Working with flashvars in Flex 4

Last night I converted my CFMU project from Flex 3 to Flex 4. There were a couple differences but a lot easier than I was expecting so that was a pleasant surprise. For my project one of the major things I had to convert was the way I read in flash vars and lucky for me it was a simple 1 line change. In my multi uploader there are all kinds of variables that are passed in using flash vars and in the previous source it looked like this.

var params:Object = Application.application.parameters; var _titlebar = params.title;

If you check out the Application class and take a look at the property application you will notice it is Deprecated. The note also tells us that we should instead use FlexGlobals.topLevelApplication. This was an easy enough change but an important 1 to point out.

var params:Object = FlexGlobals.topLevelApplication.parameters; var _titlebar = params.title;

Big thanks to Seth Bienek for helping me out on this.

Extension Builder Extension for ColdFusion Builder

I wanted to learn how to create some extensions for the new ColdFusion Builder IDE so I thought I would start off walking. The first thing you can do is head over to http://www.riaforge.org and check out the Bolt Extension Category. This is a great market place for all the free extensions out there and will let you check out some code. After checking out some cool extension demos by Ray Camden and Brian Rinaldi I decided to create my own.

When you first start out writing extensions your not quite sure where to put everything. My extension will basically help you get started. All you have to do is create a project right click on it and click Extension Builder > Generate Extension. This will write out a base shell for you with some examples. Yes this is an extension to build an extension! I created a quick screen cast to demo the extension, I hope you like. Again this was just a fun project so I could learn the basics, be on the look out for some cool extension from me in the future. Click on the image below to watch the screen cast.

I know when ColdFusion 9 / Builder will be released

Last night we were lucky enough to have Adam Lehman on the Adobe user group tour present to us on ColdFusion 9 & Flex 4. After the meeting we had some good times as we all headed out to a local pub for some good food, conversation and drinks. After a few beers Adam was spilling his guts and I am glad to announce the release date. Ready for it? come on now I can't let that out of the bag but I can tell you this. It is public knowledge that they will both be released this year. The more I hear Adobe talking about all of there products I have a couple of assumptions. 1st off we know its not going to be anytime soon because public beta's have not been released yet. Second, I really think all of the products they have in beta out there are going to be released at the same time. My best guess is somewhere close to Adobe Max all of the products are going to be released at once.

** Disclaimer, Adam is a rock and told me nothing!

iPhone 3.0 update release notes

Here are the release notes that I just pulled while updating my iPhone to the new OS 3.0.

Phone OS 3.0 Software Update
This update contains over 100 new features, including the following:

• Cut, Copy & Paste with shake to undo
• Landscape keyboard in key applications
• Enhanced Messages application
- Send and receive photos, contacts, audio files, and location via MMS*
- Forward and delete single or multiple messages
• Added search feature in Mail, Calendar, Notes and iPod
• Spotlight search across iPhone
• Support for CalDAV and subscriptions in Calendar
• Improvements to Safari
- Performance
- HTML 5 support
- HTTP Streaming audio and video
- Auto-fill usernames and passwords
• New Voice Memos application
• Sync Notes with a Mac or PC via iTunes
• Internet Tethering over USB and Bluetooth*
• Browse and download movies, TV shows, and audiobooks from the iTunes Store**
• Stereo Bluetooth***
• Wi-Fi auto login
• Enhanced Stocks application
• More Parental Control options for Apps, Music, Movies and TV Shows
• iTunes account creation and login**
• YouTube account login and access to subscriptions, ratings and favorites**
• Shake to shuffle
• New languages, dictionaries, and keyboards
• Find my iPhone and Remote Wipe via MobileMe (subscription required)**
• Support for more Exchange policies
• Create and send Exchange meeting invitations
• Search mail on server (Exchange Server 2007 and supported IMAP servers)
• Search LDAP company directory
• VPN on demand and VPN proxy support
• Encrypted configuration profiles
• Encrypted iTunes backups
• 1,000 new developer APIs, including:
- In App Purchases
- Apple Push Notification Service
- Accessories support
- Peer to Peer Connectivity
- Embedded Maps
- iPod Library Access
• Bug fixes

Products compatible with this software update:
• iPhone
• iPhone 3G
• iPhone 3G S

* Compatible only with iPhone 3G and iPhone 3G S and requires support from your wireless provider.
** Not available in all regions or in all languages.
*** Compatible only with iPhone 3G and iPhone 3G S.

For feature descriptions and complete instructions, see the user guide for your iPhone at: http://www.apple.com/support/manuals/iphone

For more information about iPhone, go to: http://www.apple.com/iphone

To troubleshoot your iPhone, or to view additional support information go to: http://www.apple.com/support/iphone

For information on the security content of this update, please visit this website: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

ColdFusion 9 & Flex 4 Tour in Cleveland

On Wednesday, June 17th, join us for what will be the biggest Adobe user group event in Cleveland history! All of the official Adobe groups: The Cleveland ColdFusion User Group, the Cleveland Flex User Group, the Cleveland Adobe User Group and the Cleveland InDesign User Group join forces for this big, big, BIG... SOOOOO BIGGG event that you'll want to be there!

The ColdFusion 9 and Flex 4 tours are here! Adam Lehman of Adobe, who was featured on CFConversations this week, will be our speaker for this event.

If you're in or near the Cleveland area, join us! It's at 6pm, and at the offices of:

Dealer Tire, LLC 3711 Chester Avenue Cleveland, OH 44114

There will be food, beverages, and prizes, along with swag!

If you are planning to attend, it's imperative that you RSVP on the Cleveland CFUG website.

If you're not in the area, check out your user group website for more information about a tour date in your area.

jQuery adds a touch of eazy to admin screen

I really was not sure what to title this post so that's what I came up with. I have a friend who I do work for that has a pretty simple admin screen where he can update properties of an e commerce application I built for him. Recently he asked for an option to change the status of an order. This is fairly common in this type of application but what we did not want to do is present an order list, click on an order to view the details, update the order and then return back to the order screen. We decided it would be best if he could easily change the status right from the orders listing. This article will walk you through a couple things I found while creating this feature, hopefully it helps someone.

First let's look at our new admin screen. Here we have a list of orders and instead of displaying a status we are going to display the status as a pick list with the current status selected, nothing big going on here.

<select id="status-#orderId#" class="_status"> <option value="P" <cfif status EQ "P">selected</cfif>>Processed</option> <option value="D" <cfif status EQ "D">selected</cfif>>Declined</option> <option value="S" <cfif status EQ "S">selected</cfif>>Shipped</option> <option value="C" <cfif status EQ "C">selected</cfif>>Cancelled</option> </select> The thing to pay attention to here is what I am doing with the id of the select box. All status drop downs will have a class of status but the id will be unique for each one. During the output loop we will insert the order id so our status will be status-orderid. This will allow us to know what order is being changed.

[More]

jQuery Tools

I just came across one of the coolest new additions to the jQuery framework. jQuery tools is a collection of the most important user-interface components for today's websites. The great thing about the tools collection is that it weighs in a whooping 5.8KB. With all things jQuery it's incredible easy to use and it is a great addition to an already GREAT framework. I encourage you to check out the demo's because they are really great and it's pretty exciting to see them in action.

The many ways to list the contents of a directory

Let me start off by saying that this does not just relate to using cfdirectory but really any tag or function that deals with some type of absolute path. I came across this problem at work as we were trying to list the contents of a directory that resides on a remote machine. First let's take a look at the solution if we were trying to do this on our local machine. Here we can either hard code the exact location of the directory or if we know its right below the directory we are working with we can expand the current path. <!--- the absolute path to the directory ---> <cfdirectory action="list" directory="c:\www\abc\images" name="dirlist"/> <!--- the absolute path to the directory without hard coding the location ---> <cfdirectory action="list" directory="#expandPath('.')#\images" name="dirlist"/>

This is fairly straight forward so far because we are dealing with local machine resources. When we start talking about a remote machine we are getting into account privileges on a domain. I am the first to tell you I am not an expert when it comes to server administration so If I explain something wrong call me out on it. In a default ColdFusion installation the service is run under the local system account and that usually will not have any privileges to outside resources. You either need to grant permissions to that account or you need to create a new account that has the necessary permissions. Once you have that done you can start working with outside resources.

Another thing to remember here is that we are working with absolute paths. In our case we had a virtual directory in IIS pointing to a share drive. Even though this is browsable you can not use "/vdname" to list the contents of a directory. You can however use expand path with the virtual directory name to get the path. In the end that will expand out to the UNC path of the directory. Another option you can use the ip address of the machine. As you can see there are many ways to list the contents of a directory. In my case it was a permissions issue so I would always start will full permissions and work your way backwards. <!--- a remote machine using the unc path ---> <cfdirectory action="list" directory="\\uncpath\shared\images" name="dirlist"/> <!--- a virtual directory ---> <cfdirectory action="list" directory="#expandPath('/abcimages')#" name="dirlist"/> <!--- a remote machine using the ip address ---> <cfdirectory action="list" directory="//10.1.1.2/images" name="dirlist"/>

cfObjective 2009 Review

Well cfObjective has come and gone and I thought I would take a few minutes today to reflect on my first trip this conference. As always the best part of these conferences is really the networking. I got to see a bunch of people I have not seen in awhile (or ever) that I talk to on a daily basis. My session, Advanced Ajax in ColdFusion was Thursday right after lunch. A friend noticed and gave me the heads up that I was in the big room. This did not help an already nervous first time speaker. In the end I thought my presentation went well and I learned some things that will help me next time.

On Friday night we had our iPhone development BOF that was put on by Andy Matthews, Joshua Cyr and myself. A real big thanks goes out to Andy who was able to get some great prizes to give out including some real good books. It was a really good turn out and I think we had some real good conversation and ideas in the room. Thanks to everyone who came out for this and If you missed it Josh & I will be doing it again at CFUnited.

Another highlight was heading out to see Star Trek on Thursday night at IMAX. I really enjoyed the movie and it was a ton of fun heading out there with such a large group of people. Now the tough part comes, it's post conference and I heard a lot of really smart people talk so I have a ton of ideas running through my head. I have so many things I want to work on, just need to find a good place to start.

Advanced AJAX Presentation Completed

I just completed my presentation at cfObjective and I am glad I made it through alive. That was really my first conference session so I was a little worried having to talk to so many smart people. I think it ended up going well and I got some real good questions from the people that attended. I have uploaded my presentation to SlideSix for you to check out and I have attached my code. Thanks again for anyone who took the time time to come listen to me rant.

http://www.danvega.org/blog/enclosures/presentation_code.zip