7:30 – 3:30 VISIBILITY

• Deployed cpPlusDate and mvPlusDate, which are working just fine
• Made backups
• Talked to John W. He’s going to try to set a demo of PPM with Kathy and the new TD for early next week.
• Chris(tine) has finished Flex in a Week. She sent me a not asking what to look at next. I said to look through AirFilImageApp to get aquainted with a larger project, and start to get familiar with Maven and the flex-mojos. Once she’s done with that, she can start updating MavenAssist to build Air apps correctly.
• Digging into FlexXB
  • General description: http://code.google.com/p/flexxb/wiki/GeneralDescription
  • No luck. FlexXB doesn’t recurse down the tree. Moving on…
• Worked with Dong on getting a new version of PPM to play with the browser window a bit better
• Since I really don’t want to build a generic serializer (again!). I’m thinking about the components that all our applications seem to need. The thought is that maybe we build some higher-level components that have self-serializing functionality that can be put together in simpler ways than a straight mxml experience. My list of visual components so far is:
  • Login
  • DB Table/column browser
  • Charts
    • The regular, data, bar, column, pie
    • Unusual – maps, status, network
  • Data grids
    • for looking at tables of numbers or…
    • Excel-style spreadsheets
  • Data entry forms
  • Formatted output
  • Special widgets, such as speedometer-style displays
• To make this work we need a communication framework to the server that either simply (or automatically) sets up tables to talk to these forms.
• Lastly, there needs to be an authoring/administrative level that creates ids for applications (to aid with data partitioning), and that supports our scripting.

7:00 – 4:30 – VISIBILITY

• Deployed my new copy, which works fine, though it has one diagnostic print statement in it. Need to fix that
• Fixed the bugs, and added move capability. The executable looks at the name it was called when executed and adjusts its behavior. If the file is called cpPlusDate, it will copy. If it’s called mvPlusDate, it will move. Uploaded the files to my ftp site (since we still need CDs!), to deploy on Monday. Also committed to subversion.
• Looking at ways to have a user build a form online and then use it.
  • Read the xml on the server side and have it compiled (http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/html/help.html?content=apache_3.html). This doesn’t allow for graphical creation of the component though.
  • Serialize as xml:
    • http://stackoverflow.com/questions/270046/flex-xml-serialization-and-de-serialization-of-nested-object-structures
    • http://cookbooks.adobe.com/post_Serializing_object_to_XML-11988.html
  • Serialize the top level object using the ByteArray class (http://www.kylehayes.info/2008/01/06/Persisting-an-ActionScript-Data-Model/). This would need the following:
    • A container class that knows how to read and write a serialized object to the server
    • That the app exist entirely inside the above container.
    • The question is – will this store the entire hierarchy under that object in a way that will work later?
  • I like this better because it has the ability to graphically lay out the form. There would be two fundamental types of containers – an Authoring container and a Player container. The authoring container would have the code to lay out the form (and set up the tables on the server?). The player would simply load and show. Aaaaaaaaaaand it doesn’t work. Turns out not all the data for a display object gets stored this way. Seems to only work for value objects.
  • Trying out FlexXB. Changed the compiler options to preserve meta data
  • Set up my path so that the mxmlc compiler can be reached from the command line

8:00 – 4:30 VISIBILITY

• Deployed new version of PPM. The comboboxes are still getting too big on the filter section in the Project Navigator
• Backed up PPM db – it’s growing about 5k/day
• Looking into writing a copy utility in C++. Done, all 8k of it.
• Discussions with Brian and Mike about forecasting and how to tie it in with the Visibility4 baseline
  • The idea is to have a framework that can load SWF ‘apps’ that communicate through a singleton mediator (DataDictionary?).
  • Mike’s going to see how the basics of swf loading and management work

8:00 – 3:30 VISIBILITY

• Working on automating backups, but can’t find a good way of appending date information to the file name using windows. Maybe just make a little executable?
• Meeting with Christie about PPM
  • The financial POC and PM POC labels (or combo boxes) are switched.
  • Need to add a search that looks at project budgets – e.e. > $1,000,000,000, or < 0
  • Add double click to maximize window if easy
  • Add ability to enter cents in a budget or financial data? (Optional – Trish had this explicitly not be a requirements. It could lead to more errors?)
• More commenting. Might finish today- done!
  • ImageScreen.mxml
  • TimedImage.as
  • TimedImageItemRenderer. Added capability to change bg color programatically.
• Time to get Flash4.5?

7:30 – 6:30VISIBILITY

• “go visibility” works!
• Some changes from Christie. Cursorily went through this with Dong
• 10:00 meeting with Anne, then 10:30 meeting
• Commenting

7:30 – 3:30 VISIBILITY

• “go visibility” made progress today! We might be up soon
• worked on automating the project_portfolio save script. Printed out documentation for schtasks to bring in tomorrow
• Commenting
  • AirFileImageApp.mxml – done
  • LoginScreen.mxml – done
  • SetupScreen.mxml – done
  • SequenceScreen.mxml – done
  • ImageScreen.mxml
  • TimedImage.as
  • TimedImageRenderer – done
  • CommonScreenSckin – done
  • BinomialStatistics – done
  • DataDictionary.as – done
  • DataElement.as – done
  • EnhancedSkinnableContainer.as – done
  • RepeatableRandom.as – done

7:30 – 5:00 VISIBILITY

• Put together a shell script that backs up project_portfolio and moves the file to another machine in the enclave.
• My svn isn’t working. Now it is. Dong fixed, after a few attempts.
• More commenting. Maybe add a transition or two. Added transitions and learned a few things.
  • Components that have a transition must bein BasicLayout, with only x, y, width and height defined. If you need centering, you need to do that programatically, wising things like the FlexNativeWindowBoundsEvent.WINDOW_RESIZE event. Otherwise, the components get confused as to where to go after they have reached their endpoints
  • Programatically created classes also seem to have some issues. The SequenceScreen creates a series of ImageScreens, and I can’t get the SequenceScreen to work as part of a transition. Interestingly, transitions within a dynamically created ImageScreen work just fine.