This is a test for an image manager component that I’m building. The final version will have an upload feature, and when you sort the images they’ll hook up with their model in Rails using acts_as_list to save the sorting in the database. Right click the swf below to view source.

I’ve built something similar in Flash/AS2, and without sounding too much like a Adobe marketing rep, I have to say it’s so much easier in Flex/AS3. AS2 doesn’t have ArrayCollections so moving things around in an array was a bit of a headache, but in AS3 you can just remove an item from a list ( myCollection.removeItemAt(x) ) and then place it back anywhere ( myCollection.addItemAt( item, x ) ) and all the other items will shift down the list.

Another big time saver is the DragManager in AS2 you had to manually handle all kinds of dragging functions but with AS3 you just add a couple of events and you’re done. Even the Tile component saves having to layout the images by hand.

Anyways long story short the AS2 version took a couple of days to build and the Flex version took a couple of hours.

I downloaded the latest release of Tweener and found that there’s a new set of parameters for creating bezier curve animations.

This was my favorite presentation of the LA stop of the Adobe AIR bus tour. Lee is very engaging and shows off a bunch of AIR apps built with Flash. If you have a Flash, rather than Flex, background Lee’s presentation will show that you’re invited to the AIR party too - don’t be shy grab Grant Skinner’s AIR plug-in for Flash and build some apps!

…make that chatting on Flex. All Flex front-ends but a multitude of approaches to flinging the messages about on the back-side.

• Ted (on Flex) has his AIRchat running on Python Twisted.
• Derek Wischusen has his messages moving atop Rails, Apache ActiveMQ, ActiveMessaging, and STOMP (post 1, post 2)
• Alex McCaw is the creator of Juggernaut which can use Flex or Ajax to push messages on Rails (using a Flash socket)
• Renaun Erickson has an example using Flex and Red 5 the open source Flash server.
• The new Yahoo! Messenger for the web runs on Flex.

Fire up those Flex chat apps and talk amongst yourselves, I’ll give you a topic:

Buzzword is the most wondrous invention since the printing press and will kill off both MS Word and Ajax in one fell swoop, discuss