ThunderBolt AS3, which is a lightweight logger extension for Flex 3-4, AIR and Flash 9-10 applications, has been updated to version 2.2.

Check out the new features:

New features

1. Logging of package names + class names + code line numbers (Flash Debug Player required).

   

2. ThunderBoltTarget for using Flex Logging API improved.
3. SWC updated for using Flex 4 (Gumbo)
4. ThunderBolt AS3 Console uses a certificate of Thawte sponsored by Adobe.

   

5. ThunderBolt AS3 Console is updated using latest version of Adobe AIR v.1.5.1
6. Issue 10 fixed: “Command + Q not working in OS X“
7. All examples and documentation has been updated as well.

Happy Logging

-Jens

If you will ever certificate an existing AIR app with a new certificate, such as a Thawte certificate, you have to migrate it.

What does “migrate” mean? It’s like an injection for an AIR app with all needed information about old and new certificate. You have to do it to avoid any troubles updating an existing AIR app by users. Just follow the next steps:

1. Build your AIR app as always using Flex Builder and signing it up with the new certificate ( Project -> Export Release Build )
2. Open Terminal and go to project folder typing cd {pathToYourProject}
3. Migrate your new AIR app with the old certificate using -migrate command. Note: To run this command make sure that you have added the bin folder of Flex SDK as a PATH environment variable before.

   Run:

   adt -migrate -storetype {fileTypeOfOldCertificate} -keystore {pathToOldCertificate} {appJustCreated}.air {newMigratedApp}.air

4. Type password of the old certificate and that’s it!
5. For updating ThunderBoltAS3 Console I did it as follow:

adt -migrate -storetype pkcs12 -keystore air_websector_certificate.p12 ThunderBoltAS3Console.air ThunderBoltAS3Console_v2.2.air

Some notes:
- pkcs12 – store type of the old certificate (such as JKS, PKCS12, PKCS11, KeychainStore, Windows-MY or Windows-ROOT)
- air_websector_certificate.p12 – path to the old certificate
- ThunderBoltAS3Console.air – app which has been built before with a new certificate
- ThunderBoltAS3Console_v2.2.air – app which has to migrate

6. For more information check “Changing certificates” and “Signing an AIR file to change the application certificate” at LiveDocs for Adobe AIR.

-Jens

After diving into Objective-C for the last two weeks I have now the time to dive into Swiz. So I ported my latest published example using Mate into Swiz.

The following example is a tiny AIR based application for storing user names into a SQLite database. It includes Eric Feminellas awesome AIR SQL Framework and a way to use the Presentation Model pattern within an AIR application as well.

Screen shot

View source code

Check out the source code: View source code

Download full source

Full source of the example: SwizAIRSQLiteExample.zip (Downloads: 1358)

Acknowledge

• Video – 360|Flex, San Jose 2008 – Chris Scott: Introduction to the Swiz Framework for Flex
• Sönke Rohde: Mock Business Delegates with Swiz
• Tony Hillerson: FrameworkQuest 2008 Part 4: IoC With Swiz
• Swiz wiki pages at Google Code

If you are using Mate for application development based on Adobe AIR you may need an extension for using SQLite, because its in Mate currently not built in. It seems that only one extension by Miran Loncaric available, which depends on Eric Feminellas SQLService. Unfortunately this Mate extension lacks for using result or fault handlers, using prepared SQLStatements, parameters etc.

Therefore I’ve started to develop new extensions called SQLService and SQLServiceInvoker with all the needed stuff such as result and fault handling within an EventMap, (re-)using prepared statements, “simple” SQL texts, named parameters etc.

BTW: Theo Hultberg has already opened a very cool project on Google Code for free examples based on Mate, so I hope that the new extensions will be added as well.

Screen shot of the AIR example

Code example for using the extensions

Here is the most important part – the MainEventMap which is an EventMap for handling all SQLite services.

I’m a big fan of using presentation models, so you will have a further example for using it as well . For using presentation models within Mate check out the great example called ‘document based’ by Theo Hultberg and his very detailed post on Google Code.

To-dos

• Using transactions for batch INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE operations based on the great tips using AIR and SQLite by Paul Robertson!

Download full source

Full source of the AIR example above including the new extensions called SQLService and SQLServiceInvoker MateAIRSQLiteExample.zip

[UPDATE] Full source of the extensions and the example as well has been moved to the project called ‘mate-examples’ on Google Code[/UPDATE]

Acknowledge

• Eric Feminella: AIR SQL Framework
• Peter Elst: SQLite wrapper classes
• AIR doku on Adobe: “Working with local SQL databases“
• H. Paul Robertson: “360|Flex slides for ‘AIR SQLite: An optimization conversation“

Here a step by step tutorial on OS X:

1. Install the latest Adobe AIR runtime and download the latest Flex 3 SDK version 3.0.2.

2. Create a new subfolder for the new SDK within your Flex Builder Plugin installation called “3.0.2″

   

3. Unzip the downloaded SDK and copy all its content to the subfolder mentioned above.

4. Open Eclipse and add the new SDK to the list of all installed Flex SDKs:
   Preferences -> Flex -> Installed Flex SDK -> Add

   

   

5. Create a new AIR project as usual: File -> New -> Flex project

   

6. The following step is very important: Modify within the application descriptor file called [yourAppName]-app.xml the root node named application the version 1.0 to 1.1

   

7. Don’t forget to set the the new SDK for the Flex Compiler settings as well: Project -> Properties -> Flex Compiler -> Flex SDK version -> Flex 3.0.2

   

8. Run the application: Run -> Run as -> Adobe AIR application

   

That’s all

P.S.: For all the Flex Builder Pro user out there, who uses automated testing etc.: As Matt Chotin mentioned you have to copy a few needed SWC’s form the 3.0 SDK to the new 3.0.2 SDK folder as well. For more information check his article at ADC: “Developing Flex applications for AIR 1.1″

Acknowledge

• Matt Chotin: “Developing Flex applications for AIR 1.1″
• Flex 3 Builder documentation: “Advanced build options”
• Adobe: AIR 1.1 FAQ

For all those who not familiar with it: ThunderBolt AS3 is a lightweight logger extension for any ActionScript 3 applications based on Flash CS3, Flex or Adobe AIR using Firebug or its own ThunderBolt AS3 Console.

Here are some tips and tricks using ThunderBolt AS3:

1. Using different log levels

   ThunderBolt AS3 supports different log levels, which based on the supported levels by Firebug, such as “info”, “warn”, “error” or “debug”. It’s pretty simple to use it:

   log level example ( Download code )

   1. import org.osflash.thunderbolt.Logger;
   2.  
   3. //
   4. // some log objects
   5. var myNumber: int = 5;
   6. var myString: String = "Lorem ipsum";
   7.  
   8. // INFO log level
   9. Logger.info ("Just an info message");
   10. //
   11. // DEBUG log level
   12. Logger.debug ("A debug log ", myString);
   13. //
   14. // WARN log level
   15. Logger.warn ("A warn message", myNumber);
   16. //
   17. // ERROR log level
   18. Logger.error ("An error log ", myString);

   Screen shot using Firebug:
   

   Screen shot using ThunderBolt AS3 Console:
   

2. Logging one or more objects at once

   ThunderBolt AS3 logs more than one objects at once. It could be primitive types (int, uint, Number, Boolean, …) or more complex data such as an instance of any classes or nested objects. Here an example:

   Example for logging few objects at once ( Download code )

   1. import org.osflash.thunderbolt.Logger;
   2.  
   3. //
   4. // some log objects
   5. var myNumber: int = 5;
   6. var myString: String = "Lorem ipsum";
   7.  
   8. var myObject: Object = {    exampleArray: ["firstValue", "secondValue"],
   9.                             y: 10,
   10.                             exampleString: "Hello",
   11.                             nestedObject: { x: 100,
   12.                                             y: 200}
   13.                         };
   14.                                                
   15. // Logging an object with nested items
   16. Logger.info ("Logging an object with nested items ", myObject);
   17. //
   18. // Logging more objects at once
   19. Logger.info ("Logging more objects at once ", myString, myNumber, myObject);

   Screen shot using Firebug:
   

   Screen shot using ThunderBolt AS3 Console:
   

3. Using the Flex Logging API

   ThunderBolt AS3 supports the Flex Logging API using its own log target called ThunderBoltTarget. To use it you will need to use and import the ThunderBoltTarget.as as well:

   Example for using Flex logging API ( Download code )

   1. import mx.logging.Log;
   2. import org.osflash.thunderbolt.ThunderBoltTarget;
   3.  
   4. // init ThunderBoltTarget
   5. _target = new ThunderBoltTarget();
   6.  
   7. /*                             
   8. You can disable the time, level or category as well                           
   9. _target.includeTime = false;
   10. _target.includeLevel = false;
   11. _target.includeCategory = false;                   
   12. */     
   13.            
   14. _target.filters = ["de.websector.playground.ThunderBoltTargetExample"];
   15. Log.addTarget(_target);
   16.  
   17. // start logging
   18. Log.getLogger("de.websector.playground.ThunderBoltTargetExample").info("Just an info message.");

   Screen shot using Firebug:
   

   Screen shot using ThunderBolt AS3 Console:
   

4. Stop and hide logging

   To release your project you might to disable all logging data. Then put the following line into your code.

   1. Logger.hide = true;
   2.  

5. Show a memory snapshot

   Make a memory snapshot whenever you want:

   1. Logger.memorySnapshot();
   2.  

6. Show or hide a time stamp

   Lets make a time stamp. The default value is “true”. To hide the time stamp use this:

   1. Logger.includeTime = false;
   2.  

7. Using the new ThunderBolt AS3 v.2.1beta v.2.0 and its Console

   The new version of ThunderBolt AS3 (v.2.1beta v.2.0) detects either Firebug is installed or not. If not, then it uses the well known trace() method to log all data into “flashlog.txt”. You can enforce this process using:

   1. Logger.console = true;
   2.  

   To show all information in a well defined structure I’d recommend to use the new ThunderBolt AS3 Console. It’s a handy tool to log any AIR application as well

8. Using the ThunderBolt AS3 Console for logging ActionScript 1 or 2 projects

   As described above ThunderBolt AS3 Console follows a simple principle: It reads just all information logged by the ThunderBolt AS3 Logger (v.2.1beta v.2.0) into “flashlog.txt” and shows it in a hierarchal order based on different log levels.

   That means you can use ThunderBolt AS3 Console for logging any AS 1 or 2 projects too . Just call a trace() method as follows. Note the prefixes named “info”, “error”, “warn” or “debug” followed by a whitespace at the beginning:

   trace() example for using ThunderBolt AS3 Console ( Download code )

   1. //
   2. // tracing an info log level
   3. trace ("info Here is an info message to display using ThunderBolt AS3 Console");
   4. //
   5. // tracing an error log level
   6. var myString: String = "hello console";
   7. trace ("error Here is an error message" + myString);
   8. //
   9. // tracing an debug log level
   10. trace ("debug Here is a debug message" + myString);
   11. //
   12. // tracing a warn log level
   13. trace ("warn Here is a warn message");

   Screen shot using ThunderBolt AS3 Console:
   

9. Any issues with the Flash Player security sandbox using Firebug?

   If you have any security issues with the Flash Player security sandbox using ThunderBolt AS3 and Firebug set within your HTML template the value of the parameter named “allowScriptAccess” to “always”. For more information check Adobes Flex 3 Help: “About ExternalInterface API security in Flex”

10. Issues using ThunderBolt AS3 Console on Windows?

    What a pretty sh…y thing: The ThunderBolt AS3 Console is currently available for OS X only. There are some issues using an opened AIR app and “flashlog.txt” at the same time on Windows. Check out this entry at Adobes AIR forum for more information. Hoping that Adobe will fix this issue in the future. So long, sorry for all the Windows user out there .

    BTW: Feel free to post here your request to Adobes AIR team as well

Open source!

ThunderBolt AS3 and its console is open source! Grab the source, change and adapt it. Or do whatever you want

Happy logging!

Screen shots

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