RIA Radio, Live at Adobe MAX – Day 1 Keynote

I was honored to be a guest on RIA Radio during the recent Adobe MAX show. I joined the hosts, Garth Braithwaite, Leif Wells and  Zach Stepek, along with fellow guest Kevin Schmidt. We discussed the announcements from the Day 1 keynote (Flash for the iPhone, Flash 10.1 on mobile, TVs, and netbooks.)  Throughout the entire show, they sat down with a lot of cool folks, so take a listen.

Listen to this podcast ( mp3). You can also subscribe to the RIA Radio Podcast in iTunes.

Kevin Schmidt to discuss the big MAX announcements and give our take on what they mean. Topics covered include: Flash for the iPhone, Flash 10.1 on mobile, TVs, and netbooks.

Experts: Leif Wells and  Zach Stepek

Listen to this week’s podcast ( mp3). You can also subscribe to the RIA Radio Podcast in iTunes.

Read more from Garth Braithwaite.

Creating a comboBox in Flash Catalyst Beta 2 posted

My latest article on Flash Catalyst has been posted over on O’Reilly’s InsideRIA. This article explores how you can recreate a comboBox component (since one is currently not included in the default component set). I hope you find it helpful.

Flash Catalyst Quick Links

Designer-developer workflow enhancements with Flash Catalyst by Elad Elrom 

This is a great summary of the challenges the Flash Catalyst (FC) faces as it attempts to solve the Designer-Developer workflow problem. Given how complex this problem is, Elad provides some clear thoughts on how FC can ease this transition. For me the key point was to think of your application in smaller custom components. As a Developer/Designer, I find the best way to solve development problems is to break the entire task down into smaller chunks. The same process can be applied to using FC. By doing so, the output should be more usable by a development, which will in all likelyhood, refactor the code to fit their development model. But by providing smaller elements, this integration should happen smoother and facilitate revisions.

Adobe Flash Catalyst best practices by Andrew Shorten

In this article, Andrew give some advice on configuring your Adobe Illustrator files so that Flash Catalyst interpret them easier. I mentioned the need for visual designers to take care in creating their assets. Remember “Layer 3 copy” doesn’t help the workflow.

New Fireworks CS4-Flash Catalyst Integration

One of the sore points in working with Flash Catalyst is the lack of support for importing Fireworks PNGs into FC. Fireworks has long been a workhorse in the prototyping stable, so this “issue” was quite a sore subject for many. So today on the Adobe Flash Platform Blog, Ryan Stewart announced that they have released a script to aid the transfer from Fireworks into Flash Catalyst.

If you’re a Fireworks user you’ll be happy to know that the team has been hard at work improving the FXG export feature so you can more easily take your designs from Fireworks and use them in Flash Catalyst. The new script is available over on Adobe Labs and includes a ton of fixes to the old FXG script as well as some new functionality based on a more finalized FXG specification:

• lineHeight for Text element was always exported as %, now its exported based on value selected in Fireworks ( % or exact)
• Tab indention was not correct for elements which were exported as bitmaps
• Exporting invisible bitmap elements caused script error
• Updated Rectangle primitive object to export transformation matrix and roundness value.
• Modified / Added Application Private Data for all elements (d:userLabel , d:type etc)
• Exporting effects applied on Groups and Symbols

So fear not Fireworks users, Flash Catalyst may not have native file format import for you, but you’ll still be able to use the tool you know and love and bring those designs easily into Flash Catalyst with the “Open from FXG” feature.

O’Reilly’s InsideRIA Summer of Flash Podcast

Adobe has been busy and this summer we have seen some changes to their Flash Platform and some new tools for working with it. In the new Summer of Flash Podcast the panel (Garth Braithwaite, Stacey Mulcahy,  Zach Stepek, and Leif Wells) will be discussing their experiences with these new tools, and how they will impact RIA developers’ workflow.

In this episode they discussed Flash Catalyst and their experiences working with it. They highlight how it has changed as it came to the public beta and what they are expecting and hoping from the final release.

Flash Catalyst: Under the Hood

My friends from DevelopmentArc has just published the second of their five part series focusing on Flash Catalyst on Peachpit.com blog. It is nice overview of where Flash Catalyst fits into the Flash Platform.

Exploring the Data List Component in Flash Catalyst

My “Exploring the Data List Component in Flash Catalyst” article is up on O’Reilly InsideRIA.

I should be finished with the second part later this week. The San Diego Flash User Group is a stop on the User Group tour for Flash Catalyst/Flash Builder/Flex 4, so need to get that under my belt.

Reflection from the glow of FlashCamp SF

I meant to write this up after I returned from Adobe’s San Francisco offices, but with Saturday being my 16th wedding anniversary, I figured I should not spend it in front of a keyboard.

I flew up to San Francisco that morning. I was surprised to find James Polanco from Development Arc, standing just past the security exit at SFO. He was waiting for his business partner who was arriving on another flight. We rode BART into the city chatting about the upcoming event. They had some meetings to attend to, and I headed for the hotel. (We were later photographed together at the event).

After spending after of the afternoon at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, I headed down to 601 Townsend. A small crowd was gathering in the lobby, while various Adobers, were busy setting everything up.

I chatted with several good friends, as a queue began to form. The line quickly began snaking around the lobby. After a few minutes, the check-in table was open; raffle tickets, badges, t-shirts, and other goodies were quickly handed out. I thanked Rachel Luxemberg for the suggestion of the museum. If you don’t know Rachel, you should.

I grab a nice beer from the great selection out together by Mike Chambers. Kudos for posting the choices. I know they were competing with FlashOnTap in the beer category, but it nice to be able to do some homework on the brews before hand, to make the best choices.

As we enjoyed a drink or two and a some nosh, I was able to reconnect with several old friends. I had to miss last year’s MAX due to the death of my father, so this brought back warm memories of events past.

We found our seats, folks from all parts of the community were in attendance: from Google to Facebook to students. Kevin Lynch CTO of Adobe, and David Wadhwani, GM and VP of the Flash Platform business unit provide an overview of the Flash Platform. The video and slides are now online. The rest of the presentations should be available within a day or two.

For a lot of folks, seeing the progress on Flash Catalyst was the highlight of the evening. When the CDs were begin handed out, it seemed that FC was being installed first on most machines.

Various team members showed various new elements with the Framework, the newly rename Flash Builder and Catalyst. Some of the key points were the Data List Component in Flash Catalyst, the new Skinning capabilities in the Flex Framework, and the Client Side Data Management.

Throughout the evening, the various teams were available for some one-on-one Q&A. I had a great chat with Adam Cath of the Flash Catalyst team about the Data List Component and using the tools for mobile UIs.

Everyone seemed to have a wonderful time. Thanks Adobe and Mike Chambers for hosting such a wonderful event. (And winning a copy of CS4 Master Collection didn’t hurt either!)

Flash Catalyst Beta now available

Adobe has just posted the beta of Flash Catalyst on the Adobe Labs site. In addition, a beta of the renamed Flash Builder 4 (Flex Builder).

 

Make sure you attend the San Diego Flash User Group’s meeting this Wednesday to get an inside look at them. More information on the event can be found at sdfug.org.

FlashCamp San Francisco SOON!

I’m glad I got my free ticket to FlashCamp San Francisco as quickly as I did, as they ran out in no time at all. I’m flying up mid-day and either might wander about the city some, or find a quiet spot and get some work done. I’ll let the fickle SF weather be my guide.

Hope to see you there!