There are two major stories delivered with this new version:

1. Contributing has become a lot easier.
2. The prominence and recognition for community members who actively participate in Cookbooks was increased.

In detail, there is a set of new features that are making the experience more enjoyable and productive.

• Support for “topics” and “tags”.
• 17 technologies & products, including non-Adobe ones: AIR, Flash Professional, ColdFusion, LiveCycle, Dreamweaver, Flash Catalyst, ActionScript, Mobile and Devices, Video, PHP  and more.
• Improved content discoverability:
  • Search engine optimization
  • Ability to drill-down by tag, or do a full-text search
  • “data visualizer” – the Flash widget you see on the homepage, which is a fun way to explore the content and the community behind it.
  • Related articles recommended for each recipe.
  • Leader board featuring the most active and the most recent contributors, including integration with Community Help profiles.
  • A new way to pull in new recipes, called “recipe requests”: users can ask for a help on a task or topic, and receive solutions from the other members of the community.
  • Slicker design, improved performance, etc.

1. Labs content
   • Labs home page http://labs.adobe.com/
   • Flash Platform page http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flash/
   • Flex framework page http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flex/
   • Flash Builder page http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashbuilder4/
   • Flash Catalyst page http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashcatalyst/
   • FB download page http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?e=labs_flashbuilder4
   • FC download page http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?e=labs_flashcatalyst
   • Beta Videos http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flash/videos/
2. Devnet articles
   • Tim’s What’s new in FB http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/flex4builder_whatsnew.html
   • Matt’s What’s new in the SDK http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/flex4sdk_whatsnew.html
   • Flex DevCenter main page http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/
3. Press release http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/200906/060109NewFlashPlatformTools.html

Both of this images represent my vCard – pretty much the same information. In order to read them you would need specialized programs. For the first one I found out that QuickMark v3.6R is a great tool to use (there are other tools out there as well) as for the second one the only possible tool is Microsoft Tag.

There are other differences also in the way the information is stored. The 2d barcode has the information stored in those black dots and the Microsoft Tag is just a graphical representation of an URL in my opinion. I say that because when I scan the Microsoft Tag an internet connection is required in order to retrieve the information from my vCard.

Aside from this, I think I will create a sticker with my barcode 2d for my cars window so when I block somebody in the parking lot they will have a way to find out my phone .

http://www.stratulat.com/Regular_Expressions_Flex.html

My site on ICE

Adobe InContext Editing is an online service, available at no charge during the free preview period. It is a RIA application combining both Flex and JavaScript to create a very useful and simple tool to be used by both content contributors and web designers.

Basically what you do is create an HTML page and add some ICE editable regions from Dreamweaver CS4. Then you go in your browser at the same page and hit Ctrl+E and voila.. you can edit that page (in the image above is my Java page after I have done just that). If you need a similar page (let’s say Ajax in my case) you just hit the “duplicate page” button and that is all (aside from additional editing of that page).

Going forward, one big part of developing an application is debugging it. The instrospector tool I am talking about does not help to debug an application in the same way the JDT debugger helps debug Java applications. Actually it works more like Firebug.

First you need to copy one file into the source folder of your project:

“c:\Program Files\Adobe\Flex Builder 3\sdks\3.0.0\frameworks\libs\air\AIRIntrospector.js”

The second step is to include it into your application:

If you run the application right now, nothing will happen. The introspector is not started unless it is used. So let’s use it to see how it works. For that I will add the following piece of code just above the <body> tag.

<script>
air.Introspector.Console.log(window);
</script>

I made it a little bit interesting by logging the window object to see the power of this introspector.

You are now able to explore the entire structure of the window object to see exactly the value for each member. This console is a very powerful tool. As you can see there are more features there and we will explore those later. More about Adobe AIR Introspector can be found on the Adobe help resource center here.

So let’s see what I have done.

Of course, first I have created the AIR project:

From the beginning I have spotted a problem in this picture: there was no mention to HTML or JavaScript or anything. Adobe AIR has the capabilities to render HTML and one of the strongest points of this framework is that a web developer can basicaly hit the ground running and just program his way into the desktop world using HTML and JavaScript.

Going forward, I have search resources to see what is the tooling support for this and I found in Adobe’s documentation an entry about this: AIR development tools. Obviously, even if is not mentioned in that chapter of documentation, Flex Builder 3 has suppor for creating AIR applications so let’s persue this further and set up the environment.

If we run the application right now, MyAirApp window shows up as a Flex AIR application. We need to change that so MyAirApp to render html.

First let’s create index.html and set it up to be used by the AIR application. To do that the bin-degug/MyAirApp-app.xml file should be edited and change two tags: content and visible. Yes I now, is not a very elegant thing to do. Is just the first thing that helped me. I’ll try to find a less hackish way to this. If you already know one please share it with us.

Running now the application will render:

So here is my first HTML AIR application. OK, I said JavaScript AIR application into the title. This is only the first step to get there. More will come soon.

Have fun coding.

So if you are a student of a professor just go to FlexRegistration.com claim your copy.

After Mozilla found a new use for their technology, the XUL platform, in the form of Prism, somebody has found this technology inspiring and developed Fluid.

That somebody is not Apple as one first thought might be, but a web enthusiast, Todd Ditchendorf.