In this article we’ll build an XML-driven video gallery exploring a lot of new Flex 4 features (out in spring 2010): skinning spark components, spark containers, new states and transitions; but we’ll also use some “old” concepts like itemRenderers, custom events dispatch, load data from an xml file (using the Singleton design pattern), value objects, embedding fonts, css and a lot of other useful stuff when you develop Flex applications.

In this article we’ll develop an image gallery in a 3d enviroment using Flash Cs4, ActionScript 3.0, Papervision 3D and Caurina Tween library.

Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are merged with (or augmented by) virtual computer-generated imagery - creating a mixed reality.
The augmentation is conventionally in real-time and in semantic context with environmental elements, like for example sports scores on TV during a match.

Request: How to set a global component style in Flash / AS3?
Solution: Use StyleManager class and setComponentStyle method to set global styles

ActionScript 3.0 doesn’t manage all developers needs, so often they have to use other languages, as JavaScript, to accomplish some operations like open an HTML popup or get the userAgent property, useful to know the user Browser.
The AS3 ExternalInterface class allow to invoke Javascript functions directly from Flash.
Usually these functions are defined inside the HTML page but in this sample we’ll see how to implement them inside an ActionScript class, avoiding to edit HTML code.

A lot of Flex components support the itemRenderer property, to customize their item layout.
In this article we’ll use the List component to display the RSS Actionscript.it Last 5 Tutorial content and we’ll define 3 itemRenderers to switch 3 different content views at runtime.

Test online demo

In this sample we’ll use the Flex HTTPService class to make a PHP call and get the file list from a webserver folder. Then we’ll display them populating a List component and we’ll enable the mouse click on each item to save them on your disk (using FileReference.download() method)

Try the online demo

As often happens, i got the expiration to write this little post after an user request from an actionscript.it forum.
In few words, user asked how integrate a Google Search inside its Flex application to display the result always inside the flash app.
So I started to surf around the web to find a valid solution, and after founding many PHP solutions I found a cool AS3 library, developed by Boulevart.
This API provides a lot of classes to connect Flex (and Flash too) to Google services (Google Search, Translation, News, and so …

In this post I’ll show you how to create a form with a file attachment using Flash CS3/4, ActionScript 3.0 and PHP. The trick is use the FileReference class to upload a file from your own hard disk and at the same time send the input- field values.

In this sample, full-commented, we’ll use the FlashPlayer 10 3D features to display a list of Video Thumbnails enabling the Mouse Click Event to enlarge them changing their z and rotationY properties.
We’ll use Caurina Tween to perform 3d animations, so download them and copy the caurina package in your project folder before test this sample (they are not included inside the source files)