I want to store some test data for a FlexUnit test in small XML files in my Flex project, and access them trivially for the flex test. How can I load these bits of data synchronously? HTTPService is the way I'd be loading them _a_synchronously, but adding event handlers to my test cases seems like a bit of overkill.
see this post for a similar sort of thing
Load xml file in flex before application start/intialises
To the best of my knowledge, there is no support for synchronous network & file I/O -- all such activity happens on the background thread, and is exposed to the main thread with event handlers.
Related
i have been working on a Photoshop UI project and also working with Flash Builder for about 3 weeks and i can't find a solution to a communication problem. Here are some details about the issue; if you are interested in helping me, thanks.
The main frame of the UI is Extendscript
I have an as3 swf which needs to load a local JPG file dynamicly, I
assume this is a "Access Local Files Only" situation for Flash.
The same SWF needs to communicate with Extendscript, so i load it into
a FLEX app dynamicly via SWFLoader and it passes some variables to,
and triggers some functions in FLEX via a "myFlexParent" object.
Flex is the bridge between Flash and Extendscript so it passes the
variables and functions to Extendscript JSX code via
Externalinterface.call or CSXSInterface.instance.evalScript().
This is where i'm STUCK. I guess ExternalInterface calls or CSXSInterface.instance.evalScript() are threated as a network operation and they don't work if i set the compile option "-use-network=false" in flex. Bu otherwise the local JPG file cannot be loaded.
Adding locations in the Settings Manager wont work for me because i'm going to turn the UI into an Extension and it should be easy to install.
I guess i'm trying to find a way to establish 2 way communication between FLEX and ExtendScript, that would be interpreted by flash player as a LOCAL communication, which actually is.
I'll appreciate any bit of information. Thanks.
ExternalInterface is going to be considered a network call and setting the -use-network=false will break those calls down. This is due to the security sandbox. If it was allowed then the flash app could be used with some simple AJAX to turn a non-network app into a network app very easily.
Adobe doc's say:
This communication relies on the domain-based security restrictions
that the allowScriptAccess and allowNetworking properties define. You
set the values of the allowScriptAccess and allowNetworking properties
in the SWF file’s wrapper.
Reference link:
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/flex/using/WS2db454920e96a9e51e63e3d11c0bf6167e-7fff.html#WS2db454920e96a9e51e63e3d11c0bf6167e-7ff5
Look into changing your app into an AIR app as you will be able to do both network and local file operations (different security model since the user installs the application).
(1)When I run the HTTPService code in Flex builder and use Ctrl F11 to run the application then the HttepService runs fine and returns the value. Here, it is run inside an html wrapper 'mypath\Learning\bin-debug\httpServiceissue.html'
(2)The same code when I compile through command-line and then run in Flash PLayer then it won't run. This time its running on its own without html wrapper around.
Also, setting '-use-network = false' in command line (2 approach) allows flash player to load this file. I know that setting flag false will restrict SWF's access to local machine (no network) and give it access to local resource, but then why it works in Flex builder inside the html wrapper (in 1 case).
Please share you opinion on this.
'mx:HTTPService id="rooms" url="myfile.txt" fault="httpFaultHandler(event)" resultFormat="e4x" result="httpResultHandler(event)"'
I'm not really sure, I've never tried to use the service in that way. It might be a security, or "sandbox" restriction, that unless you've got a "crossdomain.xml" you can't get to any resource that isn't in the same domain. Would the txt file be delivered by some kind of web server when you hit F11?
Good luck, please let us know when you find an answer.
I'm building a Flex/Flash Builder 4 application that loads data using E4X/XML, like this:
I originally build an application that was a single MXML file which loaded this XML file and built a form from the data.
I've now build a main menu screen with a button to load the form screen as a seperate module. How do I get the XML declaration to work in this module without loading it again. Is it as simple as repeating the declaration in the module?
With Modular Flex apps you need to way to communicate across Modules without creating a tight coupling between the pieces. I usually use a Message Bus approach (see the Architectural Patterns First Steps in Flex screencast for more info) to accomplish this. When the module loads just send a message to the bus asking someone for the data you need. Have a listener on the bus listening for that message so that it can respond with another message containing the needed data.
I have an ASP.NET MVC application with a separate project added for tests. I know the plusses and minuses of using the connection to the database when running unit tests, and I still want to use it. Yet, every time when I run the tests with the NUnit tool, they all fail due to my Data Context being null. I heard something about having a separate config file for the tests assembly, but i am not sure whether I did it properly, or whether that works at all.
i think you should check this discussion here, it should be related as i was having the same problem.
and how i solve my problem was just to copy my web config content to the app config inside he test project and voila, database connection restore and all is fine in the land of mvc again.
How are you creating your data context? How is it used in your action? Typically, it will use the database referred to when you set up the classes in the designer so you'd get a context connected to what you used for the designer which is, arguably, not what you want for unit tests, thus you add an app.config file to your unit test project and change the connection string to your test database. It doesn't usually result in a null data context.
I suspect that your unit test is simply not touching the code that creates the data context before you invoke the action method. Without code though, it's really impossible to tell.
I'm sure there's a simple explanation for this, but I haven't had much luck at finding the answer yet, so I figured I'd put the word out to my colleagues, as I'm sure some of you've run into this one before.
In my (simple) dev environment, I'm working with a handful of WCF Web Services, imported into my FB3 project and targeting a local instance of the ASP.NET development Web server. All good, no problems -- but what I'd like to know now is, What's the right way to deploy this project to test, staging and production environments? If my imported proxies all point, say, to http://localhost:1234/service.svc (from which their WSDLs were imported), and all I'm deploying is a compiled SWF, does Flex Builder expect me to "Manage Web Services > Delete", "> Add", recompile and release ever time I want to move my compiled Flex project from development to test, and to staging, and ultimately into production? Is there a simpler workflow for this?
Thanks in advance -- hope my question was clear.
Cheers,
Chris
If you have path names which will change depending on the enviroment then you will likely need to recompile for each environment since these will be compiled in the swf.
I typically use ANT scripts to handle my compile/deployment process when moving from development and production environments. This gives me the ability to dynamically change any path names during the compile. These build files can be integrated into Flex Builder making this process very easy once you have everything set up, and can be done with one click or scheduled.
Thanks Brett. I've been meaning to dig into automating my build processes anyway, so now's probably as good a time as any. :)
You do not need to build a SWF for each environment. Here's a technique I use commonly:
Externalize your configuration properties into an XML file; in this case, it could be a URL for each service or a base URL used by all your services
When the application starts up, make an HTTPService call to load the XML file, parse it, and store your properties onto some bindable "configuration object"
Bind the values from that object against your objects that depend on the URLs
Dispatch an event that indicates your configuration is complete. If you have some kind of singleton event dispatcher used by some components in your app, use that, so that the notification is global
Now proceed with the rest of the initialization of your application
It takes a little work to orchestrate your app such that certain parts won't initialize until steps 1-5 take place. However I think it's good practice to handle a lot of this initialization explicitly rather than in constructors or various initialize or creationComplete events for components. You may need to reinitialize things when a user logs out and a different user logs in; if you already have your app set up to that initialization is something you can control then reinitialization will not be a problem.