Uploading and image dynamically at runtime in Flex 4.5 - apache-flex

I am building a form builder in Flex 4.5. For that I need help regarding uploading image at runtime such that any user can just simply place cursor on particular location on image and is able to upload any image from the local file system.

Maybe try using native extension or native process. But this is only possible with AIR.
Here is a simple example:
http://thanksmister.com/2011/03/16/upload-s3-curl-air-nativeprocess/
I hope this helps :)
Could you describe more what you are trying to do?

It's fairly simple
private function browseForFile():void
{
fr = new FileReference();
fr.addEventListener(Event.SELECT,handleBrowseForFileSelected);
fr.browse([]);
}
protected function handleBrowseForFileSelected(event:Event):void
{
fr.removeEventListener(Event.SELECT,handleBrowseForFileSelected);
fr.upload( ...)
}
in fr.upload fill the parameters as you need, basically a URLRequest to which you will upload the file to.

Related

How to run one application from another application in flex?

I have two flex applications Main.mxml(where I have a button called loadDataViewer) and ViewData.mxml. What I want is when the user press the loadDataViewer button, the application ViewData.mxml will open in a new window. Is there any way to do it in Flex?
SWFLoader class looks interesting but I think it will load the other appliation inside the Main application which I don't want. I also saw that there is ExternalInterfaceAPI which can be used to open a url browser but not sure if I can reference the swf file of VewData application. As suggested here( http://learn.adobe.com/wiki/display/Flex/Local+Connections ) that LocalCOnnection can be used to reference one flex application in another but that's only when both applications are open I guess.
Any suggestion to guide me to the right direction wouild be greatly appreciated.
You could embed your viewData swf to an HTML file, and either do any of the following:
Call External Interface...
var url:String = 'myViewData.html';
ExternalInterface.call('window.open("' + url + '")');
or
Call the navigateToURL method...
var url:String = 'myViewData.html';
var urlReq = new URLRequest(url);
navigateToURL(urlReq,'_blank');
Use Modules. Adobe help.

Javascript-Caching Video Player

I've got the following Javascript for creating the HTML of video player. I use Javascript because this is the only way I can tell the player which video to play.
function createPlayer(videoSource){
document.writeln("<div id=\"player\">");
document.writeln("<object width=\"489\" height=\"414\" >");
document.writeln("<param name=\"player\" value=\"bin-debug/FlexPlayer.swf\">");
//etc
The problem is FlexPlayer.swf is loading every time and I need to cache this SWF file. Maybe I should use Javascript constructor but don't know how in this case. Any code help will be greatly appreciated.
If you're video player is in flex (and I'm guessing that it is with the flex tag and the bin-debug folder) - you should just call into the flex app in order to set the video.
You can allow flex and javascript to communicate with each other, without having to embed different versions of it in the HTML! It's awesome, check it out...
In your flex app, after it is initialized you can add something like this :
ExternalInterface.addCallback( 'playVideoFromJS' , playVideo );
What the above does is expose a function named "playVideoFromJS" that can be called in your javascript that will execute the 'playVideo' funciton in the flex app! Neat!
Then add a function like so somewhere in your flex app:
public function playVideo ( videoToPlay : String ) : void {
...play video code here
}
Then in javascript, you can actually call your flex function playVideo!
myFlexAppName.playVideoFromJS( 'myvideoofile.flv' );
More information on ExternalInterface here :
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/external/ExternalInterface.html?filter_flash=cs5&filter_flashplayer=10.2&filter_air=2.6#addCallback()

How to add flex controls to my AS3 project?

I'm absolute newbie in Flash development but anyway I need to do something.
I have a pure AS3 project that plays video from youtube (chromeless player). I need to add some controls to manage this player. I don't know how to do that? If I just add mxml file into the project nothing happens. How to bind this file to as3?
Thanks
Flex components need to have UIComponent parent to function properly. If your player is based on Sprite, controls will not be initialized.
There is a trick to use Flex controls in the Sprite, but only after initialization in Flex Application. If you don't have Application, no luck.
You could use an AS3-only alternative. One library I've used is minimalcomps which offers some simple but effective controls for use in any AS3 project.
You can't use MXML, but nobody stops you to create your own controls if they are simple.
A short and simple example of how to add a button with an image:
loader = new Loader();
loader.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, onComplete);
loader.load(new URLRequest('http://i1.nyt.com/images/misc/nytlogo379x64.gif'));
function onComplete(event:Event):void
{
var button:Sprite = new Sprite();
button.addChild(event.currentTarget.content);
addChild(button);
button.buttonMode = true;
button.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, onButtonClick);
}
function onButtonClick(event:MouseEvent):void
{
trace ('click');
}
This would be the most basic version of a button with a loaded bitmap image.
Normally you would like to check for errors as well... what to do if the image is not found, or when you're not allowed to access it.
If you're going to need more then one button you could make a class which accepts an url, so you could just pass the url to the class and the button would be created.
A completely other way to approach this is with an SWC file, you could create the buttons in the Flash IDE and export them as an swc, which you can embed and use in your pure AS3 project.

ActionScript 3 - a loader that supports many apps?

I have created a simple SWF-loader in ActionScript 3.0. It loads an SWF from a server and then plays it. While downloading, it displays the "loading" screen.
Its main defect is that it can load only one Flash application - the one which it is compiled for. Let's say it's named test1.swf.
Is there any way to make the loader support more than one Flash app (for example test2.swf and test3.swf)? I mean by passing external parameters to it and not by creating another loader. Is using Javascript the only way to do it? I don't want my loader to require the Javascript support.
And I really don't want to create separate loaders for all of my apps...
Thanks in advance.
In order to load an external SWF your loader only need the url of the swf to be loaded, this url doesn't have to be hardcoded. There are many ways to pass parameters to a SWF file and they don't necessarily require Javascript.
You could load a XML file for instance, a simple text file would work too , you could also use a PHP script. Using flahsvars would require Javascript, although only to set your application in your HTML page.
With the following example , your app doesn't need to recompile , you simply change the url in the text file.
Example with a text file containing a url, something like this:
http://yourwebsite.com/test1.swf
var urlLoader:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
urlLoader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE , completeHandler );
urlLoader.load( new URLRequest('swfURL.txt') );
function completeHandler(event:Event):void
{
loadExternalSWF(event.target.data );
event.target.removeEventListener(Event.COMPLETE , completeHandler );
}
function loadExternalSWF(url:String ):void
{
//your code here , using the url value
trace(url );//should return your text file content
}

MVVM Light + Blend designer view error: Cannot find resource named 'Locator'.

The application runs fine but i could not see my design in the designer view.
It says Cannot find resource named 'Locator'. Obviously, i did not change anything in the code, i just did the data binding using the data binding dialog...
anyone facing the same problem?
There are two known occurrences where this can happen.
If you change to Blend before you built the application, the DLLs are not available yet and this error can be seen. Building the application solves the issue.
There is a bug in Expression Blend where, if you are placing a user control in another user control (or Window in WPF), and the inner user control uses a global resource, the global resource cannot be found. In that case you will get the error too.
Unfortunately I do not have a workaround for the second point, as it is a Blend bug. I hope we will see a resolution for that soon, but it seems to be still there in Blend 4.
What you can do is
Ignore the error when working on the outer user control. When you work on the inner user control, you should see the design time data fine (not very satisfying I know).
Use the d:DataContext to set the design time data context in Blend temporarily.
Hopefully this helps,
Laurent
I've come up with a reasonably acceptable workaround to this problem since it doesn't appear to have been fixed in Blend 4:
In the constructor for your XAML UserControl just add the resources it needs, provided you're in design mode within Blend. This may be just the Locator, or also Styles and Converters as appropriate.
public partial class OrdersControl : UserControl
{
public OrdersControl()
{
// MUST do this BEFORE InitializeComponent()
if (DesignerProperties.GetIsInDesignMode(this))
{
if (AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory.Contains("Blend 4"))
{
// load styles resources
ResourceDictionary rd = new ResourceDictionary();
rd.Source = new Uri(System.IO.Path.Combine(Environment.CurrentDirectory, "Resources/Styles.xaml"), UriKind.Absolute);
Resources.MergedDictionaries.Add(rd);
// load any other resources this control needs such as Converters
Resources.Add("booleanNOTConverter", new BooleanNOTConverter());
}
}
// initialize component
this.InitializeComponent();
}
There may be some edge cases, but its working OK for me in the simple cases where before I'd get a big red error symbol. I'd LOVE to see suggestions on how to better solve this problem, but this at least allows me to animate user controls that otherwise are appearing as errors.
You could also extract out the creation of resources to App.xaml.cs:
internal static void CreateStaticResourcesForDesigner(Control element)
{
if (AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory.Contains("Blend 4"))
{
// load styles resources
ResourceDictionary rd = new ResourceDictionary();
rd.Source = new Uri(System.IO.Path.Combine(Environment.CurrentDirectory, "Resources/Styles.xaml"), UriKind.Absolute);
element.Resources.MergedDictionaries.Add(rd);
// load any other resources this control needs
element.Resources.Add("booleanNOTConverter", new BooleanNOTConverter());
}
}
and then in the control do this BEFORE InitializeComponent():
// create local resources
if (DesignerProperties.GetIsInDesignMode(this))
{
App.CreateStaticResourcesForDesigner(this);
}
Note: At some point in time this stopped working for me and I ended up hardcoding the path to the Styles.xaml because I got frustrated trying to figure out which directory I was in.
rd.Source = new Uri(#"R:\TFS-PROJECTS\ProjectWPF\Resources\Styles.xaml", UriKind.Absolute);
I'm sure I could find the right path with 5 minutes work, but try this if you're at your wits end like I was!
In MyUserControl.xaml, instead of:
DataContext="{Binding Main, Source={StaticResource Locator}
use:
d:DataContext="{Binding Main, Source={StaticResource Locator}
where "d" has been previously defined as:
xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"
The reason and workaround explained here
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/unnir/archive/2009/03/31/blend-wpf-and-resource-references.aspx
Look at (b) part of the post.
I had a similar problem with a user control resource.
I added this in my usercontrol xaml code:
<UserControl.Resources>
<ResourceDictionary>
<ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries>
<ResourceDictionary Source="pack://application:,,,/GinaControls;component/Resources/GinaControlsColors.xaml"/>
</ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries>
</ResourceDictionary>
</UserControl.Resources>
Where GinaControls is the namespace where the control class is declared and /Resources/GinaControlsColors.xaml is the project folder and xaml resource file name.
Hope this helps.
Just add this in your App.xaml.cs at the very beginning
here's my piece of code
[STATThread()]
static void main(){
App.Current.Resources.Add("Locator", new yournamespace.ViewModel.ViewModelLocator());
}
public App(){
main();
}
Make sure the Blend has opened the entire solution and NOT just the single project containing the views. I was right-clicking in Visual Studio and selecting Open In Expression Blend. To my surprize, Blend could not find the solution file, so it only opened the single project.
When I realized this, I launched Blend directly, pointed it to the solution file, and then Blend was able to find the ViewModelLocator in my view.

Resources