If you're unfamiliar with PixelWindow, it's a simple, light-weight AIR application for measuring things on your screen. It creates a translucent window that acts like a pixel ruler with its width and height reported in the center. Just drag it around and resize it to measure whatever you want.
I finally got around to updating PixelWindow, and creating its own site and installer badge. I also added a few new features:
If you use an old version of PixelWindow (probably installed as PixelPerfect), I recommend that you grab the new version. And if you don't use it, it's an extremely useful app for any designer or developer to have around. And remember that PixelWindow is open source, so feel free to grab the code to fix bugs, add features, or just to see how it works.
]]>
private function formatDate(d:Date):String
{
var now:Date = new Date();
var diff:Number = (now.time - d.time) / 1000; // convert to seconds
if (diff < 60) // just posted
{
return "Just posted";
}
else if (diff < 3600) // n minutes ago
{
return (Math.round(diff / 60) + " minutes ago");
}
else if (diff < 86400) // n hours ago
{
return (Math.round(diff / 3600) + " hours ago");
}
else // n days ago
{
return (Math.round(diff / 86400) + " days ago");
}
}
On a related note, how many of you out there are still using Adobe Feeds? I talked to a few people recently who just use the RSS that Adobe Feeds generates rather than using the site itself. How are people getting their Adobe developer news these days, and/or technology news in general?
]]>(Note that the mouse wheel works as expected in AIR applications; this is for browser-based apps only.)
]]>In case you're new to ShareFire, here are some other interesting features:
If you already have Apprise installed, you will get the update automatically (if you want to update manually, go to Settings > Application Updates > Check Now). If you don't have it installed, check it out here.
Let us know what you think!
]]>Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated.
]]>But like many Linux users at the time, I was trying to exist in a Windows world. I used VMWare for testing web sites on IE, and various command line tools for converting Word documents that people insisted on emailing me into watered-down PDFs. So when OS X came out, I rejoiced and immediately jumped ship (before it even supported CD burning), and I've never looked back.
But when builds of AIR for Linux started appearing, I decided it was time to revisit Linux (specifically Ubuntu) to see what had changed. I made the mistake of installing it under VMWare on my MacBook initially which didn't impress me all that much since it wasn't able to access the graphics card directly, so yesterday I decided to set aside some time and install Ubuntu natively on my Mac.
From the time I got it in my head to give it a try to the time I was running AIR apps was probably about an hour. That included downloading Ubuntu 8.10, burning the ISO, using Boot Camp to make my Mac think I wanted to install Windows, and more or less following these instructions for installing Ubuntu on a new partition. Although I used an internal build of AIR for Linux, a public beta build is available here.
The experience of running Ubuntu natively really blew me away. The windowing effects are beautiful, and after using the OS for a few hours, I began to realize that Ubuntu even does a few things better than OS X. All my AIR apps ran beautifully (here's a screenshot of three of them running), and I began to realize that with Flex Builder for Linux, AIR for Linux, a few strategic AIR apps (Apprise Reader, TweetDeck, etc), Firefox, and with the amount of data that's moving to "the cloud," I could very easily start using Linux again day-to-day. I did encounter a few incompatibilities running Ubuntu on Mac hardware, but if I could get my hands on a decent ThinkPad, I think I just might be able to make the switch. Of course, I'll have to keep my Mac around for synching my iPhone since I did finally give up that Nextel i1000.
]]>If class B extends class A, does class B have to call super() in its constructor in order to instantiate the parent class? Nope. What happens if you don't? The compiler inserts a call to the constructor for you. Usually.
The compiler just looks to see if you call super() at any point in your constructor. What if that call is inside of a conditional statement that evaluates to false? The default constructor won't get inserted, and the parent classes's constructor won't get called. Why is that a problem? You may very well get null reference exceptions since class level variables are often initialized in constructors. What's worse, you may only get them sometimes — only when your conditional statement evaluates to false.
Even if you determine that your code works whether super() is called or not, you still have to watch out. What if the implementation of the parent classes changes in the future? Code that used to work, and code that you could reasonably expect to continue working, may just break on you. I've actually seen this happen. It's not pretty.
How do you avoid this problem? Either call super(), or don't. Never put super() in a statement that may not execute, even if you find that your code works fine today since you never know what might happen to that parent class tomorrow.
We've also added some smaller features and polish, and fixed several bugs. If you're already running Apprise, it will auto-update. Otherwise, go check it out.
]]>Apprise has several other cool features like realtime search accross all feeds, OPML import and export, Vi keys, and site view. And it finally even got a nice design so it no longer looks like a developer designed it.
You can find Appirse at apprisereader.com. If you already have an earlier version of Apprise installed, you should be able to click on the badge and replace it, but you also might need to uninstall the old version first. This version of Apprise adds auto-updated, so from now on, you'll get new features and bug fixes automatically.
]]> Update: I should have mentioned that you should export your feeds before upgrading to the new version of Apprise so you can easily import them again. In future versions, all your feeds will be preserved.]]>this.nativeWindow.addEventListener(Event.CLOSING,
function(e:Event):void
{
e.preventDefault();
for (var i:int = NativeApplication.nativeApplication.openedWindows.length - 1; i >= 0; --i)
{
NativeWindow(NativeApplication.nativeApplication.openedWindows[i]).close();
}
});With the release of AIR 1.1 comes a new version of Apprise, a feed aggregator written for AIR. Apprise is a work in progress with lots of additional features to come, but here's what we have so far:
Apprise 1.5 adds the following features:
If you check the code out and build Apprise yourself, you can get even more features:
My new intern, Daniel Koestler, and I will be working on adding new features to Apprise this summer. And, of course, it's all cross-platform and open source, so anyone who wants to contribute features can.
The next version of Apprise (2.0) will enable the auto-update feature so you'll be able to pick up new features automatically. We consider 1.0 and 1.5 to be betas, so they have to be manually installed. Click on the badge below to have a look at what we have so far, and let us know in the comments what features you want to see next.
]]>Oh, I also fixed the FAQ on Safari, so if you Mac users have been dying to read the FAQ all these years, now you can. Of course, you probably figured out the answer to your question by now.
]]>We'll get Feeds back to 100% in the next week or so. Please be patient with us!
]]>