Dayspring Labs
In our spare time, we’re cooking up technologies that may be useful to our clients—it’s fun, it keeps our skills sharp, and helps us to explore the ever-changing software landscape. Some of these technologies are what you’ll find in the Lab. Stay tuned for more of our experiments.
If you like what you see, check out the services we offer or some of the projects we’ve worked on for our clients.
Adobe Flex User Interface
What is this game?
This is a Flex implementation of the boardgame Mastermind that was first sold in the 1970s.
There are two players, namely, the codemaker and the codebreaker. The codemaker chooses a pattern of four code pegs. Duplicates are allowed, so the player could even choose four code pegs of the same color.
The codebreaker tries to guess the pattern, in both order and color, within twelve (sometimes ten or eight) turns. Each guess is made by placing a row of code pegs on the decoding board. Once placed the codemaker provides feedback by placing from zero to four key pegs in the small holes of the row with the guess. A colored key peg is placed for each code peg from the guess which is correct in both color and position; a white peg indicates the existence of a correct color peg placed in the wrong position. Once feedback is provided, another guess is made; guesses and feedback continue to alternate until either the codebreaker guesses correctly, or twelve incorrect guesses are made.
How do I play this version?
You are the codebreaker and the computer is the codemaker.
Drag a "peg" from the pegs on the right to the row with the Score Button beside it. Or you can click the holes on that row to pick the color for that hole.
When you are happy with your guess click the "Score" button and the computer will give feedback.
What is Flex?
Flex is a product of Adobe. Quoting from the Adobe web site:
Adobe® Flex™ 2 is a cross-platform development framework for creating rich Internet applications (RIAs). Flex enables you to create expressive, high-performance applications that run identically on all major browsers and operating systems.
Flex gives our developers the ability to leverage experience in other GUI frameworks like Visual Basic and Java Swing to produce Flash SWFs which can be used as special purpose interfaces on websites. While there are differences between the different GUI frameworks the paradigm is the same, and the learning curve is much easier than it would be to transition to the Flash paradigm of film production.
Also, when the next generation of Flex becomes available which targets Adobe® AIR™ we will be able to create desktop applications using the dynamic HTML and AJAX experience we have gained in our website work.
For more information about Flex and AIR see the Adobe Flex and Adobe AIR web sites.
For more information about Dayspring's services, please contact us