TXEFF component shortcomings

Code hinting and documentation

In the Flash GUI, TXEFF behaves well and nice but when you want to use it in a code environment like FlashDevelop, it is a pain to open the documentation (on PDFs) and browse through it till you find, or not, the method/properties you were looking for. First, a javadoc-like documentation would help. Second, AS3 wrapper classes would be very welcome. When I import TXEFF in FlashDevelop, create a new instance and write "myEffectInstance." and wait for a listing of the available methods and attributes, nothing shows up. Alright, it's a detail but still disappointing.

Blackbox

The cause of this is the way the component is meant : a black box. The component's sources are obfuscated and we only have access to .mxp files. At first I thought I'd write an interface that defines all the methods used in the component but it's a partial solution for there are a lot of attributes that can't be defined in the interface. I'd need to write a wrapper class but it's just a bother to do that now.

In spite of this, I strongly recommend jumpeyecomponents's TXEFF. It is a big help which lets you concentrate on other tasks. This exhaustive review on webdesignerwall (beautiful blog btw) shows you the component thoroughly. You can also test a few effects on the txeff website.

Pricing

TXEFF costs 169$. It's not that of a big investment considering you're very likely to use it in several projects, if you're a Flash/Flex designer, that is.

A sample done in a few minutes

Click anywhere in the swf to replay.