Drunk on Software 22: Sleeping on the Couch

Sometime last summer, I got together with Jon and James and talked about software, Flex, effects, and Marriott mice. It a slower, more contemplative DoS show. You'll probably feel a bit woozy yourself just watching it. From James's bear hat to his falling asleep at one point, to the mic getting turned off and us having to repeat a bunch of stuff, to the final entrance of a mouse at the end (a vermin omen, I'm sure), it has a lot to offer... to someone. I'm just not sure whom. If we had outtakes in DoS, this would be in them. Maybe when we release "Best of" compilations in the decades to come, it will be on the follow-on releases after we run out of hits, when we're just trying to make a buck any way we can to support our software habits.

Enjoy: www.drunkonsoftware.com/2009/12/20/episode-22-sleeping-on-the-couch.

Video: Animating a TextArea

Animating a TextArea, the next episode in the gripping and suspenseful series CodeDependent, is now available from Adobe TV.

This show shows how to animate scrolling in a TextArea component dynamically. We handle this automatically when you click in the track or on the buttons of a TextArea's scrollbar, but if you want to tell the component to scroll to a certain location in the viewport, and animate to that position, you have to do this yoursefl. We did something similar in last week's show, in which we animated a Scroller area, but in the case of TextArea we have to dive into ActionScript code to create and play the animations because of some constraints around which properties we can bind to from MXML.

Here's the video:

Here is the demo application:

And here is the source code.

Finally, here's where you can find the CodeDependent videos on iTunes.

Enjoy.

Video: Programmatic Scrolling Animation

Programmatic Scrolling Animation, the next episode in the gripping and suspenseful series CodeDependent, is now available from Adobe TV.

This show is about animating an Scroller area programmatically. By default, areas with scrollbars will animate when you click and hold on the scrollbar's track or up/down buttons. But if you just want to move to a new scroll position, these animations don't come into play, so you need a little something extra to get that nice animated effect.

Here's the video:

Here is the demo application:

And here is the source code.

Finally, here's where you can find the CodeDependent videos on iTunes.

Enjoy.

Video: Drunk On Software: Devoxx Edition

Ever wonder what this year's Devoxx conference was like after-hours? Well, even if you didn't, you might want to check out the latest video on Drunk on Software. This video is a collection of interviews and other clips I recorded that week whenever I happened to remember that I had brought along a video camera for that exact purpose.

Some of the clips are of dubious video and audio quality, owing to a combination of the equipment, the operator, the mood lighting and crowd noise in the bars and restaurants, and just possibly due to the fundamental concept behind Drunk on Software videos (a sobering thought). But I'll blame the lack of natural light in Belgium at this dark and miserably cold time of year because that's just more fun.

Thanks to everyone who helped out with the video, through interviews, filming, talking, and of course drinking.

Enjoy...

http://www.drunkonsoftware.com/2009/12/07/special-episode-devoxx-2009/

Video: Measuring Frame Rate Performance

Measuring Frame Rate Performance, the next episode in the gripping and suspenseful series CodeDependent, is now available from Adobe TV.

This show different notions of "frame rates" and performance in Flex applications, how they relate to each other, and ways of measuring them. Frame rates directly affect the perceived performance and smoothness of animations, so it's something near and dear to my geeky animation heart. Measuring performance may not be something you need to do in every (or any) application, but it's good to know what's going on under the hood and how to get more information if you do need it.

I neglected to mention an important detail about 'render' events (thanks, Corey). In Flash applications, if you call updateAfterEvent() to cause a render event (as we do internally in Flex effects when handling Timer events), you actually need to call stage.invalidate()to make sure that the player sends out render notifications. Without the invalidate() call, the player will render, but will not dispatch any render events. In the case of our example application here, we don't have to invalidate() anything to get the render events because the Flex layout system is calling invalidate() for us.

Here's the video:

Here is the demo application:

And here is the source code.

Finally, here's where you can find the CodeDependent videos on iTunes.

Enjoy.

Prose and Conferences: Devoxx 2009

Many people are wondering what the deal is with the EU and Oracle in the whole Sun acquisition thing. I’m going to put forward a new theory: it’s about conferences.

I just recovered from my trip to Devoxx, where I gave talks on Flex, effects, Adobe tools, and the Flash platform (and attended talks on various other topics). I realize that many of you reading this may not have had the pleasure of going to the conference. In fact, doing the math, it’s pretty darned improbable that anyone went: with about 3000 attendees vs. 7 billion people on the planet, there’s roughly a 99.99996% chance you didn’t go. So maybe I should give a brief intro.

Devoxx is an annual developer conference in Antwerp, Belgium. The show is typically held at the coldest, most miserable time of year to allow attendees to concentrate on the most important thing: Belgian Beer. Oh, and there are lots of good technical sessions on software development (Java, Flex, Android, build tools, libraries, processes, etc.).

It’s a great conference and a really good time (despite the weather). In fact, you can check it out for yourself at parleys.com, which is a Flex app (with an optional AIR application for offline usage) hosting all of the sessions from the conference in full multimedia glory (video, slides, and demos). The sessions from 2009 are not available yet, but like last year they will be posted starting in January at the rate of about 2 per week, online and free.

In the meantime, there is now a for-pay option with parleys; if you want all of the content now, you can pay 49 euros (about $75 today, but given the relative stability of the dollar, it could be $2500 tomorrow, so act fast) to have full access to all sessions for 6 months at devoxx.parleys.com. Yes, they’re trying to make money; after all, it costs money to put on this great conference and record/produce/host all of the content. But since the content is still free in the same way it always was, I think it’s a pretty great compromise.

(By the way, nobody asked me to plug the site; I just like to support the team that puts on a good conference and provides so much great information for developers).

But back to my original point: is it a coincidence that the second-largest Java development conference is in Belgium … a mere 40 miles away from the EU headquarters in Brussels? I believe that the EU stalling of the Oracle deal is nothing less than a conference takeover bid by Europe, trying to wrest the power away from the annual JavaOne conference. Sun’s annual conference is usually in full planning mode at this time of year: they’re closing the Call for Papers, choosing speakers and sessions, massaging the messaging, choosing theme colors and Dukeration kitsch to sell in the conference store. But this year … nothing – it’s all on hold pending the acquisition debate between the EU and Oracle. In the meantime, Devoxx put on a good Java++ show.

So in my augmented reality, it must be the case that Devoxx lobbied the EU to stall JavaOne so that Devoxx could become the world leader in Java-related conferences. Sun will rue the day that they made JavaPolis change its name…

[okay, maybe not. And I really like JavaOne, too, and not just because the weather's better. But Devoxx is a good conference. Try to go next year if you’re in the area and have a thick coat. And check out the sessions and cool Flex app on parleys.com.]