments, and one as a co-author. The whole experience thus far has been very good. - The spell check worked well (and I gave it a good work out!) - I didn't need the help to do all the word processing basics (formatting words, numbered lists, indenting etc) I did have a couple of suggestions, which I made http://forum.buzzword.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=452&sid=7ec1a37f47ab32aaebe5670b0e1b6185,here. So if you haven't tried out buzzword yet, give it a go!

Simple Effects on a Form - Flex Example

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 20:37:00 -0500

Lately I have been working on a Flex application and I have been enjoying the ease that the Flex framework allows a developer like me to add some nice looking effects very simply. In my example I have a form, and this form has a Advanced mode which, when selected, will display extra fields for the user to fill in. As you can see in the first application below, when you click the "Toggle Form" button the extra fields are shown or hidden.

My Flex Playing requires Adobe Flash Player 9. Get Adobe Flash..

The way I have done this is to create a private bindable variable called "advanced" which the extra fields bind too. When you click the "Toggle" button this value is changed from true to false or vice-a-versa as required. The attributes of the form items that bind to that value are "visible", which controls if you can see the form field or not, and "includeInLayout" which lets Flex know if this field should be taken in to account when laying and rendering out the form. By setting both of these to "false" the form field is hidden and the layout of the form changes. Now, one thing about this is that the user gets know idea of the context of the fields. EG: you start with "First Name", "Email" and "Password", and when you toggle to the advanced form, the "Last Name" field appears between the "First Name" and "Email" fields, and the 3 "Address" fields appear between the "Email" and "Password" Field. So do give a feeling for the context I am going to add a "moveEffect" and a "showEffect" to each of the fields. The Flex frame works ships with a library of these effects which are available to us. (See the docs for more info) We can build our own effects sequences, but that is another example entirely! In to the "moveEffect" I am going to put the "Move" effect. The "moveEffect" kicks in then the "x" or "y" positional properties are changed, and "Move" will move the UI component to that position, rather than just jump it there (as it does in my first example) The "showEffect" happens when the "visible" property of a UI component goes from "false" to "true". I put "Fade" here so the UI component will fade in to view. The application below is the finished result.

My Flex Playing requires Adobe Flash Player 9. Get Adobe Flash..

NB: You can right click on the applciations to View and download the source. Enjoy! :-)

RIA conference In Queenstown, New Zealand - Web on the Piste - take2

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 06:09:00 -0500

http://www.shadocms.com,Straker have just announced that http://www.webonthepiste.com,Web on the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piste,Piste is happening again. The conference is a deliberately smaller conference of only the low hundreds of attendees available. This means you get get access to the speakers to talk to between sessions etc. The years theme is "Usability and Rich Internet Technologies" and one of the speakers that has been secured at this stage is http://www.rhjr.net/,Robert Hoekman Jr, author of the best selling book "http://www.rhjr.net/dto,Designing the http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/032145345X/sr=8-1/qid=1152842482/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-1533809-8419167?ie=UTF8,Obvious" with more speakers to come. So it could be good. Last year I organized User Groups on the Piste which was a chance to get the Adobe Development community together to hang out and talk geek. If you are coming this year, keep an ear out for this event, as I am hoping to organize (or help organize) something similar again. New Zealand has 2 official Adobe User groups: - http://www.cfug.org.nz - http://www.fxug.org.nz so WOTP is a good chance to get us all together in one place!

Disclaimer: at this stage I am currently employed by Straker, but only for one more week! ;-)

AIR at last! we can breath!!

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 17:20:00 -0500

Adobe has released AIR ...say no more, go have a look! here http://www.adobe.com and here http://www.adobe.com/products/air/ let the good times roll.

Auckland Event Half Full!

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 20:29:00 -0500

As you are hopefully aware the RSVPs opened for a specail http://www.fxug.org.nz,New Zealand Flex User Group event last week. As of now the RSVPs are halffull for the Auckland Event and the Wellington event is not far behind. Seats are going quick, so http://nzfug.eventbrite.com,RSVP now to secure your seat! See you there!

RSVPs open for Special New Zealand Flex User Group Meeting!

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 05:17:00 -0500

Just a follow up on a previous entry to let all interested know that the RSVP for Wellington and Auckland are open for the special FXUG meeting at the end of the month! http://nzfug.eventbrite.com See you there!

New Zealand has an Adobe Ambassador!!

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 05:32:00 -0500

Just reading over my blog feeds this morning and I noticed http://blog.xsive.co.nz/,Campbell Anderson has become an http://blog.xsive.co.nz/archives/261,Adobe Ambassador! Congratulations Campbell. I have been on the receiving end of his help, and think Adobe (via http://www.flexdaddy.info,Andrew Spaulding) have made a good choice in asking Campbell for this role. Campbell's knowledge in Flex and willingness to share that knowledge has helped me out a few times my Flex forays. So go along to http://www.fxug.org.nz,NZ Flex User Group and congratulate the man in person! [Edit] Does anyone know if there are other "Adobe Ambassadors" in New Zealand? Campbell is the first one I am aware of...

Congratulations to the new "ACE"s out there!

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 05:47:00 -0500

Looking over my RSS feeds this morning, and I see there are a few new "ACE"s added. (Wondering what an "ACE" is? Click http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/,here to find out). The ones I have noticed (so the full list may well be incomplete!) so far are: Scott Stroz http://www.boyzoid.com/blog/index.cfm/2008/1/17/I-am-an-ACE, [Ann 1], http://www.alagad.com/go/blog-entry/i-am-an-ace,[Ann 2] Ben Nadal http://www.bennadel.com/index.cfm?dax=blog:1127.view,[Ann] Mark Mandel http://www.compoundtheory.com/?action=displayPost&ID=280,[Ann] [Edit] Peter Bell http://www.pbell.com/index.cfm/2008/1/16/Adobe-Community-Expert,[Ann] Congratulations everyone. If you know of others, feel free to add a comment, and if possible, include a link to their announcement of it :-) [Edit - again] As pointed out by Sean Corfield in the comments below: the "ACE" acronym actually stands for "http://www.adobe.com/support/certification/ace.html,Adobe Certified Expert", so congratulations to all the new Adobe Community Experts! [who may well be ACEs too :-) ]

What do you want in ColdFusion9?

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 06:13:00 -0500

Rupesh Kumar (a member of the ColdFusion engineering team) has just blogged about surveys for input on the next version of ColdFusion! Go here - http://coldfused.blogspot.com/2008/01/adobe-coldfusion-survey.html to find the surveys and give the CF team some good ideas on the next version of CF!

Mike shows us what AIR looks like

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 05:32:00 -0500

While in the city of Romance, Mike Chambers brought out the AIR logo for the first time. See http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2007/11/15/introducing-the-adobe-air-logo/,here for more details.

CFCamp - Australia sign up

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 09:56:00 -0500

Following up from my previous post about CFCamp, the sign up for the event has baan posted. Go to http://cfcamp.eventbrite.com/ to sign up! PS: Still working on the New Zealand Connection!