Table of contents for flex-tips

1. Problem with XML attributes in AS3.0
2. Unable to export SWC oem
3. Numeric sorting of Flex DataGridColumn

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

Table of contents for flex-tips

1. FlexTips
2. FlexTip: mx:Text vs. mx:TextArea
3. FlexTip: XMLSocket connect() after disconnect from server
4. FlexTip: Problem with masks and scalable Flash
5. FlexTips: How to add Bitmap to UIComponent
6. FlexTip – Stop displaying Focus
7. FlexTip: Preventing CheckBox selection with Key.SPACE
8. FlexTip: WordWrap for mx:Text
9. FlexTip: Add Thumbs to Mx:Slider programatically
10. AS3 Conditional Breakpoint – enterDebugger()

I have some new Flex Tip for you. Maybe you have found it already if you have tried add new thumbs to Mx:Slider (HSlider, VSlider) programatically. There can be various “small” problems. Or maybe there is just another way

What I’ve tried is increase thumbCount property and add new value to values property. But there can be problems, if you did not set snapInterval property or how you insert new value.

I have created examples with 3 different ways of adding new thumbs to the horizontal slider. There can be more, but I want to show you just these 3 different way of how to do it.

In all examples sliders starting value as follows:

• minimum = 0
• maximum = 0
• thumbCount = 2
• values = [0,1]

I’m catching MouseEvent.CLICK event on these sliders, and add new thumb. After click you can check last added value, and values property of each slider for you control, what’s inside. Let’s try example and after I will explain difference in these 3 different ways fo adding new thumb to slider.

The first example I’m adding new value to the values property, which is Array by simple slider.values.push(newValue). Problem is that, when you push value e.g. 0.5 to array [0,1], values will be [0,1,0.5] it’s not sorted (slider has not sorted it by itself). It’s interesting how slider recompute it’s values. Just try it in example

private function handleAddWrongPoint(e:MouseEvent):void
{
	var newValue:Number = idWrongSlider.minimum + (e.localX / idWrongSlider.width) * (idWrongSlider.maximum - idWrongSlider.minimum);
	newValue = int(newValue * 100)/100;
	if (!(e.target is SliderThumb))
	{
		latestWrong = newValue;
		idWrongSlider.thumbCount++;
		idWrongSlider.values.push(newValue);
		idWrongSlider.invalidateProperties();
		trace('Wrong: ' + e.localX + " , new: " + newValue + " values: " + idWrongSlider.values);
 
		update();
	}
}

In second example there is no snapInterval set, and it seems, that causes more interesting problems. Values are now greater than maximum (1), try add few thumbs by clicking on 2nd slider and you can end up with such values property [0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,0.6]. Really don’t why

private function handleAddWrongPoint2(e:MouseEvent):void
{
	var newValue:Number = idWrongSlider2.minimum + (e.localX / idWrongSlider2.width) * (idWrongSlider2.maximum - idWrongSlider2.minimum);
	newValue = int(newValue * 100)/100;
	if (!(e.target is SliderThumb))
	{
		latestWrong2 = newValue;
		idWrongSlider2.thumbCount++;
		idWrongSlider2.values.push(newValue);
		idWrongSlider2.invalidateProperties();
		trace('Wrong: ' + e.localX + " , new: " + newValue + " values: " + idWrongSlider2.values);
 
		update();
	}
}

In 3rd examples all is ok, because I’ve set snapInterval property to 0.01 and I’m adding new values correctly sorted

private function handleAddCorrectPoint(e:MouseEvent):void
{
    var newValue:Number = idCorrectSlider.minimum + (e.localX / idCorrectSlider.width) * (idCorrectSlider.maximum - idCorrectSlider.minimum);
    newValue = int(newValue * 100)/100;
    if (!(e.target is SliderThumb))
    {
        latestCorrect = newValue;
        idCorrectSlider.thumbCount++;
        var arr:Array = idCorrectSlider.values;
        arr.push(newValue);
        idCorrectSlider.values = arr.sort();
        idCorrectSlider.invalidateProperties();
 
        trace('Correct: ' + e.localX + " , new: " + newValue + " values: " + idCorrectSlider.values);
        update();
    }
}

Full source to this examples is included in Download Section (you will see it just as subscribed member) of our Coaching Program Forum on Flexets.com (My own company).

Table of contents for flex-tips

1. FlexTips
2. FlexTip: mx:Text vs. mx:TextArea
3. FlexTip: XMLSocket connect() after disconnect from server
4. FlexTip: Problem with masks and scalable Flash
5. FlexTips: How to add Bitmap to UIComponent
6. FlexTip – Stop displaying Focus
7. FlexTip: Preventing CheckBox selection with Key.SPACE
8. FlexTip: WordWrap for mx:Text
9. FlexTip: Add Thumbs to Mx:Slider programatically
10. AS3 Conditional Breakpoint – enterDebugger()

This is quick Flex Tip. If you do not need or do not want change CheckBox selection with space key, you can set mouseFocusEnabled to false.

If you know about any other solutions, let us know.

Table of contents for flex-tips

1. FlexTips
2. FlexTip: mx:Text vs. mx:TextArea
3. FlexTip: XMLSocket connect() after disconnect from server
4. FlexTip: Problem with masks and scalable Flash
5. FlexTips: How to add Bitmap to UIComponent
6. FlexTip – Stop displaying Focus
7. FlexTip: Preventing CheckBox selection with Key.SPACE
8. FlexTip: WordWrap for mx:Text
9. FlexTip: Add Thumbs to Mx:Slider programatically
10. AS3 Conditional Breakpoint – enterDebugger()

Here is quick Flex Tip. If you don’t want to display focus rectangle on pressing TAB key, you should use focusEnabled = false;
It’s quick solution for 1 component, but if you want disable focus for all components in your application just use focusManager.deactivate();

That’s all, hope it helps to anyone…

Table of contents for flex-tips

1. FlexTips
2. FlexTip: mx:Text vs. mx:TextArea
3. FlexTip: XMLSocket connect() after disconnect from server
4. FlexTip: Problem with masks and scalable Flash
5. FlexTips: How to add Bitmap to UIComponent
6. FlexTip – Stop displaying Focus
7. FlexTip: Preventing CheckBox selection with Key.SPACE
8. FlexTip: WordWrap for mx:Text
9. FlexTip: Add Thumbs to Mx:Slider programatically
10. AS3 Conditional Breakpoint – enterDebugger()

I didn’t know it, but here is solution. Best UIComponent for Bitmap is mx:Image (no surprise), You can just write:

<mx :Image creationComplete=”(event.currentTarget as Image).source = new Bitmap( bitmapData)”/>

So for mx:Image except source=”path” you can add reference to Bitmap as well.
Enjoy

Table of contents for flex-tips

1. FlexTips
2. FlexTip: mx:Text vs. mx:TextArea
3. FlexTip: XMLSocket connect() after disconnect from server
4. FlexTip: Problem with masks and scalable Flash
5. FlexTips: How to add Bitmap to UIComponent
6. FlexTip – Stop displaying Focus
7. FlexTip: Preventing CheckBox selection with Key.SPACE
8. FlexTip: WordWrap for mx:Text
9. FlexTip: Add Thumbs to Mx:Slider programatically
10. AS3 Conditional Breakpoint – enterDebugger()

This may be useful for someone who does not read Flex documentation in more detail. When you have content which is masked and you allow scale for your application, mask will not scale if it is not added to display list (it’s written in documentation ). So if you have such problem, add you mask to display list (addChild) and it solves your problem.

Another problem with scaling is mx:Text component. When you do not set width for Text, there is problem with resizing of you app. Some word from end of text can be not visible sometime. Setting width=”100%” is helpful….

This we have found in our project. It’s just for apps which are scalable.

Hope this will help.

Table of contents for flex-tips

1. FlexTips
2. FlexTip: mx:Text vs. mx:TextArea
3. FlexTip: XMLSocket connect() after disconnect from server
4. FlexTip: Problem with masks and scalable Flash
5. FlexTips: How to add Bitmap to UIComponent
6. FlexTip – Stop displaying Focus
7. FlexTip: Preventing CheckBox selection with Key.SPACE
8. FlexTip: WordWrap for mx:Text
9. FlexTip: Add Thumbs to Mx:Slider programatically
10. AS3 Conditional Breakpoint – enterDebugger()

Here is another Flex tips I came across in our project. I don’t know if this was in AS2.0 as well, but in AS3.0 when you receive event that XMLSocket is disconnected (server is disconnected, your net connection is broken), you can’t call xmlsocket.connect() immediately, but you have to wait for a while. So add there Timer(), or call it with function callLater(). It seems it must be called on next frame. I will not upload any example, because I don’t have running test XML server, but I think it is clear what you have to do.

Let me know, if you have similar issue in your projects.

Table of contents for flex-tips

1. FlexTips
2. FlexTip: mx:Text vs. mx:TextArea
3. FlexTip: XMLSocket connect() after disconnect from server
4. FlexTip: Problem with masks and scalable Flash
5. FlexTips: How to add Bitmap to UIComponent
6. FlexTip – Stop displaying Focus
7. FlexTip: Preventing CheckBox selection with Key.SPACE
8. FlexTip: WordWrap for mx:Text
9. FlexTip: Add Thumbs to Mx:Slider programatically
10. AS3 Conditional Breakpoint – enterDebugger()

Here my first tip for Flex developers. Maybe many of you know, maybe it will be helpful for someone. If you want make custom component, let’s say “Message dialog” which should be resized according text, nothing is easier. Just use mx:Text, not mx:TextArea. mx:Text has ability to resize according its text property. If you don’t specify widht and height, width and height i resized for mx:Text. If you specify one property (width or height), second one will be resized when text will be longer. For mx:TextArea just scrollbars will appear.

Play with example and look into source code.

Table of contents for flex-tips

1. FlexTips
2. FlexTip: mx:Text vs. mx:TextArea
3. FlexTip: XMLSocket connect() after disconnect from server
4. FlexTip: Problem with masks and scalable Flash
5. FlexTips: How to add Bitmap to UIComponent
6. FlexTip – Stop displaying Focus
7. FlexTip: Preventing CheckBox selection with Key.SPACE
8. FlexTip: WordWrap for mx:Text
9. FlexTip: Add Thumbs to Mx:Slider programatically
10. AS3 Conditional Breakpoint – enterDebugger()

I’m starting my contribution to Flex community. From time to time I will publish Flex tips for Flex developers. Of course examples with source code will be attached as well. 1st Flex tip will be posted in few minutes. Stay tuned…