Flex Monkey Patches

A while back I posted this entry showing off my first Google Gadget that embedded a swf for Flash Player version detection.

http://blog.flexmonkeypatches.com/2008/01/25/google-gadget-flash-player-version-checker/

Recently someone posted a comment asking how I did that. I figured I might as well post the code. So here it is:

I thought this was a very important notice that I should bring more attention to:

Preparing for the Flash Player 9 April 2008 Security Update

“Adobe is planning to release a security update for Flash Player 9 in April 2008 to strengthen the security of Adobe Flash Player for our customers and end users, and to provide further mitigations for previously disclosed vulnerabilities. The Flash Player security update provides further mitigations for issues listed in the December 2007 Security Bulletin ABSP07-20 for DNS rebinding and cross-domain policy file vulnerabilities, and Security Advisory APSA07-06 for cross-site scripting vulnerabilities in SWFs. Due to the possibility that these security enhancements and changes may impact existing content, Adobe is providing relevant information in advance to allow customers to better prepare for the pending release.

Customers are advised to review the upcoming Flash Player updates to determine if their content will be impacted, and to begin implementing necessary changes immediately to help ensure a seamless transition. This document provides an overview of the upcoming Flash Player changes, links to TechNotes, and relevant documentation to help you better prepare.”

Please read the full document and pay attention! This may affect you.

-Kyle

Flex 3 has been out since Monday of this week and there are a lot of new learning resources available through the adobe website.

This is my favorite starting point:
http://learn.adobe.com/wiki/display/Flex/Getting+Started

Within that page is a “download projects” link that has some great Flex Builder example projects for various things:

http://learn.adobe.com/wiki/display/Flex/Download+Projects

* Building a simple RIA
* Exchanging data with a server
o PHP version
o JSP version
o ColdFusion version
o ASP.NET version
* Working with data
o PHP
o JSP
o ColdFusion
o ASP.NET
* Handling events
* UI layout
* Displaying lists
* Customizing components
* Multi-page apps
* Debugging

Also, slightly buried within the Getting Started guide is a list of compatibility issues:

http://learn.adobe.com/wiki/display/Flex/Backwards+Compatibility+Issues

A few weeks ago there were several reports of issues something along the lines of:

Recently we upgraded to flash player 9.0.115.
We are still using Flex 2.0.1 hfxxx and now we regularly get the following error when we run our Flex app:

“The ABC data is corrupt, attempt to read out of bounds.”
VerifyError: Error #1107: The ABC data is corrupt, attempt to read out of bounds.
at Function/http://adobe.com/AS3/2006/builtin::apply()
at mx.core::UIComponent/callLaterDispatcher2()
[E:\dev\flex_201_borneo\sdk\frameworks\mx\core\UIComponent.as:7975]
at mx.core::UIComponent/callLaterDispatcher()
[E:\dev\flex_201_borneo\sdk\frameworks\mx\core\UIComponent.as:7918]

I did some research and found previous reports of this issue, bug entries and a Flex Technote

Read the rest of this post»

I just wrote a simple Google gadget that wraps the flash player version checking swf on the Adobe Support site.

I thought it would be a good intro for me on how to create Google gadgets and a useful one at that!

So it is almost February already! Where did January go? I’ve been a bit slow out of the gate this year as far as keeping up a decent pace in posting helpful samples to my blog. Actually, I have been working on things behind the scenes, a few details of which I will reveal now. I have launched a new blog on a new domain. The content is to be all “work” related, so it will be about Flex/Flash Player/Adobe AIR, LiveCycle Data Services/Blaze DS/ColdFusion and other fun technologies. I’ve also been working on an AIR app which I hope to get out at least in a fairly stable beta form around the same time that Flex3/AIR releases. It will most likely be open source and hosted on Google Code. I will also be compiling a library of useful components, extensions to components and monkey patches to the Flex framework. This new blog and content will all be available on:

http://flexmonkeypatches.com

All old posts on http:blog.739SaintLouis.com should link to or redirect to the same content on my new site. I will leave my old site up for an undetermined length of time with the intent of transforming it content-wise into a more personal blog (time permitting.)

Regards,

-Kyle

Grant Skinner has rehashed some of the content from his site into 2 articles on Adobe’s devnet. I think most of the content is the same, just better organized and presented:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/resource_management.html
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/garbage_collection.html