Hmmmm...
It appears that charts are only available through the Flex SDK that comes built-in with Flex Builder. This is a problem, since I want to use Flex 3.3, and Flex Builder came with 3.2.
Eclipse is also ticking me off, and I prefer to use a different IDE (FlashDevelop).
Any way around this? And is there anything else that isn't included the the free SDK that I should be aware of?
The charts are only available with the professional Flex Builder plugin. If you have a FB license, however, there is no reason you can't use the libraries with FlashDevelop.
You can download the Data Visualization components from the Adobe website here: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?e=flex3sdk - It's the download at the bottom of the page, look for "Adobe Flex 3.3 Data Visualization Components".
However, even though you can download the components, you will still need a license to use them in your applications. The components will display a watermark over them unless a valid data visualization license is used when compiling with MXMLC.
As mentioned by riaflexer, if you need the Adobe charting components, you can download those from Adobe, and install them into your copy of Flex Builder - provided that you already have a license for the charting components.
However, if you're looking for charting and data visualization components that you can use with the free Flex SDK, you should take a look at the Axiis Data Visualization Framework. It's an open source data viz framework that can be used to create just about any type of charting component you could think of. Also, since it's built on top of Degrafa, it's fairly easy to customize the look of your charts. It's still in alpha, but it still seems to work pretty well so far.
The flex charting libraries have been made open source from roughly around the release of flex 4, as you can see from the announcement on February 19, 2010 here.
The memory profiler and automated testing tools are only available with the professional version. The test tools are still in their infancy, but they are looking better and better and every day, but are the only way to do unit testing of Flex apps.
according to Flex 3 SDK Release notes,
Flex Charting package enhancements – Flex 3 improves the Charting package with a number of enhancements. The axis system can now support multiple axes, and the DateTimeAxis allows for work-week filtering. A new data-oriented graphics API allows you to draw data coordinates, leaving the chart to render everything in its proper screen position. There are new formatting options and added interaction capabilities for all of the existing charts. Available only with Flex Builder Professional.
I was looking forward to doing Flex 3 using command line or FlashDevelop, but it seems not all features are covered.
You might wanna install Flex Builder 3, track it while it is installing to see what values it is adding to the system like registry entries, and then uninstall and remove those entries when doing uninstall... but that's too much work...
Related
Is there any opensourse, free set of components for creating Flex mxml graphs?
like aviary Peacock style ones
(source: peacockwiki at sites.google.com)
with at least Drag, drop, and connect generators
so each graph element could have
(source: peacockwiki at sites.google.com)
or something like that.
Framework should be opensource (like GPL, LGPL etc)
BTW: I found one wary bacic made by Erno Aapa with Degrafa but I would really love to see something much more Flex 4 - mxml oriented and frienfdly.
So blog articles, Google code projects, anything - please help
I don't have a specific answer for you; but just some places to go look.
Have you looked at the Advanced Charting and Visualization package from Adobe? They are part of the open source SDK with the release of Flex 4.
You already mentioned Degra. I understood that Degrafa stands for Declarative Graphics. I'm surprised you'd say it is not MXML friendly.
Have you looked at Axiss? It is another project out there, and I believe it relies heavily on Degrafa.
You said open source, but didn't say free. So, I believe source code is available if you purchase a license to iLog. I'm not sure about FusionCharts, but I've heard very positive things about it from other Flex Developers.
Moccasin and Flex Wires combined should get you most of the way there.
It's been a couple of years since I've done any Java work, my last efforts were using Swing. I'm poking around with a cross-platform client app that will interact with a Rails web service. JavaFX is one of the options I'm considering, but I'm concerned at the out-of-the-box aesthetic. Does JavaFX have a native look and feel option for the JavaFX controls (not Swing)?
I'm getting the impression that if I want to build a line of business application in Java, I should probably stick with Swing which is a shame since I like some of the features of JavaFX like binding, a terse syntax, and easy support for REST client programming.
I haven't see that. At best, you can use the extensive support of CSS styling we got with 1.3 to mimic native look and feel, but that's a big job! Not even sure how to deal with various themes we got on modern systems...
I suppose the point of RIAs is to bring their own look or to be flexible enough to allow to do your own shinny look, not to look like a random bland application on your platform... :-)
(Now, if I like skinnable applications, I also appreciate GUI frameworks using native controls or looking as such, like Qt (vs. GTK+ for example), precisely to provide good old "bland" applications not breaking user experience.)
JavaFX 2.0 has only one Look by default that is called "Caspian".
With Java 8 a second one was introduced, called "Modena".
Both are cross-platform Look&Feels.
See announcement of Modena, with screenshots.
At the moment some developers create native Styles for JavaFX as OpenSource projects. You can find an overview here:
http://www.guigarage.com/2013/01/this-is-for-the-native-ones/
If you are interested in the Mac OS L&F (AquaFX) for JavaFX, here are some posts with previews:
http://www.guigarage.com/category/aquafx/
Native look and feel is not supported by Oracle in the default JavaFX 2.x distribution.
A proof of concept on button styles by one of the JavaFX developers demonstrates that JavaFX is flexible enough to generate widgets that look like native widgets.
For OS X, you can try the third party AquaFX style for JavaFX, which makes JavaFX applications look like native OS X applications. AquaFX appears quite complete and comprehensive to me.
There have been other 3rd party projects which partially create native look and feels for other platforms, but their coverage is currently nowhere near comprehensive.
Some third party projects (all of which seem currently experimental and incomplete) are:
JMetro in jfx-styles
javafx-native-themes (JavaFX look and feels for: default swing, iOS, windows 7...)
you could definitely embed some css in your application to make the javafx components look more like the standard swing look. With scene builder its actually really easy to get all your tags setup correctly.
Check this out
http://docs.oracle.com/javafx/2/css_tutorial/jfxpub-css_tutorial.htm
Interesting thing is in javaFx is, you can give the rich look and feel to native application also.You can apply css to the javaFx components. Not only that you can embed the HTML Css and pages in JAVAFX application.Which i can feel great revolution in terms of UI building for Standalone applications.
I have a Flex project that I need to work on that using some mxml elements which I believe are charting related: Pie Chart, and some LineGraphs. Do I need to buy Flex Builder Professional to compile the project, or will Standard work? On a related side-note, the Adobe website is brutal.
I was going to use Eclipse with the SDK but the increased setup time and lack of code completion makes it not a contender in my situation.
If code completion and ease of setup are primary concerns, then I highly recommend you get Flex Builder.
The charting components are part of the Flex "data visualization" kit from Adobe. You need a license key for these unless you're happy to have a "trial" watermark rendered over the top of every chart your app displays.
Flex Builder Professional buys you the license key you need to remove the watermark.
No, you do not need to buy Flex Builder. You can do everything with notepad (or whatever your favorite editor may be) and the Flex SDK. Some may say it is easier to work within Flex Builder...but I am not so sure! And, yes, agreed, the Adobe site is quite the mess.
Download Flex SDK 3.4
Why is there a watermark on my Flex charting applications saying 'Flex Charting Trial'?
There are actually two different licenses for FlexBuilder (and the plug-in): Flexbuilder Standard and FlexBuilder Professional. One is the base version, which will allow you to use most of the components, but there is a more expensive version which is part of the Flex Data Visualization component set. You can tell if something is in this license by looking for (Flex Data Visualization components only) in the documentation.
There are a number of workarounds to get rid of that TextField (which you can search for online), but the moral way is to buy the more expensive license.
You need to purchase Flex Builder 3. You are probably using the trial version which shows the watermark.
I even think you have seperate serials for Flex and for Flex Charting.
I'm used to working in a Delphi and C# environment which seem to have a rich set of third party components available. I'm currently wanting to do cross-platform programming in C++ using either qt or wxwidgets. Is there a large market for third party components? I was looking at sourceforge and that doesn't seem to show much that is useful (how the hell do you find out what components or features are in a project without downloading the source?). I'm thinking carousel/coverflow components, rich datagrids (like the sort DevExpress provide). Or is this, write your own territory?
There are a number of good quality third party Qt libraries, though I don't know of a centralized resource for finding them.
A few places to start looking:
http://www.ics.com/products/qt/addons
ICS provides the
QicsTable, a high performance
model-view-delegate table library,
and resells various libraries by
KDAB. (These are all available as a
free download.)
http://www.qtcentre.org/contest-first-edition/finalists
QtCentre has an annual
programming contest which awards
interesting Qt-based tools and
libraries. This year's contest is
still being judged, but the
finalists from last year can be seen
at the above link. Check out the
Custom Widget and Helper Library
categories.
There is a third-party component for Qt - advanced data grid - Qtitan DataGrid.
In it there are almost all necessary possibilities.
Ultra-fast processing of large data sets
Use of QStyle for rendering objects ensures that the grid blends into the UI design of any application
Two modes of vertical scrolling
Customizable colors of rows and columns
Two integrated table views
Column banding and grouping
Automatic width and height adjustment
Fixed columns
Flexible sorting
Column summaries
Integrated high-performance caching mechanism
Advanced paint engine for faster rendering of UI elements
Cross-platform support
API for external editors
Screenshots about this Grid
http://www.devmachines.com/qtitan_screenshots.php
For a crossplatform GUI development, Qt is the tool you should be looking for. I have used both. Here is what I feel about Qt
Building rich GUI is a piece of cake if you use Qt. It has a loads of GUI capabilities, starting with its Graphics View, OpenGL support, stylesheets that supports css. A mature painting system, Richtext formatting, Integration with Webkit, and I am sure I am missing a lot more here...
Qt has its own build system, qmake which creates platform dependent Makefiles, so no Makefile hassles. Moreover you get a single pro-file which is much easier to manage. For wxWidgets, you will need to create different Makefiles for the various compilers you intent to use.
Other advantages of using Qt over wxWidgets are - the Api is very easy to learn with its intuitive api, superb documentation and tons and tons of examples. This helps you get yourself productive pretty soon and thus getting your product early to marker. BTW Qt is a RAD tool. Moreover, there is a huge user base, and there are forums like QtCentre.org to help you with your questions.
If you are planning to buy commercial license, you get support directly from Qt Software (trolltech).
You would obviously be using Qt's Model View pattern, allowing you to separate your business logic from the presentation tier. I would suggest that you write to "support at trolltech dot com" or "sales at trolltech dot com" to get more information. You can explain your requirements and they would be able to explain how Qt fits your needs.
You could also download the opensource version and have look at the demos.
Coverflow: http://labs.trolltech.com/blogs/2007/11/02/pictureflow-on-windows-mobile/ , http://ariya.blogspot.com/2008/03/introducing-photoflow.html
As I said, if its Rich gui you are planning to develop, use Qt.
In addition to the ones by ICS and at QtCentre the Qt-apps website has some open source widgets/components for Qt.
For wxWidgets you have wxCode which has quite a few things although not all the existing third party components (including a few very useful ones) are available from there.
Good quality components for Qt can be found here - http://www.devmachines.com/
At the moment there are Microsoft Ribbon Control for Qt, DataGrid for Qt, Charting for Qt.
All components are commercial and should be used in Qt Commercial or Qt LGPL.