The Summer of Flash Page on My Site
I just wanted to point folks to the Summer of Flash Podcast page on my blog. I thought it might be good to have a place on my site where the podcast that features Garth Braithwaite, Stacy Mulcahy, Zach Stepek, and myself droning on and on about the Flash Platform. The "info" links are to the InsideRIA site pages that Garth put together for us, but I wanted to put all the information in one place so that I can refer people to it.
I totally enjoy recording this podcast. It is so much fun and honestly it's almost therapeutic for me. I don't work in a work site environment where there are a lot of Flash and Flex developers. In fact, I am the only one in the office who does that type of work, so getting to "hang out" online with the Summer of Flash crew is pretty healthy.
I want to thank the people at O'Reilly who have been so supportive. This was their idea and I feel lucky to have been asked to come along.
Oh, boy. Did I just say that hanging out with Stacy was healthy? What was I thinking?
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Summer of Flash Podcast Episdode 1
I am pleased to announce that the first episode of O'Reilly's InsideRIA Summer of Flash podcast has been released.
In this episode, Garth, Stacy, Zach and I discuss the recently released Flash Catalyst Public Beta and what we like and dislike about the product.
We're continuing to record episodes and have lined up a few people from the Flash Platform to waterboard... er, grill for infor... er, interview about all things Flash.
If you have any thoughts, ideas, questions or requests, feel free to leave them in the comments for my entry here or at the entry on the InsideRIA site.
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Introducing Leif Wells, Editor-in-Chief of Flex Authority Magazine
I'd like to officially announce my new role in the Flex community; I am now the Editor-in-Chief of Flex Authority magazine. Flex Authority was started last year by House of Fusion and currently is in production for Issue 3.
Back in February 2008, I was helping my friends Tom and John with 360|Flex Atlanta by allowing them to send packages to the Roundbox Global office so that they wouldn't have to pay the insane storage fees at the conference site, which happened to be a couple of miles from our office. Needless to say, the pile of boxes got fairly impressive fairly quickly. Adobe sent posters and t-shirts, there were boxes of "The Cluetrain Manifesto" , and a ton of other stuff.
Then a call came in from Judith Dinowitz requesting assistance transporting some printed materials, fliers for the attendee bag they were having printed in Atlanta to avoid some difficult shipping costs. I believe that is the first time I had heard about Flex Authority. Judith confirmed that it was in the works and that they were going to launch the magazine in the middle of 2008. My reaction was, as with a lot of things that promote the community I work in every day, "What can I do to help?"
And help I did. I was Technical Editor for several articles in the first issue, authored a "10 Questions with..." column with Adam and Dave from the Merapi project , and even took the time to write a couple of filler pieces at the eleventh hour. I was excited about Flex Authority and hopeful for its future.
Flash forward to January 2009. Judith calls me to discuss a change in the magazine management; the position of Editor-in-Chief was open. She said that my name had risen to the top of the list of candidates. She presented me with an opportunity, one that I was sure I'd regret letting pass.
The Editor-in-Chief position at a magazine the size of Flex Authority isn't a high paying gig. In fact, I am not getting paid at all. The position requires a lot of reading and re-reading of articles, balancing grammatical and technical corrections while considering the author's voice, herding cat-like authors, technical editors and copy editors who are balancing full-time jobs (and lives) with a magazine schedule; it's not an easy job. Sure, I'll avoid the stereotypical publishing industry traps like hard drinking, chain smoking and womanizing, but those activities actually sound like rewards compared to these responsibilities.
So, why did I agree to become Editor-in-Chief of Flex Authority?
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Vote for Flex Builder Source Formatting (or Pedro)
I was reading a blog entry on Flex Builder Enhancements at InsideRIA last night and thought that I would bump the entry and my comment up to the surface for more exposure. RJ Owen's article laments features that are available from the Java Developer Kit and not a part of the Eclipse project itself, thus not immediately available for Flex Builder users. He cites useful features like "TODO", Snippets, Mylyn integration, and a fix to the Open Resource menu bug (something I had never run into). The article also links to where you can acquire these enhancements. All of these features are worthy of mentioning to my team here at Roundbox Global.
Snippets was one of t ne features that I was used to using in Flash Development Tool (FDT) back when I was doing Flash development on a regular basis. This feature allows developers to use templates to help speed up common coding tasks. If you want to be able to have code created for you via Snippets, you first create the template, then in your code type the string associated with the template and "bam" the code is there. All you need to do then is tab through the template variables you set up and enter the data you need. OK, so, it isn't that simple, but once you set it up and get it into your workflow it's powerful.
The comments for the article featured a few people fired up about the lack of source formatting. I mention the lack of this feature privately a while back and could never raise anyone's temperature. But someone else had thought enough about the feature to have entered a bug into the Flex Bug and Issue Management System over at Adobe. The issue, FB-8297, deserves the attention of anyone who wants source formatting in Flex Builder. At this time, the issue has 22 votes but I now feel certain that more people are interested than that.
Although FB-8297 is listed as a "Minor Enhancement", I am certain that Adobe's engineers will look at this issue as more than minor because it isn't just formatting ActionScript code similar to how Java code is structured; this task will require ActionScript, MXML and ActionScript+MXML all to be formatted by Flex Builder, something that is more than what the JDK is able to do. In the issue's comments, I've added some further enhancements to the issue — like making sure the "x" comes before "y" in the MXML which is something that drives me nuts during code reviews.
If you want this feature, vote for it.
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Last Night's Flex and AIR Pre-release Tour in Atlanta
I thoroughly enjoyed last night's Flex and AIR Pre-release Tour event here in Atlanta. There were a ton of people at the event and I believe that everyone had a great time. It was exceptionally great to see some faces that I had not seen in years (more than ten years in a couple of cases). As always, getting to see everyone was great.
Special thanks to John Mason, president of the AFFUG and to Adobe for setting up everything.
The thing about Ben Forta, the presenter at last night's event, is that you don't want the event to end. Ben keeps relating relevant information to you about whatever the event's topic happens to be. Ben is a wealth of information — that is, the information that he can reveal at an event, not that people didn't try to get release dates out of him — and I know that whenever Ben comes to town that it's a must see event.
I am truly excited about Flex 3. I've been using Flex Builder 3 full time since the first public release and have been enjoying the experience. I do not have a specific favorite Flex 3 feature, really. I just love all of the efficiencies they have put into Flex Builder; things like smoothing out the designer/developer workflow (while we wait for "Thermo"), code refactoring, and a few wizards that I have found surprisingly useful. I think the feature that will have the most impact on Flex developers in the long run will be what Adobe calls Persistent Framework Caching. That is the feature that allows for reduction of application size by making the Flex runtime library available separately for download. If your user has visited another Web application that uses Flex 3, they will not have to download the Flex library as it will be called from the browser's cache. Adobe says that this can reduce the download size by up to 500k.
As for AIR, I've really enjoyed using it. I have been lucky enough to have already used AIR in client work (yes, before AIR has been released — I know, it's crazy). The SQLite engine is great. Being able to read and write files on the system, associate file extensions with your AIR application, and being able to use native windows and the system tray or dock are all great features. Sometimes they remind me of the work I did years ago using Flash MX and Screenweaver and/or SWF Studio Pro (which are still very valuable given some of AIR's security restrictions).
All in all, last night was a great way to re-energize me for the upcoming final release of Flex 3and AIR.
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Upcoming Flex Online Seminars
Leif's Note: Repeating what I've posted on the Adobe Flash Platform User Group of Atlanta site earlier today, as more people read my blog than the user group's blog.
There are some new Flex online seminars coming up that you should know about.
The titles are:
- Flex and .NET: Anatomy of a Data Driven Application
- Flex 3 Beta--See What's New!
- Basic Application Architecture for Flex Newcomers
All three of these hour long seminars look very interesting and should be enough to get anyone started with their respective topics. I highly recommend that anyone who has not had a chance to play with the current Flex 3 Public Beta and who can't attend MAX next month consider attending the Flex 3 session.
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My Selected Sessions for Adobe MAX 2007
These are the Adobe MAX 2007 sessions I am chomping at the bit to see in no particular order.
XD: Prototyping Rich Internet Applications with Fireworks CS3
Best Practices for Developing with ActionScript 3.0
Building Accessible Applications with Flex
Building Stunning Flex Applications with Flex Builder and Creative Suite 3
Flash Player Cross-Domain Security
Introduction to LiveCycle Data Services for Flex Developers
Advanced LiveCycle Data Services for Flex Developers
Building Rich Internet Applications with Cairngorm and LiveCycle Data Services
Continuous Integration with Flex, FlexUnit, and Ant
Sneak Peak General Session (worth the price of admission)
Hope to see you there.
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Upcoming Books for Flex and Actionscript
Last Updated: 01/07/2007
I've been concerned about getting some of the junior staffers at Roundbox up to speed with Flex 2 and Actionscript 3.0. I figured that it might require a book or two to be purchased for the office to get them all on the same page, so to speak.
While visiting a book store this week-end I noticed that there are very few books published that assist readers and developers in the "how to's" of creating applications using Flex 2 and Actionscript 3. I did pick up the Actionscript 3.0 Cookbook by Joey Lott, Darren Schall and Keith Peters. I did not see the Advanced Actionscript 3 with Design Patterns by Joey Lott and Danny Patterson, or Actionscript 3.0 Essential Training by Joey Lott, but I am very interested in those books as well.
Hang on. Three books by Joey Lott?!? No wonder his blog hasn't had any posts on it in a while. Let's face it, with Joey writing all these books, he deserves a long vacation.
Anyway, I just thought that I'd list a few books that are coming in the next few months so you'll be on the look-out for them:
Adobe Press
- Essential Adobe Flex 2: Training from the Source by Jeff Tapper, James Talbot, Matt Boles, Ben Elmore, Mike Labriola
- Advanced ActionScript 3 with Design Patterns by Joey Lott, Danny Patterson. Reviews: thatblokemike
O'Reilly
- Essential Actionscript 3.0: Rough Cuts Version by (perinial favorite) Colin Moock (available online now, in print June 2007)
- Actionscript 3.0 Pocket Reference by the Adobe Development Team (March 2007)
- Programming Flex 2: Rough Cuts Version by Chafic Kazoun and (who else but) Joey Lott (available online now, in print March 2007)
- Learning ActionScript 3.0 Design: The Non-Programmer's Guide to ActionScript 3by Rich Shupe (March 2007)
- Flex 2.0 User Interface Design and Development for Rich Internet Applications by Simon Reid and Matt Voerman (July 2007)
Friends of Ed
- The Complete Guide to Flex 2 with ActionScript 3.0 by Charles E. Brown (February 2007)
- Foundation Actionscript 3.0 Animation: Making Things Move by Keith Peters (February 2007)
- Foundation Actionscript 3.0 With Flash X and Flex 2 (no author listed) (April 2007)
Wiley
- Professional Flex 2 by Rich Tretola, Simon Barber, Renaun Erickson (April 2007)
Sys-Con Publications
- NEW! Rich Internet Applications with Adobe Flex & Java: Secrets of the Masters by Yakov Fain, Dr. Victor Rasputnis, Anatole Tartakovsky (announced, February 2007)
Are the Adobe folks going to update Developing Rich Clients with Macromedia Flex? Hope so.
Are there more books coming from Adobe Press, Lynda.com and other publishers? Sure, but I don't have insight into those publishing houses at this time. I'll try to keep this list up-to-date and add any reviews when they become available.
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What I Have Been Doing Since My Last Blog Post
It has been a while since I have posted to my blog. A friend asked me what I've been doing with myself, since obviously I have been too busy to post. Here's my list:
Fiddling with technical problems recording audio conversations via Skype (and failing)See gotoAndSay()Re-re-recording a podcast (more on that later)See gotoAndSay()- Forming the new and improved Adobe User Group of Atlanta (was the Atlanta Macromedia User Group)
- Recreating the AUGoA Web site
- Finding a permanent place for AUGoA to meet
- Looking for new employees for the new Roundbox Costa Rica office
- Planning a trip to Costa Rica
- Planning a Adobe User Group of Costa Rica
- Creating a AUGoCR Web site
- Learning Flex 2 Builder
- Learning Actionscript 3
- Learning how to better communicate between Flex 2 and Coldfusion
- Learning how to use Coldfusion gateways to create an instant message robot
- Learning how Yahoo Maps API works with Flash, Flex and Javascript
- Relearning how Flash Media Server works
- Learning more about Flash Lite 2
- Learning how to best implement AJAX
- Applying all a learn to a new "top-secret" project
- Redesigning a new "top-secret" project
So, yeah, I have a few things going on professionally that are keeping me from posting right now. But do not fret, as my new "top-secret" project gets moving forward, I am certain that my post will become more frequent and more interesting.
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ARP Survey Results: My Thoughts
Aral Balkan has released the results from his survey for ARP that he posted to the ARP List and I thought that I might add some thoughts to what the survey revealed.
Mind you, 18 respondents to a survey does not make for scientific survey results, but that is not the point here. The people who responded are best audience. But I know that there are more people and companies using ARP. I just wish more people and companies using ARP. Just as I wish more people were building Rich Internet Applications (RIA). Just as I wish more clients were asking for them.
Just so that you know, ARP is a RIA Framework for Actionscript 2.0 that Mr. Balkan has provided, with the assistance of a lot of great developers, to the Flash community. Balkan has also been a great leader in the Open Source Flash movement. Roundbox Media, my employer, used ARP on three projects in 2005. It's pretty lean and mean. We started using our own little version, but there is another version, ARPX (which I can't seem to find a link to right now), that a lot of people seem to be using and we are reviewing at Roundbox.
Let me put it as frankly as I can: if you are working with a team of Flash developers, using ARP is almost as important as is getting your developers away from using the Flash IDE. Not using ARP is a waste of your client's money and your time and effort.
And if you are a developer working all by yourself, working with ARP can be just as important — if you are looking to take your Actionscript skills up to another level and draw more clients or employers into your reach. ARP will keep you organized and make bug fixes and maintenance a no-brainer.
And speaking or the Flash IDE, when asked what client-side technologies developers were using, Balkan states "The winner here is the Flash IDE. It was used in 17 out of 18 projects, usually alongside open source technologies." Although I have to agree with Balkan when he says that this proves that open source tools "compliment the Flash IDE", I honestly view this result a little differently — if it weren't for the Flash Components V2, I'd probably not use the Flash IDE anymore. In fact, Roundbox isn't interested in upgrading to Flash 8 right now and it has been out for a long time. I honestly feel that we have not been given incentive. When creating an RIA with Flash, version 8 has not given me anything that I can't seriously live without. Not to fault Macromedia — they made it quite clear that Flash 8 was going to be more creatively focused. It's just that we haven't found a client that has needed those features (o.k., maybe file upload might make us upgrade). And there are alternatives to the Flash Components V2 like ActionStep, but we have not had the time to review that project lately and it appears to still be in Alpha.
And that, too, is another point I'd like to make: keeping up with all of the options you have for creating great Flash Platform-based applications can be a huge pain. Things are always in flux. All the projects seem to be pre-Alpha or Alpha. The MTASC compiler, a product without which there would probably be no open source Flash movement, seems to be the only other truly mature project (and thank goodness for that). I mean, a lot of people responded to the survey appear to still be using Flashout, a great piece of software, albeit not open source. But we left Flashout behind when we started using the latest version of the Actionscript Development Tool (ASDT).
And now a moment of unfortunate criticism: what the heck is going on with ASDT?. Unfortunately, I do not have the skills necessary to donate properly to the ASDT project so I hate complaining about a project that I can't assist. But I must. If I can convince the powers-that-be at Roundbox, we are going to start using *gasp* the Flash Development Tool (FDT) for development of our Flash RIA projects. We compiled the latest version that is in the repository, but that version is still doesn't come close to what FDT is shipping today. Is there another version of ASDT on the way? Will ASDT turn the corner soon and have a solid 1.0 version soon? Will ASDT and FDT both support Actionscript 3.0 in the future using the recently announced free compiler from Adobe? Will it be as good as Flex Builder 2 Beta appears to be? I do not have the answers to these questions and although I'd hate it, I may soon be paying US $253.53 per seat so that my team can code as efficiently as possible.
But, again, back to the survey and one last observation: it looks like AMFPHP is being used a lot. Not too surprising, see how we are talking about a lot of open source software here, but I was a little disappointed that OpenAMF wasn't better represented —not only because I am an OpenAMF user, but because I feel that the more RIA's that have Java back-ends serving and handling data, the more support of Flash-based, and thus Flex-based, RIA's will have in the Java community. Those Java folks are very focused on AJAX!
And speaking of OpenAMF and AMFPHP, have we heard anything about future support for the new version of the Remoting protocol AMF3 which is included with the Flex 2 Beta? (What? You haven't downloaded it yet? Keep up, will ya?) I would really like to hear that someone is working on it? Heck, I'd like to hear that Adobe is going to have new Actionscript 3.0 version of Remoting Components ready when Flash 9 ships.
And speaking of AMF3 (I'm on a roll!), I absolutely love the way Coldfusion works with Flex 2. Absolutely. I can't wait to see it being used by someone who really knows how to do it right!
With all this excitement with Flash, how could anyone even consider AJAX?
Aral Balkan, thanks for the survey, thanks for ARP and I look forward to ARP 3.0!
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