In this series of Firefox add-on we will concentrate on the add-ons that give your browser extended capabilities and save you from installing third party software to perform the same task. This type of not only save your disk space but bring extra features right at your finger tip. Needless to mention, this increase your multitasking capability, so equally valuable to9 s6tudents and professionals. BetterGmail Yep it’s true not everyone use Gmail, but this also true that it’s a growing email service on …

After weeks of rambling, finally I manage to put some hours to finish off the long awaited second Terapad template “Space Flare”. Just like the previous one this is also licensed under CC-GNU GPL licence (Creative Commons GNU GPL). Means do whatever you want to do with this; just don’t use it for commercial purposes. “Space Flare” is a theme motivated by space exploration, so it will be best suited for astronomy, science, SciFi or space related blog. It’s 100% free, current version 1.2b. Any query or support related to this template must be through this posts comment …

This is the second session in the flex tutorial series. In “Flex 101: Knowing Flex” we just get to know Flex a bit closely. In this session we will focus on MXML basics, which is the key to any Flex application development.

As you already know, MXML is a kind of XML markup language, which only used in Flex especially for layout user interface components.

MXML vs. HTML

Though for a new bi it may be hard to grasp, but honestly MXML isn’t so different than HTML. Just like HTML, MXML provides tags that define user interfaces. But MXML provides a much richer tag set, such as-data grids, data binding, trees, tab navigators, accordions, menus, animation effects etc. Not only that you will be even able to extend MXML with custom components (MXML + ActionScript) that you reference as MXML tags. The biggest difference between HTML and MXML is the outcome, the MXML defined applications are compiled into SWF (Flash file) files and rendered by Flash Player which you got to admit much more rich and dynamic than HTML.

MXML coding

You are a developer or not, you should know by now, every markup language follow their own coding standard, MXML isn’t different at all. Since it is a variant of XML markup language, you will find a lot of similarities. So let’s start with a simple MXML file and explaining the parts of it.
<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?>

<mx:Application xmlns:mx=”http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml”>

<mx:Label text=”Hello World!” fontWeight=”bold” fontSize=”24″ />

</mx:Application>

This is an example of simple MXML file, to display “Hello World”. Note that the first line of the MXML file specifies an optional declaration of the XML version.
<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?>

In previous -Must have Firefox add-on series, we talked about three finest add-ons that make browsing a lot easier. This time our focus will be the add-ons that can extend your browser’s capability beyond usual. This add-ons or extensions are equally valuable to students as well as business users. DownThemAll! Not every Internet surfer in the world has high speed connection, and mostly they use some kind of download manager or accelerator to …

There are plenty of Flex tutorials out there, still why another one? Simple in my opinion most of the Flex tutorial I came across with goes too deep/complex without creating a base of understanding. Flex isn’t HTML  that you can just learn it through so called -Dumb guide to Flex. To be able to use full potential of Flex you should be known to one or more of these- PHP, ASP,JSP, CSS, XML etc. No need to be master of those but at least familiar with them makes Flex application …

I have been always a profound believer of open sourcing software for expanding the boundaries of progressive development. The examples of open source success is all around us, Java, MySQL, Linux, Firefox, Thunderbird, WordPress, Drupal is just a name a few. Looks like Adobe got the idea of open source advantage. Adobe just today unveiled a new version of its Flex SDK development tool set, code-named Moxie, along with plans to provide its code to the open-source community.

Flex is a tool to build rich Internet applications — Web applications that include the rich features of desktop applications but the ease …