Warning: Java newbie.
Been looking at XUI for Java. Its looks quite interesting. Sort of liek a WPF way of designing interfaces. But googling around I don't see much other than articles saying it had been released. So is it used much or a bit niche?
Are there other similar frameworks for Java? Was looking at JavaFX but seems to be a general feeling that it has been slow development wise. Are there other frameworks that work in simialr ways? I get the impression Swing/SWT seem to more like WinForms. I'm looking to do something a bit more WPF like. As I said, Java newbie, so I might have this all confused. Seem to be so many UI frameworks its a bit overwhelming working out what to use for a new project.
If you can't use JavaFx, Take a look http://www.swixml.org.
JavaFx is a nice framework, it is pretty easy to learn and use. There are also some nice tutorials, doco, API's available, its still only in Preview SDK at the moment, but the next reelase is expected out relativly soon.
I would recommend giving it a try
official javaFx site
suns JavaFX overview
openjfx
Related
so I have been using the MVVM-light toolkit on a project that I am working on and I really like it.
I have used ViewModelLocator, SimpleIOC, design time data and relay commands, but i was curious if there is something else that i have missed. So what I am looking for is like list of the core tools that the toolkit provide so I can google it learn more about them.
I tried to find a decent documentation, I know about the pluralsight doc(http://www.pluralsight.com/courses/mvvm-light-toolkit-fundamentals), but I don't have a subscription and this explains why there isn't a good free one Where is the documentation for MVVM Light?.
I hope this isn't a too stupid question. Thanks
Browse all of the GalaSoft.MvvmLight.* classes in Visual Studio's Object Browser and make sure you know what is the purpose of each of them. In case of doubt look at http://www.mvvmlight.net/help/ or ask a question on SO.
I am newbie in AS3 and learning day by day. I am looking for good AS3 code snippets/samples/small projects which I can use for learning purpose and for reference (with no dependency on Flash IDE because I use Flex SDK and Flash Develop). Also, I am specifically looking for tutorials/articles about Audio/Video streaming, creating own audio/video player, playing audio/video files and working with other media (such as images) and creating special effects. If there's any good websites(other than adobe.com) would be really really really thankful.
Thanks in Advance.
Adobe.com stinks for most documentation (Flex in a Week isn't bad). Here are a few flex/actionscript websites I use or have used:
http://actionscript.org/ Has a lot of ActionScript tutorials.
http://www.flexafterdark.com/ - some good tips and tricks.
http://active.tutsplus.com/ has some good information.
http://www.lynda.com (subscription based) has very good videos that can help you get started.
I would also highly recommend a few books. Flex 3 Bible/Flex 4 Bible/ActionScript 3.0 Bible
Google and Flex in a Week.
I recommend you to take a look at Flex Examples blog. It contains really great and really simple samples to learn.
Senocular is a great when it comes to explaining AS3. Check out his site below:
http://www.senocular.com
In particular his tutorial on AS3 is fantastic - it goes through everything new or challenging about AS3 like display lists and event listeners. It was the perfect primer for me when I stepped across to AS3.
http://www.senocular.com/flash/tutorials/as3withflashcs3/
Sencular is really popular on the http://www.kirupa.com forums (another good set of tutorials are there) plus I believe he works for Adobe now.
Otherwise checkout Grant Skinners work, recently he has been doing a lot JavaScript stuff, but do a search of actionscript and you will find a lot of stuff, especially around memory management.
http://gskinner.com/
I am completely new to Flex.
Can I realistically develop, say, a medium complex application with the Flex SDK alone, or do I need Flex Builder?
Also, apart from the SDK, what will I need to get started?
Thanks for any help.
I was there a year or two ago, so here's my experience. In order by subquestion:
I am completely new to Flex.
I was new to Flex too - and Actionscript (although it's a superset of javascript, which I know pretty well; although it sure doesn't feel like javascript to me).
Can I realistically develop, say a medium complex application with the Flex SDK alone, or do I need Flex Builder?
Maybe, if you already know Flash and Actionscript pretty well. I didn't, so I found it sure helped. But it isn't any different from any other IDE-or-not decision.
Also, apart from the SDK, what will I need to get started?
Nothing, unless you want to use AIR, which is only a simple download. Everything else is in there. I was completely happy with my experience; no unpleasant surprises, and you're asking the same questions I did. YMMV.
You don't need it, but it can be helpful.
I've found FlashDevelop to be a much better IDE for coding ActionScript. It ties in with the (free) Flex SDK, so as long as you don't mind coding the MXML by hand then it should work great. I've created a number of smaller Flex apps using this, and it's worked great. I generally shy away from graphical GUI designers anyway, so it worked quite well for me.
FlexBuilder gets you two things that (afaik) you can't get elsewhere. A visual designer for the MXML, and a debugger. If you get the more expensive version of Flex Builder you also get a profiler.
The visual designer is good if you want to quickly prototype something, or if you're used to designing UI stuff that way (and I can see where it would be helpful once you start getting into more complex UI stuff).
The Flex SDK comes with a command line debug tool, but the GUI you get with FlexBuilder makes using it a lot easier. This is what made getting FlexBuilder worth it for me. I generally don't use FlexBuilder for everyday development, but when I need to debug it makes things much easier.
If you're the one who would have to pay for FlexBuilder, try it without FlexBuilder. If you start running into a situation where you feel having the graphical designer or debugger GUI would be helpful, grab the FlexBuilder trial. You'll have 30 days to try it out. If it helps you enough that you think it's worth the cost, then buy it. If you're getting along fine without it then you don't have to worry about getting it.
If your employer would be purchasing it and has the budget for it then it might be worth getting it sooner, but you could probably do the same thing I mentioned above so as to possibly save your company some money.
You don't need FlexBuilder to develop Flex applications, I use:
Flex SDK
Editor of your choice ( I use emacs on Linux, Notepad++ handles ActionScript well in Windows)
Ant (Flex SDK comes with Ant tasks)
I wrote a entire blog post on how to set up a Flex development environment:
http://blog.apterainc.com/software/setting-up-a-flex-development-enviroment-in-gnulinux/
While I blogged about setting this environment up in Linux, most of the steps can be directly transferred to a windows environment.
As to the other posters: Developing GUI components in Flex is no different or harder then using HTML to design a webpage. If you require a WYSIWYG editor for that, then you do not know Flex or HTML well enough.
FlexBuilder has been well worth the investment for me personally; it's probably paid for itself tenfold or more. No, far more. Easily.
A few key fetures I've most enjoyed:
Intellisense/code-hinting: Especially if you're new to Flex, this'll speed your learning process along surprisingly well;
The Profiler: The live memory/app profiler really helps keep an eye on what's happening inside the box;
The Debugger: It's tough to beat being able to set breakpoints, trace the stack, watch variables, etc. -- great stuff here;
Eclipse: Eclipse is just an excellent IDE, and Adobe has extended it beautifully for Flex and AIR.
Incidentally, I don't do any drag-and-drop stuff, myself; I code everything manually, and I still can't recommend FlexBuilder enough. If you can part with the cash, chances are you'll be happy with the product.
Flex Builder is really useful if your application involves lot of GUI. It provides you a nice IDE do draw GUI. If you are just building actionscript that transforms to swf, you don't need Flex Builder. Flex SDK with your favourite editor is enough.
You may have to learn Actionscript and MXML DTD.
It's not required but it certainly makes things easier.
However, having said that, when you're using the FlexBuilder, you'll probably still end up doing minor tweaks to the UI in the mxml code and not in the IDE.
G-Man
I've been working on a project called Axial that converts MSIL (compiled C# or VB.NET) to JavaScript. There are a few samples of working code, but some common situations don't work properly. (The current release doesn't work in production mode and the SVN code doesn't work in debug mode but is much cleaner.) I've heard from quite a few people that they hate writing JavaScript, so I know the project has some merit, but I'd guess that attitude is less prevalent among the SO community.
Assume the product works perfectly and smoothly, so your JavaScript works 100% of the time and a Visual Studio plug-in makes sure you're using the product correctly. Is this something you or your organization would use? What features other than straight code translation would interest you?
That sounds very much like a .NET-centric version of GWT. I guess the questions are:
Have I understood the purpose correctly?
Do you believe you can overcome any roadblocks that GWT users might stumble over?
Is there enough benefit in having a .NET version as well as GWT to make the duplication of effort worthwhile? (I'd personally just write the Java code and use GWT, but I know not all .NET developers know Java, and you may already have common library stuff you want to port.)
Do you have any useful ideas you could contribute to GWT? :)
(Disclaimer: I work for Google, but haven't used GWT myself.)
Been done (pretty much).
I've just finished a flash project where I did the entire project in "pure" AS3, without the use of the Flex framework. I found very little written about this on the web, so I'm not sure if this is a common way to develop RIA's, or if I've jumped off the shoulders of giants and done something stupid that will bite me later.
It seemed like a good idea at the time (famous last words!), but was hoping to hear from someone who could confirm.
Thanks,
Marcus
There's nothing wrong with it. People do that every day using FlashDevelop and AS3-only frameworks like PureMVC. Doing a complex app without any framework to support may get difficult to support in the future, but should be OK if you adhere to well known best practices. Future maintainability, especially if it has to be maintained be someone else, can also be greatly improved by using common design patterns throughout your code and architecture. Barring all that, if you're really just slinging code to build something with any real complexity, you're probably screwed unless you documented every function and the overall architecture very very well. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but some day you're (or someone else is) screwed! ;)
Flex is nice if you want to create something that looks great real fast within the confines of what the Flex framework gives you.
We used to fight weird framework bugs which Adobe didn't seem to care about or took way too long to fix. So we opted to drop Flex in favor of our own UI framework and we've never looked back since.
Sounds like a perfectly good idea. Flex is really just an overlay of rapid-prototyping, and communication standards, on top of pure AS3.
What you gain in ease of development and a large library and API, you lose in streamlined, strength and simplicity.
I'm currently developing a medium sized app in Flex and although the first phase of development was a breeze, the later stages have been fraught with weird framework eccentricities.
It is definitely okay. For example, I've heard that the Issuu.com platform is not based on Flex but a custom framework.
Thanks all! I've been very happy with AS3, and like the amount of control I get, as opposed to using MXML/Flex. It's good to hear I'm not crazy!