/** Takes a series of UI components, sets all widths to the widest width */
private function setToGreatestWidth(...args):void{
   args.sortOn(['width'], Array.NUMERIC | Array.DESCENDING);
   for(var i:uint = 0; i < args.length; i++) {
        args[i].width = args[0].width;
   }
}

I would typically call it like this in the on creation complete handler for my UI container:

private function onCreationComplete():void{
   setToGreatestWidth(this.button_upload,this.button_cancel);
   setToGreatestWidth(this.label1,this.label2,this.label3,this.label4);
}

By calling it from the creation complete handler you ensure that all localization strings have loaded and layout has already occurred and therefore the controls have all adjusted to their content width.

(I’m not sure there may be  a really cool and efficient way to accomplish this in the new Spark architecture but I’m working on some older 3.4 code so I don’t have access to those components anyway.)

Here is the official Adobe Documentation for (FB3) ASDoc

This is based on a this post by jason madsen and this post by Seb Lee-Delisle

You might think that this is a little redundant with this information out there but I am posting this as it is a slightly different way to reach a workable configuration.   I did not find it necessary to include the SWC files that Seb talks about and that while including every class you want to document in the command line would be problematic, including the base classes in the flex-config.xml file is actually very workable.   I am sure there are issues with this method as well but I wanted to make the information available.

Here are my short little instructions for how I was able to get it to work in Flash Builder 4 specifially how to set it up for a different version of the SDK (in this case 3.4)   It should be possible to set up for each version of the SDK however you must make sure that you use the correct ASDoc.exe file depending on which version of the SDK your project is compiling against….

Setup ASDoc as an external program in Flash Builder

Open the menu :  Run -> External Tools -> External Tools Configuration.

In the External Tools Configuration window, add a new program item.

Location

The location is the location of the executable which will be the asdoc.exe for the SDK you are using on the project.  This is usually located in the bin directory for the given SDK.  If you use different versions of the SDK for different projects, you should set up different shortcuts for each SDK as they are not compatible.  (i.e.  you should use the asdoc that comes with the version of the SDK with which you are compiling the project.)

Arguments

–load-config+=../flex-config.xml  -output ../docs

These arguments will cause the builder to load the remaining settings on a per project basis from the projects flex-config.xml file and output to a directory in the project root called docs.

Modify the flex-config.xml file

You will need to add or modify the doc-classes section in the flex-config.xml file for each of your projects that you wish to use the ASDoc shortcut .    You should add a reference for each class you  wish to have documented.  However, as long as document dependant classes is turned on (default) you can get by with just adding a few classes that live at the root of your project.    These will depend on your project but would typically include your model and controller classes.

It should look something like this…

<doc-classes>
<class>com.company.product.project.model.AppModel</class>    <class>com.company.product.project.control.AppController</class>
</doc-classes>

Run the ASDoc utilitity

You will need to make sure that you have a file from the given project open and are active in the document window.  You should then be able to just select  item from the menu;  Run -> External Tools -> ASDoc

//In ExtJS.... The getAt method on a dataStore returns an object such that record.data exists
var record = myDataStore.getAt(1);   

//If I then pass that to a constructor of another object such as a custom window
var win = new myWindow({
                record:record,
                width:500
              });

// Where myWindow's constructor is defined to take an argument object of config like so...
Window = Ext.extend(BCC.trace.TraceWindow,{
         constructor: function(config){ .... }
         .....
})

I would expect that you would have an object like inside the constructor.

       config.record.data

but instead you get

       config.data

Oddly enough… .if you  call it  like this instead

var rec= myDataStore.getAt(1);   

var win = new myWindow({
                record:rec,
                width:500
              });

You get the correct

       config.record.data

Why does it do this??? I have no idea. Seems sort of strange to me but perhaps it is supposed to work this way.

MyNewForm = Ext.extend(Ext.form.FormPanel,{

constructor:function(config){
…..
MyNewForm.superclass.constructor.call(this,config);
….
},

newMethod:function(){
}
})

I had a strange problem today. I had two almost identical classes. In one I could get a console log statement in the constructor to output. In the other I could not get it to work. The problem was I also didn’t get an error. The problem component would initialize and I could see it in the firebug dom tree.

Took me about 20 minutes to figure out the problem. Turns out I typed ‘construtor’ on the second class. Since Ext automatically calls the parent class constructor (if you do not override) I wasn’t getting an error.

Crazy how little typos can waste a lot of time…. so if you have this same problem, make sure you actually typed what you though you typed.

I wanted to display a different format than the data format of the data. My data comes from the server in the format “Y-m-d H:i:s.u” but I wanted to display as ‘Y-m-d’ or in some cases just ‘M Y’. In my mind this should be a fairly easy thing…. after a lot of looking around on the internet the solution most often presented seemed to be: extend datefield and override the parse and format methods on the datefield.

This to seemed ridiculously complicated for something that should be built in. Finally I came up with a nice simple  solution that was probably the one intended by the Ext team.

The solution is to simply declare the output format as format and the input format as the altFormats so for me
…,
format:’Y-m-d’,
altFormats:’Y-m-d H:i:s.u’,
…

in this way Ext will use the format of ‘Y-m-d’ for display and when parsing it will fail with that format and the try with the first (and only in this case) alt format of ‘Y-m-d H:i:s.u’

I’m not sure why this is not documented in the Ext documentation but seemed the simplest solution to the problem.

No I am not going to criticize Jobs for these choices. I can see the business logic behind every one of them so that is not fair.  He is after all running a business.    I will however include what I think those reasons are in this little rant (and why they are bogus).  So here goes … the top 3 roadblocks to purchasing an iPad

1. Lack of Flash support:
   It really boggles the mind to think that a device designed specifically to be used as a device to browse online would intentionally leave this out.  For me this is the single biggest problem with the device.  If this were fixed I would probably buy one even with the other issues below.  Now I may be biased as I do Flash/Flex development work however it is not for my own work that I lament, but for the numerous services that would be simply inaccessible with this device.  As with non-inclusion of Flash on the iPhone in the first place this is just a bone-headed move on the part of Apple.  I appreciate that they want to support and encourage HTML5  and I think that is fantastic!    However, it denies the reality-on-the-ground that as of right now and the foreseeable future, Flash is an integral part of the web experience.  (I am NOT saying that is good or bad, just a fact.)  This problem is likely to be the biggest day to day disappointment  for those using the iPad.
   Business Reason: Apple wants to be at war with everyone!  It is no longer enough to take on Microsoft.  Apple wants to rumble with everyone Google, Nintendo, Amazon, Sony and now one of its oldest allies Adobe.  I get it, Steve wants to rule the world.  Closed systems mean you have to buy from Apple.  Closed systems mean developers have to develop versions specifically for Apple products.  If you want to develop for Apple products you have to develop ON Apple products, which means you must BUY the Apple products.  It also means you have less time to develop for other environments and products.  The more exclusive applications available on Apple products the more users will have to buy Apple products to use those applications.  Apple is betting that at some moment a “killer app” will come along that makes owning an iXxx absolutely necessary. Failing that it is betting that ubiquity will be the killer app.

1. Still no Multitasking:
   I understood this on the iPhone, the official justification for a single processor thread was basically ~ensure that the devices primary purpose ( being a phone ) is not compromised by applications that hog cpu usage and memory~ So for the iPhone this strategy made a little sense. However now I don’t see the argument for leaving this out of a device such as the iPad.  There is no phone.  That is not its purpose.   so…..???  What is the problem?
   Business Reason: Cost and speed… get it to market faster and capture market share.  This required less change in the way applications and the OS worked so it *might* (doubtful) be corrected in a future patch or release.
2. Still no camera
   I’ll be honest I really don’t care about this one personally.  However when Nintendo can cram 2 decent cameras into the DSi.  WTF?  How much is a CCD camera to include $1 – $2 ?  Really on a $500 device?   Ok ok, I get that keeping features to a minimum is a design philosophy at Apple but in this day and age when it is difficult to even find a cell phone without a camera it just doesn’t make much sense.  Couple that with the fact that support for a camera is already built into the iPhone OS  again WTF?   So I’ll end on you can add a camera to the little iPod but you can’t put one on the iPod touch or the iPad ??  Wow Apple’s engineers must be really incompetent or unfocused.
   Business Reason: Planned obsolescence, 2nd gen upgrade.   We’ve seen this before from Apple (and other companies)   It is very likely that the camera(s) will be the great addition to a version 2 of the iPad causing legions of those who have perfectly functioning iPads to upgrade to new units even when their old ones are perfectly serviceable.   My prediction is that this upgrade will come to both the iPad and iPod touch at or about the same time, probably next year.

What I found was the problem was that I had a class that was extending another class explicitly  as in

package com.ohms.fp
{
   public class foo extends com.ohms.bp.bar
...
}

The issue I had was that even if this is the case I still needed to have the import….

package com.ohms.fp
    import com.ohms.bp.*;
{
   public class foo extends com.ohms.bp.bar
...
}

Once I fixed all these reference the error went away.

This little gem of a program  is great.  (As a bonus it is  free for both commercial and non-commercial uses.) Unlike other RE testers that I’ve used over the years, this one lets you actually step thru the parsing sequence and also see the execution tree of the RE.  These are very handy.  I find I am able to get to a functional RE statement in about a 1/4 the time as before.   You can get “The Regex Coach” from here.  http://weitz.de/regex-coach/

As a little bonus… here is a little gem of an RE statement (for field validation) for a field that must contain no value or one or more three digit numbers separated by commas.
(^(\d{3})(\,\d{3})*$)|(^$)


so in JavaScript the RE literal would be
/(^(\d{3})(\,\d{3})*$)|(^$)/


(String key, Object value)

However when calling Ext.iterate with an array the parameters are:

(Object item, Number index, Array allItems)

The gotcha here is that in the Ext 3.0 docs only the object call back is shown.  Because of this you might think that the array call returns the index then the actual item bu as you can see that is not the case.

There is a thread on the Ext forum here about maybe making this consistent in the next major release.