Adobe Flex RSL Error in IE

This is another case which I know the cause and the solution for a problem. But I don't understand why it would cause a problem.

Environment:
  - IE10, Win7, Flash Player 11.8 debugger
  - Google Chrome  28.0 with Flash Player 11.8

Symptom:
  Flex application stopped  working in IE. Always getting this error message: "RSL Error 1 of 2". RSL is short for Runtime Shared Library. Using ServiceCapture, I do see the main SWF loaded, and the first RSL loaded, but no the rest.
  The same Flex application works perfectly in Google Chrome.

Cause:
  In the the IE Security setting, "Enable Protected Mode" is unchecked.


Solution:
  Go to IE > Tools > Internet Options > Security, make sure "Enable Protected Mode" is checked. Then restart IE. Voila, it all works again. In retrospect, I might turned it off when I was trying to set up Selenium test framework.

Question:
  It's still beyond me why "Protected Mode" seems to make IE 10 more compatible. Just a few days back I had another problem with Office Web application due to the exact same cause. An extra IE windows will always popup when I open an Office 2013 application in Excel. The problem is gone after I enabled protected mode.

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Flex: a RIA web application development framework based on Adobe Flash technology

Embedding Chart in Web Pages Made Easy

This week, embedding charts in your web page (either dynamic or static) is made extremely easy by the release of two new tools by Yahoo and Google. Both released free tools to help create chart online.

I am not sure if this is competition between Yahoo and Google or just coincidence. The two tools are released within the same week (this week):
YUI 2.4.0 released on 12/04/2007
Google Chart API released on 12/06/2007

The two tools actually complement each other.

Google Chart API:
Nothing can describe it better than the following text on their web site:

The Google Chart API lets you dynamically generate charts. To see the Chart API in action, open up a browser window and copy the following URL into it:

http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=p3&chd=s:hW&chs=250x100&chl=Hello|World

Press the Enter or Return key ...

Pros:
- absolutely the simplest and the easiest chart tool I have ever seen;
- there is no CPU overhead on your web server and client's computer;
Cons:
- may have problem serving chart over SSL (at least IE will complain about secure and non-secure content on the same page);
- chart is static, no user interaction;
- very limited control over chart's look and feel;
- can only show limited data range;
- can only show limited number of data points;
- your data has to be sent to a Google server, it may be a security concert;

Below is a sample chart serve by Google Chart API. It is the real thing! Served dynamically from Google's server farms! It takes me only 20 seconds to embed it into this blog.




Yahoo! User Interface Library (YUI):
YUI implementation is based on a Flash component. You will need to write JavaScript to control the data and look&feel on the Flash chart.
Pros:
- Rich user interaction (there is potential to allow user zoom, pan, or edit charts);
- More control over look and feel;
- Can show more data;
- Can be hosted on your own server (no worry about Google being BIG BROTHER or going BANKRUPT);
- Less Internet traffic is required (only need to download data, not PNG or any other image files);
- Can serve live data (again, only data download is needed, we can afford to update the chart frequently);
Cons:
- substantial JavaScipt programming and HTML editing is required;
- end user need to have Flash Player 9.0.45 or higher (not many people have that as on December 2007);
- end user's computer must have some spare CPU power, especially when multiple charts are embedded on the web page;

As an obvious proof of the difficulty to start using YUI, I am not willing to try to embed a sample chart here in my blog! :-(

The Verdict:
If you want a simple chart embedded on a static page or your blog, use Google Chart API.
If you have total control of your web server, and want to create powerful dynamic charts, use YUI 2.4.0's experimental chart component.

Last Words:
Of course, if you have enough server side CPU power and deep programming knowledge, server side chart rendering always give you ultimate control over the look and feel of your charts. On this end, you have these great open source libraries to help you: ZedGrap (C#), JFreeChart (Java), ASTRA (Flash).

ASTRA -- Open Source ActionScript 3.0 Library From Yahoo

Here is a first look of ASTRA: ActionScript Toolkit for Rich Applications.

ASTRA, the ActionScript Toolkit for Rich Applications, is Yahoo!’s collection of Flash and Flex components, libraries, toolkits and advanced applications. These libraries are open-source and available under the BSD license.

Quote from http://developer.yahoo.com/flash/

The "Flash Componet Library" is the library that really draws my interest. I only looked at this library. I guess, however, the "Web APIs Library" is the one YAHOO really want people getting attached too. :-)

The download is a complete package that starts to be useful within seconds
The download (9.6 MB) contains complete documentation, source code with detailed comments, examples, and binaries that can be installed into Flash CS3 directly. If you are only interested in using the components, you only need to double click the file "astra.mxp", the components will automatically installed and you can start to use it in Flash CS3. You will find the new components under "yahoo" folder. (Notice: if double click "astra.mxp" does not lead you to anything, please check you have installed "Adobe Extension Manager", a separate installation that can be downloaded here: http://www.adobe.com/exchange/em_download/. It is not installed when you first install Flash CS3.)

Small Footprint
All the .swf files in example directory are no more than 50 KB (even chart samples).

Excellent learning tool
If you have reservation on using "Beta" libraries in your product, there may still be reason to have a look at this library. It's source code is fully commented, and neatly organized. This make it a great tool for beginners who are learning to use ActionScript 3.0 and trying to understand object-oriented programming.

Problems
As I said, being a "beta" library, we should expect a lot of bugs. After about 10 minutes playing with chart. I already found a few things worth mentioning. The Flash I created is here: http://huguogang.googlepages.com/testAstra.html
1. Rotated chart cannot be shown properly (although preview on the design surface seems to be ok);
2. Error handling of chart data is weak. It do not show any error message if "dataProvider" has string values. I also managed to make X axis shift to the right by 1 unit, which I don't know why it happens;