Trials and tribulations of software development…
In case you haven’t heard the news yet, the Apache Flex team just delivered their first release, Apache Flex 4.8.0! Though it’s just a parity release (no new features yet), this is a major milestone for the team and validates the strength of the community and the dedicated Adobe folks coming together and proving they can deliver. This release will also help Apache Flex in it’s journey to... 
There have been a lot of questions about the viability and future of Flex recently, and Adobe has published an official whitepaper today detailing their support for Flex going forward. The paper also contains details regarding Flash runtime support, Flash Builder support and other Apache contributions including the Falcon compiler. I believe the paper is a must read and can be found... 
My fellow teammate Michael Chaize recently had an idea for creating a ‘game’ to showcase Flex and the latest 4.6 release features with Tour de Mobile Flex being the initial inspiration. I’m happy to announce that the Game of Flex is now available on both the Apple iTunes and Android Market for your downloading pleasure !
The Game of Flex consists of 16 questions which if answered... 
A topic that has come up often in my conversations with developers lately is how to easily add mapping components to their their Flex and Flash mobile apps. Now I’m super excited to share this latest AS3/Flash API for mobile from MapQuest for everyone to check out! The new version contains touch-friendly maps and controls and was streamlined for performance on mobile.
To get started, first check out... 
Flex folks, first of all, today there’s a new official statement out on the Adobe website about Adobe’s commitments to the Flash Platform including plans for Flex that you should be aware of. Secondly there’s a new post from the Product Management team out now summarizing the recent Flex Q&A. There’s been a lot of frustration in the community (which I understand and can... 
The next feature I want to highlight in the upcoming Flex 4.6 release is the new DateSpinner control. The DateSpinner allows you to represent and select a date and/or time through a custom-skinned set of SpinnerList controls out of the box in Flex 4.6. Here’s an example:
If you take a look at the DateSpinner.as source code in the SDK, you will see there are a number of SpinnerList controls defined... 
The Flex/Flash Builder 4.6 prerelease includes a new ToggleSwitch control that can be used to indicate a binary value (like a CheckBox). Below is a screenshot showing a sample of two being used. The first switch shows it selected by default using a specified slide duration (for animation in milliseconds), and the second one uses a custom skin class to define different labels:
The important part of the... 
Handling data in Flex for mobile requires a different way of thinking then traditional application programming. For instance, for many applications it’s important to persist (store) data such as if the user receives a call, hits a wrong button or otherwise has their application shut down. The mobile application’s Views also destroyed and recreated often so there are some things you need to be... 
On Tuesday, April 19th, HD Interactive and Greg Wilson (Enterprise Evangelism Group Manager at Adobe) will host the Tampa Flash Flex and AIR Developer’s Group meeting featuring Lee Brimelow, Game Developer and Evangelist from Adobe. Lee and Greg will be showing off some wicked cool stuff, including 3D Molehill, mobile application development and more of the latest Flash and Flex goodies! The meeting... 
Holly Schinsky is a Developer Evangelist at Adobe Systems, Inc.
Disclaimer: This blog contains my personal thoughts and not those of my employer.
