We have just launched a site for Land Rover in the US, it is designed to be a rich user experience for finding a certified pre-owned Land Rover cars in the USA.

View it at Land Rover Certified Pre-Owned Inventory Search by selecting the Enter Flash Site option.

Non-US users; why not try 90210 for the Zip Code

It is power by Flex and ColdFusion technologies.

This is my take on creating an Enumerator class in Flex.

AS3 does not support Enumerators so a class with static constants is used as per the Java Enumerator class pattern.

This implementation is type safe and final. It also contains static helper functions; values() which returns an array of the Enumerator objects (useful for iterations) and getByValue() which allows for easy retrieval of a typed Enumerator object from its primitive value.

1.  
2. package
3. {
4. import flash.errors.IllegalOperationError;
5. import flash.utils.Dictionary;
6. import flash.utils.describeType;
7.  
8. /**
9. * Example Enumerator Representing different RGB Colors
10. */
11. public final class ColorEnum
12. {
13. /* PUBLIC */
14.  
15. public static var RED:ColorEnum = new ColorEnum('RED', PrivateEnforcer);
16. public static var GREEN:ColorEnum = new ColorEnum('GREEN', PrivateEnforcer);
17. public static var BLUE:ColorEnum = new ColorEnum('BLUE', PrivateEnforcer);
18.  
19.  
20. /**
21. * Constructor
22. */
23. public function ColorEnum(value:String, privateEnforcer:Class)
24. {
25. // Force private call only
26. if (privateEnforcer != PrivateEnforcer)
27. {
28. throw new IllegalOperationError("Invalid constructor access");
29. }
30.  
31. // Add Enum value
32. this._value = value;
33. }
34.  
35.  
36. /**
37. * Get all Enumerator Values
38. */
39. public static function values():Array
40. {
41. /* LOCALS */
42. var values:Array = new Array();
43. var value:ColorEnum = null;
44.  
45. if (ColorEnum._values == null)
46. ColorEnum.buildValues();
47.  
48. for each (value in ColorEnum._values)
49. values.push(value);
50.  
51. return values;
52. }
53.  
54.  
55. /**
56. * Get an Enumerator instance by its primative value
57. */
58. public static function getByValue(value:String):ColorEnum
59. {
60. if (ColorEnum._values == null)
61. ColorEnum.buildValues();
62.  
63. return ColorEnum._values[value] as ColorEnum;
64. }
65.  
66.  
67. /**
68. * override value
69. */
70. public function valueOf():Object
71. {
72. return this._value;
73. }
74.  
75.  
76. /**
77. * override toString
78. */
79. public function toString():String
80. {
81. return this._value;
82. }
83.  
84.  
85.  
86. /* PRIVATE */
87.  
88. private var _value:String = '';
89.  
90. private static var _values:Dictionary = null;
91.  
92.  
93. /**
94. * Build static dictionary of all Enum consts and values
95. */
96. private static function buildValues():void
97. {
98. /* LOCALS */
99. var metaData:XML = describeType(VehicleTypeEnum);
100. var node:XML = null;
101.  
102. // Create values Dictionary
103. ColorEnum._values = new Dictionary();
104.  
105. // Add Each Enum const and value
106. for each (node in metaData.children())
107. {
108. if (node.name() == 'variable' && node.@type == metaData.@name)
109. ColorEnum._values[ColorEnum[node.@name].toString()] = ColorEnum[node.@name];
110. }
111.  
112. }
113. }
114. }
115.  
116. class PrivateEnforcer {}
117. Download this code: ColorEnum.as.txt

For those of you in the US who have had to use UK Postcodes to try out our Used Vehicle Locators, struggle no more! We have just launched a site for Jaguar in the US.

It is designed to be a rich user experience for finding a certified pre-owned Jaguar car in the USA.

View it at Jaguar Certified Pre-Owned Inventory Search by selecting the Enter Flash Site option.

Non-US users; why not try 90210 for the Zip Code

It is power by Flex and ColdFusion technologies.

Our flex based used car locator application continues to shift like hot cakes.

The latest one is for Kia UK and is meant to be a rich user experience for finding an approved user car.

View it at Kia used cars by selecting the Enter Used Vehicle Locator option.

It is power by Flex and ColdFusion technologies.

We launched yet another flex application a few days ago.

It is a user car locator for Land Rover UK and is meant to be a rich user experience for finding an approved user car.

View it at Land Rover used cars by selecting the Rich Experience option.

It is power by Flex and ColdFusion technologies.

We launched another flex application a few days ago.

It is a user car locator for Mazda UK and is meant to be a rich user experience for finding an approved user car.

View it at Mazda used cars by selecting the Rich Experience option.

It is power by Flex and ColdFusion technologies.

We launched the project I have been working on the last few months a few days ago.

It is a user car locator for Jaguar UK and is meant to be a rich user experience for finding an approved user car.

View it at Jaguar used cars by selecting the Rich Experience option.

It is power by Flex and ColdFusion technologies.

Flex's Local Shared Objects provide a convenient way to persist data on the client, in a similar way that cookies are used in web applications. Shared Objects are much more powerful however, allowing the persisting of structured data, with a default client set limit of 100kB of storage.

Typed objects can be added to the store by setting properties of the Shared Object's data property to the value of the typed object (Example). However by default, when the object is read from the store, it will lose its type information and cannot be cast to type either. To make the object retain its class info, you must register the class before persisting. This is done using the registerClassAlias function. This is called with the full class name (package.Class) and the class itself.

Each class and sub-classed of the object must be registed this way, if you want to persist complex objects such as Value Objects and Presentation Objects (used with a presentation model). The easiest way to achieve this is to add the [RemoteClass] meta data to each class definition.

Many True Type Fonts (TTF) are made up of multiple .TTF files. One file will be for the normal font, while another file is for the Bold version of the Font. For example, the Verdana font that comes with Windows XP consists of four separate files.

The following code shows how to include multiple TTF files into a Flex CSS file.

1. @font-face
2. {
3. src:url("font/verdana.TTF");
4. font-family: EmbeddedVerdana;
5. font-weight: normal;
6. font-style: normal;
7. }
8.  
9. @font-face
10. {
11. src:url("font/verdanab.TTF");
12. font-family: EmbeddedVerdana;
13. font-weight: bold;
14. font-style: normal;
15. }
16.  
17. @font-face
18. {
19. src:url("font/verdanai.TTF");
20. font-family: EmbeddedVerdana;
21. font-weight: normal;
22. font-style: italic;
23. }
24.  
25. @font-face
26. {
27. src:url("font/verdanaz.TTF");
28. font-family: EmbeddedVerdana;
29. font-weight: bold;
30. font-style: italic;
31. }
32.  
33. Application
34. {
35. font-family: EmbeddedVerdana;
36. }
37. Download this code: embed-ttf-font.css

The Flex docs tell you that in order to use Fade effects with Text controls, you have to embed a True Type Font to use in the Flex application. The default Fonts available within Flex (Aerial, Verdana etc) will not fade.

This also applies to rotating Flex controls, which is not mentioned in the docs - as far as I can see.