franto.com

Text Layout Engine in Flex 3

I’m going to play with Text Layout Engine, which is bundled in Flex 4. But we need to use it in Flex 3 in our Goalscape project. And it’s possible to use Text Layout Engine in Flex 3. All you need to do is download Flex 4 SDK, or Flash Builder and get textLayout.swc from Flex 4 SDK into your project to libs folder. I’ve played with Flex 4 beta testLayout.swc, but now when Flex 4 beta 2 is released I’ve checked both .swc files and filesize has raised from 326kB to 531kB, so I’m really interested in what was changed or added. I will post about my tests when I will find out anything. So if you are interested in some Text Layout Engine examples, stay tuned.

Unable to export SWC oem

I have few times lately this error in Flex Builder and there were at least 2 cases, which cause this error to happen. So maybe it will help you to find your problem.

• Some file (in my case .flexLibProperties) has SVN conflicts, so you need to resolve conflicts and merge them to solve this “Unable to export SWC oem” error
• In your library project there are some assets, which are not checked in project Properties/Flex Library Build Path/Assets Tab

If you know about other case, which can cause “Unable to export SWC oem” error, please let me know in comments and I will add it here to help other people with their development. Thank you

2 Flex Developer Job positions in Leeds

Hi Flex Developers,

I’ve offer in my inbox for 2 Flex Developers in Leeds. If you are searching for Flex Job, this can be your chance. If you are intersted please write me in comments (fill up your email, it will not be displayed on page) and I will contact you with recruiter.

Here is description of Flex job position:

If you are interested, let me know

Firefox has better memory management

I’ve switched to Firefox 3.5 yesterday from Firefox 3, because browsing in Firefox 3 with many tabs opened was too slow for me. I have habit of opening many tabs and just closing them when my comp is slow and memory raises up. I don’t know if you have memory issues with Firefox 3 (I’ve ran it on Windows XP), but it really doesnt matter, if I close tab or all tabs, memory just never decrease. There are memory leaks in Firefox 3, maybe many, don’t know. But now with Firefox 3.5, memory management is much better and I see memory released after tab close.

Franto.com Frontpage Changed

Recently I was not satisfied with old front page, because it shows latest posts just from 2 selected categories. If I wrote new posts in any other categories, users which came from other source than Adobe feeds or any RSS reader subscribed to my feed was not aware of new posts. The only possible place was in sidebar in Recent Posts section. So I’ve implemented changes in my WordPress Community theme, which I’ve purchased while ago from ThemeForest. I’ve include all my categories to the frontpage and for each category shows 3 latest posts with read more link. Please, let me know in comments if franto.com frontpage is readable for you, is it is “visitor friendly” or if you would make any other changes there. I appreciate your feedback in advance. Thank you.

WordPress as CMS: WP Pods

In last few weeks I’m trying to set up few websites based on WordPress. I like WordPress much for few years already (from version 1.5 as far as I remember). WordPress is still evolving and there are tons of great features and missing features are added by plugins. Again, there are tons of plugins, very useful one. But now I need use WordPress as CMS (Content Management System) for better data and content handling. After few attempts with other plugins, I have found WP Pods plugin. Pods are under constant development and there are very nice features like creating pods (data structure), templates, pages, helpers. There is also Package Manager for exporting and importing pods, so you can reuse your data structure or other all other parts of your pods from one site to another. In latest version 1.7.1 was introduced new feature which I’ve really needed: data import and export. So I’m finally satisfied with this great plugin. If you ever needed WordPress as CMS, try WP Pods. I think it’s worth checking.

WP Pods features video

Problem with XML attributes in AS3.0

I’ve found today some small problem with setting XML attribute for my current application. I’m generating HTML source code via XML, because both are tags languages and I have found this nice problem. Imagine you have DIV tag with class attribute set like this:

<div class="myClass">test</div>

So in ActionScript 3 you can create it via XML in this way

var divXML:XML = <div>test</test>;
divXML.@class = "myClass";

All seems ok and trivial, but Flex Builder has problem to compile second line. It seems that @class is reserved word, because I can change to other attribute name and it works. But luckily there are different ways how to set XML attribute for XML node.  I’ve fixed it in this way

var divXML:XML = <div>test</test>;
divXML.@["class"] = "myClass";

What is your preffered  way to set XML attributes?