Introducing SourceMate for Flash Builder 4
SourceMate is an extension Flash Builder which attempts to cover some of gaps left in the implementation “out of the box”.
Some of SourceMate’s Features:
- Refactoring
- Convert Local Variable to Field
- Extract Constant
- Extract Method
- Extract Interface
- Change Method Signature
- Disable All trace() Statements
- Code Generation
- Override/Implement Methods
- Generate Getters/Setters
- Generate Constructor using Fields
- Generate toString()
- Generate ASDoc Comments
- Metadata Integration
- Content Assist for Metadata Tags (can include custom/framework tags)
- Metadata Tag Validation
- General Productivity
- Task markers for TODO,FIXME, and XXX comments
- MXML and Actionscript Code Snippets View
- Generate Ant Build.xml from Flex project settings
- ASDoc Generation Wizard
One of my old feature requests which have not made it to the implementation list (yet), but one I find very valuable is the content assist on Metadata and validation of them… this is a huge step forward in making usage of Metadata easily accessible for novice and intermediate Flex developers… but actually, the entire list above is interesting and will add tremendous amount of power to your current Flash Builder implementation and make it an even more awesome tool for Flash Platform development than it already is.
Check it out…
http://www.elementriver.com/sourcemate/
How to type upside down letters & backwards text ?
How does this tool flip text up side down and backward?
The JavaScript program converts English letters to unicode characters and symbols that look inverted, to make it look like you’ve created upside-down text on the computer. Most of them come from the character sets “Latin Extended” and “International Phonetic Alphabet”. Unfortunately there are no upside down numbers and not enough upside down capital letters, so this tool supports lowercase letters only. This page uses the font “Arial Unicode MS” to display the flipped text. You can learn the letter mapping behind this upside down text generator by viewing this page’s html source code. Enjoy this trick on internet forum, blog, IM, & chat!
Check it out…
http://www.sevenwires.com/play/UpsideDownLetters.html
FlexMonkey 1.0 Released… a stunt by Gorilla Logic
Now, after more than a year laying around in the mold and in the making, FlexMonkey has finally rounded the difficult 1.0 corner…
FlexMonkey is an Adobe AIR application used for testing Flex- and AIR-based applications. Providing the functionality to record, playback and verify Flex UI interactions, FlexMonkey also generates ActionScript-based testing scripts that you can easily include within a continuous integration environment.
FlexMonkey is created by the ingenious guys at Gorilla Logic: a US company based in Colorado.
Check out their website…
http://www.gorillalogic.com/
Introducing SmartSVN.. a better SVN client for MAC OS X
Having used Versions for some time and having come to MAC OS X platform only recently from Windows, I have really been missing the awesome shell integration of TortoiseSVN known from Windows. SubClipse made most of my updates seem easy, but I still found myself missing the shell integration on a daily basis…
Nevertheless, having come to terms with this limitation much to my happiness I found the SmartSVN client after having watched a screen cast by Mr. Nate Bech (Senior Adobe Developer at T-Mobile USA).
SmartSVN is by far the best GUI based SVN client I have come across for the MAC OS X platform so naturally I want to post a note about it in a hope to guide others in a similar situation.
Check it out…
http://www.syntevo.com/smartsvn/
960 Grid System
The 960 Grid System is an effort to streamline web development workflow by providing commonly used dimensions, based on a width of 960 pixels. There are two variants: 12 and 16 columns, which can be used separately or in tandem.
In an effort to help developers and designers adopt this win-for-all approach to layout, Andrée Hansson has created the 960 Gridder browser overlay which can be triggered through a simple link in the browser.
Activating the 960 Gridder on this blog eventually looks like this, revealing that I have a small breakage of the 960 Grid system…
Please make a note of the control panel in the left side which allows for simple tweaking of the grid overlay… really really cool stuff.
Check it out…
960 Grid System
960 Gridder
FC / FB Workflow Optimizer… sources available
I have made the sources available for the Workflow Optimizer… its a crude implementation but it does the job.
It uses Flex, AIR, as3preferenceslib, as3corelib and the Mate Flex Framework.
Don’t hesitate to comment on the ideas or concepts.. but don’t comment the code: it’s not written with any other priority than functionality…
Check it out…
http://code.google.com/p/workflowoptimizer/
Flash Catalyst / Flash Builder Workflow Optimizer
Workflow Optimizer is a small and lightweight tool which helps Flash Designers and Flash Developers to work around some of the temporary limitations with Flash Catalyst.
The application allows you to automatically extract the contents of FXP / FXPL files and put them into a configurable directory and can hence replace some of the tedious export / import actions from Flash Catalyst to Flash Builder.
The application is written in Flash Builder 4 with Flex 4 and AIR, it uses the as3preferenceslib for persisting the directory and file information and it uses Mate Flex Framework as the application controller.
Next step is to add support for running as a service by adding some Merapi classes and examine even better ways to help optimize the FC / FB workflow.
You can download and install the latest version from the Adobe AIR Marketplace here…
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/marketplace/index.cfm?event=marketplace.offering&offeringid=13424
Sources are available at Google Code…
http://code.google.com/p/workflowoptimizer/
You can download the binary from here…
http://petermolgaard.com/projects/workflowoptimizer/WorkflowOptimizer.air.zip
Sources will soon follow…
The next version of Flex Builder will be named Flash Builder
Flex Builder 4 (Codename “Gumbo”) will represent a radical namechange as it will be called Flash Builder instead of Flex Builder.
This will strengthen the cohesiveness of the tools around the Flash Platform (Flash CS, Flash Builder, Flash Catalyst, Flash Player, Flash Media Server, etc.) and hopefully make it more easy in the future to explain the difference between Flex and Flash and to distinguish between what is what in the tool-suite and what their purpose is.
Flash CS will keep its name despite speculations of its change into something as exotic as Flash Authoring, Flash Animator, etc.
The logo for Flash Builder looks like this…
You can read much more about that in the exhaustive explanation by Ryan Stewart…
http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com/2009/05/flex-builder-gumbo-is-being-renamed-flash-builder/
Kap Inspect… really cool tool by Kap Lab
When instrumenting applications, it’s always important to have the instrumentation tools to leave as small a footprint as possible. With some tools it can be done entirely unobtrusively, but these options also are not the most powerful. Kap Inspect is not entirely unobtrusive seeing that it’s not hooked onto the app at runtime, but added as a couple of lines of code on Top level of the app; however the power and still relative small footprint it offers makes it the preferred choice here at Hello™ for our Flex Applications.
The French Company Kap Lab has decided to share this tool which was initially developed for internal usage, and we could only appreciate their efforts if they had decided to open source it… but let’s face it, when you have something cool which might turn into a commoditisizable product, you always have to consider if it’s serves your own interest best to open source it.
Anyways, check it out…
http://lab.kapit.fr/display/kapinspect/Kap+Inspect
Qwitter… another service by Contrast
Qwitter is an online service which e-mails you when someone stops following you on Twitter…
It will then send you a message something like this:
John Gruber (gruber) stopped following you on Twitter after you posted this tweet:
What's the difference between Arial and Helvetica?
Check it out…
http://useqwitter.com/
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