Google Maps API for Flex

As I pointed out before, it’s unfortunately not possible to use Flex components as info windows for Google Maps. Another issue is that the map is not available as a Flex component itself, therefore it’s a bit complicated to use it in Flex. So I thought to address these issues in a little Google Maps API for Flex that you can download here under BSD license. With openFlexInfoWindows I also added a method that allows you to use multiple Flex components as info window at once - nicely seperated in tabs....

September 9, 2008 · 1 min · admin

JSON generator for picture data from Flickr

Probably a few other guys did this before, but I had a boring train journey without any internet connection, so I used the bits from my 3D album example and made a JSON generator for Flickr data. What does that mean? Just enter a search term and the program finds matching pictures on Flickr. If pictures have been found, a click on ‘JSON’ displays a JSON-encoded array with the URLs and labels of the pictures found....

August 28, 2008 · 1 min · admin

Adding custom info windows to Google Maps in Flex

I just tried to create a custom info window for a Google Map using the Google Maps API For Flash. Unfortunately it does not seem to work as expected by setting the customContent property in an object of type InfoWindowOptions. Therefore I wrote this little workaround that creates a popup window: private function createInfoWindow(map:Map, marker:Marker, infoWindow:Class):IFlexDisplayObject { var popup:IFlexDisplayObject = PopUpManager.createPopUp(map, infoWindow); var globalPos:Point = map.localToGlobal(map.fromLatLngToViewport(marker.getLatLng())); popup.move(globalPos.x - popup.width/2, globalPos.y - popup....

August 20, 2008 · 1 min · admin

3D-Album component for Adobe Flex

You know PicLens? If not I highly recommend taking a look at that marvelous picture search tool. Especially interesting is the 3D view of the pictures - you can easily navigate through a whole bunch of pictures by using your mouse. I thought it would be nice to integrate such a picture view in your own Flex application, so I played around a bit with the 3D album tutorial from Bartek Drozdz and after a couple of days finished a nice little component that could be easily embedded in your own applications....

August 18, 2008 · 1 min · admin

Vendor Gems in Rake-Tasks verwenden

Für das Deployment einer Rails-Anwendung ist es eine gute Sache, die für die Anwendung benötigten Gems in das Verzeichnis /vendor/gems zu kopieren. Der Hintergrund ist einfach - so wird sichergestellt, dass der Server dieselbe Version des Gems referenziert wie vom Entwickler vorgesehen. Damit Rails diese zur Laufzeit findet wird in der environment.rb folgender Code eingefügt: config.load_paths += Dir["#{RAILS_ROOT}/vendor/gems/**"].map do |dir| File.directory?(lib = "#{dir}/lib") ? lib : dir end Das Problem dabei ist nun, dass die Vendor-Gems nicht von den Rake-Tasks gefunden werden....

July 22, 2008 · 1 min · admin