Duplicate mx_internal_uid properties in flex list items

September 16th, 2008 Kyle

I ran into an issue today where I was dragging items from a list and having another list updated with the drop data. So lets say for example list A contains 3 items (item1, item2, and item3 respectively), if I dragged and dropped multiple copies of item1, they would properly display in list2; however, when I moused over one of the items in list2 the list seemed to think that their was only one “item1″ object in it’s array collection. The visual result of this was that hovering over one of the item1 objects in list2 would show the over state for the last item in the list (rather than the one that I was actually hovering over). After some digging, I found a property called “mx_internal_uid” that flex uses to keep track of objects in a number of visual components (such as list and datagrid). What was happening was that when dropped the item, a copy of it was being created, and the mx_internal_uid property was being copied over to the new object. The result of this was that the list would break because it handles it’s selection and other state updates by referencing this property. If that made any sense (I’ll try to come back and make this a bit more clear later), check out the solution.

The solution:
The best solution is probably to use strongly type custom data objects in this case (that’s what I did at least), instead of using simple Objects (which is what I was originally doing). The other thing that seems to work is creating a deep copy of the object using the ObjectUtils.copy() method and then setting the “mx_internal_uid” property to blank.

I’ll try to post a more clear explanation of this issue along with a code sample when I get some more time.


Google Maps API for Flash Available

May 14th, 2008 Chris Griffith

Google just released the API for their Maps for use in Flash/Flex!!! Head over to http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/flash/index.html to grab the goodies and read the docs.  


101 Adobe Air Resources

April 22nd, 2008 Kyle

To add to your Toolbelt of Awsomeness! Jason Bartholme put a post up on his blog with links to 101 Adobe Air Resources (useful sites, tutorials, etc.). So go check it out:Build up your toolbelt of awsomeness!


New AS3 Reference Guide Published

March 18th, 2008 Chris Griffith

Hot off the presses, the official Adobe technology platform ActionScript reference for RIA development is now available. The notebook-format document provides a complete ActionScript 3 API listing for Flash Player, Flex 3 and Adobe AIR.


New ActionScript 3 Decompiler from Sothink

March 10th, 2008 Chris Griffith

Just saw a post from Lee Brimelow about the SWF Decompiler 4 from Sothink which fully supports ActionScript 3. This is the first decompiler to fully support the latest version of the ActionScript language. The ethics of decompiling notwithstanding, this tool does an excellent job at peeking into SWF files. Please use responsibly :) .


Flex 3 and AIR 1.0 ARE NOW AVAILABLE!

February 24th, 2008 Kyle

Coming to you live from the 360Flex Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, I’m happy to announce the official release of Flex 3 and Adobe AIR 1.0!

As you may have heard, Adobe has announced the release of Adobe Flex 3 and Adobe AIR 1.0. Now that the cat is out of the bag, this will be the focus of our March 5th special meeting! Adobe is sponsoring this meeting with food, giveaways and a raffle copy of Adobe Flex Professional.

Flex 3 is a feature-packed release, adding new UI components like the advanced datagrid and improved CSS capabilities; powerful tooling additions like refactoring; and extensive testing tools including memory and performance profiling, plus the addition of the automated testing framework to Flex Builder.

Adobe AIR is game-changing in so many ways, delivering rich applications on the desktop, enabling access to the local file system, system tray, notifications and much more. Now you can write RIAs on the desktop using the same skills that you’ve been already using to create great web apps including both Flex and AJAX.


Custom Item Renderer Demo

February 13th, 2008 Chris Griffith

Since the last meeting had a live coding demo by Sean, I thought I would take the time and recreate the code for the group. I did change things a little. The data feed is the main public Twitter feed. I take the user’s icon and last tweet and combine that into one element for use in the List component. If you click on the icon, I display an alert with the user’s name.

I put the mxml files up on the Google Groups site

See everyone at the next meeting!


Flex Framework Showdown

February 13th, 2008 admin

A great presentation by Luke Bayes and Ali Mills (from such projects as ASUnit and and ProjectSprouts), discussing a handful of the available Flex Frameworks and which they’ve found to be the best. If you’re unfamiliar with Frameworks for flex or why you’d want to use one, spend a little time researching Cairngorm and PureMVC (two of their favorites) before watching the presentation. There’s a great series of articles introducing Cairngorm HERE, and you can read up on PureMVC HERE. When you feel comfortable with the idea of what a framework is and why you’d want to use one, then it’s time to watch these guys tear into some of the best options and nail down the pro’s and con’s of each! CLICK ME TO LAUNCH THE PRESENTATION!