specializing in digital media technologies

I’ve just started writing my forthcoming Flex 4 book, tentatively titled Effortless Flex 4 Development. I’m happy to say that the first chapter is in the can, which is always a big hurdle to overcome. The book will be around 400 pages, released by New Riders, with an expected publication date later this Spring. I may post a more detailed table of contents in time, but the rough outline consists of three parts:

1. The Fundamentals
2. Data and Communications
3. Application Development

Each part will be roughly a third of the book. As no previous Flex knowledge is assumed, the first part covers the basics of Flex development. This includes the tools you’ll use, the user interface elements, an introduction to ActionScript, and a discussion of event handling. The second part of the book is especially important, I believe, as working with data and client-server communications are what give Rich Internet Applications their true power. Unlike the other Flex books that I’ve seen, I’ll be exclusively using PHP for my server-side code. This is in part because I’m a PHP guy at heart, in part because increased PHP support is a key addition to Flex 4, and in part because I want to present Flex development in a way that doesn’t require a huge amount of cash or server requirements. The last section of the book adds more advanced concepts, ties together what had been discussed to that point, and has more complete examples.

I’ll post more details in time. If you have any questions or comments, on my book or on Flex, please share them. Thanks!

In my series Learning the Yii Framework, I discuss the individual parts of the MVC (Model, View, Controller) architecture in some detail, from a Yii perspective. In the post on Controllers, I introduce Access Control Lists (ACLs), Yii’s default way of restricting who can take what actions. This is a key part of the security of any Web application. For example, a site’s content can often be read by anyone at all, registered or non-registered users alike (like the text you’re reading now). Some content may only be viewable by registered users and some by registered users of a certain type (e.g., paid members). Finally, some content may only be viewable by administrators. In this post, I detail how to completely control access to your Web application using Yii’s Access Control Lists. (continue reading…)

In a previous post, I walk through the Yii framework’s built-in authentication system for adding login functionality to a Web site. There are a number of files and components involved, but simple authentication works fine out of the box, or with just a little tweaking. That’s the focus of that previous post. In this post, I explain how you can customize the authentication process further. (continue reading…)