Eric Feminella

In order to build and debug an RIA or web application which utilizes external data sources such as web services, xml etc, a good, quality network monitor is needed. Flex 1.5 had a built in Network Monitor that could easily be accessed in the Flex 1.5 IDE. However I have yet to find the same functionality available in Flex 2.0

At my day job I am building applications in Flex 2.0 / ActionScript 3.0 and although there are some good debugging tools available I have found that there seems to be a lack of an easy to use Network Monitor.

I have been using Charles, a great Network Debugger which is capable of displaying soap messages. xml, AMF, and various other HTTP protocols in an easy to view fashion. This type of HTTP monitoring is crucial to anyone who is building RIA’s with Flex 2.0

Check it out at http://xk72.com/charles/

In an effort to develop one single, centralized event handling system for all of my applications I have developed a new EventManager for ActionScript 3.0 based on the concepts of previous AS2 EventManagers such as the ones from Jeff Tapper as well as the Cairngorm EventManagement system.

The EventManager is a simple class that you can use to centralize listeners and broadcast events from anywhere in an application. It is an absolutely essential part of all of my ActionScript 3.0 Applications.
Click here to download the AS3 EventManager

Today I re-built my ActionScript Debugger from the ground up for ActionScript 3.0 / Flex 2.0. If you are not familiar with the ActionScript debugger it is a simple Local Debugger which recursively traces out various complex types such as Objects, Arrays etc to a seperate .swf file.

I will continue to build on the current functionality to take advantage of the various new type-checking features in ActionScript 3.0.

To see an example of the Debugger in Action click here

Over the past few months I have been spending alot of my free time learning the new API’s available in ActionSctipt 3.0.

One thing that will always be crucial to quality Application development is memory allocation and code optomization ensuring this. Inevitably with all of the new features available in ActionScript 3.0 this is more nessasary than ever before. I found a great article by Grant Skinner about the new Garbage collector in Flash Player 9 which is a must read for anyone interested in ActionScript 3.0.

http://www.gskinner.com/blog/archives/2006/06/as3_resource_ma.html

Would you look at this! I just get back from vacation and Flex 2.0 has been officially released. And if that were not good enough Adobe has also released Flash Professional 9 beta 1.

My first day back and there are some really big things brewing. Time to get Flex 2.0 and download the trial of Flash Professional 9! Today is a good day.

The days of Flex 1.5 are finally coming to an end. Time for a real IDE.

To learn more about Flash Professional 9 and Flex 2.0 visit:
Flash Professional 9
Flash Player 9
Flex 2.0