It been a long time since I first started developing web sites. Before that, I developed interfaces for CD ROM applications. It took a long time for the web to be sophisticated enough to display interfaces of the caliber I was striving, and like everyone else – before there was a real support for standardized CSS I too used apps like, OMG, Pagemill and Dreamweaver.

But let’s not forget what those tools are. They are for designers, not programmers, to generate interfaces rapidly. Not serious tools for development. When I code, I like real editors like BB Edit, and now the standard Eclipse editors * specifically ZEND studio. I don’t want the bloat that is generated by the code there. It’s just not clean, not really. Like mamma said, just because its convenient – doesn’t mean its right for you!

Rapid CSS style sheet editing was possible with Dreamweaver, and I did keep it in the arsenal just for the purpose of using it to style rendered portions a site I was working on. Because until today, I didn’t see a way to edit stylesheets visually without it. Now my eyes are so open, and I will probably never use dreamweaver again!

Mac Rabbit makes the app, and you can find it here: Want this? I have downloaded the trial and decided in the first two moments that its going in the trick bag. Oh, yeah!

There are those times when you will want to edit the auto-incremental starting point in a SQL table. For specific requests, for instance, its better to start with a large number than a small one. 2-4 digit numbers in a web request where the end user can see the request number is akin to a starter check. It works, but seems so… amateurish! so here’s a quick way to do this:

ALTER TABLE my_table_name AUTO_INCREMENT =2342124

previously entered data will not be affected and you will be able to have higher numbers from that point on.

Protected areas in flex apps can be achieved through state based navigation that requires login and password. Here is how, in basic terms.

1. establish php connection and implement an http request
2. set up states, one for the entry and one for the private area (and one for registering
3. insert a button and run some actionscript to handle the request

Sounds fairly simple. I am going to complete each phase and record a video of how this is accomplished. Beginning with the php connection. In order to do this, the MAMP or LAMP or WAMP should already be installed and functional on your test bed.

If you are pulling an HTTPRequest, it may take some time to grab the data you want from your database. Varies based on connection speed of the end user, as well. Here’s a handy little trick to make life easier. Simply add this tag:

showBusyCursor=”true”

to your request, and you will see the standard flex ‘busy’ cursor displaying until the data is loaded.

I am pulling data from a mySQL source using a traditional httpService protocol, this time adding a specific filter value to the string. So it’s a string with multiple values encoded, and I am using the & symbol. This seemed like a straightforward proposition, and the test in the browser worked well. However, I had a very specific issue with URL encoding. The IDE was throwing a pretty descriptive error:

next character must be “;” terminating reference to entity “method”

The issue is that the MXML compiler hated the & symbol. I tried using the ascii symbol for ampersand, which is %26, but to no avail. the trick turned out to be grabbing the decimal value, and present it in HTML code. In this case that’s the ampersand – its #38; – and a handy little chart was very helpful – here at acsiitable.com

The service request worked perfectly!

mx:HTTPService id=”prodList”
url=”http://mysite.com/flexedOut/Products.php?filter=594&method=FindAll”
result=”myResultHandler(event)”

in case you can’t tell, the browser is rendering that ampersand perfectly so here it would be one space between characters: & # 38 ;

Few people are as gender neutral as Caster Semenya seems and this must simply offend some people’s sensibilities. But we can never know what we don’t know so just because we don’t understand or don’t have a complete picture of something we shouldn’t demonize it or ridicule it. Yes, South Africa, and all the rest of the world, too, there is such a thing as an intersexed person. How that is treated in the world of sports is a whole other, new learning experience.
huffingtonpost.com, Yin/Yang: An Intersexed South African Runner As Symbol Of The Universal, Sep 2009

You should read the whole article.

As a developer, I love the purist code. I develop in the ZEND architecture and I rarely code in anything that isn’t Eclipse Based anymore. Adobe Flex has become one of my favorite IDEs. What an interesting evolution in thought processes.

I have developed many OOP applications in Flash with Actionscript. This approach utilizes a basic timeline structure, as Flash has always been (since 4.0) on timeline. Thinking in terms of Timelines was no big switch, because Lingo was my language of choice before flash actionscript was an option. Learn to Speak, Just Enough, and the Berlitz titles too – were based on Lingo and director. Director was always the tool I used to bridge the gap between the artists and the programmers.

The timeline structure, although interesting and workable, is less appealing to hard core developers. As I develop more and more code in Flex, I realize that the old school timeline paradigm is less appealing. The more I use actionscript 3 in the Flex IDE, the better I like this shift in thinking.

There are times that I really miss the timeline in flash, but the tradeoff so far makes it worthwhile to stick with flex.

When working with a framework that is set up for multiple languages, I decided to give some more power to the client by evolving a content management system within Filemaker. The defined constants in each language file, for instance, can be controlled by editing the language file. The constants placed upon the design layer of the application allow for ease of changes, making it both possible and fun to provide a version of your site in alternative languages without worrying about the resultant shift in the design.

Calculation fields in filemaker can drive content and with the 360Works ScriptMaster ( is a free, general-purpose, modular plugin. It comes out of the box with modules for file manipulation, URL and network utilities, Web Services, shell scripting, event/script triggering, and many others) you can automatically ftp the resultant file built around the calculation.

This is a time consuming process, but well worth it. The result will be more empowerment for the marketing pro who wants to update content easier. Other steps along this path include editing of stylesheets. Practically anything that is text based can be modified this way and sent to a live site via ftp. In fact, this is so fun I just may decide to code up my version of a content editor inside of filemaker to see if it can be done.

aEon has owned the domain name oshell.com since 1994, while employed at The Learning Company. Around 1997 while working there I was befriended by the lead engineer on the software project for a CD ROM based product that was sold over the shelves at Egg Head and Comp USA (may the latter rest in peace). I was content to do rapid interface design mockups to bridge the gap between my department (then the graphics division) and her department, which was programming and engineering. The résumé building project was a real fork in the road of my life, although I didn’t realize it at the time. She taught me several things about HTML. I absorbed all the information she taught me and discovered a new interest. I decided to become a developer.

I had written some rudimentary applications in Lingo in Macromedia Director, and I continued to develop that skill, but the web opened up my eyes to a new set of possibilities. These the words my mentor bestowed on me: “No one wants to to anything unless it’s connected to a database” turned out to be very important indeed in shaping my choices.

oshell dot calm has had many incarnations over the years, from plain html, to images cut into slices (ahh, fireworks), to CSS pushed content, and finally a fully flexed version of the site. Pure FLEX, with the creation of a few elements in illustrator, the creation of animated parts as separate swf files, and of course a fully fledged data connectivity that uses the standard web 2.0 http request model for gathering data from a mySQL database that is pushing content - which is today’s release.

I have not upgraded yet, and I am glad a took some time before jumping in the deep end. Not only will it install the old flash, but it will downgrade your version. This information comes from engadget, who suggest updating the flash after installing Snow Leopard.

Here is the article from engadget.