Hi everyone,

In case you didn't notice that I released an new minimal AS3 MVC Framework some time ago, SomaCore is available on this page.

I call it minimal because it is very lightweight, yet powerful and non-intrusive. You don't have much to learn if you're used to MVC framework of any sort.

I made an update today, the second one in months because it won't change a lot, the structure is there. All the sources and demo have been updated.

You can also replace any kind of previous use of the framework, the only feature added is a dispose method that will remove everything that has been created in the framework. Mostly useful in case you're creating several instance of the framework, it will now be correctly garbage collected.

Once you've created a instance of the framework:

The only things you need to do is

Here is what it is doing to the components that have been added to the frameworks:

- all wires will be removed. On each wire, the dispose method will be called. You can overwrite this dispose method in your wires subclasses.

- all models will be removed. On each model, the dispose method will be called. You can overwrite this dispose method in your models subclasses.

- all commands will be removed

- all views will be removed but not removed from the display list, that's your job. On each view, a dispose method will be called if it exists. You can create this dispose method in your views:

It important to say that all the components will be removed from the framework, but that's your matter to properly destroyed what you're creating in order to be garbage collected.

A quick info for my plans because I've silent lately (busy).

I'll make a BaseUI release in the next weeks, a completely rebuilt and optimized version 4. It is ready but I need to finish the documentation.

After that I plan to make more examples and screen cast about the SomaCore Framework.

I just wanted to say that I'm rarely happy about what I'm producing, because I like things to be... perfect. Of course, perfection can't be reached, but that is pushing me to create the better code I can, at my level.

I'm now using SomaCore in some projects. One is a relatively complicated AIR Modular Application for children. And for once, I'm very happy with what I've done with SomaCore. It has been a great help really, I should say that it saves me a lot of troubles when changes happened because I built the application how I wanted it, without "framework-fight" and as much flexible as I could. It just made me more responsive to any kind of changes in the project.

For this reason, I'll try to push SomaCore further by making more demos, videos, examples, documentation, wires concept and so on.

I still have plans to create a new version of the first automated framework Soma MVC, and its source generator, based on SomaCore.

Happy development!

Firefox 3.6 introduced a very annoying bug, and only on a Mac.

If you're using somewhere a MouseEvent.ROLL_OUT or MouseEvent.MOUSE_OUT, this event will fired even if you only click on a object without leave the object with the mouse.

Example there

The select box in the middle of the page doesn't work because a roll out event is fired when you click on it.

I didn't try yet to find a fix with MOUSE_UP and MOUSE_DOWN, but the problem is, all the existing sites that are using those events might be broken...

I believe Firefox is, or not firing the right event, or removing and putting back the flash so it loses the focus, meaning roll out is fired... A friend told me that the same things happen with java applet, didn't verify it yet.

Bug report

To test it, paste this as a document class:

Click on the square and you'll see that the MOUSE_OUT is fired...

I hope they'll fix soon or I'll have to find a hack and change everything that is live.

Romu

I needed to watch objects to know if they were properly garbage collected or not, so I've added a GC Monitor in the SomaCore Debugger. It is pretty easy to use and I think very useful if you start to care about the memory that the Flash Player is using and global performance.

Demo Flash (garbage collection monitor)

View Demo
View Source
Download Source

The concept to use it is to "register" an object, such as a Sprite or anything, with a name.

The first step is to create the debugger. If you're using the framework SomaCore, you'll find some demo by clicking here.
And if you want to use the debugger without using SomaCore, here is a snippet to create the application and debugger:

Register an object to watch it:

You can dispatch this event from anywhere in an DisplayObject in the display list (Sprite, MovieClip, etc), from the document class, the stage or the SomaCore instance.

In the debugger window, there is a "garbage collection bar" where you can click to see the registered objects, they can be either "retained" or "released". A released object means it has been garbage collected and doesn't exist anymore. The memory used by this object will be free to use.

A "force" button will trigger the garbage collection, it will call System.gc() twice with a small interval. This should only works in a Flash Player Debugger version, but useful for debugging.

Here is a list of events you can use for the garbage collection monitor:

Note: by default SomaDebugger is now using a weak reference to the objects that you want to inspect. You can turn off this option to inspect everything in the debugger, but the objects will never be released, making the garbage collection monitor useless.

Here is how to force the inspection of any objects:

Any feedback appreciated!

Romu

I've updated the debugger used in SomaCore. You can know click on everything to parse the objects and I've added a FPS + Memory meter. I'll continue to improve the debugger with my needs, next step might be a Garbage Collection monitor.

Click here to see the debugger in action.

Tips: if you close the debugger, type "debug" to get it back.

Here is a little bit of code in case you want to want to use the debugger without using the SomaCore Framework.

Following my previous post about MVC design philosophy and an AS3 MVC Framework that suit my needs and expectations, I've started using SomaCore in a relatively complicated AIR modular application, and I'm really enjoying it.

I made some small changes to the code and I thought it would be a good idea to provide you the sources. SomaCore was a missing tool in my actionscript work.

I've started to feel the power of the native Flash event system (even if criticized!) by being able to listen to commands independently of the commands itself (and what the command is doing), or being able to "preventDefault" any command, or to monitor very easily everything that is going on in the framework. The wires have been a good help to keep my code very clean without tons of classes, while keeping my models and views completely free of framework code.

I also found out some kind of hidden capabilities I didn't think about while making it. One of them is an "easy module communication", so easy that, you have absolutely nothing to do to enable it. When I say module, it could be another SomaCore instance, a loaded SWF, another SomaCore instance in a loaded SWF, and so on. But I'll give more details later.

You can now find the (updated) SomaCore resources on the SomaCore Page.

Special thanks to Henry for his testing and feedback!

Feel free to use the sources and give me some feedback. I'll try later to give more explanation on how to use SomaCore and the Wires, new demos and tutorials.

Romu