Adobe Certified Experts (ACEs) set themselves apart from other IT professionals. They consistently demonstrate expertise with Adobe products and platforms, and add value to colleagues, managers, and their own careers.

The Flex 4 ACE Exam is based upon the most critical job activities that a Flex developer performs. The skills and knowledge certified by this examination represent a professional level of expertise for a certified individual.

More about Flex 4 ACE Exam on adobe.com you can read at: www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/flex_certification.html
This is a good point to start if you have decided to take the exam.

Exam Structure

The following lists the topic areas and percentage of questions delivered in each topic area:

Number of Questions and Passing Score
• 59 questions
• 67% minimum required to pass

Topic Areas and Objectives

Following is a detailed outline of the information covered on the exam.
1. Creating a User Interface (UI)
• Identify and describe the basic UI controls used in a Flex application. (UI controls include: NumericStepper, TextInput, CheckBox, RadioButton).
• Identify the purpose of UI containers and when to use them. (UI containers include: Group, SkinnableContainer, Application)
• Change the look and feel of a design by using API styles, style sheets, Spark skins, filters and blends, and visual customizations by using Halo.
• Dynamically change the look of an application by using Spark view states, transitions and effects.
• Position UI elements by using constraint-based layout.
• Implement application navigation by using navigator containers.
• Customize list-based controls. (Customizing includes: using editors, renderers, label functions)
• Given a layout type, explain the differences and when to use that layout type. (Layout types include: percentage based, constraints based, and custom)
• Create a custom layout. (Including understanding the differences between container and layout)
2. Flex system architecture and design
• Create and use custom components by using MXML and ActionScript.
• Transfer data within an MXML component by using data bindings. (Including two way binding)
• Create, handle, and dispatch events, including developer created event classes that extend
the Event class.
• Identify and describe the implementation and purpose of common software design patterns
that are used in Flex. (Design patterns include: Observer, Command, and Data transfer)
• Understand the skinning architecture and the role of the SkinnableContainer class.
• Given a method in the component lifecycle explain the purpose of and when to use that
method. (Methods include: CreateChildren, UpdateDisplayList)
• Explain how modules are used in the development of a Flex application.
• Explain the use case and development workflow for building a custom preloader.
3. Programming Flex applications with ActionScript
• Define and extend an ActionScript class.
• Implement an ActionScript interface.
• Use access modifiers with classes and class members.
• Implement data transfer objects.
• Implement accessor methods in ActionScript. (Methods include: explicit and implicit getter
and setter)
• Use an ArrayCollection to sort, filter, and provide data.
• Implement data validation.
• Manipulate XML data by using E4X.
• Implement events that function properly in the Flex event framework. (Including:
extends the Event class, call super(), override clone())
4. Interacting with data sources and servers
• Implement real-time messaging by using producers and consumers.
• Explain the importance of and implement data paging on data sets.
• Understand synchronization and online/offline use cases using data management.
• Interact with remote data and services by using Remote Procedure Call (RPC) services.
(Services include: HTTPService, WebService, RemoteObject, URLRequest)
• Read, write, and upload local files from the local file system by using Flash Player 10 API.
(Including: the use of file filters)
5. Using Flex in the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR)
• Given a scenario, compile and export a release build of an AIR application. (Scenarios
include: Using Flex Builder, from the command line)
• Create, populate, and delete files and directories on a local file system.
• Create and customize native windows and menus.
• Adding drag-and-drop functionality to and from the desktop.
• Install, uninstall, and update an AIR application.
• List and describe the AIR security contexts.
• Create, connect to, and define a local database.
• Add, update, and remove records from local database.

More information and some practical exam questions you can find in: Flex 4 ACE Exam Preparation Guide.

In order to practice and see what is you level of knowledge you can use: Attest (Attest is an Adobe AIR application that allows you to take mock exams, view results and helpful tips, and refer to the Flex 4 livedocs website in real time).

To register for the exam you have to contact Pearson VUE or Thomson Prometric. The exams are taken on line. I personally take my Flex 3 ACE Exam on Pearson VUE .

Pricing
The price in North America for the Flex 4 ACE Exam is $150 (U.S.), payable via a valid credit card at the time you register for the exam. Pricing outside North America varies by country. Individuals who are Flex 3 certified may use the UPGRD discount code when registering for the Flex 4 exam to receive a 50% exam discount. When you register online for the exam, you will have the opportunity to use the discount code.

Good luck!

Lee Brimelow, Platform Evangelist at Adobe released the 3rd issue of Flasher Magazine and you can watch it on his blog.

Just want to let you know a great quote by Ralph Huawert before letting you see the movie:

Flash is still all about the people who build the content

Enjoy it!

Together with the release of Adobe AIR 2.0 beta 2 Adobe has released Flex SDK 3.5a. The big fix is this bug (SDK-24766) – ApplicationUpdaterUI not working on Flex SDK 3.5.

From the announcement on the Official Flex Team Blog we read….

The refreshed build, SDK 3.5a, has only a few files modified in order to fix this issue and this change does not affect the signing and caching of the SDK 3.5 RSLs originally released in December.

We encourage all developers using SDK 3.5 to upgrade their build to SDK 3.5a to continue their development.

The 3.5a Flex SDK can be downloaded from http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Download+Flex+3.

I was recently presented a component that I find interesting and useful at the same time, this is Flex/Flash Pivot Table and Charts component.

The Flexmonster team made a nice multidimensional data visualization, reporting and analysis tool for any BI solution. A few of most important features are:

• Display large amounts of information the friendly way
• Pivot DataGrid & Charts let you drill up/down your data
• Integrate with your existing BI tools for effective data analysis
• XMLA and MDX support for multidimensional data visualization
• Subtotal and aggregate complex numeric data
• Filter, sort and group data to find meaning that can power your toughest decisions
• Alternative to popular open source tools – JPivot, olap4j
• The one Pivot tool a CEO can use – yet so robust it can please the CEO
• Compatible with Microsoft OLAP and Mondrian

Online demo it’s available at http://www.flexmonster.com/…/grid_chart_config.html. Also for this component has a very good documentation (I like this ).

As you may already know, recently, Twitter has added lists. Now you can make a list of friends/people you know and follow. Looking through some lists I found the following very useful lists of people:

http://twitter.com/ddura/adobeevangelists
http://twitter.com/rlux/adobe-community
http://twitter.com/rlux/adobe-staff
http://twitter.com/lkilpatrick/adobe-ug-people/members
http://twitter.com/mrmass/flashers

The Flexer list of authors is here: http://twitter.com/fx_r/authors

If you know other interesting lists regarding Flex, Flash, Adobe, etc. please add them to the comments bellow and I’ll add them to the article the lists that worth. Thank you.

As they announced in some previous articles and news FFDMag is now 100% digital and FREE (this is most important part). Go to FFDMag and get you issue now!

Although, now, FFDMag is 100% digital, the coverage will not change but it will improve. The current issue has over 100 pages and the content covers all levels of difficulty and many areas of expertise.

Quoting from the editor’s note…

You should definitely take a look at our FMS section, where Maxym Golovanchuk demonstrates how to work with MySQL database from FMS Server-Side ActionScript. On page 32, Lee McColl Sylvester presents the Adobe Flash Media Server, which you can compare with Wowza Media Server described by Jake Hilton; Gears and Cogs on page 36. If you haven’t chosen a FMS yet this section may very well inspire you to do so.

We even have an interview with Charlie Good – co-founder of Wowza Media Systems – to help you understand the importance of Flash Media Server software for businesses. In the Influxis interview on page 96, you can see who are the people behind the scenes and what is their vision for the future.

Of course, it wouldn’t be much of a developer’s magazine if there weren’t any code in it. The ActionScript section is full of the greatest articles available; Simon Free who demonstrates the steps of interacting with Coldfusion 9 Beta, Danny Kopping shows how to interact with PHP efficiently from Flex, Matthew Keefe demonstrates how to lowad XML feed into Flash, Andrei
Ionescu shows how to make use of AMFPHP and Bill Sanders shows you ‘How to Make your own TV station’… just to name a few of the programming articles in store for you.

To balance things off, we take a look at some tools, great reviews, case studies and bonuses.

This sounds amazing. Go further and get your own free issue.

Mihai Corlan, Platform Evangelist at Adobe, finalized a “book like” article for PHP developers. I mentioned the “book like” words because the article is long, very long.

The purpose of Mihai’s article is…

I want to share with you some of the things that are specific to Flex in relation to PHP. At the same time I want to introduce Flex by comparing it with PHP whenever this comparison makes sense.

This is what it contains…

1. What is Flex?
   1. Flex: two languages, one framework to bind them
   2. Why you should care about Flex
   3. From thin client to smart/rich client
2. Introduction to the MXML language
   1. Mixing MXML with ActionScript 3
   2. CSS styles
   3. Modifying MXML code at runtime
3. Introduction to the ActionScript 3 language
   1. Separating statements
   2. Data types, variables, constants
   3. Functions and Anonymous functions (closures)
   4. OOP: classes and interfaces
   5. Variable scope
   6. Arrays
   7. Namespaces
   8. Working with XML
   9. Dynamic ActionScript
4. Flex is asynchronous
5. Data binding, metadata tags, and reflection
6. Where are my data, bring it on!
7. User authentication in Flex and PHP projects
8. Working on Flex and PHP projects
   1. Flex SDK
   2. Flex Builder / Flash Builder
   3. Debugging Flex applications
9. What is Adobe AIR?
10. What’s next?
11. Where to go from here

We wish you good reading and patience.

Yesterday, Matt Chotin was writing on the Flex Team blog (see here) that flex developers are needed to take part in research studies.

Adobe is interested how the professionals are using their tools, and especially about the work flow of flex developers. So you need to be a flex developer to qualify for this research study.

Please read the article and take the survey if you are a flex developer.

This is a good thing for us, developers. We will have the possibility to access this good resource free and easy. To quote their press release:

Since September 2009 FFD Magazine becomes online magazine. What is important – it will be also FREE of ANY charges. The only thing you need to do is to sign up to our Newsletter
http://www.ffdmag.com/prt/view/subscribe-to-newslet.html.

If you’re not sure if you like the idea – try out the magazine – 4 back issues to download: http://www.ffdmag.com/prt/view/back-issues.html. Check this out! Let’s build the biggest Flash and Flex Developer’s Community!

This is really good news… Hope to see more of this!

Let’s say you created a new component and you want to add some properties that need to be bindable. Something like this:

<flexer:myComp width="400" height="200" myNewSetter="{_myData}" />
<mx:Script>
    [Bindable]
    private var _myData:String= "";
</mx:Script>

And when we do this

_myData = "new_val_1";

the myComp component should know that _myData has changed and should modify itself according to the new value.

This is quite simple. Do the following:

1. On the getter, just above it, use the bindable meta tag like this
    

   [Bindable(event="mySpecialEvent")]

2. On the setter, at the end but in the setter’s body (just before closing the setter), dispatch the event used at point 1 like this
    

   dispatchEvent(new Event("mySpecialEvent"));

Let me show you the following example…

The second text area field is not a TextArea compoment but a new created component that is extending the regular TextArea. I called it AlteredTextArea because the new property it has will alter its content. This is our component that implements a new property called alteration that is bindable.

The combo box will say to the AlteredTextArea component in which way to alter the content: lowercase or uppercase.

Now the code. It is short, commented and has 2 files: the main application and the AlteredTextArea component.

This is our component AlteredTextArea…

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:TextArea xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml">
    <mx:Script>
        <![CDATA[
            // private variable saving the current alteration
            private var _alteration:String = "";
 
            // Getter
            // Allow other components to bind to this property
            [Bindable(event="changeAlteration")]
            public function get alteration():String
            {
                return _alteration;
            }
 
            // Setter
            public function set alteration(s:String):void
            {
                _alteration = s;
 
                // We dispatch an event when the value changes
                dispatchEvent(new Event("changeAlteration"));
             }
 
             // overiding the text setter
             override public function set text(value:String):void
             {
                 // adding alteration to the text
                 var newValue:String = "";
                 switch (_alteration) 
                 {
                     // applying lowercase
                     case "toLowerCase":
                         newValue = value.toLowerCase();
                         break;
                     // applying uppercase
                     case "toUpperCase":
                         newValue = value.toUpperCase();
                         break;
                     // no alteration
                     default:
                         newValue = value;
                         break;
                 }
                 // calling the super
                 super.text = newValue;
             }
        ]]>
    </mx:Script>
</mx:TextArea>

Now the main application…

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" 
    layout="absolute" xmlns:flexer="com.flexer.*" 
    height="299" width="459">
    <mx:ComboBox id="alterationCombo" x="118" y="138" width="158"
        dataProvider="{_alterations}" 
        change="handleAlterationChanges(event)"/>
    <mx:Label x="10" y="140" text="Alteration:" width="100"/>
    <mx:Label x="10" y="11" text="Input text:" width="100"/>
    <mx:Label x="10" y="169" text="Output:" width="100"/>
    <mx:TextArea id="inputText" x="118" y="10" 
        width="330" height="120" 
        text="{_testText}"/>
    <flexer:AlteredTextArea x="118" y="168"
        id="alteredText" 
        width="330" height="120" 
        text="{inputText.text}" 
        alteration="{_currentAlteration}"
        editable="false"/>
 
    <mx:Script>
        <![CDATA[
            // alteration available
            [Bindable]
            private var _alterations:Object = [
                {label:"Default",value:""},
                {label:"Lowercase",value:"toLowerCase"},
                {label:"Uppercase",value:"toUpperCase"}
            ];
 
            // the test to start with
            [Bindable]
            private var _testText:String = "Test TEST test";
 
            // the current alteration
            [Bindable]
            private var _currentAlteration:String = "";
 
            // handler for changes
            private function handleAlterationChanges(e:Event):void 
            {
                // setting current alteration
                _currentAlteration = e.target.selectedItem.value;
                // setting the text again
                alteredText.text = inputText.text;
            }
        ]]>
    </mx:Script>
 
</mx:Application>

I think you already noticed the get alteration and set alteration methods and understood how is done.

If you want to know more take a look inside the TextArea component which has lots of getters and setters using this tehnique.

It seems that it can even be used like this

[Bindable("changeAlteration")]

without saying “event=“. But to be make the code more readable I use the first case.

Also on DevNet found the following resources:

• http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/quickstart/building_components_in_mxml/ (go to the end and see the last example)
• http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/quickstart/building_components_in_mxml/src/MxmlComponentAdvanced/index.html

Happy coding!