Eclipse Keyboard Tricks

Finding a string incrementally
Use Edit > Incremental Find Next (Ctrl+J) or Edit > Incremental Find Previous (Ctrl+Shift+J) to enter the incremental find mode, and start typing the string to match. Matches are found incrementally as you type. The search string is shown in the status line. Press Ctrl+J or Ctrl+Shift+J to go to the next or previous match. Press Enter or Esc to exit incremental find mode.

Go to last edit location
Navigate > Go to Last Edit Location (Ctrl+Q) takes you back to the place where you last made a change. A corresponding button marked? is shown in the toolbar. If this toolbar button does not appear in your perspective, you can add it by selecting Window > Customize Perspective > Other > Editor Navigation.


Shortcuts for manipulating lines
All text editors based on the Eclipse editor framework support editing functions, including moving lines up or down (Alt+Arrow Up and Alt+Arrow Down), copying lines (Ctrl+Alt+Arrow Up and Ctrl+Alt+Arrow Down), inserting a new line above or below the current line (Ctrl+Shift+Enter and Shift+Enter), and converting to lowercase or uppercase (Ctrl+Shift+Y and Ctrl+Shift+X).

Ruby on Rails

Rails is a full-stack, open-source web framework in Ruby for writing real-world applications quickly and easily. Rails takes care of the busy work so you can focus on your idea. Nathan Torkington of the O'Reilly publishing empire said ?Ruby on Rails is astounding. Using it is like watching a kung-fu movie, where a dozen bad-ass frameworks prepare to beat up the little newcomer only to be handed their asses in a variety of imaginative ways.?

Whats in a Package
Rails is a full-stack framework for developing database-backed web applications according to the Model-View-Control pattern. From the Ajax in the view, to the request and response in the controller, to the domain model wrapping the database, Rails gives you a pure-Ruby development environment. To go live, all you need to add is a database and a web server.

Who is already on Rails?

Everyone from startups to non-profits to enterprise organizations are using Rails. Rails is all about infrastructure so it's a great fit for practically any type of web application Be it software for collaboration, community, e-commerce, content management, statistics, management, you name it.

What else do I need?



Rails works with a wealth of web servers and databases. For web server, we recommend Apache or lighttpd running either FastCGI or SCGI. For database, you can use MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, or Firebird. Just about any operating system will do, but we recommend a 'nix-based one for deployment.

If you need hosting, TextDrive is the official Ruby on Rails host, offering fantastic plans with a knowledgeable staff. Whether you need shared or dedicated hosting, these guys are experts in Ruby on Rails. For alternatives, see the wiki for a full list of Rails web hosts.[http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/pages/RailsWebHosts]

flash.net.Socket for Multi-user Applications in Flex 2

ActionScript 3 provides a new class, flash.net.Socket, for data exchange within Flash Player 8.5. Socket is a native stream-based binary socket supporting reading and writing of binary data over a network connection. In this session, Patrick, examines the Socket API while showing several examples that provide insight into application use. He show examples using AMF over Socket, GZip compression, managing binary streams, and protecting SWF content using Socket and Loader. If you are interested in the new forms of data exchange with Flash Player 8.5, this session should not be missed.

Command Line Intelligence

I have been working with ANT, Java, and Flex more and more. The result is that I have become ever more dependent on the command line. One of the engineers at Cynergy showed me a trick he learned while working on the Biztalk server team at Microsoft. Write this down, its a jewel!

In XP, Microsoft added Intellisense into the command line via the TAB key. When you are typing path names, you only need to type the first few characters, then hit the TAB key to walk through the available path names. When you press TAB, a valid path is magically typed for you.

Here is a little experiment:

1. run "cmd"

C:\Documents and Settings\Theodore Patrick>

2. type: "cd \prog" and press TAB

C:\cd "Program Files"

3. Press Enter

C:\Program Files>

4. type: "cd Macr" and press TAB

C:\cd "Program Files>cd Macromedia"

5. Press Enter

C:\cd "Program Files\Macromedia"

6. type: "cd Flex" and press TAB

C:\cd "Program Files\Macromedia>cd "Flex Builder 1.5"

7. Press TAB

C:\cd "Program Files\Macromedia>cd "Flex Builder 2.0 Alpha 1"

8. Press TAB

C:\cd "Program Files\Macromedia>cd "Flex Builder 2.0 Beta 1"

9. Press SHIFT + TAB

C:\cd "Program Files\Macromedia>cd "Flex Builder 2.0 Alpha 1"

This little trick has saved me a ton of time on the command line. Just get in the habit of pressing TAB periodically and walking the file system with the command line will go faster and faster.

c:\PSDKBlog>ant blog.post

Eclipse & Flex Builder - Alt + UP and ALT + DOWN

his is a very handy tip for those new to Eclipse. In any editor with a line or block selected, press ALT+UP or ALT+DOWN to move the line or block up and down the page. This eliminates 50% of my cut and paste.

So handy I had to post!

Flex Data Services -

Q: What is Flex Data Services? (My Definition!!!)
A: Flex Data Services adds rich collaborative data into RIA's.

Flex Data Services is composed of 4 parts:

1. Web Tier Flex Compiler
Think -> MXML compilation on the server.

2. RPC Services - Remoting, Web Services, Proxy.
Think -> Exchange objects with Java and Web Services.

3. Messaging - Multi-user messaging with JMS support.
Think -> Distributed events between clients and services.

4. Data Management - Distributed Data Synchronization and Paging.
Think -> Distributed Objects/Collections with multi-user editing and synchronization.

What is interesting is that developer productivity is very high with FDS. With one or 2 tags, you can add RPC, Messaging, and Data Management seamlessly and integrate with existing java classes, JMS, data storage, and legacy services.

Next week I will be covering FDS Messaging and I will have 2 sample applications for you to download and work with. Although to be able to work with these examples, you are going to have to do a little homework first...

Homework:

1. Download Flex Data Services 2.0 Beta 3 from Labs.
2. Review the sample applications and source code.
3. Have Fun. There is some great stuff in FDS, you will not be disappointed.