Adobe Flash Builder 4: Introduction

Course Description:

This Adobe authorised course provides application developers with hands-on, practical experience using Flash Builder 4 with Flex 4 and Actionscript 3.

This is a three day course which introduces developers to all the primary features of Flash Builder development necessary in order to build functional, well architected Rich Internet Applications (RIA).

This course includes the following modules:

Introduction

• Introducing Adobe Flash Builder 4
• Flex and MXML

Getting Started

• Eclipse and Flash Builder 4
• Creating the Hello World application

Flash Builder Fundamentals

• The Flash Builder 4 interface
• Understanding The Workspace
• Project Types
• Creating a simple Flex application
• Laying out a Flex application with containers
• Adding user interface controls
• Creating bindings between components
• Architecting an application with MXML components

Handling Events

• Understanding Events
• Creating Event handlers using inline ActionScript Handling Events with ActionScript functions
• Placing ActionScript functions in external files
• Understanding the Event object

Using Simple Controls

• Using Buttons and checkboxes
• Working with text
• Adding simple controls to an application

Laying out an Application with Containers

• How containers work
• Application, Panel, Form, Grid, Box and Tile
• Container best practices
• Component layout and sizing rules

Using a Constraint-based Layout

• Understanding absolute positioning
• Positioning components within the Canvas container
• Positioning components inside a Canvas
• Creating a constraint-based layout using Flex Builder 3
• Creating a constraint-based layout in MXML
• Using constraint-based layouts with nested components

Using View States for Application Design

• Understanding view states
• Creating states
• Controlling view states
• Reviewing the generated MXML code
• View states that include custom components states

Creating Application Navigation

• Understanding navigator containers
• LinkBar, TabBar and ViewStack
• TabNavigator container
• Accordion container
• ButtonBar & ToggleButtonBar
• Navigating the course application using the ViewStack and TabBar container
• Integration with Flash Catalyst

Customizing the Application

• Using CSS
• Skinning Spark components
• Customizing Flex application look and feel
• Using the Styles API to change look-and-feel
• Using theme styles
• Changing the look and feel
• Applying behaviours to components
• Applying transitions to view states

MXML and ActionScript Data Models

• Using the MVC design pattern
• Creating an MXML data model
• Using ActionScript classes as a data model
• Instantiating an Object from an ActionScript class
• Creating an ActionScript constructor with parameters
• Defining class methods

Exchanging Data Between Components Using Custom Events

• Understanding bindings
• Using a binding to get data from a component
• Creating custom events
• Creating, dispatching and handling a custom event
• Sending data with a custom event

Looping Through Data Using a Repeater

• Understanding the Repeater component
• Using dataProvider data in repeated controls
• Using Repeater data in ActionScript
• Referencing repeated components

Displaying Dynamic Data

• Using the DataGrid control
• Displaying simple XML Data in a DataGrid
• Specifying DataGrid columns
• Using item renderers
• Using the TileList and HorizontalList
• Using events with list-based components
• Application server integration