Flex 4 Extending and Styling Components

The Flex 4: Extending and Styling Components training course teaches delegates how to use their object-oriented skills to create custom classes that programmatically draw skins and extend the functionality of built-in Flex classes. Experienced Flex developers will have an opportunity to explore hands-on, practical code examples for creating drag-and-drop user interfaces that also incorporate user-triggered transitions and smart components that resize based on available space. Other objectives of this course include creating popups, embedding fonts, implementing custom application look-and-feel and positioning stage- and mouse-aware elements.

Audience

To gain the most from this class, you should:

• Have attended the Flex 4: Developing Rich Client Applications course.
• Have equivalent knowledge of the topics covered in Flex 3: Developing Rich Client Application

This course targets experienced Adobe Flex developers who:

• Want to use the built-in Flex components as a basis for their own custom component development.
• Want to incorporate interactive, position- and size-aware elements into their applications.
• Need to skin Flex applications to meet corporate marketing demands.

Course Syllabus

Introducing Flex 4: Extending and Styling Components

• Programming the Visual Experience
• Understanding Project Roles
• Introducing Mastery Learning
• Understanding the Course Format
• Reviewing the Course Prerequisites
• Reviewing the Course Outline

Embedding Images and Fonts

• Embedding Images at Compile-Time
• Layering Content Using Absolute Layout
• Creating a Reusable Embedded Image
• Creating Instances of an Embedded Image Class
• Understanding Device Font Limitations
• Embedding Fonts with Absolute File Paths
• Embedding Fonts using Adobe Flash

Modifying the Look and Feel of Flex Components

• Exploring Filters
• Applying Blends
• Modifying the Look-and-Feel of Flex Components using MXML Styles
• Modifying Graphical Skins using Flex Skin Design Extensions for CS3
• Installing the Flex Skin Design Extensions for Flash
• Selecting which component to modify in Flash
• Importing the Flex skins artwork

Creating Popups

• Creating a Popup Window
• Passing Data to the Popup Window

Extending Flex Components

• Exploring Display Object Basics
• Extending Flex Components
• Implementing the createChildren() Method
• Implementing the updateDisplayList() Method
• Improving Custom Component Reusability with Stylesheets

Drawing Shapes and Skinning Programmatically

• Understanding the Relationship Between Display List Objects and the Graphics Class
• Calling the clear() Method
• Drawing Lines
• Creating a Visual Element as an ActionScript Class
• Creating Shapes
• Defining Fill Methods
• Implementing a ButtonSkin from the mx.skins.halo Package
• Implementing a Programmatic Skin

Animating Components and View States

• Creating Behaviors in ActionScript
• Reviewing View States and Transitions
• Using the CurrentStateChange Event

Creating Mouse-Aware Applications

• Detecting the Mouse Position
• Detecting the Stage Dimensions

Implementing Drag and Drop Functionality

• Understanding the DragManager
• Specifying the Data to Display in a List Control
• Enabling Dragging on Non-List-Based Controls
• Controlling Dropping with Formats
• Handling Data in Drag and Drop Operations

Availability

Flex 4 Extending and Styling Components is available immediately as a closed course which is ideal for training a team.

Alternatively if you are wanting an individual place on a public scheduled class, these are run on an on-demand basis. To be added to the waiting list for the next class just complete the short form below and we will contact you once we have sufficient interest to run a class.