Ok, everyone and their mother is talking about it, but just so you know, the 3rd beta of Flex 2 is now up on Labs. I've talked a bit about Flex 2 in the past, and I hope to bring it up here more and more as I get more comfortable with it. I really think Flex 2 is the bees knees, and here is a good example:
http://www.cflib.org/cflibflex/output/CFlib.html
Ok, so it's ugly. I'm not a designer. But what you see is a) much more responsive than the "real" site (www.cflib.org) and b) represents just 30 minutes or work.
In other words - I built something that dramatically improved the usefulness of my site in about half an hour.
Now obviously this needs some polish. There is no search. There is no "click here to copy". All of these would help the application even more. But what really gets me is the RAD aspect. I've always loved how a good ColdFusion developer can produce amazing results in little time. The addition of Flex 2 is a perfect companion to the use of ColdFusion on the back end. You've got back end RAD and front end RAD. As I said - it's the bees knees.
p.s. Tomorrow when I'm not so busy I'll actually post the code to this so you can see how little work it was.
Archived Comments
Ray, I just keep getting the Flash Player installer telling me to install FP8 I have 8.5 installed.
You need the latest player from labs.
Ah, see ray gets to play with b3 before anyone else, thats how he rolls...
Hey ray, why not just publish the source with the swf so we can right click and view it?
I don't think it will grab the CFC. I'll try tomorrow morning. I'm not doing it tonight as I'm behind on some stuff I need to do. :)
Ray -- same problem as above. Trying to view the site, both in Firefox and IE. Keeps saying (in FF, at least) "Downloading from fpdownload.macromedia.com". Just keeps on. Not sure what to do.
I had the same infinite install loop. According to the Flex 2 beta 3 install, the flash player was updated.
Hmpth. So I went to duplicate this. On labs though, even though it says Flash Player beta 3, the download says beta 2.
Double check. When you downloaded it, did it say b2 or somesuch in the link?
If so - I bet this is just a hiccup in the labs.
Ray -- no it said "You must install Flash Player 8, do you want to install it?" In Firefox, the install began, told me to shut down Firefox, it then did it's thing, reopened Firefox and went the intended URL (of your Flex gizmo page), but it just never got going.
I had the same problem as the others. This is what I did to get it to work, use at your own risk.
In Firefox, type about:plugins in the addressbar and look at the ShockWave Flash filename and version:
Shockwave Flash
File name: NPSWF32.dll
Shockwave Flash 9.0 b296
Mine was still at 8. something even after installing the latest plugin from the labs.
If you have installed Flash Player 9, search your harddrive for NPSWF32.dll
The version on the file should be 9.0.0.296. Copy this file into your plugins folder and overwrite the version in there.
Hint: C:\Documents and Settings\<user name>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<Profile name>\plugins
Restart browser and check the about:plugins
Weird. I didn't have to do all that - but I had... um earlier access. Anyway - Scott - are you able to see the demo now? (And my wonderful design skills?) I'm heading to bed now. See everyone in the morning. The doc gave me some "special" cough syrup that does wonder for my sleeping.
Ray - yes I was able to view it.
I think that a big part of my problem was I am running portable firefox so my profile directories are in a different location. The installers from lab look (seem to look) in standard places for firefox then skip over it if they don't find them. I had opera installed and saw that it did work in opera, but not firefox.
I copied the dll from the opera plugin folder to the firefox plugin folder and it worked.
gotta love good drug based cough syrups....warm fuzzy feeling aside, they actually do help. (spam filter dropped my word there)
OT: coughing - just eat chocolate: http://www.bupa.co.uk/healt...
I had this problem - I ran the active x download instead of the plug-in download and it worked fine after that.
Ok so guys - what do you think? Cool, eh? I mean the code behind this was so trivial, and yet to me, this version is better than the html version because of how fast you can get stuff.
It doesn't work for me. I just get a blank (steel blue) screen.
In IE 6.
Damn, I want to see but am in OS lockdown here at work. I won't be able to enjoy flex until they review, test, package, repackage, release the right flash player to the client computers.
Phillip - last night I mentioned how the downloads for FP seemed "stuck" at b2. Try them again. They seem to be updated. Also, you want to uninstall the old FP 8.5 player first.
Scott - just wait till you get home. :)
I just installed the Flex IDE beta 3, which comes with the latest flash player, and both IE and FF work perfect. Very cool Ray!
This has been my only real frustration with flex thus far. I made the mistake of assuming that the prompt would download the right flash player (it doesn't).
For any of us sending anyone not super knowledgable about flex to our flex app prompts them to do the wrong thing (do the wrong ugrade to flash), and from then on they only see a blank page. I understand that adobe doesn't want to prompt people to install a beta flash player at this point, but perhaps a better warning or prompt instead? I think a lot of people are just not seeing flex at all, and walking away, instead of working to get the proper player.
I got it working by downloading the "Uninstall Flash Player" program from the knowledgebase at
http://www.adobe.com/cfusio...
It's like my mother used to tell me:
"Phillip" she'd say (because that's my name). "It's ALLLLWAAAAYYYSSSS something."
Hello,
My Flex 2 Beta 2 application compiled for the 8.5 viewer will not run in the 9.0 Flash plugin. The 9.0 plugin will run other older content, just not mine.
I'm still rather new to this, Arclight. I'd suggest the labs forums perhaps for help.