Proof-Of-Concept: A Simple UI for Running Ant Targets Built with Adobe AIR 2.0
I've really been getting into Apache Ant lately. I really enjoy using it to manage various build processes when working on Flash projects. So when I found out that AIR 2.0 can invoke a native process I immediately thought that it'd be cool to learn how to use that capability to make an app that presents a UI for a given Ant build file and then be able to run its various targets from that UI. Thus I created a simple application that I'm calling, for the time being, rANT.
It took me a while to figure things out entirely but in the end I'm happy to have learned how to use flash.desktop.NativeProcess. Unfortunately, in order to realize my idea faster, I ignored the fact that the application would really depend on a user's system. For instance, I have Ant installed in such a way that its available as a system command so I can run it from the command line like any old DOS command. I know not everyone is setup like this andwould require knowing where Ant is installed on a user's system. Additionally, Ant doesn't come with a good old fashioned .exe file for Windows so I invoked Ant via C:\windows\system32\cmd.exe. Here's some pseudo code that comes straight from my application...
Another (little) thing was that Adobe isn't very clear about the fact that you need to package your application in a native installer in order to use the 'extendedDesktop' profile. Took me a while to figure it out, but the good news its pretty darn easy to package a native installer from a .air file.
At any rate, its by no means ready for the public, but I wanted to share my work thus far to see if anyone else would be interested in an application such as this. So here's how it looks and works so far:
When you start the application you're presented with a screen that allows you to load a build file...
Once the file is loaded it displays information about the build file and a list of its available targets...
You can then select a task and run it. Here you can see the output in the TextArea component from when I ran the compile-docs target...
Some of my targets require arguments to be passed in for them to work. For instance, my compile-and-debug target requires a debugLevels parameter that specifies the various debug levels (info, status, etc.) to output to the debugging console (which happens to be de MonsterDebugger). So I created a little panel that lets me specify parameters for the target...
Lastly, here you can see the output from the compile-and-debug target after running it with the passed in parameters...
So thats it! And if anyone thinks this would be useful to them leave some comments and/or ideas.
P.S. I built it with robotlegs 
Get yourself to NYC for Flash and the City
I had the pleasure of hanging out with Elad Elrom last night. He's one of the organizers of the upcoming Flash and the City conference here in NYC. I highly recommend attending this conference for the following reasons:
1. Its in F*ckin' New York City!
I know NYC isn't for everyone but there's everything you could imagine here. On top of learning and getting inspired about Flash you'll have everything NYC has to offer at your finger tips. The organizers of the conference know this and have created what they call the "City Track". They've organized a few "field trips" throughout the city that you can tag along with. Just think of all the cool stuff you'll be able to check out, eat, and do while you're here!
2. Its at the 3-Legged Dog Art & Technology Center
This place is just plain cool. Its entirely artist-run and have been supporting the arts in NYC since the center was built in 2006 just three blocks south of the WTC site. Personally, it feels good to be supporting such an organization.
3. The ridiculously good list of attending speakers
ZOMG! Srsly u guys! There hasn't been a large Flash conference in NYC...since...I don't know...2004? And that one pretty much sucked. But just look at the list of speakers! If you don't recognize the names, just trust me on this. They're are some really sharp people speaking about some great developments in the industry.
4. The Price is Right
Tickets right now are $299 (but lets just be real and say $300). In comparison to other conferences, this is CHEAP, especially for NYC standards. And if you keep your ear in the community (Twitter, blogs, etc), you might even be able to find a coupon code!
I'd say these are my main reasons for anyone to attend the conference right now. I'm sure I'll come up with more and if I do, I'll update this post. Naturally, I plan on attending seeing as I live here and I hope to see you along with my other friends and colleagues here as well! It's gonna be a blast.
Open Source Media Framework (Sprint 8) Bug in NetStreamPlayTrait and NetStreamTimeTrait?
Over the last two months or so I've been keeping my eyes on Adobe's Open Source Media Framework (OSMF) project. I started fiddling around with Sprint 7, seeing if I could build a progressive video player component on top of it. My first impression was that the project was still in its infancy solely based on the naming conventions of the framework's events. It just didn't feel intuitive. Additionally, there seemed to be some bugs surrounding the seeking of progressive videos. Alas, the development team has made some major improvements in Sprint 8 with regards to both of these items.
Upon downloading Sprint 8 I was immediately happy with the renaming of the framework event classes. They make much more sense now. Seeking progressive videos seemed to have improved as well, but I was still experiencing some buggy behavior when continuously scrubbing a progressive video.
New Flash Community Developments: Robotlegs and Signals
I've come to realize that I'm always a bit hesitant to change. I was late to get a cell phone, late to join Facebook, late to join Twitter, and often late to look into developments within the Flash community. Lately I've been trying to change how often I tune into Flash community developments. As of late I've stumbled across two projects that struck my fancy: Robotlegs and Signals. Robotlegs is a lightweight MVCS architecture that is very focused on dependency injection. Signals is the result of Robert Penner's frustration with the Flash Player's native event system. Thus he has created an event system inspired by C# events and signals/aslots in Qt. Both looked like interesting projects so I decided to dive into them further. I'll start with robotlegs.
AIR:CMR – Free Books? Academia?
I just received a couple copies of the Chinese translation of Adobe AIR -Create Modify Reuse. It's pretty exciting to see your book translated into other languages, even if you can't read them.
I'd like to donate them to a High School or College. Would anyone in academia like a Chinese or Spanish translated copy of our book? I'd prefer to hear from people who instruct New Media or IT courses, or is involved with a school's library.
I will only ship these to a school address. No home addresses. No student dorms and housing. Please email me at aircmr "@" nobien.net.
AIR Create-Modify-Reuse
Back on the 25th of April, I posted a little something about us (Matt & me ... and Toddly Anderson) releasing a certain book entitled Adobe AIR, Create-Modify-Reuse, published by Wiley & Sons.
Well, at that time, MXNA was down, so only a few regular viewers saw it. So I figured I'd just throw it out there again that our book came out. It's a book featuring eleven applications that you can use "out of the box" and hopefully use to create your own rendition using Adobe Flex 3 and AIR. If you do create your own app based on ours, or found the book useful in guiding your own creation, we encourage you to tell us about it.
Also, you should pick up the Flex 3 Cookbook by friends Josh Noble and Toddly Anderson (again). Another book (that will be awesome) is Adobe AIR in Action and was written by my old co-workers Joey Lott, Katheryn Rotondo, Sam Ahn and Ash Atkins (also the tech-editor of our book).
So now that you're about $80 in the hole, I'll let you be.