We had a wonderful turnout at Flash Camp St. Louis. Most impressive were all of the new faces. JP Revel did a fantastic job putting on the event.

In my session, “Rage Against the Framework”, I basically dumped all the tips and tricks and learning I’ve been doing over the past year of Flex 4 work. It’s been, at times, frustrating and slow. But there have also been moments of “Wow, I didn’t realize you could to THAT with Flex!”

We discussed the typical promises the Flex Framework makes to draw us in, such as data binding, components, and skins. While this gets us the majority of the way to where we want to be, we often encounter frustrating hurdles when trying to implement engaging user experiences.

Flex also provides States, State Transitions, and Layouts that, when properly understood and implemented, can help alleviate that frustration and do some really cool things.

References

Data Binding

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/flex/using/WS2db454920e96a9e51e63e3d11c0bf64c3d-7fff.html#WS2db454920e96a9e51e63e3d11c0bf69084-7cc8

Binding Utils

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/mx/binding/utils/BindingUtils.html

State Transitions

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/flex/using/WS2db454920e96a9e51e63e3d11c0bf69084-7fab.html

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/mx/states/Transition.html

Effects

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/spark/effects/package-detail.html

Layouts

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/max-2010-develop/having-fun-with-layouts-in-flex-4/

http://www.rialvalue.com/blog/2010/11/04/slides-for-having-fun-with-layouts-in-flex-4/

http://evtimmy.com/2010/04/two-examples-of-layout-animations/

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/flash-camp-boston/creating-custom-layouts-in-flex-4-

http://miti.pricope.com/2009/05/29/playing-with-custom-layout-in-flex-4/

http://www.tink.ws/blog/carousellayout/

Code Demo: http://davidortinau.com/exhibits/DataBindingTransitions/index.html

Source: DataBindingTransitions.zip