I’m pleased to say that the first draft of my latest book, “Effortless Flex 4 Development”, is now complete. In fact, I’ve already done the rewrites on half the book and should complete those this week. The final table of contents is below. The table lists all of the top level sections, but doesn’t reflect specifics covered in subsections or addressed in sidebars. There are a couple of minor topics that I wanted to get in there if there was room, such as effects, and I’ll write those up in this blog instead.
- Introduction
- Part 1: The Fundamentals
- Chapter 1: Building Flex Applications
- A Survey of the Land
- Basic MXML
- Using Flash Builder
- A Cheaper, Slower Alternative
- Creating Desktop Applications
- Getting Help
- Chapter 2: User Interface Basics
- Things to Know
- Customizing the Application
- Simple Controls
- Controlling the Layout
- Creating Forms
- Putting It All Together
- Chapter 3: The ActionScript You Need to Know
- Data Binding
- OOP Fundamentals
- ActionScript and MXML
- ActionScript Comments
- Simple Data Types
- Creating Functions
- Looking Ahead: the Click Event
- Control Structures
- Arrays
- Loops
- Manipulating Components
- Debugging Techniques
- Chapter 4: Event Management
- Fundamental Concepts
- Inline Event Handling
- Functions as Event Handlers
- System Events
- User Events
- Managing Event Handlers with ActionScript
- Creating a Hash
- Common Hash Methods
- Part 2: Data and Communications
- Chapter 5: Displaying Data
- Representing Data
- Providing Data to Components
- ComboBox and DropDownList Components
- The List Components
- The DataGrid Component
- The AdvancedDataGrid Component
- Chapter 6: Formatting, Rendering, and Validating Data
- Formatting Data
- Using Label Functions
- Item Renderers
- The DataGroup Component
- Customizing the AdvancedDataGrid
- Validating Data
- Changing the Editor
- Chapter 7: Common Data Formats
- The Client-Server Relationship
- Four Data Formats
- Data Formats in PHP
- Data Types in ActionScript
- Debugging
- Chapter 8: Using Simple Services
- Flash Security Model
- Setting Up a Local Environment
- Creating the PHP Scripts
- Flex Networking Components
- The HTTPService Component
- Sending Data to a Server
- Flash Builder Data Wizards
- Using the Network Monitor
- Chapter 9: Using Complex Services
- Connecting to Web Services
- Setting Up a Local Environment
- Using RPC
- Data Management in Flash Builder
- Paginating Results
- Creating Value Objects
- Adding Authentication
- Part 3: Application Development
- Chapter 10: Creating Custom Code
- Simple Custom Components
- A Wee Bit More OOP
- Using ActionScript in Components
- Custom Events
- Custom Editors
- Chapter 11: Improving the User Experience
- Establishing Menus
- Adding Navigation
- Using View States
- Adding Deep Linking
- More on ToolTips
- Chapter 12: Alerts and Popups
- Working with Alerts
- Creating Popup Windows
- Communicating Between Windows
- Chapter 13: Improving the Appearance
- Creating Graphics
- Styling Applications
- Skinning Applications
- Working with Fonts
- Using Themes
