Ultraweb Development

It’s been quite the busy week for me at one of my clients, they’ve got me building a Calendar from scratch that oddly does not conform to what most of us are used to seeing so it’s been fun to say the least.

But onto the Bojinx Debugger, many of you have sent through emails ( 1 even registered on the site! wohoo, thanks) with bug reports and feature requests, here is a list of requests that will be making it into B3 and those that I will try to get into B4 before it’s finally a full blown release.

Stuff that will make it in:

• Auto Update will be in so you don’t have to constantly check the site for updates, it will also offer you the latest version of the library to use in your projects.
• A link to the Bojinx site has been added, this was my choice not a request
• Some more refinement on the Object inspector and more speed improvements on the message list.
• A lock on the min size the application can be reduced to.

Whats still under development?

• A mini view for the debugger where you can just see the list and hide everything else, this has been requested by a few people so expect it in by B4.
• Ability to clear the list from your project instead of constantly clicking the clear button.
• Ability to select what column you want to base your search on.

Apart from all that I have been contemplating running a Design competition to get a nice new skin for Bojinx, my design abilities are sub part to say the least, I’m more of a code monkey. What would you guys suggest as a prize?

You can look forward to B3 sometime this weekend.

You can find it here along with the change log.

Remember to update your library also

After many requests to update the feature page with a better description of what Bojinx is meant to accomplish I have made a small update to the page on the Bojinx site.

I hope this helps, and to everyone else who sent in emails requesting a more thorough walk through on using Bojinx you can expect one very soon it’s being worked on everyday and should be ready within the next week or so. But for now if you have questions or you get stuck please feel free to register and post on the forums they are checked often by the Bojinx team and you will get a reply.

Enjoy

First off I’d like to thank everyone who emailed me with bugs over the past day, it would have been better if you used the forums but it’s all good.

I’d just like to update you on tomorrows release which should contain all the requested fixes:

• Object introspection greatly improved and even easier to use now.
• Items not being removed from the list when you send many requests in a sequence (i.e: a long loop) is fixed.
• You can now pass much larger objects for inspection, the serializer has undergone huge improvements and is much smarter now.
• Items are now removed in batches instead of 1 at time which was causing errors in some cases.

Keep an eye out on the Bojinx site for a release sometime tomorrow

Hey all just thought I would let you know that a beta version is now available on the Bojinx site. I would really appreciate any comments and submissions of bugs to the forums. As I stated in my previous post I do not have any available resources left to test the debugger as they are all working on the Framework.

I hope you all enjoy this release and you can look forward to lots of improvements as time goes on especially with the object inspector.

The only issue I am currently aware of is the limitation of an Objects size when being serialized and stored in a ByteArray but I hope to get around this soon with some tweaking and better serialization but for now it works with decently sized objects.

You can get it here.

Well it’s just a few days away till the new debugger gets released so I thought I would give you guys some quick updates on whats in and whats not.

Here are some of the features that made it in for V 2.0

• Ability to add custom message types at run time and use them.
• Ability to filter custom message types at run time (they get added to the list as you register them).
• Major speed enhancements.
• Much more user friendly Object introspection.
• Ability to copy values in single/list or all as XML when inspecting an object.
• New GUI with progress reports and connection information.
• New Library to get you up and running much quicker than before.
• Sorting.
• Ability to search output list.
• Ability to search a selected node in the object inspector.
• Time tags
• Completely new Serialization manger is much quicker than V1 and supports slightly larger objects.

Things that have not made it in yet:

• Some finer tuning required for the serializer to reduce the load and increase object size, things like null properties and unused accessors will be excluded in the next revision. This will allow for greater speed and support for even larger objects.
• Exporting to CSV/Excel is still a work in progress and has been excluded from V2 but you should see this before V2.2.
• Filtering by “from” tag not in yet.
• Search by column type should be in by 2.1.
• Support for themes is in but the system to switch themes is not yet implemented, expect this in 2.2 or 2.3.

Keep your eyes on this blog or on the Bojinx website located at http://www.bojinx.com for further updates, I look forward to hearing your comments and any bug reports would be appreciated it’s been tough getting this version tested on my own as all the testers are busy with the Bojinx framework.

Here is a screen shot of it being tested:

Version 2.2 is now out along with some new features and bug fixes.

The biggest change has been that of the final phasing out of the Cairngorm framework and replacing it with Bojinx specific logic.

A host of new articles and how to’s have been posted and the site has also undergone some changes over the past few weeks.

Here is whats new on the site:

• Guide to setting up the Bojinx Library
• Guide to setting up the Bojinx Skeleton Project
• Guide to setting up SVN in Flex Builder
• Service command template How To articles for HTTP/Web and Remote Object
• Messenger How To

The Bojinx team now consists of 4 Developers and this means you can look forward to quicker turnarounds on bug fixes and new features as well as lots of new examples and documentation over the next few weeks.

New features in 2.2:

• Messenger has been upgraded from V1 to support 1 to 1, 1 to many, 1 to all messaging.
• Fixed several bugs with the progress indicator and when used through the sequencer.
• Phased out all libraries Bojinx is now pure.
• Fixed bug where applicationComplete method would not fire sometimes if you have an empty global cache file.
• Ran tests on the sequencer using 100’s of short sequences, experienced no failures over 3 hours of tests.
• Bojinx now works in FDT expect a write up soon.

You can read the rest at the Bojinx website here.

It’s finally here, after a long wait all the promised changes and upgrades have arrived.

CSK has been re branded to Bojinx and now has it’s own website. I know some of you are wondering why the re branding, well several reasons really.

For one it was originally based on Cairngorm but over time this has been phased out and only 2 classes are still in use and they will be phased out within the next few revisions, the other reason was CSK was too common a name so I spent a cool 5 minutes coming up with a new name that had domains available! That and Bojinx just sounds cool lol.

The new site contains loads of goodies I’m sure you will all find useful, there are articles, examples, utilities and much more. Forums have also been added and the old CSK debugger is there too.

I hope you decide to register and give it a shot, now that the site and ground work is there you can look forward to tons of updates, articles and many helpful utilities.

I would also like to apologize in advance if I have forced a major upgrade on your projects/project, it wont happen again now that everything is in place but I can tell you that the only change is mostly refactoring and some bug fixes as stated in the Change logs, so it shouldn’t take too long to get a project up to date but if you have problems I will be glad to help however possible.

You can find the new site at http://www.bojinx.com

Cheers

I have 3 spots open for Flex developers, if you are looking to go permanent or contract please get in touch with me at “wael at ultra-web.co.uk”.

You can download a job description here.

The role is based in Central London - Green Park

There might be 1 or 2 positions coming up in the next few weeks where I work so if you are in the market for a new job as a contractor or permanent (preferred) then please email me your CV and when you will be available if you are currently working.

The position would be based in Green Park - ( Central London ) and when a decision is made we will contact you and can discuss the projects in more detail.

Requirements are:

• At least 1 years commercial experience with Flex.
• A good understanding of design patterns.
• Basic understanding of animation & effects.
• An eye for detail.
• Experience with AIR and some knowledge of it’s abilities would be beneficial.
• Agile development ( Scrum ).
• Exposure to Web Services.
• SVN/ANT knowledge beneficial.
• Bug tracking - ( We use Mantis ) is beneficial but not required.
• Good understanding of Events.
• MVC - ( Cairngorm / CSK used but no experience required )

If you fit the bill then please email me at ‘wael at ultra-web.co.uk’