degrafa

Tomorrow there will be a Degrafa presentation and Connect session hosted by the Rocky Mountain Adobe User Group. For those of you who voiced interest in attending, here’s your chance. If the time and place don’t suit your schedule I believe it will be recorded for convenient viewing. Features of the framework will be discussed, code samples will be shown, followed with a hands-on session.

You can get more information on the RMAUG website.

There is an article up on InsideRIA that introduces some of the theory and features of Degrafa. I also put together a couple walkthroughs to get you started, but they just barely scratch the surface of what is possible. Definitely check it out if you’re looking for a quick shot of some beginning Degrafa knowledge.

One of the things we’re beginning to focus on is putting together more tutorials, samples and screencasts that really show off what you can do with Degrafa. This article is part of that initiative. With a new version of Degrafa on the horizon, it will be more important than ever to make sure we share the knowledge.

Read An Introduction to Degrafa

Ok, I couldn’t resist using the title. Tom Gonzalez put together a really nice example of a gauge built using Degrafa. He also did a lot more than that. For some of the custom items like the tick marks, he made his own ArcLineRepeater based on Degrafa’s LineRepeater so that it rotated around a central point. Based on what Tom said, it sounds like it was pretty easy for him to do.

This example also allows you to apply different skins like you would any other Flex component, but instead of having to go to an external application like Fireworks or Flash you can do all your skinning for the gauge right in Flex and assign them through CSS. Tom’s example has 2 skins you can choose from and you can change properties like colors, angle, tick alpha and more very easily.

I think the coolest thing about this example is that Tom already had this gauge built before, but realized it had much more potential if he converted to use Degrafa. The result seems to be a much more flexible solution that can be extended quite easily to take on a number of different appearances. Good stuff!

Check out Tom’s blog post about the gauge and don’t forget to view the source.

We’re starting to see some really cool examples of Degrafa as more people get their hands on the framework and become more familiar with it. I come across new examples every week that are using Degrafa in a variety of ways. From data visualization, to skinning, games and more. It really shows just how flexible Degrafa can be.

I just came across a Tic-Tac-Toe game created by the guys over at Paranoid Ferret. The source is available for this game, but I think the best part is they walk you through how they made the game. We’ve been trying to make sure we have tutorials about how to use Degrafa, but we’ve been busy on the next version of Degrafa. It’s great to see people within the community contributing to the dialogue and really showing the power of the framework.

The Tic-Tac-Toe post is an introduction to a series that will walk through all the steps that were taken to achieve the final product. I definitely recommend checking it out to get a taste of what Degrafa can do. Nice work guys!

Read the article