Until now I have never needed to do a lot with meta data except making items bindable or creating custom events. Recently I wanted to create a limitation on a custom property. Here’s the code:

private var _iconPosition:String = "left";
[Bindable]
public function set iconPosition( value:String ):void
{
_iconPosition = value;
}
public function get iconPosition():String
{
return _iconPosition;
}

In order to add default values you have to make the property inspectable. This affects the compiler and provides code hints for the property. See the Live Docs for a full description of “Inspectable”. In my example, I wanted to simply limit my “iconPosition” property to either left or right. Here is the updated code:

private var _iconPosition:String = "left";
[Bindable]
[Inspectable(enumeration="left,right")]
public function set iconPosition( value:String ):void
{
_iconPosition = value;
}
public function get iconPosition():String
{
return _iconPosition;
}

Here is a quick step-by-step tutorial on VPN routing. The purpose is to give you access to the VPN network and the local network at the same time (by default it locks you out of your local network and you can only access the remote network).

Step 1: Create a VPN connection

Frankly, if you can’t get this far, you should probably turn back now or seek additional help.

Step 2: Modify gateway usage

continue reading "VPN Network Routing Step-by-Step"

I quickly found out that my script for creating a route does not work in Windows Vista (well it sort of did). One additional piece of information is that when you are creating the connection click on the “Networking tab”, select “Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)” and click “Properties.” In the new window, click “Advanced” and be sure to uncheck “Use default gateway on remote network”.

Here is an updated script for use on windows Vista. I will be modifying the original post with this information as well.

Download It

UPDATE: Here’s a step by step on how to handle the networking: http://reynacho.com/2008/11/03/vpn-network-routing-step-by-step/

At my last job I had the option to work from home on occasion but I rarely did it because working over a VPN is a pain. When you connect to a VPN network, by default it disables your local network connection. End result, you can’t check your personal email while connected to the VPN. That was simply not an option for me so a co-worker (Ryan Stille) came up with a genious way to re-route your internet traffic so VPN traffic went through the VPN without disabling your local network. That script looks something like this:

# re-route VPN traffic
route add 10.0.0.0 MASK 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.15 metric 1

The problem with this is that you have to connect to the VPN, then open up a command prompt, find the IP address that was given to you by the VPN and use that instead of “192.168.1.15″.

Here’s some code for a more graceful VBS script that will do the job for you:

Dim ipAddy
ipAddy = GetIPAddress()

If ipAddy <> "" then
FixRouteForRDP(ipAddy)
End If


Function FixRouteForRDP(ipAddy)
set sh = createobject("wscript.shell")
set fso = createobject("scripting.filesystemobject")

Set Env = sh.Environment("PROCESS")
workfile = fso.gettempname
sh.run "%comspec% /c route add 10.0.0.0 MASK 255.255.255.0 " & ipAddy & " metric 1"
End Function


Function GetIPAddress()
set sh = createobject("wscript.shell")
set fso = createobject("scripting.filesystemobject")

Set Env = sh.Environment("PROCESS")
if Env("OS") = "Windows_NT" then
workfile = fso.gettempname
sh.run "%comspec% /c ipconfig > " & workfile,0,true
else
'winipcfg in batch mode sends output to
'filename winipcfg.out
workfile = "winipcfg.out"
sh.run "winipcfg /batch" ,0,true
end if
set sh = nothing
set ts = fso.opentextfile(workfile)
data = split(ts.readall,vbcr)
ts.close
set ts = nothing
fso.deletefile workfile
set fso = nothing
arIPAddress = ""

for n = 0 to ubound(data)
if instr(data(n), "PPP adapter") then
for m = n to ubound(data)
if instr(data(m),"IP Address") then
parts = split(data(m),":")
if trim(parts(1)) <> "0.0.0.0" then
arIPAddress = trim(cstr(parts(1)))
end if
end if
next
end if
next

If (arIPAddress <> "") then
GetIPAddress = arIPAddress
Else
MsgBox "The VPN does not appear to be connected", vbExclamation, "Error"
GetIPAddress = ""
End IF
End Function

Download It

This basically looks up the IP address and runs the route command for you. Note, that in the for loop toward the bottom (if instr(data(n), “PPP adapter”) then), the text “PPP adapter” might need to be replaced by whatever your VPN connection is called. For a basic VPN connection, this should work.

UPDATE: Here’s a step by step on how to handle the networking: http://reynacho.com/2008/11/03/vpn-network-routing-step-by-step/

I’ve been doing a lot of work with SQLite and AIR lately and I recently came across a post from Eric Feminella which has helped me tremendously.

The SQLiteadmin program can be downloaded at the end of this page: SQLite Administrator - International Milestone Beta

Instructions for installing on Windows: Unzip and run

This is currently only available for Windows so sorry to all you Mac users (including myself)

I ran across this problem recently…

I needed to create a slider that didn’t change in a uniform way. It was different for each third of the slider. The first third changed evenly from 0 - 25,000. The second third from 25,000 - 100,000. The last third from 100,000 - 10,000,000.

Here are the basic steps that I took:

1. Create a slider with minimum 0 and maximum 10,000,000
2. Create a handler for the change event
3. Write a whole lot of math in the change event

I’ll let you read over the application code at the link below. Here’s a really quick view of the function that handles the slider changing:

private function handleSliderChange():void
{
var thumbPercentage:Number = slider.value / slider.maximum;
var newTextInputText:String = '';
var multiplier:Number;
if( thumbPercentage <= GraduatedSlider.ONE_THIRD )
{
newTextInputText = numberFormatter.format((thumbPercentage / GraduatedSlider.ONE_THIRD) * GraduatedSlider.SLIDER_ONE_THIRD_VALUE);
}
else if( thumbPercentage > GraduatedSlider.ONE_THIRD && thumbPercentage <= GraduatedSlider.TWO_THIRDS )
{
multiplier = ((GraduatedSlider.TWO_THIRDS - thumbPercentage) / GraduatedSlider.ONE_THIRD);
newTextInputText = numberFormatter.format((((thumbPercentage / GraduatedSlider.TWO_THIRDS) * GraduatedSlider.SLIDER_TWO_THIRDS_VALUE) - (multiplier * GraduatedSlider.SLIDER_ONE_THIRD_VALUE)));
}
else
{
multiplier = ((thumbPercentage - GraduatedSlider.TWO_THIRDS) / GraduatedSlider.ONE_THIRD);
//trace(multiplier);
newTextInputText = numberFormatter.format(((multiplier * GraduatedSlider.SLIDER_FULL_VALUE) + ((1 - multiplier) * GraduatedSlider.SLIDER_TWO_THIRDS_VALUE)));
}
this.sliderValue = newTextInputText;
slider.dataTipFormatFunction = sliderDataTip;
setTextInputValue();
}

View Application     View Source

I’ve recently been tasked with figuring this out so I thought I’d share my results with everyone.

The Problem:

Create a Flash/Flex horizontal menu that will overlap the content below it. We don’t know how big the menu might get or what kind of content might end up below it. We do know that layering HTML and Flash does not always work as expected based on which browser you use. Sure, you can use the wmode=”transparent” and put the flash on top of the HTML, but it doesn’t allow you to hover over or click items under the flash.

The Solution:

Use Flex to interface with Javascript to change the SWF Object as needed based on events being listened to inside that same SWF Object. See http://reynacho.com/2008/08/12/flex-calls-to-javascript/ for a tutorial on how to get Flex to call javascript functions.

Read on for the code and example…

continue reading "Flex Menu Expanding Over HTML content"

Modifying your default build template is quite simple. There is a template file that is used when building your project. It should reside in the html-template directory at the root of your project in Flex Builder. In Flex Builder 3, the template is named “index.template.html”.

Let’s say you want to modify default parameters in the flash object (one I use is wmode=”transparent” for flex widgets). You would add this to the AC_FL_RunContent() function call (around line 80) and to the noscript block (around line 101). 95% of people hitting the page will hit the AC_FL_RunContent() call so here’s an example of how to modify that:

continue reading "Flex - Modify your default build template"

Flex is great! Javascript can be great! What if two great things got together?

This is a simple code hint which shows how to call javascript functions from Flex and pass data back and forth:

MXML Button:

<mx:Button
id = "button"
label = "Click Me!"
click = "handleButtonClick(event:MouseEvent)
/>

Flex Function:

private function handleButtonClick(event:MouseEvent):void
{
var functionName:String = "handleButtonClick";
var returnData:String = ExternalInterface.call(f, "You clicked the button!");
}

Javascript Function:

function handleButtonClick(message)
{
alert(message);
}

That’s really all there is to it. the ExternalInterface.call() handles everything for you.

By the way, if you wanted to actually return data from the javascript function, you’d just do a standard return and it’d be available in the returnData variable in Flex:

function handleButtonClick(message)
{
alert(message);
return "success";
}

I have been doing some work with AIR and SQLite recently and came across and issue that had to be solved. The issue was that most everything is a VARCHAR in SQLite and I was not able to insert apostrophes (’) into any string field because that is the string delimiter.

A quick Google search revealed that escaping an apostrophe is as simple as putting two of them together (i.e. “Jake’s Blog” becomes “Jake’’s Blog”). Quotation marks remain the same.

Now that I knew what the solution was, I had to implement it. I had about 10 custom VO objects, all with different numbers and kinds of properties. I needed a way to dig into each of them and do a quick string replace on String properties only.

continue reading "Custom Object Parsing Function"