Logger template for Eclipse

As always, my blog dies rather quickly with lack of posts. Main reason for that is lack of time to write a nice, long blog entry. I was recently advised by a colleague that a good place to start is to jot down things that are easily forgotten and require googling later on.
So here comes the first one: how to create a template that will save me a bit of typing every time I need to add a logger to a class.

Preferences -> java -> editor -> templates, "new...".

name: log
description: Logger definition
context: java
automatically insert: yes
pattern:

private static final ${typeLogger:newType(org.slf4j.Logger)}
${name:newName(log)} =
${typeFactory:newType(org.slf4j.LoggerFactory)}.getLogger(${enclosing_type}.class);

All that you need to type in your code afterwards is "log" & ctrl+space. Of course it will work just as nicely with any other log library.

Simplest HTTPService connection on Flex4

I tried to follow one of the examples in "Getting Started with Flex 3" (create Flickr browser) and faced a couple of issues. This is a working solution, however instead of Flickr RSS it is using Picasa and is using some Flex 4-specific stuff (mainly for data-access). Flickr at the moment is sending an RSS with one of the tags invalid for Flex 4 XML parser (or to be more precise: you cannot generate AS classes from it).

The mxml starts as in the original example (except for colour values, that is):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:Application xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009" 
    xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark" 
    xmlns:mx="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/halo"
    minWidth="1024" minHeight="768"
    xmlns:photoservice="services.photoservice.*" 
    backgroundGradientColors="[#BB78D7, #75637C]">

The next part is a bit simpler than in the original example, since we have nice service generation in Flex 4 (more about this later).

 <fx:Script>
 <![CDATA[
  import mx.events.FlexEvent;
  import mx.controls.Alert;
  
  import services.photoservice.PhotoService;
  import mx.rpc.AsyncToken;
  import mx.rpc.CallResponder;
  import services.photoservice.PicasaPhotos;
  
  private var callResponder:CallResponder;
  
  protected function search():void
  {
   fetchResult.token = photoService.fetch("rss","photo","en_US");
  }
  
  protected function tileList_creationCompleteHandler(event:FlexEvent):void
  {
   fetchResult.token = photoService.fetch("rss","photo","en_US");
  }

 ]]>
 </fx:Script>

Last part is the actual design part, which also is mostly as in original example, except for the service-related part:

 <mx:HBox>
  <mx:Label text="Picasa tags or search terms:"/>
  <mx:Text id="searchTerms" width="150"/>
  <s:Button label="Search" click="search()"/>
 </mx:HBox>

 <mx:TileList width="100%" height="100%" id="tileList" 
  creationComplete="tileList_creationCompleteHandler(event)" 
  dataProvider="{fetchResult.lastResult.item}" labelField="title"
  itemRenderer="PicasaThumbnail">
 </mx:TileList>
 
 <fx:Declarations>
  <s:CallResponder id="fetchResult"/>
  <photoservice:PhotoService id="photoService" fault="Alert.show(event.fault.faultString)" showBusyCursor="true" />
 </fx:Declarations>
</mx:Application>

The PicasaThumbnail.mxml class looks as follows:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:VBox
 xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009" 
 xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark" 
 xmlns:mx="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/halo" 
 width="250" height="250" 
 paddingBottom="10" paddingLeft="15" paddingRight="15" paddingTop="10"
 alpha="1"
 >
 
 <mx:Image width="200" height="200" source="{data.enclosure.url}" alpha="1"/>
 <mx:Text text="{data.title}"/>
 
</mx:VBox>

The main reason all this works is a very nice addition coming in Flash Builder 4 - Data/Services wizard. It's enough to select menu Data -> Connect to HTTP... and on presented wizard provide a few details (URL, required parameters, service name - and that's it). This will generate a service class. After this is done you can "Configure return type" - the tool will connect to your service, parse example XML and try to prepare a set of classes representing it nicely. Works very well and allows all the nice tools of Eclipse (autocompletion) to be much more helpful.

Overall I am very pleasantly surprised how easy the whole task was and I can see great potential to simplify my work with the data wizard tool.

Flex4, here I come

It's time to resurrect this blog since I've started learning Flex4 and I hope my journey from-Java-to-Flex4 may be helpful for all those other lost souls out there.
My first impression is that I may actually like it - but Flash Builder system requirements are even worse than those of Eclipse 3.5, meaning I probably should get a new laptop. Oh dear...