Introduction to the Flex 3 Anatomy
Submitted by jonathan on Sat, 04/05/2008 - 14:38
The Flex SDK is a large body of code that Adobe has released under an open source license. Reading the Flex source code is one of the best habits to develop as a Flex developer. The code provides insight into what Adobe engineers were thinking during development and how they expect their components to be used. The code is also intended as a blueprint for implementing your own components.
Of course, not everything is idyllic in the Flex SDK. There are many bad practices and frustrations to be found also. The Anatomy will dissect the Flex SDK and expose its workings. It will examine the design decisions of the authors, the API, inheritance, interfaces, and function of the code.
Major topics will include:
- Class Hierarchy
- Interfaces
- How to choose a parent class for your component
- Performance and memory impact of components
- Skinning
- Styles
- Design Principles
- Design Problems
- States
- Transitions
- Tweening & Animation
- The Display List
- Component Lifecycle
- Event Handling
- Building Components
- Object References and Garbage Collection
- The Coordinate System
- Container and subclasses
- Basic Components
- UIComponent
- Core Subclasses
- Complex Subclasses
- DataGrid
- AdvancedDataGrid