Does anyone know of any flex based (preferably open source) framework or component to edit UML? I was looking for something like gliffy.com, however that will not let you export to an XMI file.
We are going to release soon UML4AS - UML for ActionScript and Flex. It supports bi-directional code synchronization for .as and .mxml files.
It doesn't have for the moment an export to XMI option. You could request it as a new feature on our site.
This is one of the Opensource UML Tool which supports XML exporting option.
Check it out
It seems to me there are no open source Flex based UML Tools. I think you should build on and open it up to the public.
After several days of googleing, it looks like what I'm looking for doesn't exist.
Check out CrocusModeller - UML for Flex and AS.
Related
I was hoping that Ignition had a way to import/export windows to a non-binary format such as JSON or XML, but that seems not to be the case (or is there a way?).
Is there a way to use the script console to generate and populate a new window, or to insert components into an existing window?
This would be used for inserting templates and other components, such as navigation buttons etc.
Yes, but...
I assume here that you're referring to Vision windows. The windows are indeed binary serialized, but the underlying structure is XML. But getting the deserialization done programmatically is a pain and probably not worth it.
You can get a feel for what this looks like by opening a Vision window in the designer, right-clicking its Root Container and choosing Copy, then pasting it into Notepad. I myself tried to find a way to do this from a module and decided it wasn't worth it. For more detail, you can view that thread in the Ignition forum here.
However, that's not really useful for generating and populating a new window.
To do that, you need to do some Java programming. Vision is Java Swing under the hood. There are a couple ways you can dynamically build / populate a Window.
From Python, you can import any Java libraries you need and generate the window dynamically. For relatively simple things, you're probably better off working with the Template Canvas component. There's an Ignition forum thread discussing this topic here. This would be more of a run-time generation, not from the Script Console.
You can write your own module to do it.
Module SDK Vision Component Guide
Vision Component Module Example
Good luck!
This is probably a very basic question, but how does one enable the actionscript documentation to appear properly in Eclipse? For example, if you hover over addChild, the ASDoc view brings up the class hierarchy with flash.display.DisplayObjectContainer.addChild(child:DisplayObject):DisplayObject, but does not give any of the details, descriptive text, parameters, etc. If I write my own documentation using the /** */ format, it does appear in there. What have I done wrong? :P
I'm using the Helios version of Eclipse with Flash Builder 4. Thanks!
If you are talking about something like following:
then, it is available in Flash Builder. You might want to try it.
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.
Flex newbie question: can MXML be generated on the fly, like HTML is generated by a server?
If yes, is it ok to do so or am I missing an important Flex architectural principle.
Sort of... but it still needs to be compiled. MXML is not rendered directly, it is first compiled into ActionScript 3.0, and then into a typical SWF... so, you cannot serve your users with MXML. However, like almost all programmming languages, you can use automatic code generation to ease development tasks.
There is IIS/Apache component given by adobe that can generate your mxml -> html+swf using on the fly compilation, and it also caches the last compiled file.
However its not recommended for bigger projects as it has certain problems that you cant make libraries of your code and organize code accordingly. Namespace usage is very limited.
MXML is just a way of describing user interface layout and scripts. This information is then "compiled" into ActionScript, then converted to SWF format for use in the Flash player.
So, yes, you can generate MXML on the fly, in that you can create a text file that contains valid MXML syntax, then use mxmlc to compile it, but there's no way (that I'm aware of) to create MXML and "add" it to your current movie such that the information appears as it would were it compiled.
It is not officially supported but there is a few similar projects doing stuff similar to this.
as3Query let you create things with xml.
Using createComponentFromDescriptor() maybe can get what you want.
Should be more as I remember, but can't find it out at this moment... Searching for "MXML runtime dynamic compilation" or something like that should be helpful...
Is there an alternative ActionScript 3 lightweight framework out there similar to Flex, but not as huge. Flex is fairly large, and SWF's being no less than 150Kb big, I'm just thinking it must be possible to get something that have smaller SWF files as an end result.
I've come accross AS Wing, and was curious if there's more.
Thanks for the replies in advance!
This may be what you're looking for :
http://code.google.com/p/flit/
I haven't tested it yet so I can't really say if it's worth it or not
You can change some settings when compiling to reduce the size of your .swf. Here is a blog posting showing how.: Reduce Flex 3 File Size. Basically you compile the sdk into a separate .swf that gets cached by the flash player.
http://www.openlaszlo.org/ is an open source alternative that can generate swf8, dhtml, or swf9.
The GraniteDS framework provides a clean-room re-implementation of the MXML->SWF compiler, and it may possibly give you options to generate smaller SWF files. It can also do that compilation on the fly, which is pretty cool.
Why don't just use Flash? You can dump your logic in AS class file.
Swf from Flash can be pretty small, can down to 8kb, or even smaller.
Correct me if I am wrong, I see Flex as a Flash with XML Layout Manager (which can position components well during resizing). If you are willing to spend time on designing a Layout Manager for Flash, i think Flash is a good choice. Flash supports AS3, pureMVC.
Of course, Flex is free :)
check out http://www.weaverfx.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13&Itemid=6
they claim that applications built with there framework are of the tune of 20 to 100Kb
AS3Commons UI Invalidation & LifeCycle provides an entire component life cycle framework similiar to that of Flex but written in pure AS3 an hence small and independent. If you are about to create your own components you should give this library a try.
Edit: self-plug
Another component libary:
AS Data Provider Controls is a new set of standard UI components built with plain ActionScript. Open source.
Edit: self-plug
Thanks for all the helpful replies. I'm busy experimenting a bit with an ActionScript 3 project in Flex Builder, and I think I might just create the components I need myself and make them modular for re-use in other projects.
That way, I can include exactly and only that what my application is using, and not worry about an additional x00000Kb of data that gets dragged along either as an RSL, or merged in my code.