Since we needed a good way to test our undo/redo framework, and a nice simple demo, we built our Cairngorm Calculator. You may have spotted the link in our recent article on the UndoRedo framework. It’s sort of an odd application of some heavy duty frameworks, but it let us sort out some issues with the application of our framework.

It was also my first chance to work with Cairngorm. I kept intending to look at it, I made great plans but never seemed to find the time to sit down and actually do something with it. I came away from our little demo with an awareness that while it would take some time to get familiar with the processes, there was some real power in the way things are handled in Cairngorm. Some of my impressions of the process follow:

• Building a Cairngorm app takes real planning. You aren’t going to just throw something together and hope it holds up. Since the framework fits large projects the best, this can only be a good thing.
• Once again Flex Builder fits the way I do work. The design view, code hinting, and debugger all come together to make the process of building Flex applications fairly smooth. Not perfect, but pretty darn good.
• Building a simple calculator isn’t as simple as it would seem. Though some of that came from using several new and unfamiliar tools and frameworks, really thinking about what should be undo-able, and how to handle it was interesting.
• And finally, Kaleb loves to dig into these things and really find out how they work. Which is where those great posts on data binding, and some others coming down the pipe come from. It’s great to have the insight of someone like that on hand.

I didn’t do much with the styling on this calculator, just some CSS styles and a couple of filters. With the continuing improvements to Flex 3, and the new skinning extensions for other Adobe apps I do intend to re-visit some design aspects (whether of the calculator, or in general) in the coming weeks. Oh, and if you have time to comment on any of this we’d love to hear it.