Installing the ClearCase plugin for Adobe Flex builder
About Rational ClearCase
Rational ClearCase is a tool used for revision control of the source code or other development assets. It is developed by the Rational Software Division of IBM. Learn more about ClearCase by clicking here.
Installing the ClearCase Plugin for Adobe Flex Builder
If you are already using (or planning to use) ClearCase as your revision control tool in your flex application development, it will be a good idea to install the ClearCase plugin inside the flex builder, so that all the commands (like check-out, check-in, hijack and much more) can be directly invoked from the Flex Builder.
First, you will need to download the plugin, to download please go to the ClearCase plugin download page.
You will see a list of available plugins. From this list, download Plug-in: Adapter for Eclipse 3.1: Windows.
After downloading the ZIP, extract it onto your local disk drive.
You will notice that there are two folders within the eclipse folder of the downloaded content, Namely, plugins and features.
Now open the folder where the flex builder is installed (Typically, C:\Program Files\Adobe\Flex Builder 3).
Copy the contents of features folder from the downloaded content to the features folder under Flex Builder 3 folder. (Note: Copy the folders itself and not the content within folders, there will be total two folders under this folder).
Copy the contents of plugins folder from the downloaded content to the plugins folder under Flex Builder 3 folder. (Note: Copy the folders itself and not the content within folders, there will be total three folders under this folder).
And That’s it, you are done. Launch the Flex builder.
You can now see the ClearCase SCM Adapter inside Flex Builder.
To open the ClearCase SCM Adapter preferences, go to Windows –> Preferences –> Team –> ClearCase SCM Adapter.
Now if you keep the contents of your snapshot view at the same place as the flex project folder, you can do many ClearCase operations by doing the following:
In the ClearCase SCM Adapter – select ‘Automatically connect’ – Restart Flex Builder
Right click on any resource in Flex-Navigator, point to ‘Team’, the sub-menu will show many of the commonly used ClearCase commands.
Have any questions? Post me a comment.
FlexDen dot net – A global market place for flex developers
If you are a flex developer or if you are looking for flex applications or components, then you can now buy or sell your flex applications or components at FlexDen. You can also buy or sell Flex Video tutorials and AIR applications.
FlexDen is also going to come up with a freelance website which will be released soon.
In My opinion, FlexDen is definitely a very good platform for bringing the flex developers and those who are looking for them together. I believe that it is one of the sites that are here to stay. What’s your say on this? post me a comment.
And BTW, I created my first component which is up for sale at FlexDen. Check it out at this link.
Interactive Item Renderers for DataGrid
Working with the item renderers in flex!
This is one of the most common questions that I have come across in my experience while working on flex.
Many a times developers want to make interactive item renderers for DataGrid columns which will in-turn change the very data of the DataGrid. Initially even I struggled to do some of the operations where itemRenderers were involved.
So, for the flex community, I am posting an example here. This is a very simple example in which by changing the the value in the combo box (which is an itemRenderer), the image displayed in the other column of the dataGrid is changed (and also the dataProvider of the DataGrid).
Please click here to see the example (view source is enabled in the example).
In the source of the example, you will notice that the dataGrid dataProvider is changed when the item renderer (ComboBox) selected value is changed, hence the icons shown in the second columns are updated.
If you have any comments or suggestions, please post a comment.
Adobe RIAthon 08 Finals
Like many flex developers in India (especially in Bangalore), I also submitted my entry for the Adobe RIAthon 08. This entry was selected as one of the finalists. Click here to see the web app that I developed.
Though my application did not win anything, I am happy that I made it into the finals with spending just about 1 and 1/2 days in developing it. See the description and features of the application below.
Description:
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Many times users have to switch between different pages/views/tabs to see the different types of search results. To provide a solution for that, This application displays fours types of results, namely, Web Search results, Image Search results, Blog Search results, and News Search results for the keywords entered on a same page.This is achieved by using the Google Ajax search API within the flex application.
Special Features:
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See the search results of Web Search, Blog Search, Image Search and News Search - all on one page
Use pagination to jump pages of search results
- pagination for particular results, for example, user can go to next page of web search results without affecting the pages of other search results
Thumbnail and preview of image search results
- rollover on the image and click on the zoom icon to see bigger preview of the image
For Image search results options of launching the context URL or the image url directly
- Open the big image preview, now clicking on the image will launch the image in its original size in new browser window, but clicking on the title of the image will launch the context URL
Stores and Displays the recent 10 searches
- After performing a few searches, close the application and launch again to see your past searches.
Details of Open Source Libraries Used:
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as3corelib :: New BSD License
Technologies Used:
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Flex 3
Flash CS 3 (for skinning)
Photoshop CS 3 (for UI design)
Google Search API
How it Works:
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Google API returns JSON object
JSON response decoded thru AS3 core lib classes
USP:
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This whole application is developed in less than 16 Hours. That shows the power of flex in rapidly creating Rich Internet Applications.
