Yesterday I attempted to install Visual Studio 2008 from a DVD onto my
mac parallels Windows 7 instance. After sitting back and admiring the
pictures of happy Microsoft programmers provided by the VS
installation software, I heard a ticking sound coming from my
computer. After several minutes, the install crashed. Some sleuthing
proved that the disk was scratched and worthless – a typical Monday.
The Game Developers Conference® (GDC) is the world’s largest professionals-only game industry event. Presented every spring in San Francisco, it is the essential forum for learning, inspiration, and networking for the creators of computer, console, handheld, mobile, and online games.
The aspect ratio of an image is the ratio of its width to height, and all images have an inherent aspect ratio. By default, the <mx:Image> tag property maintainAspectRatio is set to true. This setting preserves the aspect ratio so that an image does not appear distorted.
I use a TileList component quite often when building Flex applications. Recently, I was asked to create a nice, smooth, horizontal scrolling effect for a TileList containing a 3×3 page grid of 40 or so images. After many unsuccessful attempts to cajole the TileList into the proper behavior, I decided to roll my own.
It seems the fundamental problem with the TileList, which extends from the ListBase class, is its management of item renderers. It gets confused when attempting an animation to change the horizontal scroll position using an AnimateProperty effect. It seems that item renderers get confused when moving items into view using an effect.
Grio is helping to develop applications for ClientShow that will allow creative professionals to manage their clients and pitch their work. Launch of the system is targeted for early 2010.
Grio has signed an agreement with Teachscape to develop education-related software that enhances the learning experience. Teachscape was founded in 1999 and is the leader in providing solutions that drive increasing levels of student achievement.
Grio helped to develop many aspects of the platform for this MMO – initial reviews point to LOL becoming a huge success.
I am currently working on a project where we have a
fixed-width dialog box, and need to fit the title text in a label. The problem
is, the text is too long. What to do? Well, the basic Flex Label provides you a
couple of options: show an ellipsis (…) at the end of the label or cut the text
off. Neither of these solutions was viable.
This is a common problem that occurs in UI development:
fitting text in a limited space. My solution to this was to create a LabelUtil
class that automatically adjusts the font size of the text to fit the width of
the label.
We’ve been busily developing using Flex 4 (aka “Gumbo”) here at the Grio offices and are impressed with many of its new features. One of the more interesting but difficult to decipher features is the TextFlow component.
The TextFlow component is used to layout text in a highly controlled way. It uses an XML-based markup language, Text Layout Format (TLF), to define the content of the TextFlow. TLF uses some similar tags to HTML (<div>, <p>, <span>), but it is definitely not HTML. This may trip you up a bit as you learn TLF; I recommend reading the Adobe Labs info before diving too deep into development (http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/textlayout/).
Grio developed the vook platform and Flex-based reader. Look for new vooks to come out on a regular basis.