Flex Paths and Button Skins

So you’re building a Flex application. And you want to skin your buttons. But, alas, you’re tired of rectangular buttons. Never fear, Flex paths are here.

First you need to define the coordinates of the vector shape you want to create.

<fx:Declarations>
    <fx:String id="arrowPath">
        M 0 0
        L 20 0
        L 100 0
        L 120 20
        L 100 40
        L 0 40
        L 20 20
        L 0 0
    </fx:String>
</fx:Declarations>

Then, you’ll need to create a Graphic object. You can use a scale9Grid to fit the width of the label text without distortion.

<s:Graphic includeIn="up"
           height="100%" width="100%"
           scaleGridTop="1" scaleGridBottom="39"
           scaleGridLeft="20" scaleGridRight="100">
    <s:Path data="{arrowPath}">
        <s:fill>
            <s:LinearGradient id="gradientUp" rotation="90">
                <s:GradientEntry color="0x4e77b3"/>
                <s:GradientEntry color="0x345c98"/>
            </s:LinearGradient>
        </s:fill>
        <s:stroke>
            <s:LinearGradientStroke rotation="90">
                <s:GradientEntry color="0x7399CF"/>
                <s:GradientEntry color="0xd3d3d3"/>
                <s:GradientEntry color="0x23467B"/>
            </s:LinearGradientStroke>
        </s:stroke>
    </s:Path>
</s:Graphic>

You’re on a roll now, so you toss a few buttons into a button bar, back ‘em up so they saddle up next to each other, and you’ve got something like this:

Bada bing.  Bada boom.

GISi HealthCheck for Local Government

This week at GISi we are excited to launch our GIS HealthCheck campaign!  Our clients are dealing with reduced budgets and need to do more with less!  To help our clients maximize their GIS investments, GISi has sprung into action and built a GIS HealthCheck toolkit and SWAT team of consultants that have worked in the GIS sector of local government for years.

The GIS HealthCheck SWAT team objective is much like a medical health check that includes diagnostics (tests), a lifestyle assessment, and prescriptions or recommendations for improvement.  The GIS HealthCheck has similar components: a technical diagnostic of the GIS, an assessment of the business utilization of the GIS, and finally a prescription, or suggestions for the future.

Most of our GIS HealthCheck clients have been able to obtain budget for a GIS project after a prescription has been presented.  We pride our GIS HealthCheck on its ability to make our clients more relevant within their organization and uncover hidden revenue that can be generated from their existing GIS investments.

For more information on the GIS HealthCheck, visit http://www.GISHealthCheck.com

The GISi HealthCheck SWAT team is looking forward to working with our clients.