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What a pain in the ...

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 01:17:00 GMT

*sigh* Ok, finally.
Here's what I've found out, and it seems like this will fix my problem with file uploading in Flex/Coldfusion.
Firefox apparently uses two windows when dealing with file uploads as pertains to Flex.
What happens is, that second window drops the session info, and you wind up getting a 302 httpstatus code. (as a note, using something like Ngrep in linux or Windows, or Wireshark in Windows, to sniff your own network traffic to see the raw response will help you decipher what's failing. I was able to see that it was trying to redirect me to the login.cfm template)
What fixed it was returning the JSESSIONID from a Remote Object/CFC call, and using it in the URL string that I used in the URLRequest upon file uploading.
I.e., var req:URLRequest = new URLRequest();
req.url = "upload.cfm?jsessionid=" + jsessionid;
req.method = URLRequestMethod.POST;
fileRef.upload(req);

"JSESSIONID" is set a little above the code with the Remote Object/CFC call.
And voila! That's how you upload files if you're behind HTTPS. *whew*

ok, if anyone out there has some info on this, I'm all ears.

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 05:47:00 GMT

*sigh* Ok, so I gave up testing Flex file uploads in an authenticated environment on my Linux box here at work.
It was simply a no-go.
It works fine in Windows if I hard-code the destination in the cffile tag.
If I don't do that, I get 302 redirects to the login page we have. This is coded in the application.cfm. (If you're not logged in, go to the login template)
This is weeeeiiiirrrddd.

Annoying Flex file upload problem...Fixed?

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:00:00 GMT

Issue: File upload using Flex works fine in a normal (meaning non-authenticated) environment. Inside an authenticated environment, I get http status code 302 (redirection, basically)
After pulling my hair out and wondering what the heck was going on, I finally read online a recommendation to use a network sniffer to see what the responses were from my local server. Alrighty, I was familiar with ngrep, and have used it before for just boring network sniffery purposes, so fine. I'll try ngrep.
Ok, I ran that (making sure it was listening to my localhost traffic) and voila, sure enough, since I had moved my Flex app inside of one of our sites that requires logging in, it was showing a 302 message, along with the url to our login template.
My hunch is that I need to worry about keeping the app's session variables present. I found a nice little Forta article that I'm going to read up tonight and test out tomorrow.
At least, I HOPE that's what my problem here is... (Flex file uploading is a pain.)

Flex2/Actionscript 3 model objects and value objects

Mon, 12 May 2008 16:01:00 GMT

ok, so NOW Flex is really gettin' fun. I started tinkering with model objects last night.

Here's my first one (for my simple little blog)

package blogMO
{

    public class blogMOEntry
    {
        public var _ridBlog:int;
        public var _vcBlog:String;
        public var _intUsers:int;
        public var _dtCreate:Date;
        public var _intType:int;

        public function get ridBlog():int{
            return _ridBlog;
        }
        public function get vcBlog():String{
            return _vcBlog;
        }
        public function get intUsers():int{
            return _intUsers;
        }
        public function get dtCreate():Date{
            return _dtCreate;
        }
        public function get intType():int{
            return _intType;
        }

        public function set ridBlog(value:int):void{
            _ridBlog = ridBlog;
        }
        public function set vcBlog(value:String):void{
            _vcBlog = vcBlog;
        }
        public function set intUsers(value:int):void{
            _intUsers = intUsers;
        }
        public function set dtCreate(value:Date):void{
            _dtCreate = dtCreate;
        }
        public function set intType(value:int):void{
            _intType = intType;
        }

/*         public function toVO():blogEntryVO
        {
            var vo:BlogVO = new BlogVO;
                vo.ridBlog = ridBlog;
                vo.vcBlog = vcBlog;
                vo._intUsers = _intUsers;
                vo.dtCreate = dtCreate;
                vo.intType = intType;
            return vo;
        }

        public static function fromVO(vo:SchoolVO):School
        {
            var mo:BlogMO = new BlogMO();
                mo.ridBlog = vo.ridBlog;
                mo.vcBlog = vo.vcBlog;
                mo._intUsers = vo._intUsers;
                mo.dtCreate = vo.dtCreate;
                mo.intType = vo.intType;
            return mo;
        } */
        public function blog(){}


    }
}

Very straightforward.

It's all coming together in my wally-mind. Slowly but surely.

Pardon me, time to go meditate on my Flex 2 koan.

Ommmm.

CF8, Flex, etc.

Thu, 08 May 2008 19:06:00 GMT

a few housecleaning items:

CFPDF worked like a charm. I was able to output our pdf like we had with the custom tag without a problem. Very, very cool.

Flex is more and more fun for me. As it stands now, I've got an image preview/upload app that puts the images you have into a tile list 3x4.
The images all have a 'sort_order' property to them, and that gets updated in the db when you drag and drop the images around in the list.

I hope to get an example of this up in the next day or so. While it's not exactly reinventing the internet or anything, it was a HUGE amount of fun doing it.

Flex really can be easy to use. WTF?

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 20:15:23 GMT

ok, so for whatever reason, getting Flex to move from dev server to live server has been the biggest pain in the butt.
See, here's what my conception of the entire process was:

Compile with local machine's services-config.xml file (that had the localhost and port number hard coded in it).

Get ready to move out to live.

Recompile with live server's services-config.xml file.

Hope for the best.

Some observations:

You can just compile with a services-config file in the directory your flex source code is in.
Leave the URL with the default {} stuff.

Move to your server.
That's it.
You can still use REMOTE OBJECT mxml tags.
FAR easier than messing with AS if you don't want to.

Ok, I'm back on the Flex bandwagon now. Having THAT big pain in the butt outta the way smoothed it out sooo much more.

Note: *I* did not figure that out. My coworker, Brandon C. did. So there.

my own little Flex/AS code snippet

Sat, 21 Jul 2007 14:39:26 GMT

This is a quick snippet of code I figured out using Flex 2.

Background:

I wanted a simple datagrid to show current projects that an end user may have (at my old job, we had what was called a triage view of projects, with levels of importance, etc.)

How this works:

The datagrid, "dg1", gets a list of Projects from my CF Component, named "sourceFlex". The info returned from that CFC goes into the columns as named.

Note: There is a click function listed in the datagrid that sends the selected record to another MXML component that shows record details, etc. I'll post that here shortly.
Also, there is a 'showDate' as function that cleans up how the date looks in the column. (thank you DFW CFUG for that; once I dig up the proper credit for that code from my email archive, I will duly note it.)

In bulleted format, here is the chain of events:

SWF loads; in the MX:Application tag, I had the "creationComplete" property set to a public function, "initApp()"; inside that function, the remote object method "listP1Projects" from "sourceFlex" (sourceFlex.listP1Projects) is called.
Call goes to the CFC, and is handled by the "handleP1Projects" method.
Within that handling method, dg1 has it's dataProvider set to the event's results (dg1.dataProvider = event.result;
dg1's data columns have their various dataFields set to the proper database columns (ridProject, vcProject, etc)

Code is as follows:

How to get stuff to load at first

[codeshare jul1673c]

MXML Component

[codeshare julf3832]

MXML Remote Object code (uses a call to a CFC. WAY. EASIER. THAN. WEBSERVICES! Trust me)

[codeshare jul242a0]

AS "handle results" code

[codeshare juld4628]

AS "showMeFault" code (it's a small "whoopsie" type error with fault event info in an alert popup):

[codeshare jul234eb]

Overall, once you figure out how to 'plugin' your cfc's to send and receive data, getting Flex to play with your DB is way simple.

Caveat: This code ain't the prettiest, it's the result of someone messing with event based coding for the first time. (You do NOT wanna see the AS I cooked up with this entire Flex project. Good. Lord.)

more fun learning event based programming thru Flex.

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 23:24:04 GMT

Dang it, this weekend, I'm going to play around with CF8 if it kills me. I haven't yet been able to do so. (I'm assuming that I can get the necessary plugin for Eclipse that'll give me the CF8 tags/components. *fingers crossed*)

Anyhoo, more Flex related stuff going on at work.

Some further impressions:

1. I loves me some pop up windows.

2. URLLoader is your friend. Repeat: URLLoader is your friend.

3. Do NOT set your output folder to something across your network on a vpn connection! Jeez. Just compile locally and copy over. It's FAR quicker.

4. Datagrids are so perty. Sorting is so neat. Ok, so I'm easy.

More to follow in a day or so.

Flex 2 onward

Thu, 17 May 2007 18:06:24 GMT

ok, so we're building some mock ups moreso now for work. I've got mine for a 'triage view' of projects somewhere in the 75% to 80% of the way done.

the biggest adjustment was getting used to handling data in an event driven model. (handling up on data, so to speak)

I'm still the biggest fan of flex, and I can't wait to roll some of this stuff out at work (esp for an asset mgmt piece i did in CF/js/html)

woohoo!

code samples coming shortly.

flexin' for fun and profit

Fri, 11 May 2007 20:20:10 GMT

Just got the O Reilly book on Flex 2. So far, I like it a tad more than the Adobe book because it gets more under the hood.

We're putting together alot of neat stuff for work, which I hope to put up here shortly (being able to create a wizard type of component so quickly is REALLY REALLY cool)

Code snippets are coming.

Flex 2 fun

Mon, 07 May 2007 23:45:51 GMT

Ok, so we've convinced our boss to let us get CF 7.02 (mainly so we can get our hands on Flex based apps, of course)
After banging away over the weekend, things are starting to fall into place.

Some thoughts:

If you're going to play with Flex, just look for a tutorial on www.mikebritton.com. It's very short, but gets across the basic idea of getting data from a CFC. (The Adobe book I got about Flex seems more geared toward the UI perty stuff, and less about the backend data related items. Kinda frustrating.)
Oh my. States states states. Still playing around with these, and transitions. Yes, yes yes!
Datagrids sort nicely. They improved these from Flash, apparently. Very neat.

If I can figure out what to do to get Flex running on my podcast's ISP, I'm going to redo that site, too. I'm a BIG time Flex fan. More to follow.

Wow, Flex/CF wizard is really neat.

Sat, 05 May 2007 18:13:32 GMT

So at work we're enamored with Flex 2. We already use Flash remoting, but it has it's limitations and annoyances.

Flex 2 would seem to be the better suited solution for what we need (project and document tracking, addition, updating,etc)

I just played with the CF/Flex wizard that you can install in Flex Builder, and wow. Very neat stuff. It spits out CFCs, mxml code, etc. So far, so good.

ColdFusion 8 "Scorpio" from a newbie

Tue, 01 May 2007 16:51:01 GMT

So I got to see Mr. Forta in person for the first time, and I have to admit. I'm TOTALLY energized for Coldfusion in general.

My gosh. The man knows how to sell it.

(not to mention everything being added to the new CF version. I MUST find a copy somewhere!)

I'm planning on using this space to blog as a CF newbie, so don't expect earth shatteringly new ways of programming; I'm just posting here as I learn better ways of coding stuff.