Flare - Flex Data Visualization and Interaction

When I'm developing my project about complex reference data nodes which have multiple levels of inheritance and connections, I only foundmark-shepherd.com SpringGraph close to my components. Then I extend that with a few modification. However, there are still some lack of features to satisfy my components.
Today, I read the The Flare Visualization Toolkit from Thomas Burleson. This kit is more organize-chart like and has a few more features I need. It's open source as well(Important!! ^_^).
Don't have time to read all code today, but I think it could be a resource of my project.

Flex Component: Simple Resizable TitleWindow

There's a post on Thunderhead Explorer for simple implementation of re-sizable TitleWindow popup.
The link is Yet Another Resizable TitleWindow.

draw background for DataGrid columns

When I read Peter Ent's post about "Coloring the Background of Cells", I need to fill the column in my project, which is programmatically generated, with gradient background fill.
I didn't finish my job at the first try. After I read the post again, I found each column has to be assign a backgroundColor style before DataGrid drawColumnBackground function taking effect.
This function "drawColumnBackground" is called by drawLinesAndColumnBackgrounds function, which is called in updateDisplayList function. So I think I can update each column background by override the updateDisplayList function. I probabely need to update datagrid data as well as column background based on user action.

Reading for Custom Flex Preloader

I've read Ted's Flex 2 Preloader before I implemented a preloader class in my project.
However this class seems not working as I expected. Loading is quite glitch. I found in the code there is time interval to check status and display preloader, which slow down the process of loading animation.
After a couple of months, I retrieve this problem and found some new entries explained in detail how the preloading proceed and which class is not good to be used in preloader class.

• Flex 3 Pleloading Explained is new and has upcoming post(not posted yet) to explain the preloading in Flex;
• Custom Flex 3 Lightweight Preloader gives a very good example to build an preloader;
• Implementing A Flex 2 Custom Preloader has one Class from basic implementation of IPreloaderDisplay which is simple and detail explained.

I hope I can try to redo this preloader next week for my project.

Good ItemRederer Article

I was used to use itemRenderer to render Datagrid and List, but most case I have to set function or event happened in Renderer and goes to it's owner to get actual action. After I saw this article, it is very good to dynamic load itemRenderer at run time. It also set function as renderer's property then. I can write function directly in the class rather than in renderer to do the job without getting the data from the owner or parent level.

The blog "Example of Feature Rich Dynamic Item Renderers in Flex 3" is from Themorphic Group.

There are also a series of articles from Peter Ent's Blog talking about itemRenderer.

Auto Complete Input Resources

There are a couple of customized components available, such as

• Adobe Exchange
• Kuwamoto
• Flex AutoComplete: Version 0.98.1 at Hillel Coren

The last one from Hillel Coren seems very nice and suitable for my project.

Input with PopUp or PopUpInput

I recently has to use a pop-up input, which behavior similar to PopUpButton. But PopUpButton name is not editable. ComboBox has the simliar thing but popup do not support UIComponent. So I create a new custom component called PopUpInput. It has the following features:

• popup can be any UIComponent;
• because of TextInput, name is editable;
• customized drop-down arrow icon;
• can extend the function to save the input text to list.

Click here for demo and source file.
However, this an alpha version of this component, some filters such as drop shadow applied on popup do not transform smoothly as same as popup itself. Also, popup does not do drop down effect when the first time is opened. Let's call it version 0.1. I will update it later as I finish my Java study.

SpringGraph

In my recent project, I was asked to develop an component in Flex to represent hierarchical relationship of each item. It has interactive ability to display drill in relationship of items.
The component should have filter which can opt user defined key attributes or properties as well as search box. I also think it should have an bread-thumb trail like navigation to go back to the original place.
I found a good example from Flokoon ( www.flokoon.com).
Then there is an impressive sample with code from Mark Shepherd
The component is here which has docs to expain package.
The drawback is the component is Flex 2 what I believe.

Quick Note: Custom String Validator

got a source from Adobe cookbook:
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/communityengine/index.cfm?event=showdetails&productId=2&postId=9603

I will check back later when I get some spare time to view this validator.

Flex Component: Gauge

A few examples of Gauge Component.

Gauges Flex 2 Components by Peter Ent
Very simple and detail explanation to using only Flex class to create components.
http://weblogs.macromedia.com/pent/archives/2006/07/writing_flex_2.cfm

--------------------------------------
Using Degrafa by Thomas Gonzalez
V.02 version add the Degrafa graphic Classes to draw skin for components.
More flexible and polished.

Gauge Component v.02
http://form-function.blogspot.com/2008/04/gauge-component-v02.html
Gauge Component v.01 - Flex
http://form-function.blogspot.com/2008/03/gauge-component-v01.html

Link: 36 New, Cool Flex and AS3 Tools, Libraries and Components

very useful resources:

36 New, Cool Flex and AS3 Tools, Libraries and Components

By: Sean Moore (http://www.seantheflexguy.com/)

Flex Component: FlowBox Container

I found several Flex Containers can handle automatic wrapping child component.

1. Eric Cancil version(best practice):
   http://blog.3r1c.net/
   This is the best I've seen.
   
2. Tony Fendall version:
   http://www.munkiihouse.com/?p=60
   Tony's FlowBox use HBox as sub container, add child to HBox, when the HBox is full, create new one to add child. But there are some issues, especially the HBox scrollingBar appear sometime.
3. FlexLib version:
   This version handle the basic function of wrapping but limited to horizontal only and doesn't have many inherited style from box/container.

There are some more experiment like Flow Layout in Adobe cookbook and Flow Layout in Adobe Exchange By jamesjaco, but they are not coded carefully.

Flex Resources and Blog Collection

Flex Blog Collection
Doug McCune: http://dougmccune.com/blog/
David Coletta: http://www.colettas.org/
Ely Greenfield: http://www.quietlyscheming.com/blog/
Eric Cancil: http://blog.3r1c.net/
Peter Ent: http://weblogs.macromedia.com/pent/
Ben Stucki: http://blog.benstucki.net/
Darron Schal: http://weblog.cahlan.com/
Brendan Meutzner: http://www.meutzner.com/blog/index.cfm
Arpit Mathur: http://www.arpitonline.com/blog/
Andrew Trice: http://www.cynergysystems.com/blogs/
Mike Nimer: http://blog.mikenimer.com/

Component, Widget List
http://www.brightworks.com/technology/adobe_flex/components_widgets_etc.html

List of 31 Flex APIs, Libraries, Components and Tools
http://seantheflashguy.com/blog/2007/08/21/list-of-31-flex-apis-libraries-components-and-tools/

Flex 2 Primitive Explorer
http://www.3gcomm.fr/Flex/PrimitiveExplorer/Flex2PrimitiveExplorer.html