ActionScript Developer's Guide to Robotlegs: Building Flexible Rich Internet Applications

by Joel Hooks, Stray (Lindsey Fallow)

Overview

Robotlegs is a standout among the ActionScript 3 development frameworks available today. With it, Flash, Flex, and AIR developers can create well-architected, testable, and flexible Rich Internet Applications—fast. This concise guide shows you how the light footprint and focused scope of this open source framework not only solves your immediate coding problems, it helps you gain insight into AS3 architecture on a much deeper level.

The authors provide a walkthrough of specific features in two applications they've written in Robotlegs, complete with code for each application as a whole. You'll learn how to achieve a balance of flexibility and consistency in your own projects.

• Solve 80% of your coding problems with 20% of the API
• Gain code-base flexibility with automated Dependency Injection
• Learn the anatomy of a Robotlegs application
• Understand the relationships between models, services, control code, and views in the framework's MVCS architecture
• See how the Robotlegs’ approach facilitates Test Driven Development (TDD)
• Pick up practical methods for architecting Robotlegs solutions
• Get expert insights to power-up your existing Robotlegs code

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781449315290
Publisher:	O'Reilly Media, Incorporated
Publication date:	08/08/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	140
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Joel Hooks is a Flash Platform developer with experience in
Actionscript 3, Flex, and Python. Joel spent the first 13 years of his professional career as a 3d animator and graphic designer working on computer-based training applications from that perspective. His interest in programming goes as far back as "TELL TURTLE" and he has always been interested in the technological challenges related to developing software making work a little bit easier. With the introduction of Actionscript 3, Joel finally found a platform that allows him to architect useful tools while fully leveraging his experience as a visual artist. Joel is passionate about technology and enjoys exploring the landscape of frameworks, libraries, and tools that make his work constantly fun and challenging.



Joel currently resides in Fort Worth and works as a Flex consultant for Universal Mind providing clients with oodles of clean code and a focus on test driven development solutions. Joel can be found blogging on various Flex development topics at http://joelhooks.com.



Outside of developing software tools Joel owns a photography studio http://visualempathy.com with his wife who also collaborates on the raising and nurturing of his four home-educated children aged 13 to 4.

Lindsey Fallow (aka Stray) has spent the past decade exploring science and technology as a writer, software developer, and television personality. Following an undergraduate degree in Manufacturing Engineering, she fronted a science show for 8-12 year-olds on Disney, and went on to become a reporter & Associate Producer for Tomorrow's World (the BBC's #1 prime-time UK science and technology show) from 1998-2002. She's stood on the top of the Golden Gate bridge, fed sharks, filmed brain surgery, flown in military planes, and been bitten by a baby tiger, but is the most excited by far when her 16-year-old stepson 'gets' new math concepts.



A Flash developer since Flash 4, Stray blogs on ActionScript, test driven development and the programmer's brain at xxcoder.net. She is a core contributor to the Robotlegs framework, and actively pushing the ActionScript community to aspire to excellence through the try{harder} collaborative-learning format.

Table of Contents

• Preface
• Chapter 1: Robotlegs is a lightweight framework for ActionScript 3
• Chapter 2: The Robotlegs dream...
• Chapter 3: Anatomy of a Robotlegs application
• Chapter 4: Automated Dependency Injection
• Chapter 5: The Robotlegs context in action
• Chapter 6: The CommandMap in action
• Chapter 7: Models and services: How are they different?
• Chapter 8: Connecting views with Mediators
• Chapter 9: Working with Robotlegs: Rich Examples
• Chapter 10: Testing your Robotlegs application
• Chapter 11: Power-ups
• Troubleshooting tips
• Swiftsuspenders: The power behind the Robotlegs Injector
• Colophon