Cu şase zile înainte de prima lună adevărată a iernii s-a măsurat deja primul record de temperatură scăzută pe acest an. La Întorsura Buzăului din judeţul Covasna, stratul de zăpadă a atins 25 de cm iar temperatura aerului a scăzut până la -25 °C.

Întorsura Buzăului s-a dovedit mereu a fi una dintre cele mai friguroase localităţi din ţară. Temperatura cea mai scăzută s-a măsurat în luna februarie din anul 2005. Pe vremea aceea mercurul termometrelor a indicat -36 °C.

Oare suntem pregătiţi de noi valori record în ceea ce priveşte temperaturile scăzute din iarna al cărui haină s-a aşternut deja peste întreaga ţară ( sau aproape întreaga ţară )? Sunt curios dacă cei mai importanţi moguli de pe piaţa de retail din România or să introducă în ofertele lor împodobite cu multe rate şi calorifere ultimul răcnet ori rejouri colorate.

De fapt acum ar fi anotimpul investiţiilor pentru lansete de pescuit, pentru ca vara să ne axăm pe calorifere. Asta dacă se mai găsesc şi oameni nepretenţioşi şi fără fiţe din ţara asta, oameni care nu aleargă după plasme peste măsura buzunarelor lor.

foto şi ştire via mediatica.ro

As you know on 6th of November we had Flex Camp Triangle (see also myadobe.ro ). A few days has passed and after some “cold thinking” I’m writing some thoughts on about the conference.

It has been a great Flex Camp and the focus was on the newly launched Flash Player 10 and what can be done with it.

Matt Chotin did broadcast his keynote directly from USA focusing on Flash Player 10 and its new features.

Mihai Corlan explained us when, how and why to use AIR and he presented an AIR application coded for MotorPlay . Mihai Corlan and Mihai Pricope did consulting and development for MotorPlay and they did build this application. Another application presented was BlackBookSafe application that will be presented at Adobe Max. BlackBookSafe is build on AIR 1.5 that will be released this year.

Cristian Pascu presented Flair Builder which is a under-development mock-up tool. A lot of work done but frankly all that Flair Builder do can already be done in Flex Builder. Flex Builder can be used with very much success to create mock-ups. We were not impressed by Flair Builder and although everybody laughed Cristi’s remarks on Adobe products were out of the line.

We liked Dragos Dascalita presentation on UI and skinning with AIR. On the same presentaton he touched some issues that are in Flex SDK, issues of DataGrid. Dragos explained that we can use Repeater to create a data grid like control and when to use each one of them.

Mihai Pricope did show us Pixel Bender . Wonderful presentation! He bended: images, videos and sounds. All mathematics!

Victor Dramba presented Cabanova a RIA product made in Romania - a site builder. Impresive work! Project is based on Actionscript 2 and doesn’t use Flex SDK.

The sessions are recorded and can be viewed following this link: https://admin.adobe.acrobat.com/_a295153/p16808009/

Some pictures Fx{r} did take are here: http://www.flexer.info/2008/11/06/we-salute-you-from-flex-camp-triangle/ .

The conference was a success and we are looking forward for the next one.

   E, a venit si momentul asta. Miercurea viitoare, MS va distribui o versiune beta de evaluare unui grup restrans de membrii TAP (Technology Adoption Program).

   Aparent toate programele care ruleaza pe Vista acum (+/-) SP1 vor fi capabile sa ruleze si pe SP2. Si asta o zice MS, nu producatorii de software (inclin sa cred mai mult MS la treburi de compatiblitate si legacy pentru ca ei controleaza mediul de lucru).

   Service pack-ul va fi acelasi (fizic) si pentru Vista si pt Server 2k8, respectand tendinta MS de a simplifica implementarea tehnologiilor.

   Schimbari anuntate pana acum (pe langa blah blah-ul prezent la fiecare SP):

• Windows Vista SP2 adds Windows Search 4.0 for faster and improved relevancy in searches.
• Windows Vista SP2 contains the Bluetooth 2.1 Feature Pack supporting the most recent specification for Bluetooth Technology.
• Ability to record data on to Blu-Ray media natively in Windows Vista.
• Adds Windows Connect Now (WCN) to simplify Wi-Fi Configuration.
• Windows Vista SP2 enables the exFAT file system to support UTC timestamps, which allows correct file synchronization across time zones. 

sursa

The last PHP library that adds support for AMF and remoting, is Zend Framework. The prelease version 1.7 offers a new component Zend_AMF, that let’s you create Flex applications that talk to PHP backends using remoting. As I am a big fan of remoting as a way to get your data in Flex/AIR clients, I wanted to add a short post explaining how to do use it ( here is another post I wrote on remoting with AMFPHP). Actually this post, is a part of a larger article I did for Adobe Developer. I want to keep it more focus, and thus I wrote this one.

You can download a Flex Builder project that contains the code I explain in this article from here . Inside of the archive you will find a readme.txt file explaining what to do with it.

Installing the Zend Framework

After downloading the Zend Framework 1.7 archive, extract the files. Next, you have to add the folder library to your PHP include path. Open the php.ini file and add the path to the library folder to the include_path; on my machine this is looking like this:
include_path = “c:\htdocs\zend_framework\library”

Next you have to save the file and restart the web server. You can read more about installing Zend Framework here . With this, you’ve completed the “installation” of Zend Framework.

What is AMF and Remoting and why should you use it?

If you already know these answers, you may want to skip to the next section. Let’s start by understanding of remote procedure calls. Remote procedure calls let Flex applications  make direct calls on the methods of your server side classes. Using BlazeDS or LCDS you can expose your Java and ColdFusion classes to the Flex application. However, if you use PHP you need a third party library on the server to expose PHP classes directly. Existing solutions include Zend AMF, WebOrb, and AMFPHP. This article focuses on remoting with Zend AMF. AMF is a binary protocol for serialize the messages. Because it is binary, it is more efficient in terms of bandwidth and server processing load than JSON or XML methods. If you want to see for yourself, James Ward has put together a nice benchmark .

Zend AMF is a PHP library that knows how to serialize and deserialize the AMF protocol (it is part of the Zend Framework starting with version 1.7), and thus lets you expose PHP classes to Flex applications. Another compelling reason for using remoting is code reuse. Because you can call methods on PHP classes and these methods can return PHP objects, you don’t have to modify your existing code to output JSON or XML.

As I said earlier, Zend AMF remoting uses AMF for serializing messages between the server and Flex client. And it offers a nice feature to map an ActionScript class to a PHP class. For example, suppose you want to display in Flex the information from a table with the following structure:

contacts
 -------------------------------
 id      primary key  int 
 name    varchar(255)
 email   varchar(255) 

When using remoting, you create an ActionScript class to model this data in the client and a PHP class to model the same data on the server. When you create the PHP class that you want to call from Flex, you add a method that, for example, retrieves all the contacts from the table. This method will return an array of PHP model classes. This is what you need to do. And in Flex you will get an array of ActionScript objects. All the conversions from PHP to AMF format and from AMF format to ActionScript objects are done automatically for you by  Flex and Zend AMF.

When you use XML or JSON for remoting, usually you need extra steps in Flex to process the data in order to display or store it.

Let’s look at a working example.

Create the Flex PHP project

Usually, when I work with Flex and PHP projects, I prefer to use Flex Builder and Zend Studio installed together. Though you can work with Flex Builder and some PHP plug-in to help you with the PHP code. Either way, you should create a Flex project that uses PHP as server side (if you plan to use Zend Studion and Flex Builder, then first create a Zend PHP Project, then using the wizard Add Flex Nature, add Flex PHP nature on the project). This way you streamline the deployment of the SWF file (the compiled result of the Flex project) to the PHP server. I choose to create a new project called “flex_php”.

Next, I create a folder inside the PHP server root “zendamf_remote”, and I add this folder to the project using “New > Folder” and then click on the “Advanced” button. If you want to have the source files for the Zend Framework available to your project, and you use Zend Studio too, then open the properties page for the project, and go to PHP Include Path > Libraries tab, and add External Folder… pointing to the place where the Zend Framework is installed.

Create the PHP code

In the “zendamf_remote” folder, I create three php files: MyService.php, VOAuthor.php, and index.php. Open the MyService.php page and paste this code (you need to update the connection information for your specific database setup; to do this, look for the four constants at the top of the class):

 'VOAuthor.php' );
  //conection info 
 define( "DATABASE_SERVER" ,  "localhost" );
 define( "DATABASE_USERNAME" ,  "mihai" );
 define( "DATABASE_PASSWORD" ,  "mihai" );
 define( "DATABASE_NAME" ,  "flex360" );
 
  class  MyService {
  /** 
  * Retrieve all the records from the table 
  * @return an array of VOAuthor 
  */ 
  public   function  getData() {
       //connect to the database. 
       //we could have used an abstracting layer for connecting to the database. 
       //for the sake of simplicity, I choose not to. 
      $mysql = mysql_connect(DATABASE_SERVER, DATABASE_USERNAME, DATABASE_PASSWORD);
      mysql_select_db(DATABASE_NAME);
       //retrieve all rows 
      $query =  "SELECT id_aut, fname_aut, lname_aut FROM authors_aut ORDER BY fname_aut" ;
      $result = mysql_query($query);
 
      $ret = array();
       while  ($row = mysql_fetch_object($result)) {
      $tmp =  new  VOAuthor();
      $tmp->id_aut = $row->id_aut;
      $tmp->fname_aut = $row->fname_aut;
      $tmp->lname_aut = $row->lname_aut;
      $ret[] = $tmp;
      }
      mysql_free_result($result);
       return  $ret;
 }
  /** 
  * Update one item in the table 
  * @param VOAuthor to be updated  
  * @return NULL 
  */ 
  public   function  saveData($author) {
  if  ($author == NULL)
       return  NULL;
       //connect to the database. 
      $mysql = mysql_connect(DATABASE_SERVER, DATABASE_USERNAME, DATABASE_PASSWORD);
      mysql_select_db(DATABASE_NAME);
       //save changes 
      $query =  "UPDATE authors_aut SET fname_aut='" .$author->fname_aut. "', lname_aut='" .$author->lname_aut. "' WHERE id_aut=" .  $author->id_aut;
      $result = mysql_query($query);
       return  NULL;
 }
 }
 ?> 

This is the class you will call from Flex. It has two methods: one for get all the records from the table, and another to update the values for one record.

Let’s create the code for the Value Object, the data model. This is used by MyService class to wrap one row from the table. Thus, the method getData() returns an array of VOAuthor, and the method saveData() receives one argument: the VOAuthor of the row that was changed. Select the file VOAuthor.php and paste this code:

 class  VOAuthor {
       public  $id_aut;
       public  $fname_aut;
       public  $lname_aut;
 }
 ?> 

As you can see, this class is very simple; it just provides the same members as the fields from the table. Finally let’s create the code for index.php file. This is the plumbing code that expose the MyService class to Flex clients with the help of the Zend AMF. Paste the following code:

 'Zend/Amf/Server.php' );
 require_once( 'MyService.php' );
 
 $server =  new  Zend_Amf_Server();
  //adding our class to Zend AMF Server 
 $server->setClass( "MyService" );
  //Mapping the ActionScript VO to the PHP VO 
  //you don't have to add the package name 
 $server->setClassMap( "VOAuthor" ,  "VOAuthor" );
 echo($server -> handle());
 ?> 

I use an instance of Zend AMF server to create a PHP end point that can be called from Flex. Then I register the MyService class to the server, thus I can call this class from Flex. And finally I map the ActionScript data model (VOAuthor) to PHP VOAuthor data model.

When you use remoting, you get for free the casting of the data to the right type. For example: MyService.getData() method returns an array of VOAuthor PHP objects. However, as you will see later, in Flex the result is an array of VOAuthor ActionScript objects.

Creating the Flex application

Now that you have the PHP code in place, you are ready to create the Flex code that will call the PHP class. What I want to have is a Flex application that has a button to get the data from the server, uses a data grid to display the data, and you can use this data grid to edit any cell but ids. Whenever a cell is edited, the update is send automatically to server to be saved to the database as well.

First, be sure to select the Flex perspective from the top right icons of Eclipse.

The first thing you need to do is to create a configuration file that Flex can use in order to reach the PHP service. For that create the file services-config.xml in the root of the project, and open it. Copy this code inside of it:

 "1.0"  encoding= "UTF-8" ?>
  
      
          "amfphp-flashremoting-service"   class = "flex.messaging.services.RemotingService"  messageTypes= "flex.messaging.messages.RemotingMessage" >
              "zend" >
                  
                      ref = "my-zend" / >
                  
                  
                      * 
                  
              
          
      
      
          "my-zend"   class = "mx.messaging.channels.AMFChannel" >
              "http://localhost/zendamf_remote/"   class = "flex.messaging.endpoints.AMFEndpoint" / >
          
      
   

What it might be different for your configuration is the endpoint node (at the bottom of the file), your URL to the zendamf_remote folder might be different. Set the value accordingly to your setup.

Now you need to tell Flex Builder to use this file when compiling the project. So, right click on the project name in the Project Explorer and choose Properties. Select Flex Compiler and add to the Additional compiler arguments field this: -services “absolute_path_to_services_config.xml”:

You will use a RemoteObject to communicate with the server, so add a mx:RemoteObject tag. You need to set the source attribute to MyService (this is the PHP class name) and the destination to zend – this is the destination created in services-config.xml file. Also give a name to this object by adding an id attribute and set it to myRemote, and set the attribute showBusyCursor to true (this will render the mouse icon to a watch whenever a call is made, until the response from the server is received). The code should look like this:

 "myRemote"  destination= "zend"  source= "MyService"  showBusyCursor= "true" >
   

Now you need to declare the methods you want to call on the PHP class, and add the listners for fault and result. The code is:

 "myRemote"  destination= "zend"  source= "MyService"  showBusyCursor= "true"  fault= "faultListener(event)" >
       "getData"  result= "getDataListener(event)" / >
       "saveData"  result= "saveDataListener(event)" / >
   

Next you need the UI for making the call to the server and display/edit the data. A button and a data grid will do. So, add this code above the remoteObject code:

 "30"  left= "100" >
             "Get data"  click= "{myRemote.getData()}"  / >
             "myGrid"  editable= "true"  itemEditEnd= "save(event)" / >
   

As you can see, the button calls the getData() method on the remoteObject. The data grid has an event listener registered for the itemEditEnd event.

The last step is to create the listeners we declared so far. For this, add a mx:Script tag to your MXML application and define four functions in it:

 
       /** 
              * listener for the data grid's itemEditEnd event 
              */ 
            privatefunction save( event :DataGridEvent): void  {
                  //we don't want to update the id of the item 
                  if  ( event .dataField ==  "id_aut" ) {
                       event .preventDefault();
                       return ;
                 }
                  //retrieve the new value from the item editor instance 
                  var  dataGrid:DataGrid =  event .target  as  DataGrid;
                  var  col:DataGridColumn = dataGrid.columns[ event .columnIndex];
                  var  newValue:String = dataGrid.itemEditorInstance[col.editorDataField];
                  //retrieve the data model that was edited 
                  var  author:VOAuthor =  event .itemRenderer.data  as  VOAuthor;
                  // if the value wasn't change, exit 
                  if  (newValue == author[ event .dataField])
                       return ;
                  //update the model with the new values      
                 author[ event .dataField] = newValue;
                  //call the remote method passing the data we want to be saved 
                 myRemote.saveData(author);
            }
             /** 
              * Result listener for get data operation 
              */ 
            privatefunction getDataListener( event :ResultEvent): void  {
                  //set the result array as data provider for the data grid          
 myGrid.dataProvider =  event .result  as  Array;
            }
             /** 
              * Result listener for save data operation 
              */ 
            privatefunction saveDataListener( event :ResultEvent): void  {
                 Alert.show( "The data was saved!" );
            }
             /** 
              * Fault listener for RemoteObject 
              */ 
            privatefunction faultListener( event :FaultEvent): void  {
                 Alert.show( event .fault.message,  "Error" );
            }
 ]]>
   

Finally, you need to create the ActionScrit Value Object that will act as a data model for the data send from PHP. Right click on the src folder from Flex Navigator, and choose New > ActionScript class. Enter as package org.corlan, and as name VOAuthor and click OK. Now it is time to add the members and some meta-data:

package org.corlan {
      [RemoteClass(alias= "VOAuthor" )]
      [Bindable]
      publicclass VOAuthor {
            publicvar id_aut: int ;
            publicvar fname_aut:String;
            publicvar lname_aut:String;
      }
 } 

The RemoteClass meta-data is very important. This is telling to the ActionScript that the remote class (the one from PHP) that maps this it is called VOAuthor. If you forget this or you misconfigure, you will get generic objects in ActionScript instead of VOAuthor, and associative arrays instead of VOAuthor in PHP.

You are done. There shouldn’t be any errors.

Now you are ready to test the code. Start the Flex application by clicking Run in the toolbar. When the application opens in your default browser, click on the Get data button. You should see the data grid populated with some data:

To edit the items, just double click on any name and change something. After finishing the editing, just clik somewhere else than the data grid. The changes will be send to the server. If you don’t believe me, just go to the database and see the records.

That was it people!