Sample Code Post

I think I've found a way to post some code to this blog. I hate to admit it, but for a quick solution I am trying out Windows Live Writer, which has some plug-ins for posting code. So here we go. Referring to the previous post you should find a <icon> tag that is commented out in the [appName]-app.xml file in your FLEX or AIR project. Un comment it and after placing your icon images in the src folder put the file names in the corresponding tag.

      <icon>
	<image16x16>myIcon16.png</image16x16>
	<image32x32>myIcon32.png</image32x32>
	<image48x48>myIcon48.png</image48x48>
	<image128x128>myIcon128.png</image128x128>
      </icon>
        

So I hope that this helps someone in the future and hopefully this means I can add more code in the future.

Icon Solution

With a new day and a fresh start I was able to bring my thoughts around. I decided to try messing around with the tag at the begging of my FLEX project to see if there were any options for icons. This proved to be the wrong approach. After some fruitless tries on a few proprieties I decided that maybe it was in the xml file that defines the application title when it is installed. This proved much more successful.
In the [appName]-app.xml there is an 'icon' tag that is commented out.
Remove the comment tag and place the path name to your .png file(s) in the appropriate size.
There are 4 sizes. 16x16, 32x32, 48x48, and 128x128.
*NOTE on the path name: It took me a few minutes to figure out where its 'root' was. It is the src folder in your project. So if you put your images in the src folder all you have to do is put in the name of the file between the corresponding tags.
I would give an example, but I am still learning how to post code on this blog. Hopefully I will have it figured out soon

Problems I'm currently working out in FLEX 3

With finals over with I have dug in the last two days to try and deal with some of the major obstacles I've had learning flex. I decided to make a list and perhaps, if I figure out how to get around them there will be answers.

FLEX Skins
I have been playing around trying to make my own FLEX skins. While researching the subject I discovered that Adobe has made it much easier to play around with your own design. There are quite a few sites out there written by people who know much more than I do about FLEX and ActionScript, so I won't go into details. I have been playing around with the extensions that adobe provides for Flash, illustrator, and photoshop. The extension basically provides you with a basic template to start from, with pre-made symbols and naming schema. It also adds a convenient export option that makes the .swf or .swc file that you can then easily import if you are using Flex builder. Following are some links that have been helpful to this point.
Adobe PDF explaining how to import .swfs
Blog with links to download extensions
A simple tutorial on Yahoo!
Some cool examples of what can be done and some instruction

I have been successful in designing a a simple button and other minimal components. Design isn't my strong point, but it's been fun playing around. I have had trouble getting the Panel symbol to work right. It wasn't sizing right, meaning that it wouldn't expand or shrink right as well as putting the label for the panel too low blocking access to some functionality of other parts of the application. I finally got around it a little by adding padding to the top, bottom, and sides to get it all to fit right. I also removed the white 'text' area which was really annoying. I'm still working out design issues.

Another semi design related issue I'm working out right now is putting my own application icon on the application. When I run it from flex builder the AIR icon is the default, but when I install the program it is just the lame 'general' icon that windows uses. From what I've read it might be quite involved as operating systems handle these different from each other.

Foreign Language Support
Since the program is for the Humanities department which includes foreign language classes I've been trying to read about 'globalizing' the application. In other words making it compatible with other languages and their character sets. I haven't made much progress on this point, there is little information, put it does appear it is supported.

Certificate Recognition
I'm also working on getting the right kind of certificate so that I can sign the application and it will be recognized as a friendly application and won't throw errors.

HTML 'Control'
I'm also working on working with HTML within the application. Pretty sweet functionality. I'm trying to figure out if I can get it to navigate to a web page if a link is clicked on with out navigating int he HTML component I have in the application as well.

If anyone happens to read this and has suggestions or knows of a site I can go to for more information I'm more than happy to receive feedback.

In the beginning

Well, this blog is not going to be a very personal blog. If you want to read my personal blog for my wife and I you can check out our family blog the Quinn-tessentials. This is a blog for all my little projects I'm working on both at work and personally. So far they are as follows.

HOME (I think it stands for Humanities Online Media Environment)

This is my job right now. I work on campus at BYU helping one of the professor do research in the Humanities Technology and Research Support Center. We just wrapped up a project called hummedia. The basic idea behind the project is that professors can request that channels BYU is subscribed to be recorded and a computer then transcribes them so professors can use them for academic purposes, mainly teaching foreign languages. We built an online management system for professor to create groups or 'channels' for classes and assign videos to those groups. Students can get on and find their class and watch the video streaming from the internet, or download it to watch on an ipod or on the computer. Version 1.o is fairly simple. Hopefully future versions will offer more functionality.

Our current project is still in the works, the name included. I started calling it hum_assignment, but that has now changed to Humation. A combination of summation, our 'hum' theme for humanities, and aggregation. The idea is to create an application that humanities professor can use to get students looking into current events in countries and cultures around the world. We are building a search based aggregator. Right now we are just dealing with news, and will probably expand to have a picture search, and possible video searches. Professors can create assignments and students can then add those assignments to their list and find articles to contribute to the assignment. Students can see each others contributions. This project has been in adobe FLEX 3, which is a whole new frontier for me. I've had a heavy learning curve

The Least You Should Know
This is a project I'm working on for my landlord. I found out he also works for the college of Humanities in the Linguistics department. He is working on publishing a book about teaching English as a Second and Foreign language. My project for him is to try and get a simple website set up so he can deliver his content online to students in other countries on study abroad can have access to materials while they teach English.

I have decided to use Joomla! on this project. I used it at my job last year and it was a good way to manage large amounts of content. Once I have it set up it should be easy for him or an assistant to keep his pages up-to-date. I decided to go with Joomla! 1.5 which is a little different form Joomla! version 1.o that I used previously, there have been some improvement, but it is still in development so there are some bugs.

Care for Life
Last summer I spent 4 months in Mozambique with my wife working with an NGO. You can read more about that on our personal blog. While there we met and worked with another NGO on many projects. While they were on Campus in the fall I chatted with them about a project they were wanting to do involving the internet. Their Headquarters is in the US so all the reports they have are scanned and sent via email, then someone in the US does a manual analysis of the reports. They want to streamline the process and have an online form that the people in Mozambique can fill out and have it saved to a database and in the US they can pull up a report and analyze what is going on. I have decided to give some volunteer hours to help with this project, which I think is exciting. I tried to get some other people in my Major involved as it is very relative to what we learn, but no one seems interested in working for free. I, however, have a place in my heart to do something meaningful and good in the world and helping an NGO trying to help people is a good enough cause for me.

So those are the projects I am currently working on. This blog is more for myself as I keep notes on what challenges I hit and mark my progress. I don't intent to be a professional or know how to fix everything, but I will post how I solve some problems and if it is of use to anyone I would be happy.