The Flashchemist

Here is a way you can change the global styles for changing the blur, transparency and color of the background when you open an alert or modal PopUp using PopUpManager class.

In your css file, or inside <style> tag:

modalTransparencyBlur: 0;
modalTransparency: 0.8;
modalTransparencyColor: black;
modalTransparencyDuration: 500;
Here’modalTransparencyBlur’ is the blur settings. ‘modalTransparency’ is the alpha. ‘modalTransparencyColor’ is the color of the background (uint). ‘modalTransparencyDuration’ is duration for the animation of a pop-up.

If you want to set it in the code (runtime):

StyleManager.getStyleDeclaration(”global”).setStyle(”modalTransparencyColor”, color);

Cheers!

Vpn

Came across this interesting post in agile software development.com. Post speak about the fact that software companies have more problems managing people than mangaing soulless machines! true…

It also speaks about the difference between working in a team and working in a group and the advantages of working and being in a team being getting technical solutions, making decisons together and so on. It also talks about the most important fact of a successful team - Respect!

How will u know if you are working in a group or in a team? -

If you can see your work environment objectively you will know whether your colleagues are eager to work and solve technical problems in your project or rather they are told what to do by the manager. If you are told what to do i.e. your team lead decides what you should work on next (or even tell you how to work) you work in a group.

On the other hand if you meet often and regularly with your team and everybody is eager to work and offers help to each other it means that you work in a team.

The post goes on explaining steps to convert a group into a team. Good read.

Name it agile programming or lean management or whatever, working in a transparent ‘team’ environment is fun and a way of living. Imagine, when everyone takes responsibilities of what the team do, and all are automatically ready for any adverse situations with out forcing them to, and equally productive, or may be competing to be more productive… manager’s paradise, isn’t it?

Interesting post script too:

Remember to respect not only people at work but all the people - this will definitely pay off (even if it will not pay off you should respect everyone).

Here is a new forum for flash flex and coldfusion technologies, called VadexFX. I feel this is better as I am not a fan of mailing lists, or e-mail groups for discussing technical issues. If you want to put in some code, you dont have code formatters there, the information is not properly formatted and collected. The digest mails become a nuisence sometimes. A discussion forum is always the best technology for discussing technical issues and I wish this one is a success. Read the blog post by the creator about it here. Also start visiting and putting your questions in the forum here. Please make sure you put your questions and information in the correct sub- cateories, so that the information is properly structured.

Now that the flex 4 is coming to you soon, we can get the SDK from adobe, and install it in the Flex Builder 3.0 and start doing stuff. Here you have all the possible information in a blog post by Mike Chambers. Read them.

Here is a way to show effects for your pop-up window when it loads and unloads. I was trying to create a pop-up notification window, same as what you can see when you go full-screen from a flash/flex application (”Press Esc to exit full screen mode”).

Here is the code for the MXML component which will be used as the PopUp window. I am extending a Canvas for this component.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<mx:Canvas xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"

 cornerRadius="8"

 borderStyle="solid"

 borderColor="#000000"

 backgroundColor="#000000"

 backgroundAlpha="0.85"

 >

 <mx:Script>

 <![CDATA[

 import mx.managers.PopUpManager;

private var _title:String;

private var rt:Timer;

[Bindable]

 public function get title():String

 {

 return _title;

 }

 public function set title(val:String):void

 {

 _title = val;

 rt = new Timer(1500);

 rt.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER,timerHandler);

 rt.start();

 fadeEff.end();

 fadeEff.play();

 }

private function timerHandler(e:TimerEvent):void

 {

 fadeRem.end();

 fadeRem.play();

 rt.removeEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER,timerHandler);

 rt=null;

}

private function effectEndHandler():void

 {

 _title = null;

 PopUpManager.removePopUp(this);

 }

 ]]>

 </mx:Script>

 <mx:Text id="txt"

 selectable="false"

 width="90%"

 text="{title}"

 textAlign="center"

 styleName="notifierFontStyle"

 blendMode="{BlendMode.INVERT}"

 />

 <mx:Fade id="fadeEff"

 alphaTo="1"

 duration="800"

 target="{this}"/>

 <mx:Fade id="fadeRem"

 alphaTo="0"

 duration="800"

 target="{this}"

 effectEnd="effectEndHandler()"/>

</mx:Canvas>

Open this with PopUpManager class as below:

var pop:Notifier = Notifier(PopUpManager.createPopUp(Notifier)); // Caste the IFlexDisplayObject object returned by createPopUp into ‘Notifier’ type and assign to a pop variable.

pop.width = stage.width-30; setting up some width relative to the stage.

pop.title = “Hope this help someone” // I have getter/setter ‘title’ in Notifier class. Assign the message there. This is how you pass values to a pop-up window in flex.

PopUpManager.centrePopUp(pop); // Centre your pop up window relative to the stage.

Here you go. Hope this helps someone.