January 27, 2009. FlexPDX User Group Meeting at CubeSpace

[Hari Kolasani]

When: 5:30pm to 7:30 pm January 27, 2009

Where: CubeSpace, 622 SE Grand Avenue, Portland, OR. (Link to Google Map)

Pizza and Soft drinks provided by Integranium.

Reggie Wilbanks will present on modules/rsls and ANT.

PS: Don't forget to bring your laptops .. we'll try to make it an interactive learning session.

[Justus]

Note: if you're a student / teacher / have a student / know a student with a valid ID, you can get Flex Builder free.... It's free, why not?

https://freeriatools.adobe.com/flex/

[Reggie Wilbanks]

Actually, if working with eclipse and the flex builder 3 plugin, everything should be in the box. To test this out, I just installed Eclipse Ganymede and the FB3 plugin on a clean Windows install and everything we need is there. :) Just in case you don't think you've got it all set by the meeting, I'm bringing Windows and Mac installs of Eclipse & the FB3 plugin, as well as the project files we'll be working with. It only takes a few minutes to get everything installed.

Details of what I'll be using:

Eclipse Ganymede & Flex 3.2 Framework (again, I'm bringing installs of both, for windows & mac).

FYI, I haven't worked with FlashDevelop, and I use to use "Flex Builder"; but I've since moved to straight Eclipse with the Flex builder plugin, as it gives a whole lot more flexibility with cross language development. I spend half of my time writing java code these days and it's really nice to work in one IDE for both languages. With Flex Builder, that's a little more tricky.

[Matt Garland]

Justus--Reggie might be covering this but you might want to jump ahead and install ANT.

Here's instructions if you have Flex Builder: http://flashorbit.com/?p=155. Here's another set of instructions: http://blog.jodybrewster.net/2008/04/09/installing-ant-in-flex-builder-3/

The same directions will work with FB, Eclipse or any Eclipse-based IDE (like Aptana), I believe. It's pretty quick and painless.

If you don't have Flex Builder OR Eclipse (FlashDevelop is your tool, for instance), it's trickier and I would definitely do it before the meeting. You have to get on the command line a bit:

http://www.asceticmonk.com/blog/?p=388 (OS X I used these directions a while back and they worked.) http://omrudi.wordpress.com/2008/11/08/how-to-install-ant-in-windows-xp/ (Windows--just random googling).

Basically, if I remember right, you need to 1) make sure you have the Java runtime, 2) make sure THAT is on your path 3) get ant (a little Java program) and unzip it 4) make sure ANT is on your path. If you don't know (of course you probably do!) what "on the path" is, it just means going to a file (OS X) or tab (WIndows) and configuring it so that your OS knows where to look for the app when you type a command like this: APP method "params."

I'm not sure what Reggie is covering, but I imagine he is covering Flex Ant. I think that is FB-specific. So actually, I don't know if it's useful to install ANT if you are not on FB unless you are digging into it for your own purposes.

[Justus]

Will there be specific software that we should all have ready? Maybe easier to take care of now rather than at the meeting?

[Reggie Wilbanks]

Hi folks! I'm really looking forward to our hands on discussion of RSL's, Modules, and ANT. It's gonna be a full (and hopefully fun) night of really cool stuff. To get us headed in the right direction, check out my blog post: FlexPDX UG Meeting: Module Madness Challenge #1