AS3

My FlashBuilder 4 color scheme.

08/16/2010 in RIA View Comments

Something that still isn’t very intuitive to do is changing the color scheme on the editor in Eclipse. FlashBuilder 4 is no different, but hopefully this post will help ease the pain. To me a darker background with soft colors helps me concentrate more than a white background and black text. I once had a professor tell me that staring at a white background is no different than staring at a light bulb…light is projected from behind the screen.

Inspired by Kevin Suttle’s awesome instructions on how to customize the color scheme in FlashBuilder 4, I am listing my own settings below. I have always been a dark gray / blue type of designer and the colors I use in my editor work best for me. As with anything, pick what works best for you and if you want, share them. You can find these preferences in Flash Builder by following the links shown before each set of values below. I thought about posting my actual preference export, but there is a lot of personal system and software information saved in there. Instead of risking the removal of a key line in the preferences I am just listing the values that I changed within each section. This will give you a better idea on what changes anyway… You may notice that even my lighter fonts are still not white, but #DDDDDD.

Window > Preferences > General > Editors > Text Editors >

Line number foreground: 192, 192, 192
Current line highlight: 56, 56, 56
Print margin: 176, 180, 185
Find Scope: 185, 176, 180
Selection foreground color: 0, 0, 0
Selection background color: 0, 0, 0
Background color: 39, 39, 39
Foreground color: 221, 227, 230
Hyperlink: 25, 74, 165




Window > Preferences > Flash Builder > Editors > Syntax Coloring > ActionScript >

ASDoc: #3f5fbf
Bracket/Brace: #11a37c
Comment: #7f7e7e
Default text: #c9c9c9
Keyword: class: #5fa0c1
Keyword: functio #5fa0c1
Keyword: interface: #5fa0c1
Keyword: package: #5fa0c1
Keyword: trace: #76b0c3
Keyword: var: #11a37c
Metadata: #11a37c
Operator: #11a37c
Reserved: #5fa0c1
String: #96cee1






Flash Builder > Editors > Syntax Coloring > MXML >

ASDoc: #3f5fbf
Comment: #999999
Component Tag: #11a37c
Default Text: #dddddd
Processing Instruction: #11a37c
Special Tag: #11a37c
String: #11a37c










Changing the ASDoc Author name in FDT

07/26/2010 in RIA View Comments

One thing that you will notice when creating new .as files in FDT is that the default ASDoc Author will default to your systems user account. In my case, my user account on my system is “bconnatser”. I would rather have my full name shown as the author automatically when creating new Classes. There are two ways, at least, to make this setting change for FDT. One will permanently make the change for you from within the eclipse.ini file. The other way is from with FDT preferences settings.

Permanent change in the eclipse.ini:

  • Browse to the FDT install – In my case on OSX – “Applications/FDT/FDT4_Beta/FDTEnterprise/”
  • Then right click / CTRL + Click on FDT 4 and choose “Show Package Contents”
  • Now browse in the opened package contents to – “Contents/MacOS/” and open to edit eclipse.ini
  • Add the following, without quotes: “-Duser.name=[YOUR NAME]“

*The same is true if you are using FlashBuilder 4, just browse to your install folder and follow the instructions above.

Inside FDT’s Preferences:

  • Go to Preferences/FDT/Code Style/Code Templates (Misc)
  • Check “Override System Username- $(user)”
  • Enter the name you would like to use as the auther in the text field.
  • Click Apply
  • Click OK

Now when creating new Classes your Author name will be set to your desired name, rather than the user account on your system.

Flash Player 10.1: Verifiable speed increase.

06/14/2010 in RIA View Comments

While running some quick tests on Vector declaration using Jackson Dunstan’s quick test harness, I decided to check out the speed difference between Flash Player 10 and Flash Player 10.1. I was still running FP10 and noticed a major difference after comparing my test results with what Jackson had posted. I grabbed the samples with FP10, then updated to FP10.1. Notice the difference below in speed, and the ONLY thing I did different was install 10.1, never even closing Flash Builder. I simply installed 10.1 and ran the app again to get the results. The 10.1 release was always faster, and in some cases at least 2x faster or more.

*Update
 To make sense of the parameters shown below (cast, new, etc), review the tests actually ran from Jackon’s post. They represent the different ways to declare a Vector in AS3. [ click here ]


Safari on Mac OSX 10.6.3:

Flash Player 10:

Flash Player 10.1:

Chrome on Mac OSX 10.6.3:

Flash Player 10:

Flash Player 10.1:

This test was done on a brand spanking new i7 MBPro with 8GB of RAM, for anyone wanting to compare:

To try it yourself, check out Jackson’s test harness by clicking [here]

360Flex: Stoked to get a break and hear great devs.

02/23/2010 in Community, RIA View Comments

360Flex is just over one week away and I am getting super stoked to not only get a break from the craziness, but to also hear and learn from some of the best devs in the business. I have to thank my employer for sending me, or else I wouldn’t be making the trek to San Jose…that and the fact that there is no limit to alcohol on my expense report. Yeah, what were they thinking ;) . So I decided to sit down and get a tentative schedule ready.

First off I will say that I wish I could duplicate myself and attend all of the classes available, but nonetheless I have to choose one from each available time slot. My first run through the session were chosen based on what’s relative to my current job, after all they are footing the bill. My second run through was what I would personally want to see, and honestly they were really close in comparison…

There are a few of speakers that I would choose no matter what…namely Deepa Subramaniam, Jesse Warden and Jeff Tapper. I have seen them all speak before and really enjoy their sessions. So, below is the list of topics I am currently choosing to attend, excluding the key notes and group sessions that I will of course attend:

Day 1:
  • 1:00pm – 5:00pm: Joel Hooks – Hands-on Development with the RobotLegs AS3 Framework

    • *I wouldn’t miss this session for anything. I am slowly digging into RobotLegs as I can outside of the office. I know the basics but am definitely looking forward to learning from Joel in a hands-on environment.

Day 2:
  • 10:00am – 11:20am: Richard Lord – Designer Last Application Architect.
  • 1:00pm – 2:20pm: Daivd Hassoun – Going Deep w/OSMF – OMG
  • 2:30pm – 3:50pm: Jesse Warden – RobotLegs on Top of GAIA Framework
  • 4:00pm – 5:20pm: Huyen Tue Dao – Greenthreading in Flex

Day 3:
  • 10:00am – 11:20am: Deepa Subramaniam – What’s New in Flex 4 that’s NOT Spark!
  • 1:00pm – 2:20pm: Gary Rogers – Automated Build and Deployment Processes.
  • 2:30pm – 3:50pm: Elad Elrom – Building Applications using Test Driven Development (TDD)

Day 4:
  • 10:00am – 11:20am: Jeff Tapper – Ouch, it hurts when I do that.
  • 1:00pm – 2:20pm: Caleb Adam Haye – Better Builds: Continuous Integration for RIAs
  • 2:30pm – 3:50pm: Eric Fickes – Adobe is from Mars, Microsoft is from Uranus: A View from the Server.

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