In Chapter 1 of the Adobe AIR Create-Modify-Reuse book, The Development Environment, it states that in order to set a PATH variable for your command line tools that you should:

1. Open the Terminal and type > open -e .profile
2. Add the path to the /bin folder of your SDK installation (I paraphrased… but you get the idea)

In Tiger this is all well and good, and if you are running in Tiger you can drop off or read on if you intend to upgrade to Leopard. Setting system paths in Leopard has changed and you no longer have a .profiles file in your User directory to which you can add/append paths. The following steps are what i took to add a path to the Flex SDK command line tools under Leopard:

1. Open the Terminal and navigate to /etc/paths.d
2. Create a file named ‘flex’ – (sans quotes)
3. Enter the following command: > pico flex
4. Enter: /Applications/flex_sdk_3/bin
5. Exit and Save

You will need to restart your computer.

*Note: /Applications/flex_sdk_3/bin points to the /bin directory of my Flex 3 SDK installation, change as you see fit to your installation.

I can’t go into the long and short of why this needs to take place in Leopard, but that will get you up and running with the command line tools if running under Leopard; i can however tell you i used the following to set me on the right path (no pun intended):

here and here

I apologise if anyone had purchased the book and tried to go through Chapter 1 with a Leopard installation. I did not know that setting PATH variables had changed and I was running Tiger when written and up until about a couple weeks ago when my HD went on the lam and i was greeted by a series of ‘Do Not Enter’ and ‘Missing File’ icons on start-up… all is well though, and they replaced my HD and installed Leopard for free!

For those of you have a copy of the book, i hope you are enjoying it. For those who are trying to get the tools up and running and just switched to Leopard i hope this is useful.

Wanted to blog about it as well, as i feel there is some great information from his post about the decision for cutting chapters and where to download code and the best way to submit errata. He also mentions the heartbreaking decision to cut chapters and recipes from the book to preserve page count… but don’t put the book back on the shelf, they are available to download!

We hope people are enjoying the book at what any level developer you are. Cheers to Josh and happy coding!

read Josh’s post

Marc Leuchner and Matt Wright (of NoBien fame) and I have been burning the midnight oil to deliver an exciting book on Adobe AIR – AIR Create-Reuse-Modify from Wiley Wrox press. Each chapter walks through building applications as you learn about the AIR API. We had a lot of fun architecting and writing about each application that highlights specific facets of the platform and hope it is as much fun to read. Adobe AIR and the API is part of the Flex 3 SDK, which might be coming out soon…

Well, i didn’t stop at discussing one part of the Flex 3 SDK and also was asked by Josh Noble to be a co-author for the Flex 3 Cookbook from the O’Reilly press. We’ve gathered the submissions from the Adobe online cookbook and Josh has been steering the cookbook ship to greatness. If you are unfamiliar with the O’Reilly cookbook format, the book is designed to present hundreds of ‘recipes’ aimed at solving programming problems. I have had the extreme pleasure to write about parts of the Flex API that i love and believe to be essential to RIAs developed using the Flash Platform.

If writing didn’t keep me busy enough, I worked with some amazing people while building applications that stretched the possibilities of what online and desktop applications built in Flex can do. Along the way i learned more about the business, some agile practices (which i hope to write about some) and how to have fun and love what i do. It is an amazing thing.

I also have had the opportunity to join the Infrared5 team and could not be happier. Infrared5 is a consulting company started by Chris Allen, Rebecca Allen and Dominick Accattato focused on architecting applications using the Flash Platform and Red5 Server technologies. Keith summed it up pretty well in this post. I am honored to be in company with some of the brightest minds in the field that keep me laughing throughout the day. Once I stop breaking things around the office, i can settle in and learn something

All in all, 2007 was a great year and i am making out 2008 to be even better. Here’s to posting more!

That said, there is a coupling of features of AIR while leveraging the Flex Framework that i cannot hold inside and think is worth mentioning: Associated filetypes, the invoke event, and BindingUtils.

To view and download the full code, click here.

File Types
First off, you can associate filetypes to your AIR app in the application descriptor file within the fileTypes node:

<filetypes>
    <filetype>
      <name>com.example</name>
      <extension>ftf</extension>
      <description>FileTypeFun file</description>
      <contenttype>text/plain</contenttype>
    </filetype>
</filetypes>

Once the AIR app is installed on your machine, a file with the extension set as the value of the extension node will be associated with your app. Meaning, it will show up first in the list when you choose ‘open with’ and even invoke the app if you double-click on the file – that is if the extension is not associated with another program on your machine (ie. doc) in which case you will have to set your app to always open associated as default to your app.

InvokeEvent
The invoke event of a WindowedApplication will be triggered upon initial instantiation – without having the application previously running – and any subsequent ‘open with file’ calls. The arguments property of the InvokeEvent is an array of arguments passed through invocation of the app. This not only allows command line junkies to open an application with a file like so:

On Mac:
>open MyAirApp.app MyDocuments.ftf

On Windows:
>MyAirApp MyDocument.ftf

.. but as well as double-clicking or choosing ‘open with’ on a file (as describe above). Probably you wouldn’t have any documents lying around in your applications directory – but you get the picture. To handle those arguments your app would look something like as follows:

< ?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx :WindowedApplication 
    xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"
    layout="vertical" 
    horizontalAlign="center" verticalAlign="middle"
    invoke="onAppInvoke(event);">
 
    </mx><mx :Script>
        < ![CDATA[
            private function onAppInvoke( evt:InvokeEvent ):void
            {
                var items:Array = evt.arguments;
                for( var i:int = 0; i < items.length; i++ )
                {
                    trace( items[i] );
                }
            }
        ]]>
    <mx :Label text="Welcome" />
</mx>

Note:
AARG… i can’t find a decent mxml plugin for Wordpress. There is an errant closing mx tag before the script and the closing tag at the end should read /mx:WindowedApplication . If anyone has any tips on a good plugin, please leave a comment!

This assigns the onAppInvoke() method as the handler to the ‘invoke’ event dispatched from WindowedApplication upon instantiation AND any subsequent invocation calls. The arguments attribute of the InvokeEvent is a list of strings – deliminated by space if you on the command line. From here, just handle them as you want to. In following with this example we are going to handle paths to simple text files.

BindingUtils
All this filetypes and invoke events craziness is enough to warrent me to stop writing… but i got to thinking (always bad news)… what if i’ve got an ‘invoke’ event that may trigger prior to the creation of a client that needs to know about an opened file, or more so, the app needs to switch focus to a client that has yet to be instantiated that knows how to handle that file? This is where BindingUtils and ChangeWatcher come into play and really show off the power of the Flex Framework.

< ?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx :WindowedApplication 
    xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"
    layout="vertical" 
    horizontalAlign="center" verticalAlign="middle"
    applicationComplete="onAppComplete();"
    invoke="onAppInvoke(event);">
    </mx><mx :Script>
        < ![CDATA[
            import mx.binding.utils.ChangeWatcher;
            import mx.binding.utils.BindingUtils;
            import mx.events.FlexEvent;
 
            private var _invokedFile:File;
            private var _fileWindow:FileDisplayWindow;
            private var _filesBinding:ChangeWatcher;
 
            private function onAppComplete():void
            {
                _filesBinding = BindingUtils.bindSetter( invalidateFiles, this, 'invokedFile', true );
            }
 
            private function onAppInvoke( evt:InvokeEvent ):void
            {
                var items:Array = evt.arguments;
                if( items.length > 0 )
                {
                    invokedFile = new File( evt.arguments[0] );
                }    
            }
 
            private function openFileWindow():void
            {
                _fileWindow = new FileDisplayWindow();
                _fileWindow.addEventListener( FlexEvent.CREATION_COMPLETE, applyFileToWindow );
                _fileWindow.open();
            }
 
            private function applyFileToWindow( evt:FlexEvent = null ):void
            {
                _fileWindow.file = _invokedFile;
            }
 
            private function invalidateFiles( arg:* = null ):void
            {
                if( _invokedFile == null ) return;
                if( _fileWindow == null || _fileWindow.closed ) openFileWindow();
                else applyFileToWindow();
            }
 
            [Bindable]
            public function get invokedFile():File
            {
                return _invokedFile;
            }
            public function set invokedFile( arr:File ):void
            {
                _invokedFile = arr;
            }
 
        ]]>
    <mx :Label text="Welcome" />
</mx>

Note:
Again i apologize for the terrible representation of mxml code. To view the full code, click here

On dispatch of ‘applicationComplete’, a ChangeWatcher instance is created to bind any changes to the invokeFile attribute to the invalidateFiles() method. The invalidateFiles() method will be called upon a change to the invokedFile which is of type File from the AIR API. The client that handles any invoked files in this case is another addition to the AIR API – Window. I threw it in there because i can’t stop wanting to use it

The invalidateFiles() has checks to see if the file is valid as well as to make sure the Window is open and ready to receive data. Basically, with binding a change to the invokedFile attribute to the invalidateFiles() handler, we can be sure that when a file is requested to be open – either through invocation from the command, double-click, or ‘open with’ – the Window client that knows how to handle that file data will be presented.

This just scratches the surface. There are icons you can associate with file types, there’s drag and drop capabilities that can update the invoked file if wanted… i just have to stop typing at some point!

View the full source code here. I didn’t offer up the air app to download because it’s a rather boring app, but it is included in the source if you want to install it and test out the invocation.

If you made it this far and haven’t checked out AIR, go download the bits. And maybe consider buying a book or two…