If you want to see my Google reader Feed (a feed of all the feeds I read) click here.  Another great place to start is Feeds.Adobe.com where you can create your custom feed of Adobe related blogs.

Here is a list of interesting sites and reads that I have collected over time all relating to Flex.

· Flex

· Cairngorm

o Source of HTTPService_Cairngorm22_Example

o Caringorm Explained Diagram

o Presentation Model

o Razor Sharp Design » Roll your own Dependency Injection

o Flex :: Cairngorm

o CairnGen

o Cairngorm with Dependency Injection (Part 1) » activepoison.com

o Source of binding-selectedchild-of-a-viewstack-in-mvc

o Binding the selectedChild of a ViewStack in a Flex MVC structure | Russ Back

o Cairngen with Cairngorm with UM Extensions | Axelology

· Components

o AutoComplete « Hillel Coren

o Coding Conventions – Flex SDK

o DataGrid

§ Dynamically add remove columns in a datagrid « FlexOut

§ Disable datagrid celledit

§ Flex Datagrid Edit Cell on Row Click

§ Tips & Tricks – ItemEditors – II

§ Tips & Tricks – ItemEditors – III

§ Tink » Blog Archive » AlignBottomDataGridItemRenderer

§ Adding Dynamic Rows To Flex DataGrid | Switch on the Code

§ Flex Data Management 02 – handling DataGrid input [en]

§ Disabling Certain Rows in Data Grid

§ Formatting a Flex DataGrid control using a custom item renderer | Flex Examples

§ Thinking About Item Renderers – Alex’s Flex Closet

§ Adobe Flex: Delete Row In DataGrid | Tech Tips Tricks

o Style

§ Flex 3.0 CSS Properties List

§ Farata Systems » Extending Flex Framework: Value-Aware ComboBox

§ 36 New, Cool Flex and AS3 Tools, Libraries and Components

§ Flex Component Lifecycle

o Constraints

§ Dynamically changing a components ConstraintRow and ConstraintColumn | polyGeek.com

§ Flex 3 Details – Enhanced Constraints – Flex Open Source Information and Bug System Instructions – Adobe Bug System Information

§ The Instantiator: A simple Flex utility class for more powerful skinning in custom components – Josh Talks Flash

§ A 3-state checkbox in an AdvancedDataGrid ItemRenderer « Rendezvous with technology

§ The Flex Component Lifecycle | Enigmatic Thought

§ The Pulsing Progress Bar

§ Flex Component: Confirmation Window with Count-down to Enabled OK » Russell Brown

§ Flex tip: make your UIComponents announce themselves | kahunaburger

o Effects

§ Shaking effect | RiaCodes

§ Barcode Scanner Support for Flex – InsideRIA

§ Flex Smart Combo (aka look ahead combo)

§ iCheckBox – iPhone style Switch component for Flex « My journey in the world of RIA

§ Flex BreadCrumb Navigator with Degrafa

§ Flex 101: Customize Scrollbars – InsideRIA

· ActionScript

o asx3m – Actionscript to XML

o Creating a component instance by class name in ActionScript 3.0 — Flex Examples

o Observer

o Observe

o Remote Object

§ Engin Yöyen » Sending ActionScript Object To Java

· Interesting Reads

o gskinner.com: gBlog: Types in AS3: ints not so fast, uints slow!

· Arrays

o Creating a strongly typed ArrayCollection – Russ Back

o Find all unique values from an array or collection | Blue Flex

· HTTPService

o Stubbing Flex HTTPServices

o Code on my mind: Flex: Problems reusing the HTTPService object

· Testing

o Adobe Flex PMD Violations viewer

· E4X

o AS3 E4X Rundown « dispatchEvent()™

· Explorers

o Flex Explorer « FlexOut

o Flex Power Tools: Explorers

o Easing Function Explorer

o Flex Style Explorer

o Download Flex 3 – Flex SDK – Confluence

· BitWise

o Using Bit-wise Math to Simplify Logic ::

· HashCollection

o Flex Bindable Hash « self halt

· Observer

o Source of DashboardIteration6

· PayPal

o Integrating PayPal Express Checkout with Flex and Adobe AIR | Adobe Developer Connection

· Excel

o as3xls – Project Hosting on Google Code

· Link Lists

o ActionScript 3 Toolbox | Lambda

· Flex builder Plugins

o The Flash Blog » Flash Snippets panel for Flash Builder 4

· Metatags

o Annotating ActionScript Classes with Custom Metadata + Simple ORM Framework for AIR

o Quietly Scheming » Blog Archive » Declarative Binding and Handlers through Custom Metadata (Flex demo)

o MetadataExample.html

· Binding

o Flex Tips – Using Bindable Metadata Events – Flex Developers & Development | flexdevelopers.com

· ASDocs

o brupp.com» Asdoc Documentation

· Ant

o ANT, mxmlc and SWC files » My Milieu of Musings

· Validation

o Validation in Flex with Hamcrest-AS3 – InsideRIA

· Flex Blogs

o Deep Dive Into Flash

o Digital Media Minute

o Eric Feminella – Rich Internet Application Solutions and Services

o Adobe Flash Platform blog

o James Ward – RIA Cowboy | Rich Internet Applications | Flex | Adobe AIR | Java | Open Source | Linux | Enterprise Software

o Alex’s Flex Closet

o Flexponential

o Doug McCune – Adobe Flex Developer

o InsideRIA | The premiere community site for rich internet application design and development

o The GLog (Geek bLOG)

o » Easy Form Validation and Submit Button enable-disable in Flex 3 Idle Together

o » Capture CTRL+N / CMD+N in Flex/Air/AS3 Idle Together

o allenmanning.com

o Adobe Flex – Russ Back

o Hillel Coren

o Flex Examples — Just a bunch of Adobe Flex Examples

o Flash / Flex / ActionScript examples (example source code) Organized by topic

o Flash Builder 4 « Sujit Reddy G – The Evangelist

The guts of this come from here but as usual I did some tinkering with it to get it to do what I wanted.

<property name="tomcat.dir" location="C:/Program Files/Apache Software Foundation/Tomcat 6.0" />

<!--  ************************************** -->
<!--  **     LOCAL Tomcat Bouncing        ** -->
<!--  ************************************** -->

<target name="tomcat-check-status">
    <condition property="tomcat.started">
        <socket server="localhost" port="8080"/>
    </condition>
    <echo>Tomcat Started Status : ${tomcat.started}</echo>
</target>

<target name="tomcat-start" >
    <antcall target="tomcat-stop"/>
    <java jar="${tomcat.dir}/bin/bootstrap.jar" fork="true" dir="${tomcat.dir}" spawn="true">
        <jvmarg value="-Dcatalina.home=${tomcat.dir}"/>
    </java>
    <waitfor maxwait="3" maxwaitunit="minute" checkevery="500">
        <http url="http://localhost:8080"/>
    </waitfor>
    <echo>Server is now started.</echo>
</target>

<target name="tomcat-stop" depends="tomcat-check-status" if="tomcat.started">
    <echo>Stopping the Tomcat Server if it has started</echo>
    <java jar="${tomcat.dir}/bin/bootstrap.jar" fork="true" dir="${tomcat.dir}">
        <jvmarg value="-Dcatalina.home=${tomcat.dir}"/>
        <arg line="stop"/>
    </java>
    <waitfor maxwait="3" maxwaitunit="minute" checkevery="500">
        <not>
            <http url="http://localhost:8080"/>
        </not>
    </waitfor>
    <echo>Server is now stopped</echo>
</target>

<target name="tomcat-bounce" description="Use this to 'bounce' the local tomcat" depends="tomcat-start">
    <echo>Stopping server instance that was started through ANT so you can re-start through Eclipse</echo>
    <antcall target="tomcat-stop"/>
    <echo>Server instance should be stopped</echo>
</target>

It said that it was loading so I decided to wait it out, after 3 or 4 times my normal wait it was obvious that Eclipse was not going to start up.

I remembered that I was in a rush to leave the previous night and I didn’t let Eclipse close down properly, apparently this was my punishment.

So I scoured the interwebs searching for  a solution.

I tried doing a –clean, to no avail.

I used a –consolelog to try and see what was going on but the only abnormal thing I could find was this little gem.

!MESSAGE The workspace exited with unsaved changes in the previous session; refreshing workspace to recover changes.

This message led me to this blog where the solution was lying in waiting.

Just delete the

{Path.To.Eclipse}\.metadata\.plugins\org.eclipse.core.resources

folder. This causes eclipse to “forget” about your projects, but you can easily Import them back in.

Eclipse then opened up right away and all my settings were right where I had left them.

Pixel Ruler 3.1 by Mioplanet

Pixel Ruler 3.1 is a great tool for figuring actually visualizing pixel measurements. It pops open for use in an instant, you use it on screen, then close it down. It’s a great utility application. Personally, I just press Alt-Space then type “Pix” then press enter and its there courtesy of Launchy.

I wanted…

• The ability to create getters and setters
• The ability to create bindable getters and setters
• The ability to create getters and setters with “changed” booleans that trigger an invalidate properties (anyone who makes custom components knows what I am talking about)  and generate the new override commitProperties function code
• The ability to create just private variables mixed in with any of the variables above

So I modified the code to come up with this…

/*
 * Menu: Actionscript > Get/Set ?b Bind ?i InvalidateProps ?p Private
 * Key: M3+1
 * DOM: http://download.eclipse.org/technology/dash/update/org.eclipse.eclipsemonkey.lang.javascript
 */
var isInvalidProps = false;
var isInvalidRegEx = /(\?i)/g;
var isBind = false;
var isBindRegEx = /(\?b)/g;
var isPrivateRegEx = /(\?p)/g;
var partName = "";
var partNameChanged = "";
var invalidPropParts = "";
var vars = "";
var props = "";
var isPrivate = false;

function main() {
    var editor = editors.activeEditor
    var source = editor.source
    partName = "";
    partNameChanged = "";
    invalidPropParts = "";
    vars = "";
    props = "";
    if (editor.selectionRange) {
        var range = editor.selectionRange
        var offset = range.startingOffset
        var msg = "";
        var text = source.substring(offset, range.endingOffset)
        var resultFull = text.match(/(\w+:\w+(?:\W\w)?)/g);
        var result = "";
        o = ""

        for ( var i = 0, n = resultFull.length; i < n; ++i) {
            result = String(resultFull[i]);
            msg = "first result : " + result;
            isInvalidProps = !(result.match(isInvalidRegEx) === null);
            msg += "\n-i : " + isInvalidProps;
            isBind = !(result.match(isBindRegEx) === null);
            msg += "\n-b : " + isBind;
            isPrivate = !(result.match(isPrivateRegEx) === null);
            msg += "\n-p : " + isPrivate;
            //debug("first result : " + result);
            result = String(resultFull[i].match(/(\w+:\w+)/g));
            msg += "\nsecond result : " + result;

            //debug(msg);

            vars += getVar(result,isPrivate);

            if (isPrivate == false) {
                if (isBind) {
                    props += getPropsBind(result);
                } else {
                    props += getProps(result);
                }
            }

        }
        o += vars;
        o += "\n";
        o += props;
        o += "\n"
        if(invalidPropParts.length >0 || isInvalidProps){
            o += invalidPropsMain(invalidPropParts);
        }

        // debug(o)
        editor.applyEdit(offset, range.endingOffset - offset, o);
    }
}

function getVar(s) {
    //debug("getVar variables : s = " + s + " isPrivate = " + isPrivate);
    var parts = s.split(":");

    if (2 != parts.length)
        return "";

    var varType = "protected";
    if (isPrivate)
        varType = "private"
    return "\n\t\t" + varType + " var _" + parts[0] + ":" + parts[1] + ";";
}

function getPropsBind(v) {
    var parts = v.split(":");

    if (2 != parts.length)
        return "";

    var eventName = getEventName(parts[0]);
    var privateTypeName = "_" + parts[0];
    var type = parts[1];
    var typeName = parts[0];

    // var s = "\n\t\tprivate var " + privateTypeName + ":" + type + ";";
    var s = "\n\t\t";

    s += "\n\t\tpublic function set " + typeName + " (value:" + type + "):void";
    s += "\n\t\t{";
    s += "\n\t\t\tif (value != " + privateTypeName + ")";
    s += "\n\t\t\t{";
    s += "\n\t\t\t\t" + privateTypeName + " = value;";
    s += "\n\t\t\t\tdispatchEvent (new Event (\"" + eventName + "\"));";
    s += "\n\t\t\t}";
    s += "\n\t\t}\n";

    s += "\n\t\t[Bindable(event=\"" + eventName + "\")]";
    s += "\n\t\tpublic function get " + typeName + " ():" + type;
    s += "\n\t\t{";
    s += "\n\t\t\treturn " + privateTypeName + ";";
    s += "\n\t\t}\n";

    return s;
}

function getProps(v) {
    var parts = v.split(":");

    if (2 != parts.length)
        return "";

    var s = "\n\t\tpublic function get " + parts[0] + "():" + parts[1] + " {";
    s += "\n\t\t\treturn _" + parts[0] + ";";
    s += "\n\t\t}\n\n";
    if(parts[1]=="Boolean")
        s += '\t\t[Inspectable(enumeration="false,true")]\n'
    s += "\t\tpublic function set " + parts[0] + "(value:" + parts[1]
            + "):void";
    s += "\n\t\t{";
    if (isInvalidProps) {
        invPropThis(parts[0]);
        s += "\n\t\t\tif(value != _" + partName + ")";
        s += "\n\t\t\t{";
        s += "\n\t\t\t\t_" + partName + " = value;";
        s += "\n\t\t\t\t_" + partNameChanged + " = true;";
        s += "\n";
        s += "\n\t\t\t\tinvalidateProperties();";
        s += "\n\t\t\t}";
        var newVar = partNameChanged + ":Boolean"
        var tmpPrivate = isPrivate;
        isPrivate = true;
        vars += getVar(newVar)
        isPrivate = tmpPrivate;
        invalidPropParts += invalidPropsPart(partNameChanged);
    } else {
        s += "\n\t\t\t_" + parts[0] + " = value;";
    }
    s += "\n\t\t}\n";

    return s;
}

function invalidPropsMain(v) {
    var s = "\n\n\t\toverride protected function commitProperties():void";
    s += "\n\t\t{";
    s += "\n\t\t\tsuper.commitProperties();";
    s += "\n";
    s += v;
    s += "\n";
    s += "\n\t\t}";
    return s;
}

function invalidPropsPart(changeBoolean) {
    var s = "\n\t\t\tif(_" + changeBoolean + ")";
    s += "\n\t\t\t{";
    s += "\n\t\t\t\t_" + changeBoolean + " = false;";
    s += "\n";
    s += "\n\t\t\t\t// TODO Add Prop Change Logic for _" + changeBoolean.replace("Changed","");
    s += "\n\t\t\t}";
    return s;
}

function getEventName(s) {
    result = s + "Change";
    return result;
}

//function captalize (s)
// {
// return s;
// }

function invPropThis(v) {
    partName = v;
    partNameChanged = partName + "Changed";
}

function debug(s) {
    Packages.org.eclipse.jface.dialogs.MessageDialog.openInformation(window
            .getShell(), "Monkey Debugging", s);
}

Installation prerequisites

First you need to install Eclipse Monkey, you can do this by following these steps…

1. Add project dash site http://download.eclipse.org/technology/dash/update to your eclipse update sites, and install Eclipse Monkey
2. Restart Eclipse
3. Create a new “General” project by going to File –> New –> Other –> Scroll up to General and select Project –> call the project “Monkey” –> then create a new folder within the project called “scripts”
4. Within that folder create a new javascript (.js) file to put the above code into it, call it whatever you like, it doesn’t matter. .
5. After you save the file you should see a new menu bar item called “Scripts” and within that there should be an item labeled “Actionscript”
6. You should see an item within that called “Get/Set ?b Bind ?i InvalidateProps ?p Private” also note there is a keyboard command mapped to the script. As written, the command is ALT – 1

Caveats

Eclipse Monkey does not work within an MXML file, even within a script block. So I just created an ActionScript class called ScripterClass.as and use it to run the scripts in, then paste the code into my MXML file.

The type that you put in after the variable name has no meaning to the script so be sure that you type it correctly, including case, or you will be doing some find and replace. Although just hitting Edit –> Undo will roll back everything the script has done and then you could modify your inputs there and rerun the script. I often leave my ScripterClass in a pre-run state so that if I need to make changes I can more easily do so.

Let’s see this puppy in action!

All you have to do is enter your variable(s) and type(s) separated by a colon, highlight them and hit the keyboard command (or select the menu item) and BAM, code generated. You can do as many variables as you like, each with different options if needed. Just highlight them and start the script.

Examples

lastUpdateUserId:String

turns into

protected var _lastUpdateUserId:String;

public function get lastUpdateUserId():String {
    return _lastUpdateUserId;
}

public function set lastUpdateUserId(value:String):void
{
    _lastUpdateUserId = value;
}

using the ?b

lastUpdateUserId:String?b

turns into

protected var _lastUpdateUserId:String;

public function set lastUpdateUserId (value:String):void
{
    if (value != _lastUpdateUserId)
    {
        _lastUpdateUserId = value;
        dispatchEvent (new Event ("lastUpdateUserIdChange"));
    }
}

[Bindable(event="lastUpdateUserIdChange")]
public function get lastUpdateUserId ():String
{
    return _lastUpdateUserId;
}

using the ?i

myLabelText:String?i

turns into

protected var _myLabelText:String;
private var _myLabelTextChanged:Boolean;

public function get myLabelText():String {
    return _myLabelText;
}

public function set myLabelText(value:String):void
{
    if(value != _myLabelText)
    {
        _myLabelText = value;
        _myLabelTextChanged = true;

        invalidateProperties();
    }
}

override protected function commitProperties():void
{
    super.commitProperties();

    if(_myLabelTextChanged)
    {
        _myLabelTextChanged = false;

        // TODO Add Prop Change Logic for _myLabelText
    }

}

using the ?p

myPrivateValue:String?p

turns into

private var _myPrivateValue:String;

bringing it all together (highlight the whole block and run the script)

creationDate:Date
lastUpdateUserId:String
myLabelText:String?i
myLabelTop:String?i
myLabelBottom:string?i
myLabelRight:String?i
myLabelLeft:String?i
myImportantProperty:Boolean?b
myPrivateValue:String?p
thisVariable:String

turns into

protected var _creationDate:Date;
protected var _lastUpdateUserId:String;
protected var _myLabelText:String;
private var _myLabelTextChanged:Boolean;
protected var _myLabelTop:String;
private var _myLabelTopChanged:Boolean;
protected var _myLabelBottom:string;
private var _myLabelBottomChanged:Boolean;
protected var _myLabelRight:String;
private var _myLabelRightChanged:Boolean;
protected var _myLabelLeft:String;
private var _myLabelLeftChanged:Boolean;
protected var _myImportantProperty:Boolean;
private var _myPrivateValue:String;
protected var _thisVariable:String;

public function get creationDate():Date {
    return _creationDate;
}

public function set creationDate(value:Date):void
{
    _creationDate = value;
}

public function get lastUpdateUserId():String {
    return _lastUpdateUserId;
}

public function set lastUpdateUserId(value:String):void
{
    _lastUpdateUserId = value;
}

public function get myLabelText():String {
    return _myLabelText;
}

public function set myLabelText(value:String):void
{
    if(value != _myLabelText)
    {
        _myLabelText = value;
        _myLabelTextChanged = true;

        invalidateProperties();
    }
}

public function get myLabelTop():String {
    return _myLabelTop;
}

public function set myLabelTop(value:String):void
{
    if(value != _myLabelTop)
    {
        _myLabelTop = value;
        _myLabelTopChanged = true;

        invalidateProperties();
    }
}

public function get myLabelBottom():string {
    return _myLabelBottom;
}

public function set myLabelBottom(value:string):void
{
    if(value != _myLabelBottom)
    {
        _myLabelBottom = value;
        _myLabelBottomChanged = true;

        invalidateProperties();
    }
}

public function get myLabelRight():String {
    return _myLabelRight;
}

public function set myLabelRight(value:String):void
{
    if(value != _myLabelRight)
    {
        _myLabelRight = value;
        _myLabelRightChanged = true;

        invalidateProperties();
    }
}

public function get myLabelLeft():String {
    return _myLabelLeft;
}

public function set myLabelLeft(value:String):void
{
    if(value != _myLabelLeft)
    {
        _myLabelLeft = value;
        _myLabelLeftChanged = true;

        invalidateProperties();
    }
}

public function set myImportantProperty (value:Boolean):void
{
    if (value != _myImportantProperty)
    {
        _myImportantProperty = value;
        dispatchEvent (new Event ("myImportantPropertyChange"));
    }
}

[Bindable(event="myImportantPropertyChange")]
public function get myImportantProperty ():Boolean
{
    return _myImportantProperty;
}

public function get thisVariable():String {
    return _thisVariable;
}

public function set thisVariable(value:String):void
{
    _thisVariable = value;
}

override protected function commitProperties():void
{
    super.commitProperties();

    if(_myLabelTextChanged)
    {
        _myLabelTextChanged = false;

        // TODO Add Prop Change Logic for _myLabelText
    }
    if(_myLabelTopChanged)
    {
        _myLabelTopChanged = false;

        // TODO Add Prop Change Logic for _myLabelTop
    }
    if(_myLabelBottomChanged)
    {
        _myLabelBottomChanged = false;

        // TODO Add Prop Change Logic for _myLabelBottom
    }
    if(_myLabelRightChanged)
    {
        _myLabelRightChanged = false;

        // TODO Add Prop Change Logic for _myLabelRight
    }
    if(_myLabelLeftChanged)
    {
        _myLabelLeftChanged = false;

        // TODO Add Prop Change Logic for _myLabelLeft
    }

}

I hope this can be of use to some. Many thanks goes to Piergiorgio Niero who wrote the script that my script was based on (the site with the unfortunate name). Thanks!!

Let me know if you have any suggestions/comments

http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Coding+Conventions

Examples pulled from the page…

Object literals

Use Object literals rather than new Object().

Do this:

{}

Not this:

new Object()

And this:

o = { a: 1, b: 2, c: 3 };

Not this:

o = new Object();o.a = 1;         o.b = 2;         o.c = 3;

Or this:

o = {};o.a = 1;         o.b = 2;         o.c = 3;

…more…

If you declare something to be of type Array, add a comment of the form /* of ElementType */ immediately after Array indicate the type of the array elements. A future version of the language is likely to have typed arrays.

Do this:

var a:Array /* of String */ = [];

Not this:

var a:Array = [];

And this:

function f(a:Array /* of Number */):Array /* of Object */{    ...}

Not this:

function f(a:Array):Array

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="chrome=1">

Well, it hardly seems feasible to add that tag to every page out there. Luckily Google added a backdoor to the party in the form of a prefix that can be added to any http website (non SSL).

cf:http://gmail.com

Now all we need to do is create a bookmarket to prepend the prefix and we are good to go.

GCF+

Just add this link to your toolbar and click view your current page within Google Chrome Frame.

Note: “These techniques may not be fully supported in future versions” says Google so take it for what it is.

I use this at least once a day if not more. To install, all you need to do is open Help –> Software Update –> Available Software –> Add Site
Then put in this address http://www.junginger.biz/eclipse/
Then select the ExploreFS plug-in and restart.
Once you restart you will have this great feature enabled. Big props goes to Markus Junginger for making this great plug-in.

Be sure to use the Auto-Complete whenever you possibly can so that you can minimize the amount of typos in your code.

Bonus Feature

Lets say you copy a piece of base code from one class to another.

Notice I copied the token directly from another delegate and I get a compile time error because I haven’t added the Async import statement to this class yet.

All I have to do is put my cursor directly after the word Async and press ctrl-space.

Then flex builder automatically puts the import statement into the top of the class. Its like magic!

RegExr

RegExr is a really nice desktop application built in Adobe AIR.  It has the features you would expect of a regex tester app and a few more and because its written in Flash you know every pattern will work in your flash application.

What’s especially nice is the community features, people can add regex patterns and give other patterns a rating. This helps ferret the really good patterns to the top.

All in all this is a fantastic piece of software that most every flash developer will find useful.

http://gskinner.com/RegExr/desktop/

There are programs that I use that I simply cannot live without and I want to take a moment to share some of them.

Launchy

http://www.launchy.net/

Once you go Launchy you wont wanna go back. Launchy is a tiny application that runs in the background that you can call simply by pressing Alt-Space (or custom keyboard command). It pops up instantly and you just type in what application you want to go to. You can configure what programs get indexed and many other features. My favorite part about it is that you can type in a couple characters, then pause, and when the drop down presents with possible choices based on those letters and you select a program it remembers that shortcut.

Everything

http://www.voidtools.com/

I am not a big fan of the name of this application strictly because its such a common word that it makes it a little hard for the average user to find the application through a search engine. But man-oh-man can this thing find files and folders. You just give the app about a minute to catalog all the files and folders on your computer and BAM. You can now search for anything in a couple seconds. Words cannot describe how nice it is to find anything so fast.

If you want extra bonus points use this link to tie your Launchy directly into Everything.

http://lifehacker.com/5274774/integrate-everything-search-tool-and-launchy

Greenshot

http://greenshot.sourceforge.net/

We all have to send screenshots to someone at some point; if your still using Paint well… your probably not reading this blog. Greenshot is a very powerful open source screenshot capture utility that tints your capture region green to let you know exactly what you are capturing. It can automatically save the file to a directory, and copy the image to the clipboard, and a whole slew of other features. All in all a great application.

Have you ever wanted a quick place to go to see exactly what component attributes can be modified using CSS? I came across this little gem and have yet to find any other source with half its value.

Flex 3.0 CSS Component List

The Flex Builder plug-in for Eclipse is very convenient, however it’s debugging implementation leaves much to be desired.

Along comes the Open Source community!

De MonsterDebugger is a fantastic tool that can be used to view and modify on-the-fly variables and settings within your application.

De MonsterDebugger

Make sure you view this video on what you can do with this powerful tool.

It reminds me of the first time I saw the Firefox extension Firebug and how I knew that real-time debugging was the way to go.