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Interview on Fosfr at infoq.com
I was recently interviewed by Moxie Zhang of infoq.com about Fosfr, have a read over at: infoq.com
For those of you reaching my blog from that article, Fosfr is available on google code by clicking the link in the sidebar or following this link: fosfr on googlecode
and documentation is available here: http://www.jeffdepascale.com/documentation/fosfr
All questions and comments are very welcome as this is still a work in progress, please feel free to contact me directly.
Tabulate – new open source project on google code
Tabulate is an AS3 tab management package that handles all the oddities of working with tabs - including moving between display objects and text fields as well as components, which typically results in unexpected tab movement. Makes closed looping of tab groups much simpler. Additionally, Tabulate allows you to override the standard focusRect - that yellow, ugly box that pops up when you tab in flash. Make it look like you want it to.
Lots of additional features planned here, including incorporation into Fosfr after the 1.0 release of that. Currently Tabulate is a 1.0 alpha with no docs since it is all likely to change.
Fosfr .8 BETA released
Well, it doesn't have Prequel 1.1 since, well, I haven't finished it yet 
Sorry! It is coming. In the meantime, I decided it was time to update the release to the substantially more stable .8 release I've been sitting on for two months. Documentation and example site will be updated to .8 within 24 hours.
EDIT - Documentation, sample files, and example site have all been released using .8 BETA.
Notable changes include (there were alot of additional small fixes in there too):
- loadSubSWF method now contains the parameter 'deepLink' as the second parameter. deeplink values throughout fosfr are now arrays, allowing for unlimited depth on deeplink foldering via swfaddress.
- new top level method 'setSubLink', to match up to handleSubLink. Shortcuts to swfaddresshandler.setaddress() method. similarly to handleSubLink, the paramter is an array representing the deeplink folder structure.
- SWFfAddressHandler model rebuilt, new methods detailed in documentation.
- Custom error and notification handling, with the ability to trap errors to the debug panel. Debug panel highlights errors in red.
- new property 'available' in both loader classes, specifies that the loader is available for use.
- new method in navigation, 'initialSubload()'. If autosubload is false, call this method instead of loadSubSWF to ensure any stray deeplinks from the intial load are processed through.
- JSONHandler bug fixed where the ...rest statement was improperly passing values as a single array instead of individual unique parameters.
- Changes to tracking package: new property, 'trackAllMethods', specifies whether all methods instantiated for tracking receive the tag specified in the 'track' method. If true, every method will fire for each tag. If false, only the default (the first) method specified will fire. Using specific methods can now be acheived using the second parameter of the 'track' method, 'forceMethod'. This is a string value from the new 'TrackingMethods' class in the tracking package, specifying the name of the method to fire. If trackAllMethods is true, specifying a name here will force only that method to be used.
- new flashvars parameter, 'checkDeeplink', gets around the '#' issue with SWFAddress links. Addresses can be written instead as 'http://www.domain.com/?deeplink=subpage/sublink' and it will be converted on load to: 'http://www.domain.com/#/subpage/sublink'for proper swfaddress formatting.
- Fixed numerous glitches in FosfrLiteSWF.
- SubSWF files are now not required and Main/Shell only implementations can now be created. Config files need not include the navigation node in this use case.
- Bug fix in SWFAddressHandler, addressed improper handling of 'showProjectInTitle' property.
- Bug fix in SWFAddressHandler addressing false dispatches of an empty array for sublinks when a deeplink is cached on load, subLinks is now defaulted to null at all times.
- Bug fix in SWFAddressHandler addressing unrequested dispatch of a change event when sub link is set via setSubLink().
Fosfr .703 BETA released
.8 release coming in the next month with some much needed major revisions.
Changes in this revision:
- Revamp of navigation.loaders package - New properties include: 'preloadSkipped', specifying whether the preload action was skipped for the load, 'pauseBeforePreload' replaces deprecated 'autoPreload' property, 'pauseAfterPreload' replaces deprecated 'autoLoadAfterPreload' property. New method 'advanceLoader()' replaces deprecated 'beginPreload()' and 'finalizeLoad()' methods, determines on its own what step to advance to, if loader is running. Errors out if not. New property 'loaderState' defines a value from the new 'LoaderState' class (see below). Specifies what the current state of the loader is.
- New class in navigation.loader package, 'LoaderState', defines the possible states of the loader: IDLE, INITIALIZING, PRELOADING, FINALIZING, and, if the loader is told to pause, PAUSED_BEFORE_PRELOAD and PAUSED_AFTER_PRELOAD.
- Document classes 'FosfrLiteSWF', 'FosfrMainSWF', 'FosfrShellSWF', and 'FosfrSubSWF' have all been made into dynamic classes. Fixes a bug where references to fosfr.mainSWF, fosfr.shellSWF, or fosfr.subSWF would not allow access to public methods and properties.
- Graphical nav now locks out user interactions while the loader is in a processing state.
- New package in the utils folder, 'externalClasses'. Extend these classes for classes classes within the Fosfr framework outside of the Document classes. Instantiate the class and pass an instance of fosfr via the 'attachFosfr' method. Class features all the methods present in the Doc classes for the Fosfr framework. 'FosfrExternalClass' is a low weight base class providing access to fosfr and the top level methods, 'FosfrExternalMCClass' can be used as a base class for MovieClips.
- GraphicalNav now features the new property 'numberList', an optional string value specifying the numerical values of the nav buttons to tie to the graphicalNav. If left null, all items specified in the subSWF list in the config file are actively tied to nav items with associated values. If for example numberList is set to "0,3,4,5", only the items in those positions in the subSWF list are attached to movieclip instances with corresponding name values.
- GraphicalNav properties 'navName' and 'nav_mc' renamed to 'navNamingConvention' and 'navHolderName', respectively. both of these are strign values.
- GraphicalNav now features the new method 'redrawNavState' which reactivates all nav movieclips to their proper state based on the current nav status.
- Activation of current nav items is now tied via event changes to subSWFloads in the navigation class.
- NavArray now extends Array directly, acquiring all of the properties and methods inherited.
- GraphicalNav public properties now also accessible via the config XML file, under the node navigation.graphicNav.
- Both SWFAddressHandler and GraphicalNav lock their functionality while the files are mid load process - SWFAddress locks the address to the name of the subSWF being loaded, graphicalNav does not change visual display until the load has completed.
- Various bug fixes.
Fosfr updated build – 7.01, Documentation section revamp
New builds of Fosfr will be pushed to google code over the next few weeks as revisions and documentation progress. Please contact me directly with any bug/feature requests. A minor update, 7.01, will be released to google code by midnight tonight, EST, along with a documentation update as well. A configuration xml quickstart PDF should be completed either tonight or by the end of the weekend, detailing all the optional paramters available via the external config file. New features in this release include:
-config xml nodes now reflect enabling/disabling functionality based on presence, attributes correlate to most public properties of associated classes. Next release will provide access to all public properties.
-loadSubSWF and shellLoader both allow for the addition of other files to the preload for that file. See Prequel documentation for proper formatting of the preloadArray parameter.
-new properties in the Navigation class: autoShellLoad, preloadInitialSubSWFWithShell
-new property in the SubLoader and ShellLoader classes: autoLoadAfterPreload. Both are addressable from the config file by the navigation attributes autoSubSWFLoadAfterPreload and autoShellSWFLoadAfterPreload, respectively.
-XMLListToArray in the fosfr.core package has been replaced and updated with XMLListTools, a more substantial class used internally by Fosfr for parsing the configuration xml file and passing the values to the appropriate classes
-changes to the datatypes of some properties throughout the framework to more strictly define values to the Fosfr core classes.
-fixed some issues with the fosfr.local property not properly disabling all web-enabled functionalities. Now, if local is set to true (through the flashvars), it disables SWFAddress, Tracking, The QueryString Object property of Fosfr, and nulls the url property of Fosfr as well.
-documentation updated for typos and errors.
-other minor revisions throughout the framework, fixing bugs and optimizing functionality.
Also scheduled for this evening is the asdoc revision of documentation for Prequel and ResizeToolkit and a new navigation structure for the documentation section.
Fosfr AS3 framework beta .7 release on google code
Fosfr has been released to google code at:
Prelimnary documentation is at:
Sample site implementation included in download is visible online here:
http://www.jeffdepascale.com/blog/examples/fosfrFullSite
Fosfr – in beta, google code within the week
Fosfr is now out of alpha and in beta, documentation is underway and will be followed by an extensive quickstart PDF. More info coming soon.
Announcing Fosfr – AS3 open source framework
Coming soon to google code, a complete framework for AS3 development, from single SWF files to full sites with master and sub sections. Fosfr handles debugging, tracking, setting up site navigation, loading and unloading sub pages, automatic preloading (via Prequel), SWFAddress handling, simple access to Flashvars, query string params, and cookies, and does it all from implementations as simple as two lines of code per document class. Comes with a complete set of base classes for simple access to all of the methods and features of Fosfr right at Document class level, and optionally can run from a single configuration xml file for ease of access to site parameters without the need to recompile. All this, and a total weight of less than 25kb. Currently in alpha, details and full documentation are still forthcoming, however a beta release should be available next week.
ResizeToolkit version .95 and documentation released to Google Code
Round 2 of releases for this week...
ResizeToolkit has been updated to .95 release, just waiting on some final QA steps on this package before making it a full 1.0 release. The package is now fully documented and has a quick start guide as well (5 pages worth!) So hopefully this is enough to get your feet wet quickly with this package. If you ever do fullscreen enabled sites or just sites/web apps that scale and relayout displayObjects to fill the stage area dynamically, you need this package, it saves a LOT of time and makes the layout code much more readable after you've walked away from the project and come back. Ever try to re-read what all those positional changes mean in your resize handler? Never again. Please use and test, would really appreciate usage feedback before the 1.0 release.
Quick start PDF available here:
And class documentation is located here:
com.jeffdePascale Documentation
13. 02. 2009
Prequel version 1.0 and documentation released on Google Code
Prequel has been fully documented and released open source as a 1.0, available now on google code, link below:
Quick start PDF available here:
And class documentation is located here:
Jeff dePascale is a web and mobile applications professional based in Fairfield County, CT.
