How do I make a Flex Component Private?

Posted At : July 23, 2008 9:00 AM | Posted By : Jeffry Houser
Related Categories: Flex,Professional

Over on FlexCoders, Nate asked how he makes a Flex MXML Component private. I'll quote the important part of his question:

I have custom MXML component (ResourcesTree) that has a Tree inside of it. I don't want the Tree to directly be available outside the ResourcesTree Component.

His topic makes things a bit confusing. You make variables or methods private so they can't be used outside of a class. A private class would be one that you can't create an instance of? There would be no purpose in that.

Nate really wants to look into making an internal class. Internal classes can be used only within the package (AKA Directory), but not from outside.

Of course, don't go thinking that internal is not the same as private. People can extend your classes within the same package and use that internal class. I believe that the internal class can even be extended if need be.

If you are distributing a Binary SWC and want to hide the fact that you have a class in there, you can use the ExcludeClass metadata tag. This is used more than you'd think in the Flex Framework code.

Of course none of that will help you if people decompile your SWF.

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The Flex Show has Video / How do I feel about Certification / What do I put in my Portfolio?

Posted At : July 16, 2008 9:00 AM | Posted By : Jeffry Houser
Related Categories: Flex,Professional

This question comes in from a fan of The Flex Show.

just wanted to drop a thank you, I love the video tutorials and look forward to more.

You are most welcome. Part of the reason I haven't been posting around here so much is because I've been super busy. One of those items is that Adobe has come on board as a sponsor for the The Flex Show Video. We've named the series Fifteen Minutes with Flex and it will consist of a bunch of screencasts demonstrating some Flex Development task. We have two episodes released with more to come.

I am entering the world of programming though Flex, I was wonder how you guys feel about the certification, is it worth it.

Many people have a lot of things to say about certification, but I won't re-hash that here. If you are looking for a job, I feel that having certification will often help you get past the gatekeeper ( AKA HR Rep ) and in front of an hiring manager / coder. I do not feel that certification proves coding skill, but I don't think it'll hurt you either. However, there are plenty of other ways to "prove skill", which brings us to your next question.

Also could you guys recommend suggestions on what a beginner could do as examples for a portfolio.

Have you decided what type of field you want to work in? Creating a game in Flex will probably not be relevant to a financial services company. Creating a data mining application will probably not impress an entertainment consulting company.

If anyone is dying to build an application, we'd love to replace embedded mp3 player for The Flex Show. The current player doesn't have any problems from a functional standpoint, but it is embedded from an alternate site and we'd love something that would give us more flexibility regarding look and feel.

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