Well it thought it was about time I did some posting about my personal project im working on at the moment as I havent spoken about my coding for a while.



For a while now (alot longer than I had hoped for) I have been working on a project that falls outside the realms of my usual kind of games-related projects. Im not ready do describe exactly what it is yet but im excited about it.

For months I have been struggling with the techinal challenges the project has entailed and I have dabbled with many new and highly diverse technologies including [JavaFX](https://www.mikecann.blog/programming/flirting-with-javafx/) (Java), Qt (C++) and Mono (C#).  I have been looking for a cross-platform technology that will get the job done that I need and doing it in an elegant manner.

I thought I had found it with a combination of JavaFX and straight Java using the PureMVC framework. I however was plagued with problems throughout with Bonjour, jGroups, JmDNS, JNI and JNA.

So after months of work, hardship and struggles I read a very interesting article on the up-and-coming Adobe AIR 2.0  that was opened for beta in December. With 2.0 Adobe are bringing NativeProcess  to Air. What this means is that you can you can execute native code (.dlls, .so, .jar etc) from Air. To me this was bloody brilliant as I had been[ playing with Air reccently](https://www.mikecann.blog/programming/audiobook-organiser-v1-3-0-dragndrop/) and my [day-job](https://www.mikecann.blog/photos-personal/playdemic-my-fist-day/) heavily involves Flex and I simply love the power and beauty of Flex.

So what this meant to me was that I could write the bulk of my project including its interface in my much preferred Adobe Flex (Air) and then use Native Process to communicate with a small kernel of Java that would do all the dirty work that Air itself cant do.

So after a little playing with [Flerry](https://www.riaspace.net/2010/01/flerry-flex-java-bridge-for-adobe-air-2-0/) for Air->Java bridge I started to think about the structure of the code and the framework I would use. For my initial few runs at this project I had been using the Java version of PureMVC. I really like some aspects of PureMVC but I think its can be so overly cumbersome in some circumstances (ill write another post on this in the future I think). So instead I looked at the alternatives.

I have been using [Mate](https://mate.asfusion.com/) alot recently at work and on my own mini-project the [Audio Book Organiser](https://www.mikecann.blog/programming/audio-book-organiser-air-mate-flex-4/). However as this project is partly for my own learning and personal growth I decided to look at what else there was out there. From the videos by [Jessie Warden](https://www.mikecann.blog/fun-videos/jessie-warden-flash-flex-videos/) I had heard about [Robot Legs](https://www.robotlegs.org). Apparently this framework has been around for a while, but it was the first I had heard of it. Taking at look at it I immediately became very excited as it looks like it offers all the things that make PureMVC great but without the extra coding-baggage that goes with it.

To add to my interest it appears another very interesting, very new action-script technology has been introduced into Robot Legs called [Signals ](https://github.com/robertpenner/as3-signals)by Robert Penner. Signals is an alternative to the standard events dispatching method found throughout flash (more on this in another post).

So why have I called this post "the bleeding edge?". Well Adobe Air 2.0 is still in beta and has only been for a month or so. Its so new that some parts still havent been documented atall and the only way to find out how they work is to post a msg to the devs on the forums. Signals is also new and its integration into Robot Legs is very new indeed (last coupple of weeks). So at the moment I feel as if im at the forefront of some very new, very exciting technology, a stark contrast to my fiddlings with the ancient Java.

I realise this post is very text and tech-heavy but I needed to post about it before I forgot all the pain I have gone through with this project to get where I am at the moment. Future posts ill be delving a little deeper into some of my experiments with these new technologies ;)

[![ScreenHunter_01 Jan. 09 18.34](/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/ScreenHunter_01-Jan.-09-18.34.jpg "ScreenHunter_01 Jan. 09 18.34")](/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/ScreenHunter_01-Jan.-09-18.34.jpg)

Just did a quick update to the audio book organiser. Added the ability to move the storage database file. This was so that I can put my storage file on Dropbox and it will then be backedup and synced between machines.



New version and sources:

[airbadge]Audio Book Orgainser,https://www.mikecann.blog/flash/AudioBookOrganiser/AudioBookOrganiser.air,1,https://www.mikecann.blog/flash/AudioBookOrganiser/badgeImg.jpg[/airbadge]

Source: [https://www.mikecann.blog/flash/AudioBookOrganiser/AudioBookOrganiser_v120_source.zip](https://www.mikecann.blog/flash/AudioBookOrganiser/AudioBookOrganiser_v120_source.zip)

Well its been a fun Christmas, I have eaten and drunk to the point that im going to be running it off in the gym till next christmas.

Although there has been merryment abound, the keyboard couldn't keep me away. Its probably okay to say this now as im not under any secrecy act; I have decided to leave Massively Multimedia in Manchester to join a new startup called Ideas Pad in Wilmslow (just south of Manchester).



I cant say too much about exactly what I will be working on just yet but I can say that it will involve my experience in the Flash world. Specifically, I will be working in Adobe Flex again on some fairly sizeable projects. For this reason I wanted to brush up on my Flex as there has been a new release of the IDE (now named Flash Builder) and the SDK.

In addition I wanted to look at the various frameworks in use for Flex these days. I have used the usual Cairngorm, PureMVC before however I stumbled accross a new one called Mate (pronounced mah-tay, like the drink). Mate looked very interesting to me so before I jumped two feet in and used it in a commercial project I wanted to give it a spin in a simple project first.

Finally we get to the point of this post. I have developed a simple Adobe AIR application that allows you to organise audio books. The basic idea is simple you give the application a selection of 'source' directories where your audiobooks belong then you can tick off whether you have listened to each one, and what rating you would give them.

[![ScreenHunter_02 Dec. 30 12.32](https://www.mikecann.blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/ScreenHunter_02-Dec.-30-12.32-300x262.jpg "ScreenHunter_02 Dec. 30 12.32")](/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/ScreenHunter_02-Dec.-30-12.32.jpg)[![ScreenHunter_03 Dec. 30 12.32](https://www.mikecann.blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/ScreenHunter_03-Dec.-30-12.32-300x261.jpg "ScreenHunter_03 Dec. 30 12.32")](/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/ScreenHunter_03-Dec.-30-12.32.jpg)

The data is persisted to a file that is saved to your hard drive, so when you open the application up again next time it remembers which audio books you have listened to and what ratings you gave them.

I havent tested it very much atall so there is a very high likelyhood of being some strange bugs in there. I am also releasing all the source code for this project for all to see, use and study if they so wish.

[https://www.mikecann.blog/flash/AudioBookOrganiser/AudioBookOrganiser.air](https://www.mikecann.blog/flash/AudioBookOrganiser/AudioBookOrganiser.air)

Source: [https://www.mikecann.blog/flash/AudioBookOrganiser/AudioBookOrganiser_v101_source.zip](https://www.mikecann.blog/flash/AudioBookOrganiser/AudioBookOrganiser_v101_source.zip)