Alonzo Hosford's Bitbox

Flex Flash Actionscript 3 AS3 Memory

Lon Hosford — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 20:59:15 +0000

I have been in on or called in on Flash and Flex applications that perform slowly.

When there is a back end, I recommend an isolation process to eliminate the move from the equation. This includes all data and dynamically loaded assets and movies.

When the backend is out of the way then the focus is on memory. This requires providing calls to memory information as the application is navigated. I provided basic shell code that works below you can consider for integration into a memory monitoring module for your application.

In designing Flash player movies whether you are using Flex or Flash should always side on caution in creating objects and loading assets. Its garbage collector works when it thinks it is ready. As well you need to care for the removal of event listeners when you remove objects.

The System class contains a property totalMemory. Here is an example so you can learn about it.

MemoryMonitor.as

package {

   import flash.events.TimerEvent;

   import flash.utils.Timer;

   import flash.system.System;

   public class MemoryMonitor 

   {

      private var timer1:Timer = new Timer(1000, 0);

      private var timer2:Timer = new Timer(1000, 0);

      private var totalMemory:int; 

      private var totalMemory_last:int = 0;

      public function MemoryMonitor():void 

      {

         trace("MemoryMonitor()");

         timer1.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, _displayTotalMemory);

         timer2.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, _displayTotalMemoryOnChange);

      }

      public function displayTotalMemory():void 

      {

         timer1.start();

      }

      public function displayTotalMemoryOnChange():void 

      {

         timer2.start();

      }

      private function _displayTotalMemory(event:TimerEvent):void 

      {

         trace("MemoryMonitor.displayTotalMemory() - System.totalMemory:\t\t" + totalAsMB(System.totalMemory) );

      }

      private function _displayTotalMemoryOnChange(event:TimerEvent):void 

      {

         totalMemory = System.totalMemory;

         if (totalMemory != totalMemory_last)

         {

            trace("MemoryMonitor.displayTotalMemoryOnChange() - totalMemory_last:\t" + totalAsMB(totalMemory_last) );

            trace("MemoryMonitor.displayTotalMemoryOnChange() - System.totalMemory:" + totalAsMB(totalMemory) );

         }

         totalMemory_last = totalMemory;

      }

      private function totalAsMB(totalMemory:int):String 

      {

         return (Math.round (((totalMemory / 1024)/1024) * 10)) / 10 + " MB"

      }

   }

}

Flash Movie frame 1 Actionscript

import MemoryMonitor;

var memoryMonitor:MemoryMonitor = new MemoryMonitor();

// Display memory every 1 second

memoryMonitor.displayTotalMemory();

// Display memory every 1 second if it changes

memoryMonitor.displayTotalMemoryOnChange();

FlashVars In Flash CS4 Actionscript 3

Lon Hosford — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 05:06:56 +0000

Publishing under Flash CS4 will provide the latest HTML wrapper with a boat load of Javascript. At one time a separate Javascript file was generated from the Flash IDE publishing. Now it is all in the HTML document.

The overall process is the same as it has been since first introduced. You need to publish the HTML one time and then turn it off as you need to edit the HTML document for your FlashVars. Dicing in the FlashVars for the new HTML wrapper appears as follows for the FlashVars variables message1 and name:

AC_FL_RunContent Javascript function arguments:

'movie', 'FlashVarsEx02',

'FlashVars', 'message1=Hello World&name=Alonzo (Lon) Hosford',

'salign', ''

...

Object tag for the no script possibility:

In Flash you extract the Flash vars as follows:

root.loaderInfo.parameters.name

root.loaderInfo.parameters.message1

An elegant why to dump all FlashVars

for (key in params)
{
   value = String(params[key]);
   trace ("\t" + key + "\t" + value );
}

Download completed FlashVars example for CS4 and Actionscript 3

Adobe Flex 3 Resource Module Localization Dynamically Loaded Runtime Locales

Lon Hosford — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 22:32:26 +0000

I followed the example at Adobe Labs written by Gordon Smith September 25, 2007 to create a basic language localization example that would load the locales dynamically at runtime.

I had some bumps in making the example work in that it did not load the language when launched. This could be due to differences in version Gordon was using or just those nasty timing issue you get in the Flex framework. The basic issue was to add an initialization event handler to the example and the line resourceManager.localeChain=["en_US"]; in it.

However Gordon's tutorial was essential to understanding the geekish implementation of Flex dynamic localization. You have the copylocale utility program to run in the Flex sdk bin folder to set up Flex for each language. I created a windows batch file for it and included in my example. It makes it easy to add a language to Flex at a later date with a simple copy and edit.

Flex uses a separate swf for each language to load them at run time. You create these with command line steps using the mxmlc compiler and lengthy arguments. Since you have to do this everytime a language item changes, I again created some batch files to automate the process.

The completed example is located at Adobe Flex 3 Basic Locales Dynamic Runtime Localization With Resource Modules.

Adobe Flex 3 Runtime Language Localization Embedded Locales

Lon Hosford — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 21:13:07 +0000

I started to review the Adobe Flex 3 language localization. The site I used to learn is at Adobe Labs written by Gordon Smith September 25, 2007.

My opinion is the localization implementation suffers a geekish solution. So even Gordon's super effort, you get lost in the terminology geeks have used to define the elements of localization features. So I did eventually get through to make my own examples based on Gordon's work.

This example shows how to embed the locale language in the Flex swf. This of course make the Flex swf potentially larger. However if you have a small amount of language or only a few languages, you might find this solution more expedient.

Look it over and download at Adobe Flex 3 Basic Embedded Runtime Localization Locales.

I also followed Gordon's modular version of localization. This allows loading localization data during runtime. Gordon's example has problems with Flex timing when you go to put it to work. I solved the timing issues and will post on that as well with the fixes. But also there are even more geekish aspects to get Flex even set up to do this.

Adobe Flex 3 Amazon Web Services Music ItemSearch Using Cairngorm

Lon Hosford — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 02:44:09 +0000

I am researching the Amazon Web Services API for use in Flex 3.

I reviewed the work of Jesse Warden at jessewarden.com and, I believe since the post is not signed, Charlie Key at paranoidferret.com.

Both were good starters. However they did not meet my needs exactly. But together they worked out to let me build an example in my own style.

My finished work can be found at Adobe Flex Amazon Web Services Music ItemSearch Using Cairngorm.

The example does a simple keyword search on Music using the Amazon ItemSearch API.

For the ancestors to this example see:

Jesse Warden: Flex Example: HTTPService & Cairngorm 2.2

Charlie Key: How to use Flex to get Music Info from Amazon Web Services