~The music is all around you. All you gotta do is listen~

Wow. Quite a thought! :)

Flex : Submitting a form by pressing Enter

Web developers beginning to (use) Flex find it very annoying when you have to navigate to the submit button by using tab keys or take your hands off the keyboard and move your mouse to the submit button to submit a form.

In fact it should be a built in support in Flex that when the user presses enter after filling a form, the Flash Player should automatically process it as a submit action. I have over months taken up several strategies to implement this in my applications. When I started out, I simply ignored taking extra effort to make a provision for submitting a form by pressing enter. However its really irritating if you press enter after filling up a form and nothing happens. Then you have to move your mouse all the way to the Submit button, cursing the developer all throughout. Here is what I did for implementing the same:

Method 1

The crudest method of doing it in Flex is add a KeyboardEvent event listener on the form and listen for the Enter Key having the code 13.

View the code here.

 

Method 2 

This involves setting up the defaultButton property for your container ( I have used the root container <mx:Application> since I only have a single form in my entire page, but you must set this property of the immediate parent of the form) to the ID of the submit button. Click here to view the source code

 

Method 3

Its noteworthy how the most easiest methods of doing things are often the ones we discover after we have learnt all the hard tricks. In the form, the TextField has a property called “enter” which can be set to the “submit” function, which then validates the form.

Click here to view the source.

I hope this  is useful.

Installing Java Development Tools on Flex Builder 3.0 - Network connection problems encountered during search.

I have been working on a project that requires me to use Flex, LCDS, and Java. I was required to download Java Development tools for Flex Builder 3.0.

So I did this:

1. Goto Help-> Software Updates –>Find and Install

2. Choose Search for new features to Install

3. Check Europa Discovery Site and The Eclipse Project Updates

4. Click finish.

The expected result was to get a list of plugins available, select Java Development Tools and download and install it. However I got this error continuously :

 

“ Network connection problems encountered during search.”

I had downloaded Java Development Tools in the past and I never had faced this issue before.

I realized the difference between before and now was that now I accessing the web through a proxy server,and not directly connecting to the internet. That means that this wasn’t a Flex Builder bug, nor an eclipse bug. In fact this isn’t a bug at all.

All I had to do was set proxy setting for Flex Builder to access the internet, just the way my browser connects to the internet. This is how I did it:

1. Goto Windows-> Preferences –> General-> Network Connections.

2. Manually set the proxy settings . ( you can use the proxy settings used by your browser)

And restart Flex Builder!

You can search for and install all the useful plug-in you need.

Let me know if you find this useful.

Want to make a screencast? Or capture your screen?

One of the biggest problems developers face while collaborating with other developers is explaining their problems to others. An easy way is to capture your screen and share it . And for those who think ( I am sure most of you would )Cntrl+Print Screen sucks, here is a way out.

Try Jing from Techsmith. The Jing Project from Techsmith helps you not only:

• Capture your screen and take a screenshot
• Make a small video of what you are doing.

But also:

• Lets you add arrow marks, and put lables and text on the image.
• Makes it easy for you to post the video on Youtube, or on a blog.
• Automatically generates a URL which you can paste and share online.

 

Now isn’t that awesome? While the free version is what most people would need, the Pro-version is also available for the Pro’s. Try Jing now.

Let me know if it was useful.

Cheers!

Technorati Tags: Making a Screencast,Screenshot,Jing

http://HelpGaurav.com

I found this while going through the twitter feeds of a fellow coder. I am reproducing the contents here, so that it gets a wider publicity . And a better help. Please visit http://helpGaurav.com for detailed information.

Gaurav Tandon is a 34 year old professional working with Datacraft Asia (a private IT firm) in Mumbai, India. His small family comprises wife, a 6 year old son. He has two elder sisters both are happily married and a brother who is serving as Captain in the Indian Army.

Gaurav was detected with AML (a type of Blood Cancer) in November 2008. He has responded well to chemotherapy, but must get a Bone Marrow Transplant as the only possibility for a cure. Unfortunately the HLA typing test of his siblings is negative. Doctors have therefore strongly recommemded a Non-Related Allogenic transplant. Since such transplantations are rarely performed in India, there is a high chance that we have to take him to places like Singapore, UK or the USA.

The estimated cost of the treatment in Singapore and UK is around 1.5 Crore Indian Rupees (around US$ 333,000), whereas in the US is around of 2 Crore Indian Rupees (around US$ 444,000).

In order to meet the steep cost of the said operation, Gaurav and his family have decided to sell their solitary flat at Thakur Village Complex, Kandivili, Mumbai. However, this is not going to be enough, since the amount required for the treatment is huge and time is less.

Let us all come togeather to help Gaurav. Togeather we can reach out to our communities and remind them that we - members of Gaurav's family, community and country have a responsibility to help. Let us all remember that Gaurav is also a son, a brother, a father and a husband. We should all see ourselves in Gaurav and realize that he deserves the same support we would wish for member of our own family or even ourselves.

I for myself, am making a small contribution. You can make a contribution too by sending a mail to reply_gt@yahoo.com . You can click here for furthur details.

Bloggers can make a contribution by donating, linking to this page or the original page.

Foreign Nationals can also make a contribution on the home page, or by leaving a comment here. Your desire to donate will be communicated to the concerned family.

Australian Bushfire & The Bush after-effects

Technorati Tags: Australian Bushfire,George W Bush,America,US President Bush,World

The Australian Bushfire has killed up to 128 people so far as a result of almost 400 forest fires in Australia raging entire towns to ruins. Almost 750 houses have been destroyed, and the loss to human life and property is expected to rise.

In the 5th week of the new year 2009, and the world has already faced a calamity of this magnitude. A world , already rendered jobless and homeless and war torn by another Bush’s whims.

While the bushfire swept across an entire nation killing multitudes and rendering thousands homeless, a certain Bush has done much worse to the world.

Sometimes I wonder – Will the recession ever get over? Or will it change our lives and destiny forever? This is the worst economic crisis since the WW !! and there is no hope in sight. Will it change America forever?

Change, truly is the only constant. In the 1800s no one thought the British Empire could ever crumble. It was the empire where the sun never set. It was Russia next, the biggest super power of all times, having a land area stretching Europe and Asia. And the followed the US. And endless wars in the middle east to Vietnam to Afghanistan to Iraq. Is this the end of American Imperialism?

But we are humans. Life conquers death. And hope conquers adversities. And we believe that one day the world will truly be a better place to live in. That perhaps is, The Audacity of Hope.

Technorati Tags: Audacity of Hope

Go Watch Dev D!

That was the first review I had of Dev D, the Abhay Deol starrer movie that hit theatres this Friday. Now, you don't go out an watch an Abhay Deol movie . It's usually - Who is Abhay Deol?
I am one of those, who took time to figure out who he was nothwithstanding the Deol surname.

And this is his second film, after Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye, which was released when the terror attacks happened in Mumbai, which was when most people stood glued to the TVs than watch a movie. And still the movie performed decent.

Dev D isn't exactly about Devdas. Its about a million things. Its the story of the DPS MMS girl. Its alos the story of lost love. Its the Indian Requiem for a dream.

I watched it in Rex, which is dlooded with student crowd, and has lot of cheering, and whistling - which all the more made the movie more fun to watch :)


P.S. The best part was - I was watching it sitting next to a chick who shared her name with the female protagonist of the movie (wink )