I have been a developer for nearly 20 years and a web developer for about 10 years. Over the years, I have considered creating a blog to share the things I have learned (and am learning) about web design and development, but I never seemed to have the time. When I began learning about web development using Ajax and Ajax Frameworks, I decided to take the time to create this blog.
My intention for this blog is to focus primarily on Ajax Frameworks, but since web development requires knowledge of many technologies, I will occasionally write about things such as CSS, Javascript, PHP, MySQL, Flash, etc.
Lately, I have been using JQuery as my primary Ajax tool. Although I have used other Ajax Frameworks in the past (Dojo Toolkit, Yahoo! User Interface Library, Scriptaculous/Prototype), JQuery has thus far been the easiest to learn. In my first few posts I will discuss some of the JQuery Plugins that I have created. Some of these include: a plugin for Google Maps (jquery.imGoogleMaps), Form validation and submission (jquery.imValidateForm), Page Populater (jquery.imPagePopulate), and a plugin to create lists (jquery.imList).
While I am still learning about some of the other Ajax Frameworks, I hope that what I have learned will be helpful to others. Just remember, “When you can pull the pebbles from my hand…”
I discussed the use of the gpUrlLoader Class in a previous post (see: AS3: A URLLoader Class). This class, part of my gpAS3Library, will load image, swf, text, xml, html, stylesheet, json, and sound files.
In this post, I will discuss how to use the gpUrlLoader class to load multiple images into a Flash movie. I used this technique when I created the gpFlashGallery (A free Flash/XML photo gallery).
When I created Flash applications with AS2 in the past, I loaded application information such as page color, button colors and sizes via an XML file. I used this XML configuration file throughout the application, but, because I hated manipulating XML with AS2, I always converted the XML into arrays as soon as it was loaded.
Now with AS3 and E4X, using ActionScript to manipulate XML has made flash application development much easier.
The gpAS3Library is, to some degree, an ActionScript framework (albeit, in the very early stages). I use most of these classes in every Flash application that I develop. When I decided to convert these classes from AS2 to AS3, I realized that I needed a global configuration class to store the XML data that I loaded from the server. And with E4X, I can now easily retrieve the information I need from the XML lists.
Although I named this post Part 1, I have already discussed one of the classes of the gpAS3Libary in a previous post (see: A UrlLoader Class). In this post, I will discuss the gpConfig class.
I’m creating a new portfolio site using Joomla and Flash. I’ve spent this past weekend creating AS3 class packages (and converting some of my AS2 classes to AS3).
I began loading thumbnails using AS3′s URLRequest and URLLoader in my main application file. I decided to create a package that would request/load the thumbnails, but I needed to return the data from the URLRequest to my main application. I was able to accomplish it using the dispatchEvent method.
Note: This functionality is the basis for my gpUrlLoader class (part of my gpAS3Library).
I’m working on a Flash/AS3 application where I am loading various types of files (images, xml, etc). After writing the same code over and over again, I decided to create an AS3 class to use with my application. This class will load image, swf, text, xml, html, stylesheet, json, and sound files.
To create...