Flex 4 Fun: The International Tour

The international book tour for Flex 4 Fun began last November in Antwerp, Belgium (the home of diamonds, chocolate, and GUI toolkit programming books). It was a gray a rainy day, which is unusual for Antwerp except for the months between September and June.

The tour began as all such things do: parties dripping with scantily-clad programming celebrities, mobs of teeming fans fighting for autographs and shreds of clothing, and all-night hacking orgies. It was unforgettable, it was a blur of over-caffeinated memory, it was ... just another book tour.

The tour came to an abrupt end. I can't confirm that it was because of overcrowded venues and rabid crowds that overwhelmed Interpol forces. I can only say that I had to leave the town anonymously, quickly, and with only 10 pounds of chocolate as a memory of the experience.

Or...

I gave a talk on Flex 4 Fun at Devoxx. The presentation gave an overview of some of the graphics and animation features in Flex 4, and worked through an example of skinning a component to show some of these new features. This was one of several talks I gave that week, although this was the only one on Flex. In fact, it's probably the last such talk, since I don't have a lot of opportunity to do Flex development in my new Androidal life. Call it my final Flex fling ... 4 fun.

Instead of embedding the video, I'll encourage you to go to Parleys.com to watch the presentation, and to check out the many other videos from the Devoxx conference. Parleys has a subscription model (79 Euros to watch all videos from Devoxx 2010), but there are a few talks available for free now (like this one) to whet your appetite.

Enjoy the video while I continue to recover from the tour.

Amazon Restocks Massive Shelves

Flex 4 Fun is finally, once again, in stock at Amazon.com. It's been "Temporarily out of stock" for the past coupjle of weeks for reasons that escape me, but which are probably one of these two possibilities:

• Amazon is really new at this business of selling books and is still learning how to keep appropriate amounts of inventory on-hand.
• They lost all the copies they had and had to rewrite the book from scratch, based purely on the cover picture on their website. I hope their version is as gripping as the original.

In any case, you can now order it in peace. At the same time, they bumped the price a bit, to $26.60. This is fantastic news, of course, for two reasons:

• The book now costs just about a cup of coffee more than it used to on Amazon. This means that you may have to forego that cup when you read it, thus preventing unfortunate spills and mess.
• Even better, the new price means that the book is just over Amazon's Free Shipping limit here in the U.S. That's probably the thing that a lot of you were waiting for in order to finally purchase it.

So go ahead. It's ready. Now. Go.

Speaking of Flex...

I'll be joining Jacob Surber from Adobe this week to speak to the local Flex user group, SilvaFUG (which I think stands for "Silicon Valley Flex User Group." Or maybe it's "Silver and Fugly"). We'll be in San Francisco on Tuesday evening (the 12th) and San Jose on Thursday evening (the 14th).

The topic is "Fun with Flex Skinning." I'll start off with an overview of the visual aspects of Flex 4 (which, by bizarre coincidence, are exactly the topics covered by Flex 4 Fun. Funny how that worked out). Then I'll walk through an extended example of skinning a simple component to show how these visual elements are used to enable easy development of very custom-looking components. I promise there will be much more code than bullet-points. Jacob will then go into more detail about skinning, including possible workflows and tools for design and development of custom components.

More information about the events can be found on the SilvaFUG site.

I hope to see you there; it should be a Flex 4 Fun evening. Both times.

Flex 4 Fun: Only n left-- order soon!

Flex 4 Fun is finally available for purchase at Amazon. First, it went from looking like this on their site (with the depressing "Temporarily out of stock" message):

to looking like this, after they were finally ready to ship it out (I figure they probably wanted to dust off the copies first, then put them on the shelves to see how nice they looked):

Then for the past few days, the amount of stock appears to continuously change. In fact, they seem to have a hard time figuring out how much stock to keep on hand. Here are some screenshots from the Amazon page over the past few days. (Not that I've visited the site that many times or anything. After all, I already have a copy, so why would I need to? That would be silly.)

Get yours soon. Who knows when they're going to run out completely?

Oh, and don't forget about that free shipping for orders over $25 thing. Amazon toyed briefly with a price just over $26. And I mean briefly. I saw it at that price just once over the past two weeks. Now it's down at $24.39 (below the $24.93 price before it was in stock, in the first image above). Apparently the book is like pork bellies or flax futures and the price fluctuates with demand. Or their clerks just get the numbers transposed occasionally. Since it's so close to the free shipping limit of $25, you'll probably want to bundle it with another relevant, yet highly affordable book, like When I am King.... I'm just saying....

Book Montage

I ran across Flex 4 Fun in the wild this weekend and managed to get some photographs. I thought that it might help you to understand how you might benefit from the book. Here are some ways that others have found it useful.

First of all, the book makes a lovely objet d'art, and was being displayed alongside other great works of art when I encountered it here:

It also makes a nice decoration for some household areas, such as this aquarium:

This person apparently found the code recipes useful in the kitchen:

At 280+ pages, the book is a perfect size for some household tasks, such as leveling this piece of furniture:

A good graphics algorithm is always music to the ears:

This family apparently found the book more interesting to watch on a Friday night than television or a movie:

And of course the book looks great on a bookshelf, where it fits naturally with both the great works of literature:

and the less great works of children's literature:

But the book won't stay on that kids' shelf for long:

Even the family pet may enjoy the book - everyone wants to be an RIA developer:

And finally, this Flex developer was so excited by the book's arrival that he bought two:

As you can see, there are plenty of uses for the book. What will you do with yours?

Done? Done. It's Here.

For anyone that doubted the outcome (including me), I offer the following physical proof that Flex 4 Fun exists. I received a few of the early copies today, and I took a picture of one in its natural habitat. I wanted to capture how nice the book would look on a random bookshelf. Here, you can see it surrounded by a few of my other favorite books:

This is probably as good a time as any to call out to some of the many people that supported me in this huge and questionable effort:

• Romain Guy: Thanks for the ideas, the help, the beautiful pictures (including the lovely and bizarre sea dragon on the cover), the foreword, and the encouragement. I only regret that you didn't actually write the book with me instead of just making me get started on it to begin with. But I'm learning that there's not a lot of time outside of Android development to take on that kind of project...
• Daniel Steinberg: Thanks for helping me get the project rolling at first and giving me some great advice and editing assistance. I'm sure it's a better book for your help.
• Bill Venners (a.k.a., the publisher): Thanks for taking the book on and getting it out there in very quick order. Making it available early in online form that close to the Flex 4 release was important, albeit painful and nearly impossible.
• The academy: For voting for me and sucking up to me throughout my Hollywood career, I thank you most of all. Always thank the academy.

The books are being sent out to distributors starting this week. Amazon still shows the book as "Available for pre-order", but I expect that to change next week as they start receiving their copies. Assuming they can bear to part with the little darlings.

(By the way, this blog entry is reminiscent of an earlier one. My, how the time flies when you're too dang busy working on code and writing books about it...)

Final Article: Effect Choreography in Flex 4

Artima.com has posted another article from my book Flex 4 Fun. Check out Effect Choreography in Flex 4 for an introduction to using composite effects in Flex 4 to create more complex animations.

For anyone that's tired of seeing Flex content on my blog, you're in luck: this is probably the last bit of such material for the foreseeable future. This article is the eighth and last in a series of articles that were, er, borrowed from the book.

(Then again, if you're tired of my Flex content, I have no idea what you're doing reading this blog to begin with).

If, instead, you're pining for more content, might I suggest picking up Flex for Fun? The online version is done and the printed version is so close I can almost taste it (although I hope it reads better than it tastes).

If you're hoping to see some Android content, be patient. I'll get there eventually. I'm a tad swamped in actually writing SDK code and learning the platform first. I'll eventually come around to posting some geeky how-to developer content here. Because that's what this blog is all about.

Skinning Components in Flex 4

Artima.com has posted another article from my book Flex 4 Fun. Check out Skinning Components in Flex 4 for an overview of the awesome new component/skinning architecture in Flex 4.

Flex 4: Get some skin in the game...

Linear Gradients in Flex 4

Artima.com has posted another article from my book Flex 4 Fun. Check out Linear Gradients in Flex 4 for an overview of using linear gradients in the new graphic primitives in Flex 4.

Flex 4 Fun: Amazon Existence Proof

There's a basic philosophical question that is fundamental to so many situations in life:

• If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound?
• If you tell a joke and nobody hears it, is it funny?
• If your children respect you, are they really teenagers?

The equivalent in the book world is:

• If your book isn't sold on Amazon.com, has it really been published?

I'm happy to say that Flex 4 Fun now passes this last existence proof; the book is available for pre-order on Amazon.com. The book is at the printers now, supposedly available in hard-copy in mid-September. At Amazon's discount of 34% off the list price of $36, it seems like a pretty good deal to me.

Notice that the Amazon price of $24.39 is just shy of the $25 you'll need to reach for free shipping. Which is probably just the excuse you were looking for to finally pick up When I Am King....

By the way, if any reader is so inspired, it would be great if you posted a review on Amazon (and elsewhere). I know how I feel about my books, but I'm slightly more subjective than you might be. Besides, I already used up my quota of words in the books themselves. It's time for me to shut up and let someone else talk. Briefly.

Flex 4 Fun: Final Post(PrePrint)

As promised, the eBook of Flex 4 Fun has been updated to the final version of the text, which was uploaded for printing last week. So if you bought the eBook already, a fresh download will give you the final bits.

If you didn't buy the eBook version already, what are you waiting for? Oh, you want the hardcopy version so that you can enjoy its graphical goodness in the way that Gutenberg intended? Well, you'll still have to wait a bit for that. Even now, armies of typesetters are setting up printing presses to make a run at printing the tome. Look for the book in bookstores and online in mid-September.

Fills in Flex 4: It's What's on the Inside that Counts

Artima.com has posted another article from my book Flex 4 Fun. Check out Fills in Flex 4 for an overview of fills for the new graphic primitives in Flex 4.

printf(Flex 4 Fun);

If you listen closely, you can probably hear it; the slight rustling of hundreds of pages, the chuckles of the shop foreman as he reads the section headings and subtle footnote humor, the collective sigh of the machinery as it mass-produces page after page of graphics programming wisdom.

After months of writing, followed by many more months of editing and revising (it's still unbelievable to me, and more than a little depressing, to know how much you can continue working on your own text and still find things to improve), Flex 4 Fun has gone to print. It's a bit like being put out to stud, except that books are self-reproducing and there's little chance that one of the offspring would win the Triple Crown.

If all goes well at the printer, there should be hardcopy available in mid-September, right before the JavaOne conference, and in plenty of time for your holiday programming-book-giving needs. Just imagine what your mother will say when she opens that completely unexpected gift.

For anyone that bought, or is thinking about buying, the online version, the PrePrint will be updated soon with this version of the text. I'll post something here when that happens.

Stroke of Genius: Drawing Lines in Flex 4

Artima.com has posted another article from my book Flex 4 Fun. Check out Stroke of Genius: Drawing Lines in Flex 4 for an overview of the stroke object, used for defining the properties of lines and outlines for the new graphic primitives in Flex 4.

State Transitions in Flex 4 for Intuitive UIs

Artima.com has posted another article from my book Flex 4 Fun. Check out State Transitions in Flex 4 for Intuitive UIs for an overview of using transitions to animate changes between states in Flex 4.

Flex 4 Fun: Real Soon Now

How credible would a software book be that didn't slip the schedule? That would be like sugarless dessert, or nonfat bacon, or an effective politician; it's just not believable.

So in keeping with the tradition of all software since 1954 (the original launch date of Windows Vista), Flex 4 Fun is hereby slipping its schedule.

But not by much.

The original goal was to have the hardcopy printed and available in early August. Failing the invention of a time machine, that's not going to happen. However, the book is actually done, at least from my perspective. In fact, the content that's been in the PrePrint copy for weeks is nearly final itself. The editing phase found many little things to clean up (it always amazes me how many times I can edit my writing and still find errors. It's as if I'm human) and resulted in some amount of reorganization. But most of the recent changes have just been about finalizing the layout in order to get it to the printer.

I don't have a final date yet, but I'm thinking it's sometime in September, just a few weeks after it's sent to the printer... which the publisher assures me is just about to happen.

In the meantime, check it out online or do like I do; wait impatiently and completely ineffectively.

Graphics in Flex 3 and Flex 4

Artima.com has posted another article from my book Flex 4 Fun. Check out Graphics in Flex 3 and Flex 4 for a comparison of drawing shapes in Flex 3 code versus using the new graphics classes and tags in Flex 4.

Video: Image Zoom Effect in Flex 4

Image Zoom Effect in Flex 4, the next episode in the gripping and suspenseful series CodeDependent, is now available from Adobe TV.

This episode shows a technique for zooming in on a particular area of a thumbnail image, transitioning to a higher-resolution image along the way. A friend had asked about ideas for doing this, and I thought the result might be generally useful or interesting, so here it is. I particularly like how you can zoom in on her enigmatic smile.

Here's the video:

Here is the demo application:

And here is the source code.

Here's where you can find CodeDependent on iTunes.

And here's where you can find CodeDependent on YouTube.

Enjoy.

State-Specific Property Values in Flex 4

Artima.com has posted another article/demo from my book Flex 4 Fun. Check out State-Specific Property Values in Flex 4 to see an example and explanation of the simple new syntax in Flex 4 for declaratively setting per-state property values on objects to automate changes in the UI between states.

Video: Animating Filters in Flex 4, Part II

Animating Filters in Flex 4, Part II, the next episode in the gripping and suspenseful series CodeDependent, is now available from Adobe TV.

This episode is the sequel and stunning conclusion to the previous one, Part I, in which we saw how to use, and not use, the AnimateFilter effect for animating filter properties in Flex 4. This time we see how to properly animate properties of filters which persist on objects when the animation ends.

Here's the video:

Here is the demo application:

And here is the source code.

Here's where you can find CodeDependent on iTunes.

And here's where you can find CodeDependent on YouTube.

Enjoy.