We have the privilege to be working with Prudential Idaho Realty formerly Boise River Properties. This is an exciting site that will continue to evolve as the company grows and increases it’s web presence. We are excited to release a Flex based MLS browser for the site soon.
Visit Prudential Idaho Realty
http://prudentialidahorealty.com
The Gene Harris Jazz Festival has been a great project for us and Megan did a wonderful job with the design. We currently have a player to allow visitors to listen to selected music from Festival Artists.
Visit the official Gene Harris Jazz Festival site
http://www.geneharris.org
Some of you reading may be familiar with the fact that Adobe has decided to contribute AMF support to Zend Framework for deeper Flex and AIR integration. You might even be familiar with the fact that Adobe has decided to go on tour with rock stars like Kevin Hoyt to PHP groups spreading the good news while providing some ZF+AMF training. Riafox made the decision months back to use ZF for our back-end php code so as you can imagine we were pleasantly surprised by both announcements.
Speaking of pleasantly surprised, something funny happened to me today. I came into work all ready to grab the latest Zend_Amf from incubator and play with it to put together a post on how to integrate Zend Framework and Flex. To my surprise it wasn’t there. I knew it should be there, I had stopped to visit countless times before. It didn’t even leave a note, or a forwarding address. ”Could it be?” I asked myself as I began browsing trunk. Lo and behold there it was in all of its “I’m-going-to-be-in-the-next-release” glory.
Zend_Amf will be released in version 1.7 which is in the “sanity” (semi-nearing the release candidate) stage.
If you are curious, I compiled a snapshot of the Zend_Amf portion of the manual and stuck it here.
To celebrate, starting Tuesday 10/13 we are going to feature a 7 part series on building a complete rich Internet application a la Zend Framework and Flex using the new Zend_Amf component.
We hope to see you for that, but in the meantime here are some handy links:
Zend Framework Trunk w/ Zend_AMF
Cheers!
We were pleased to be able to work with TSheets on an Adobe AIR version of their application to bring TSheets to the desktop. utilizing TSheets API the application allows users to view and manage their projects from a convenient desktop app which will also allow time tracking offline and will seamlessly synchronize when an internet connection is restored.
Now TSheet users will be able to use their account without having to have a browser window open on their computer. Minimized the application resides in the system tray or as a Dock Icon making it extremely easy to use and unobtrusive to other active applications.
For Kastera Homes, RIA Fox created a website package which contains several different tools. Not only is the site visually appealing, but the rich Internet application environment includes four widgets which are specifically designed to assist Kastera in marketing, sales, and customer service.
Using the Interactive Plat Maps, Kastera can quickly and easily update their community plat maps with new home listings and details. Visitors to the site can easily determine not only the availability of each lot, but can view details relating to price, size, and house design. The Room Designer is also a tool geared toward customers, enabling them to modify room features such as countertops, paint, and flooring in a photo-realistic environment. By participating in dynamic color and pattern manipulation, home buyers can customize their home designs without traveling to other locations.
For internal company use by Kastera, RIA Fox manufactured a PDF Flyer generation tool, which can create promotional flyers tailored to a specific listing and sales representative. This cuts down significantly on design and printing costs from other marketing firms, allowing for direct in-house management. The final widget utlized by Kastera, Agent Identity, is a custom web application which allows agents to override MLS information and edit the contact data for web site display and physical media presentations. This eliminates the confusion which often arises from home buyers receiving contact information for multiple agents.
All together, the strategies implemented for Kastera Homes are a good example of the ways a business can connect with their market through RIA development.
“We’ve been really impressed at Saltzer Medical Group with the level of service and commitment to our new website, www.saltzermed.com, shown by RIA Fox. They have been with us through the design and implementation and have always been accessible, efficient and friendly. We feel like they care about the vision of Saltzer and are seeking to provide a website that compliments that vision. One of the chief things we required was a high level of direct content management. RIA Fox helped by creating a custom web-based content management system, and then implemented some of the best no-cost web resources to further enhance our end-user experience (WordPress and Yahoo Maps integration being the two most obvious).
They have also been great about follow up, sending us analysis of the site’s performance and always requesting critique to further enhance their service to us. We would highly recommend RIA Fox if you are looking for a local, dedicated and professional company to create and host your next company website.”
– Jonathan Griffiths
About iHawk Learning Systems
iHawk Learning Systems and RIA Fox, INC, worked together to create a revolutionary Learning Management System (LMS) to facilitate the Continuing Education (CE) of Real Estate agents, Mortgage Originators and Contractors, as well as to help educate the consumer. The owners of iHawk Learning Systems researched the available options for CE courses on the internet, and prepared a plan for an improved system. When they approached RIA Fox, INC, it sounded like the perfect candidate for a Rich Internet Application.
Rich Internet Applications
Rich Internet Applications (RIA) are web based or desktop based applications that allow for a more user-friendly and interactive experience than traditional websites or applications. In many cases, an RIA will look and function much like a desktop application, often making these applications much more intuitive for the average user.
Another benefit of an RIA is speed and responsiveness. The manner in which the data is passed back and forth between the user (client-side) and the backend (server-side) doesn’t require the page to be refreshed as the user interacts with it. This results in a smoother experience, with less waiting as the data on the page changes.
The iHawk Learning System Experience
Once a user registers on the iHawk site, buys a course, and opens that course, the course window will pop up and the timer will start. When the user is finished with the first page, they click on the arrow and move to the next. There is a test at the end of each section, and if the user is wrong about an answer, they get another chance to answer correctly until they get the right answer. They can then move to the next section. The user can go back to any page they have previously viewed.
If the user is away from the computer for 5 minutes, the countdown stops and a message pops up to inform the user that they need to be at the computer to continue. If the user needs to close the course, they can use the Save and Exit button and their time used as well as their position in the course will be saved for when they return.
After the user views all the pages in the course, answers all the questions on each test correctly, and their time has run out, they are finished with that course. Upon completion, the user fills out a short survey, and then can print out their certificate for the course, stating they have fulfilled their credit requirements.
Check out this project by going to the iHawk Learning Systems site.
The Future of the Learning Management System
iHawk Learning Systems hopes to expand their course offerings to as many states as possible, for all four categories of Continuing Education. They will continue to provide quality courses, as well as useful information for consumers.
RIA Fox, INC is planning on looking for other companies in different industries that can use this versatile course and testing system.
By: bmw
The Adobe Developers of Idaho and the Boise Adobe Users and Graphic Design Group have come together to start a new program called <dev>. <dev> offers non-profit companies an opportunity to work with a team comprised of user group members to develop a Rich Internet Application (RIA) for their organization.
As the head of the Adobe Developers of Idaho, RIA Fox, Inc. is excited to be sponsoring <dev>. Rich Internet Applications are our passion, and we believe this is a valuable opportunity to increase involvement in user groups while providing a free service to non-profit organizations.
User groups are an excellent way to meet and collaborate with other skilled developers who share an excitement for Adobe Flex and RIA Technology. Application development is moving towards a more team-based environment. We believe that participating developers and designers will gain valuable experience by sharing innovative ideas in collaboration with other skilled individuals.
For more information visit the Adobe Developers of Idaho website athttp://adidaho.org/devRIA.php.
By: Jonathan Marecki
When I first started writing Flex applications, I needed to get the useHandCursor property to work. Many will find that settinguseHandCursor=true doesn’t really do anything. After doing a little research, I found a couple different ways for doing getting the hand cursor to work.
The first way is creating a custom hand yourself and use the CursorManager class to set a new cursor icon. Use the mouseOver and mouseOut Events to set and remove the new cursor using these two methods.
import mx.managers.CursorManager;
[Embed(source="/images/pointer.png")]
private var handCursorSymbol:Class;
private var _numCursorID:Number;
public function createPointer(event:Event):void{
_numCursorID = CursorManager.setCursor(handCursorSymbol);
}
public function destroyPointer(event:Event):void{
CursorManager.removeAllCursors();
}
After adding my new cursor to the screen, the positioning of the pointer is off a little. When I moused over the component, I found that when the cursor changed over to my new pointer that the pointer wasn’t even on the component. There is an offset attribute you can use to position your new cursor.
_numCursorID = CursorManager.setCursor(handCursorSymbol, 2.0,-8);
For more information on the CursorManager Class go to flex language reference.
If you don’t want to have to create your own hand icon, the second way to get a hand cursor working is to use a mouseOver Event.
mouseOver="event.target.onRelease=null;event.target.useHandCursor=true;"
I found this example over at Prismix Blog. Check it out to learn more about how it works.
The third and the easiest way to use change the cursor to the hand cursor, is just change a couple of properties.
useHandCursor="true"
buttonMode="true"
If the component has children also set mouseChildren="false"
Here are a couple of different ways you can turn on useHandCursor and how to create a custom cursor.
http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/201/langref/flash/display/Sprite.html#useHandCursor
Hopefully this will save you some time.
