Archive for January, 2010
Truly Cached Flex Modules
Jan 31st
I was working on a project recently and I discovered (or possibly misunderstood – see disclaimer) that Flex does not cache modules correctly, or – at the very least – it does not do it effectively according to my tests.
My test was conducted using Flex SDK 3.4.0.9271, Firefox 3.5.7 and Flex Builder Professional 3.0.214193
According to this page (under the Preloading modules heading), Adobe asserts the following:
When a module is loaded by the Flex application for the first time, the module’s SWF file is transferred across the network and stored in the browser’s cache. If the Flex application unloads that module, but then later reloads it, there should be less wait time because Flash Player loads the module from the cache rather than across the network.
Module SWF files, like all SWF files, reside in the browser’s cache unless and until a user clears them. As a result, modules can be loaded by the main application across several sessions, reducing load time; but this depends on how frequently the browser’s cache is flushed.
I found the above claims to be demonstrably false, or at least just plain inefficient…
Let me qualify this:
According to my tests (conducted with my Firefox browser cache turned both on and off), i found that the application’s memory usage keeps growing exponentially when switching between two loaded modules. There was a variance (as you’d imagine) when the browser cache was left on but nonetheless, the memory usage keeps growing steadily.
In the code sample below, I have extended the functionality of the mx.modules.ModuleLoader class, and added a Dictionary (with a little logic) to manage the (ostensibly) effective caching of previously loaded modules. I have not tested this class extensively, but all the tests that I conducted seemed to produce a significant memory and speed improvement.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 | package { import flash.display.DisplayObject; import flash.display.DisplayObjectContainer; import flash.utils.ByteArray; import flash.utils.Dictionary; import mx.events.FlexEvent; import mx.events.ModuleEvent; import mx.modules.IModuleInfo; import mx.modules.ModuleLoader; import mx.modules.ModuleManager; /** * This class manages the loading, unloading and caching of Flex Modules * This is a modified version of the mx.modules.ModuleLoader class * * @author Danny Kopping - danny@ria-coder.com */ public class CachedModuleLoader extends ModuleLoader { private var map:Dictionary = new Dictionary(); private var _url:String = null; private var module:IModuleInfo; private var loadRequested:Boolean = false; public function CachedModuleLoader() { super(); } override public function set url(value:String):void { if (value == _url) return; if (module) { module.removeEventListener(ModuleEvent.PROGRESS, moduleProgressHandler); module.removeEventListener(ModuleEvent.SETUP, moduleSetupHandler); module.removeEventListener(ModuleEvent.READY, moduleReadyHandler); module.removeEventListener(ModuleEvent.ERROR, moduleErrorHandler); module.removeEventListener(ModuleEvent.UNLOAD, moduleUnloadHandler); //module.release(); module = null; if (child) { removeChild(child); //child = null; } } _url = value; dispatchEvent(new FlexEvent(FlexEvent.URL_CHANGED)); removeAllChildren(); if (_url != null && loadRequested) { if(!map[_url]) loadModule(); else { child = map[_url]; addChild(child); } } } override public function get url():String { return _url; } override public function createComponentsFromDescriptors(recurse:Boolean = true):void { super.createComponentsFromDescriptors(recurse); loadRequested = true; loadModule(); } override public function loadModule(url:String = null, bytes:ByteArray = null):void { if (url != null) _url = url; if (_url == null) { //trace("loadModule() - null url"); return; } if (map[_url]) { //trace("loadModule() - already created the child"); return; } if (module) { //trace("loadModule() - load already initiated"); return; } dispatchEvent(new FlexEvent(FlexEvent.LOADING)); module = ModuleManager.getModule(_url); module.addEventListener(ModuleEvent.PROGRESS, moduleProgressHandler); module.addEventListener(ModuleEvent.SETUP, moduleSetupHandler); module.addEventListener(ModuleEvent.READY, moduleReadyHandler); module.addEventListener(ModuleEvent.ERROR, moduleErrorHandler); module.addEventListener(ModuleEvent.UNLOAD, moduleUnloadHandler); module.load(applicationDomain, null, bytes); } override public function unloadModule():void { if (child && contains(child)) { removeChild(child); child = null; } if (module) { module.removeEventListener(ModuleEvent.PROGRESS, moduleProgressHandler); module.removeEventListener(ModuleEvent.SETUP, moduleSetupHandler); module.removeEventListener(ModuleEvent.READY, moduleReadyHandler); module.removeEventListener(ModuleEvent.ERROR, moduleErrorHandler); module.unload(); module.removeEventListener(ModuleEvent.UNLOAD, moduleUnloadHandler); module = null; } if(map[_url]) { delete map[_url]; } } private function moduleProgressHandler(event:ModuleEvent):void { dispatchEvent(event); } private function moduleSetupHandler(event:ModuleEvent):void { // Not ready for creation yet, but can call factory.info(). dispatchEvent(event); } private function moduleReadyHandler(event:ModuleEvent):void { child = module.factory.create() as DisplayObject; dispatchEvent(event); if (child) { var p:DisplayObjectContainer = parent; // p.removeChild(this); addChild(child); map[url] = child;//ModuleManager.getModule(_url); //trace(map + ":" + url + ":" + map[url]); } } private function moduleErrorHandler(event:ModuleEvent):void { unloadModule(); dispatchEvent(event); } private function moduleUnloadHandler(event:ModuleEvent):void { dispatchEvent(event); } } } |
The usage of this class is exactly the same as the regular mx.modules.ModuleLoader class. I hope this helps!
Download this file: Download
**DISCLAIMER**
I know a bit about Flex modules from hours of obsessing over them, but i do not know everything. From my tests of the efficacy of the above code & explanation, i found that it reduces memory usage and increases the general usability of my Flex project; i could be very wrong on this topic, and if i am – please tell me. Maybe i’m just an idiot, but it seems to work…
VirtualBox Guest Additions woes
Jan 18th
Sigh… I wish that computers would just work all the time!
Today i booted my machine, launched my snazzy Linux virtual machine, proceeded to start my XAMPP stack and mount my shared folder so that my Linux VM can communicate with my host OS (sigh) Windows… This works 99.9% of the time, but to my horror:
/sbin/mount.vboxsf: mounting failed with the error: No such device
FUCK! What now? So i google and google, but nothing works…
I’m now bashing my head in frustration against my desk, spilling my coffee and rubbing my blood-red forehead, but that didn’t help either… I try mount VBoxGuestAdditions via VirtualBox, nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing! NOTHING!
By now i’m getting so irritated that i’m drinking coffee after coffee and smoking vociferously… and then…. -cue lightbulb- if you can’t take the horse to the water (mount VBoxGuestAdditions in Linux), pick the fucker up and dump him in there (download the fucking thing from Linux and run it from Linux). So, i dig around looking for the URL, eventually find it, mount the ISO file (help instructions on mounting an ISO file in Linux here), run the installation script, reboot and IT WORKS!! …and the children lived happily ever after.
Flash Runtime implemented in JavaScript
Jan 13th
Now this completely threw me… I can’t believe how one guy can be so skilled!
This is completely ridiculous… Tobias Schneider has written a JavaScript-based Flash runtime! Well, this gives Internet Explorer another thing to completely fuck up! Very impressed indeed…