Daniel R.

Degrafa Introduction

Declarative graphics for MXML.. Based on surface that you draw things on. Surface has standard flex styles and placement. Surface is a Flex shape so you can apply filters, etc. Placed on a surface: Strokes, Fills, Geometry (the shapes). Multiple shapes are drawn in the z-index as defined in MXML. Wide variety of shapes (circle, rectangle, arc, etc.). Has repeater for most types of shapes. Can define objects outside of surface and use them anywhere. VectorFill recently added which allows complex shape composition. Since everything is a flash object can use tween on them. TweenMax is one example. Does support style sheet properties for most options and even creating entire surfaces in CSS.

Degrafa has some bases classes for doing skinning. GraphicBorderSkin is one example to define a skin for a component like a button. GeometryComposition allows defining how each state in the skin behaves.

ObjectHandles Introduction

ObjectHandles utility classes for doing real time object manipulation (move, resize, etc.). Background done in Degrafa. Objects to be manipulated extend: ObjectHandles <- BaseShape <- (SquareShape, CircleShape, etc.). CircleShape uses Degrafa to display itself. ObjectHandlesCanvas is a way to group ObjectHandle objects to enable keyboard support and easier z-index ordering. ObjectHandle objects dispatch various events like "Object Moving" and "Object Moved", once for during and once for after. SelectionManager is a singleton and an ObjectHandles class that manges the currently selected object. Rotation maybe added in the future (works in version 13 but not in latest).

ObjectHandles can't be composed into an existing object. Must be the base class.

Able to change the style of the handles through skinning.

ObjectHandles 2.0 is coming in the future that has better handle handling (get around scaling issues).