Resize and crop for Image Shack Uploader

I am about to release new feature for Image Shack Uploader application. On the screen shot you can see Resize/Crop Tool:

There will be possible to crop image or resize it and upload on server. This window can be configured in options. I hope it wil be useful.

Open file from AIR using Merapi bridge

When I finished with vista style experiment I was thinking what if merapi could help to open files from AIR application. On the screen cast below I will show AIR application which could open MS Office file:


Before run my AIR application I needed to start java bridge (java project from Eclipse). I decided to zip all needed libraries into one runnable JAR file and run it from BAT file. But I still wanted to make one runnable file to start java bridge and AIR application together. One day, browsing on Merapi forum I found entry with solution to my problem. Using NSIS installer author has been built exe file.
The Bridge class from the Merapi library has a method called systemExecute with one string parameter Path. I tried to use this method with path to notepad.exe file, but in the result I had an error on Java side. I think this method was added to implement such feature as executing files from AIR application. Will check with new version of the Merapi library.

Update: Source code for Java project and for AIR project. In the java archive you could find runnable .jar and .bat files.

AIKI-JUTSU TAKEDA-RYU MAROTO-HA

Experiment: Fake Transparency

Recently, I have tried to make window for AIR application in vista-style . I mean, transparent window and blur effect applied on it.


I realized that I can make transparent AIR window and apply blur effect on it, but all objects on this window will be blurred as well. After some research, I understood that it is impossible to implement such feature like window in vista-style with AIR 1.5. Then I decided to try to make a desktop screenshot, copy area under the window and apply it to the backgroundImage property. But there was another problem, AIR 1.5 could not do a screenshot. So I decided to postpone this experiment to next version of AIR.

But some days ago, on the everythingflex blog I found post about Java bridge to AIR application called Merapi. Using this bridge, AIR application could do a screen shot. I decided to a bit amend sample in that post. The result of my experiment is below:



Original size.

Update: Source code for AIR application is available here.

Enterprise Flex with BlazeDS, The Book

In my morning subscriptions I found interesting post on Flex Pasta blog where Brian Telintelo announced that his book "Enterprise Flex with BlazeDS" has been published. The introduction and list of chapters looks interesting. On lunch I am going to check is this book in «Borders». I hope it is already in Singapore.

Update: Unfortunately, it is not, because it is just published and will be available in month. So I made pre-order.

Loading Image progress

Sometimes, in my projects, I needed to display progress of the image loading. It is not a big deal to display some animation stuff or some text during the image loading. But what if we need to display real progress of the loading, I mean percentage? After doing some research in internet, I found unusual solution to this problem. I think it is kind of trick where you can add ProgressBar as a child to Image. Another words, extend Image class adding ProgressBar which will display progress of its own loading.
This solution I found on Tony Fendall's blog and please check it out with source code.

Update: ImageShack uploader and auto update

Today I have implemented auto-update functionality for ImageShack Uploader application.
Now source code is available on Google code.

Update: Adobe QA team just approved my application and now it is available on Adobe AIR Marketplace.