Axiis is an open source data visualization framework & based on Degrafa, Flex & ActionScript 3.0.
It is a resource for both beginner & expert developers to create elegant charts.
Axiis comes with both ready-to-use visualization components & abstract layout patterns + rendering classes that makes it possible to create custom visualizations.
To view some beautiful examples of this framework, click here.
Kap Lab is presenting 5 impressive & free visualization components for Flex.
All components are AS3 based & some of them offer multiple layout options which makes them very flexible in means of presentation.
Examples are provided for each component with the sources & there is a support forum where users share their experiences.
P.S. Download requires a free membership.
OpenZoom is an open source framework for creating zoomable user interfaces.
The framework is similar to Silverlight’s Deep Zoom control (see WRD post), but for Flash.
The power behind OpenZoom is Flex MultiScaleImage component, which is built on top of the OpenZoom framework.
The name is same wih the Silverlight Deep Zoom’s built-in control & the usage is similar too.
The component has built-in support for keyboard / mouse activities & supports Deep Zoom, Zoomify & OpenZoom images.
For now, OpenZoom can sound to specific, but considering its abilities & usage areas, we’ll probably be hearing more about it soon.
P.S. The framework is so fresh & still in development but it can be downloaded (& it is documented).
FlashFlickr PhotoGallery is an open source photo gallery built with Flex 2 / AS3.
The application enables users to browse your Flickr pictures, see your sets, tags and notes within your website from a good looking interface.
The gallery has a location map feature built with Yahoo AS3 libraries that shows the location of the image (if mentioned) using Yahoo maps. This requires a Yahoo API key.
It also has the Flickr authentication for Flickr registered users. This way, registered users can also add comments, tags (if allowed) to the images (Flickr API key needed).
Every designer & developer loves handy tools that simplify frequent tasks.
And, even if you've a complicated software that does the same thing, usually it is much more effective to run a tiny, fast-loading application that does the job.
This is a list of 27 functional Adobe AIR applications that can help a web designer to design & develop:
Info: If you don't have Adobe AIR installed, it can be downloaded from here.
Very nice application for taking snapshots of any webpage.
It enables you to configure the snapshot sizes & lets you choose whether the snapshot be a thumbnail, browser size or the full page.
Using WebKut, you can take snapshots of an entire webpage, parts of them or a selection.
The tool's interface helps a lot by showing the size of the area selected, letting the user to choose the image format & quality.
A pixel ruler that enables you to measure the size of any object..
With browser skins, overlay mode and screen size presets, you can also preview how your design will look in the real environment.
Web & interface designers will love it.
PixelPerfect has 1 job to do: measure things on your desktop.
While designing a website or looking for the size of an object in a website, you can run this ruler & that's it.
A little application that lets you generate a CS3 or Web 2.0 style icon, in only 3 steps. Pick color, type characters, and save it. Icon is generated in 4 different sizes.
This is an open source 3D album component for Flex which is similar to the Cooliris‘s (formerly PicLens) attractive interface.
The component is inspired from the 3D album tutorial of Bartek Drozdz.
The download package includes examples besides the source code for easier developing.
AlivePDF is an open-source ActionScript 3 (Flash, Flex, AIR) PDF generation library. It allows you to generate PDF‘s on the client-side.
You can use AlivePDF with Flash, Flex and Adobe AIR applications. Some sample codes can be found here.
There also few tutorials about using it with AIR and Flex here.
Degrafa is a declarative graphics framework fo Flex which aims:
Degrafa allows you to use MXML markup to draw shapes, make complex graphics, create skins and also includes advanced CSS support.
Rather than ActionScript, MXML is easier to read an learn, specially for a designer’s point of view.
There are great samples of what can be done with Degrafa here.
