Flex 3: Extending and Styling Components June 13, 2010

Description

In the 2-day Flex 3: Extending and Styling Components course, students will use their object-oriented skills to create custom classes that programmatically draw skins and extend the functionality of built-in Flex classes. Experienced Flex developers will have an opportunity to explore hands-on, practical code examples for creating drag-and-drop user interfaces that also incorporate user-triggered transitions and smart components that resize based on available space. Other learning objectives include creating popups, embedding fonts, implementing custom application look-and-feel and positioning stage- and mouse-aware elements.

Audience

To gain the most from this class, you should:
* Have attended the Flex 3: Developing Rich Client Applications course.
* Have equivalent knowledge of the topics covered in Flex 3: Developing Rich Client Application.

This course targets experienced Adobe Flex developers who:
* Want to use the built-in Flex components as a basis for their own custom component development.
* Want to incorporate interactive, position- and size-aware elements into their applications.
* Need to skin Flex applications to meet corporate marketing demands.

COURSE OUTLINE

Unit 1: Introducing Flex 3: Extending and Styling Components

* Programming the Visual Experience
* Understanding Project Roles
* Introducing Mastery Learning
* Understanding the Course Format
* Reviewing the Course Prerequisites
* Reviewing the Course Outline

Unit 2: Embedding Images and Fonts

* Embedding Images at Compile-Time22
* Layering Content Using Absolute Layout27
* Creating a Reusable Embedded Image29
* Creating Instances of an Embedded Image Class30
* Understanding Device Font Limitations32
* Embedding Fonts with Absolute File Paths35
* Embedding Fonts using Adobe Flash39

Unit 3: Modifying the Look and Feel of Flex Components

* Exploring Filters
* Applying Blends
* Modifying the Look-and-Feel of Flex Components using MXML Styles
* Modifying Graphical Skins using Flex Skin Design Extensions for CS3
* Installing the Flex Skin Design Extensions for Flash
* Selecting which component to modify in Flash
* Importing the Flex skins

Unit 4: Creating Popups

* Creating a Popup Window
* Passing Data to the Popup Window

Unit 5: Extending Flex Components

* Exploring Display Object Basics
* Extending Flex Components
* Implementing the createChildren() Method
* Implementing the updateDisplayList() Method
* Improving Custom Component Reusability with Stylesheets

Unit 6: Drawing Shapes and Skinning Programmatically

* Understanding the Relationship Between Display List Objects and the Graphics Class
* Calling the clear() Method
* Drawing Lines
* Creating a Visual Element as an ActionScript Class
* Creating Shapes
* Defining Fill Methods
* Implementing a ButtonSkin from the mx.skins.halo Package
* Implementing a Programmatic Skin

Unit 7: Animating Components and View States

* Creating Behaviors in ActionScript
* Reviewing View States and Transitions
* Using the CurrentStateChange Event

Unit 8: Creating Mouse-Aware Applications

* Detecting the Mouse Position
* Detecting the Stage Dimensions

Unit 9: Implementing Drag and Drop Functionality

* Understanding the DragManager
* Specifying the Data to Display in a List Control
* Enabling Dragging on Non-List-Based Controls
* Controlling Dropping with Formats
* Handling Data in Drag and Drop Operations

Official Website: http://www.fmctraining.com/fmc.asp?l=Washington+DC&p2=Upcoming+Classes