Here’s a simple rating component done in Flex 4 (Gumbo).

The skin uses two library definitions. One symbol for the active and one for the passive rating. The symbols are then placed in a passive and an active Group. A mask is used to show/hide the active group based on the rating. ActiveGroup/passiveGroup and mask are the required Skin-Parts.

The Component itself manages the rating and pushes this down to the mask by setting its width. The rating is exposed as a bindable property.

The following example usees the component with two different skins.

source is here (SDK 4.0.0.4932)

This post looked at creating a custom flex 4 component from scratch. The knob button defined there had a min/max-value for the range and the rotation. The user could adjust the value by pressing the knob and then dragging the mouse. Now, we would like to extend the control a bit by adding a text input-field where the value of the knob is reflected. Likewise a value can be entered into the textfield and the rotation of the knob would reflect this.

Instead of extending the knob I decided to create another control that is a composition (more…)

In this and this post I had a look at skinning components in Flex 4. Here I had a go at creating a simple custom component in Flex 4 (Gumbo) from scratch. The goal was to create a simple knob-button like those found on many softsynths.

The user clicks the button and drags the mouse to adjust the value. The advantage of a knob compared to a slider is that it needs much less screen estate and could be more intuitive in specific contexts to control a value.

click here to view the demo. Full source at the end of this post.

Creating a custom visual component in Flex 4 is similar to the procedure in Flex 3 but states and skins are handled differently (in a much better and cleaner way). Basically we need to (more…)

Here’s a little example of a ToggleButtonSkin that uses some effects to create a subtle chrome-impression when the button is selected.

The gradient is calculated from the backgroundColor-Style of the host component. Then in selected state some Tint and Animate effects are applied to the Strokes that make up the border.

Click here for the example. Needs flash player 10 (beta).

Here’s the source for the (more…)

Frequency Modulation was discovered by John Chowning back in the 60s, while experimenting with vibrato. Basically in FM-Synthesis the frequency of one oscillator (carrier) is modulated by the signal of another oscillator (modulator). The great thing about FM-Synthesis is that it can produce a wide range of sounds with relatively little computing cost, cause we only need to generate 2 basic waveforms to get started. Ideal for environments like flash where you have to watch your fps carefully.

Here’s a little test. Please turn down volume first. Needs the latest Flash-Player 10 (rc of 091508).

To do FM-Synthesis in flash we could fill the (more…)

Today I had a closer look at the new skinning architecture of Gumbo. Here’s a little example that uses a couple of custom slider components. This custom component extends the standard gumbo VSlider by composition and integrates custom skins. click here to see example. Needs flash player 10 (beta rc1).

The Gumbo VSlider expects (more…)

The past few days I was digging a bit into Gumbo (flex 4 beta). I was happy to see that flex 4 will take a lightweight approach regarding components. Components are stripped down to their most basic behavior and there’s now a clean separation between model, controller and view.

This, in combination with an enhanced state architecture and the newly integrated graphics tag library FXG, makes it a snap to create a custom look and feel in flex (especially when CS4 export or thermo integration will be ready)

Here is a little example of a GUI done in Gumbo (flex 4 beta) to wrap up my sound experiments done earlier.

click here. Needs the latest Flash-Player 10 (rc of 091508).

The GUI for the player is straight forward. It uses some FXG-Elements to (more…)