This friday we have released major update for Goalscape AIR application. It is project we (me with Tomas as Flexets company) have been working on for more than year. If you are not aware of Goalscape application please look at intro video. But in one sentence it’s Goal Management Software.

Here is list of main features in this update:

• Search function
• Adding and naming goals
• Icons for common functions
• Language support
• Notes text
• Attachments

If you are interested in details go and read about them here: Major update for Goalscape AIR application and download Goalscape (AIR application). You have 1 month free trial and then it’s just 45€ one time payment which include all future updates.

If you have any questions about Goalscape ask in comments, I can answer them in comments. Even if you install Goalscape and want to see there some features, let me know and we will consider to add them to Goalscape.

I have found 2 issues with DragManager.doDrag. One of the problem is just on Mac and second one is “not really problem”, but strange behavior between web version and AIR version. I really can’t find answers for this problems, so I’m trying to get answers from you. I hope anyone has workaround for me

So, first problem is about dragImage alpha problem on Mac. Imagine this: I want drag some button and I want to make dragImage (which is “screenshot” of that dragged button) transparent. So i have create Bitmap from that button and use it as 4th parameter of doDrag() function.

DragManager.doDrag(this, dragSource, event, dragImage, draggedButton.x, draggedButton.y, 0.5, false);

Problem is that on PC dragImage is transparent, but on Mac is solid. And problem is just in AIR, not in web version (Flex). You can try it here

• Web version: Alpha Drag Problem
• AIR version: Alpha Drag Problem

Try drag any button and you should experience this: web version works for PC and Mac as well (I don’t have Linux, so you can try Linux as well), but AIR version works just for PC. DragImage on Mac will be solid and not transparent.

Does anyone know, if this is bug, or there is some workaround for this?

Second issue I have found is somethin strange. As I’m listening from dragStart on Canvas and it handles all 3 buttons, I need to set offset to doDrag() function (5th, 6th parameter) from dragged buton. And you know what? There is difference between web version (Flex) and desktop version (AIR). In web version I need to insert offset like -draggedButton.x, -draggedButton.y, but in AIR version I need to insert draggedButton.x, draggedButton.y. Really strange, but otherwise it doesnt work as expected.

You can see sources of both projects. For web version, use right click, there is View Source and for AIR version use this link for downloading project source: AIR Project Download.

I would be glad to hear your opinions and solutions or workarounds. Thank you

Source for creating screenshot and calling DragManager.doDrag

private function dragStart(event:DragEvent):void
{
	var dragSource:DragSource = new DragSource();
 
	var dragImage:Image = new Image();
	var bd:BitmapData = new BitmapData(draggedButton.width, draggedButton.height, true, 0x00000000);
	bd.draw(draggedButton);
        dragImage.source = new Bitmap(bd);
 
	var shadow:DropShadowFilter = new DropShadowFilter(5,225,0x000000,0.5);
	var glow:GlowFilter = new GlowFilter(0x888888,0.5,20,20);
	glow.inner = true;
	dragImage.filters = [shadow, glow];
 
	dragImage.alpha = 0.5;
 
        DragManager.doDrag(this, dragSource, event, dragImage,
                       draggedButton.x, draggedButton.y, 1, false);
}

Today on FlexLib mailinglist I’ve found quite nice and interesting question:

Dear Folks,

In my appliaction, The code: “application.close();” is used to exit
the application.
And I found, no. of ways are there to exit the application. Let me
know, which one is best , should allow the
grace full exit and should faster.

No. of ways to Exit in Flex:

1. NativeApplication.nativeApplication.exit();
2. Application.application.exit();
3. application.close();
4. exit();

And please advise, any other option is there to exit the application.

Thanks in Advance

Lokh

What are your experiences with closing AIR application. Do you think it’s matters on function which is closing AIR application?

Post your thoughts and I will post them to the FlexLib mailinglist.

Thank you

Table of contents for air-tip

1. AirTip: Problem with app.xml in Flex 3
2. AirTip: AIR application gained focus
3. AirTip: List all of your drives in AIR application
4. Adobe AIR 1.5 available in Flex SDK Nightly builds
5. AIR Tip: ContextMenuItem can crash AIR app on Windows
6. AIR Tip: Flash movie is not rendered in AIR 1.5 HTML in Fullscreen

This is long title, but it can tells everything. I came up interesting issue. I do not know if you have already played with new AIR 1.5. We need some new features, so we have used it. And found interesting issue. If you are using HTML compoment and want to load HTML pages with Flash content inside it works in normal mode. But if your application is in Fullscreen, Flash movies are not loaded. In context menu (right click) there is just written Movie is not loaded… If i press Esc and go away from Fullscreen mode, Flash is loaded and all works correctly. Hmmm, strange. Does anyone experience same problem? Can someone from Adobe tell me anything about this.

Sorry, if I can’t see anything obvious…

I hope this will help to anyone…

If you are interested in similar Flex / AIR / Flash Tips & Tricks, consider subscribe to my Franto.com Tips & Tricks.

ATTENTION!

Tyler pointed me to the Marc’s Musings Blog, where Marc Hughes has experienced same problems, and it is confirmed by Adobe AIR Engineers, that this is bug. It’s already submitted in Adobe Bug tracking system.

Here are Marc’s posts:

• AIR Full screen & hosted swf content in HTML control
• Confirmation from Adobe AIR Engineers, that’s the bug

Table of contents for air-tip

1. AirTip: Problem with app.xml in Flex 3
2. AirTip: AIR application gained focus
3. AirTip: List all of your drives in AIR application
4. Adobe AIR 1.5 available in Flex SDK Nightly builds
5. AIR Tip: ContextMenuItem can crash AIR app on Windows
6. AIR Tip: Flash movie is not rendered in AIR 1.5 HTML in Fullscreen

This is just quick tip for all AIR developers. If you are developing AIR application and you want to use ContextMenu please be aware of possible problem on Windows platform. This is not problem on Mac, and it’s not problem in Flash Player (even on Windows). It is problem just in AIR on Windows (at least what I have find out till now).

Problem is as follow:

You want to have ContextMenu for some of your item (right click menu). You have created ContextMenu and want to add ContextMenuItem in this way

var myItem:ContextMenuItem = new ContextMenuItem(myItemName);

if variable myItemName is initialized or at least is empty string, all is ok. But there can situations when it is null. For example when you want to support multilanguage with ResourceManager, so it’s not correctly fill up and it’s null. In that case you AIR will crash and you will not know why, because it’s works on Mac, it works in FlashPlayer (without AIR), it just doesn work in AIR on Windows platform

So my quick fix was create fix function, like this

private function fixEmptyString(val:String):String
{
	if (val == null)
		return '';
 
	return val;
}
 
var myItem:ContextMenuItem = new ContextMenuItem(fixEmptyString(myItemName));

This will for sure.

Hope this helps you.

P.S. I will post this and another useful AIR tips in my Franto.com Tips & Tricks, so do not wait and subscribe to my list, if you find AIR tip this useful…

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Table of contents for air-tip

1. AirTip: Problem with app.xml in Flex 3
2. AirTip: AIR application gained focus
3. AirTip: List all of your drives in AIR application
4. Adobe AIR 1.5 available in Flex SDK Nightly builds
5. AIR Tip: ContextMenuItem can crash AIR app on Windows
6. AIR Tip: Flash movie is not rendered in AIR 1.5 HTML in Fullscreen

Adobe AIR 1.5 with codename Cosmo is available in Flex SDK Nightly builds. There are include almost all features with Flash Player 10, 5 new languages supported, Integration of the SquirrelFish JavaScript VM into the Webkit HTML engine (should provide significant improvements to JavaScript execution), fixed bugs and many more…

Mike Chambers got more information.

Table of contents for air-tip

1. AirTip: Problem with app.xml in Flex 3
2. AirTip: AIR application gained focus
3. AirTip: List all of your drives in AIR application
4. Adobe AIR 1.5 available in Flex SDK Nightly builds
5. AIR Tip: ContextMenuItem can crash AIR app on Windows
6. AIR Tip: Flash movie is not rendered in AIR 1.5 HTML in Fullscreen

This is quick Air Tip: If you need get list of all of your drives in code, just use

var list:Array = File.getRootDirectories();

It list all of y our hard drives with CD ROM drives. But if CD is inserted in CD ROM drive, it will be listed as well. I don’t find way how to find out if drive is CD ROM drive, you can just search for files on that inserted CD.

If there is a way how to find out, if drive is CD ROM drive, let us know

Table of contents for air-tip

1. AirTip: Problem with app.xml in Flex 3
2. AirTip: AIR application gained focus
3. AirTip: List all of your drives in AIR application
4. Adobe AIR 1.5 available in Flex SDK Nightly builds
5. AIR Tip: ContextMenuItem can crash AIR app on Windows
6. AIR Tip: Flash movie is not rendered in AIR 1.5 HTML in Fullscreen

This is little AIR Tip: if you want to know when your AIR application gained focus, just listen to AIREvent.APPLICATION_ACTIVATE.

addEventListener(AIREvent.APPLICATION_ACTIVATE, handleApplicationActivate);

We have launched new forum on our company site Flexets.com to help people in Flex / Flash / AIR / ActionScript learning process. I hope we will help people to see that beauty and easiness in developing with Adobe tools. It’s targeted to Flex, AIR, Flash, ActionScript as well as collection of useful resources. We hope we will build small community and teach them, what will they need So if you want to learn something, please sign up and ask your questions in Flexets Forum. Or just show us your work