State Transitions in Flex 4 for Intuitive UIs

Artima.com has posted another article from my book Flex 4 Fun. Check out State Transitions in Flex 4 for Intuitive UIs for an overview of using transitions to animate changes between states in Flex 4.

Yes We Candroid

In case anyone's wondering when the next Flex CodeDependent video/demo is coming, the answer is... probably not anytime soon.

After a fun and productive Flex 4 release, I decided to get small; the time had come for me to do some mobile development. In particular, I wanted to work on Android. So a few weeks ago, I joined Google to work on the Android SDK. For starters, I'm working on animation support (surprise, surprise), but I'm sure I'll end up tinkering throughout the UI toolkit and graphics layers. You know, the fun stuff.

By the way, if you want to know more about this personal career decision, I'll try to answer all of your possible questions here, in no particular order:

• Flex is awesome, Flex 4 is even better. Honestly, I wouldn't have wasted the last year's worth of weekends and evenings writing Flex 4 Fun if I wasn't totally jazzed about Flex 4 as a great client platform.
• Yes, but only on Tuesdays.
• The coffee is better.
• Of course the comedy at chetchat.blogspot.com will continue! I'm not dead yet!
• No
• Maybe, eventually
• Blue
• Dental floss

Adobe's doing great things with Flash on Android and Flex on Android. But that's not what I'm doing here at Google, so I won't be posting much new Flex/Flash content here (although I still plan on doing some book-related articles and conference/user-group presentations). It's that finite-time thing - I'm going to be pretty busy just working on what I need to do for Android. I don't know if you've heard, but there's a lot of these devices out there these days; that's a lot of users that need even more awesome UI toolkit software...

For anyone interested in Android development, or in UI/graphics/animation development in general, stay tuned to this blog: I plan to post content here about all of that kind of stuff.

Flex 4 Fun: Real Soon Now

How credible would a software book be that didn't slip the schedule? That would be like sugarless dessert, or nonfat bacon, or an effective politician; it's just not believable.

So in keeping with the tradition of all software since 1954 (the original launch date of Windows Vista), Flex 4 Fun is hereby slipping its schedule.

But not by much.

The original goal was to have the hardcopy printed and available in early August. Failing the invention of a time machine, that's not going to happen. However, the book is actually done, at least from my perspective. In fact, the content that's been in the PrePrint copy for weeks is nearly final itself. The editing phase found many little things to clean up (it always amazes me how many times I can edit my writing and still find errors. It's as if I'm human) and resulted in some amount of reorganization. But most of the recent changes have just been about finalizing the layout in order to get it to the printer.

I don't have a final date yet, but I'm thinking it's sometime in September, just a few weeks after it's sent to the printer... which the publisher assures me is just about to happen.

In the meantime, check it out online or do like I do; wait impatiently and completely ineffectively.

Graphics in Flex 3 and Flex 4

Artima.com has posted another article from my book Flex 4 Fun. Check out Graphics in Flex 3 and Flex 4 for a comparison of drawing shapes in Flex 3 code versus using the new graphics classes and tags in Flex 4.

Video: Image Zoom Effect in Flex 4

Image Zoom Effect in Flex 4, the next episode in the gripping and suspenseful series CodeDependent, is now available from Adobe TV.

This episode shows a technique for zooming in on a particular area of a thumbnail image, transitioning to a higher-resolution image along the way. A friend had asked about ideas for doing this, and I thought the result might be generally useful or interesting, so here it is. I particularly like how you can zoom in on her enigmatic smile.

Here's the video:

Here is the demo application:

And here is the source code.

Here's where you can find CodeDependent on iTunes.

And here's where you can find CodeDependent on YouTube.

Enjoy.

State-Specific Property Values in Flex 4

Artima.com has posted another article/demo from my book Flex 4 Fun. Check out State-Specific Property Values in Flex 4 to see an example and explanation of the simple new syntax in Flex 4 for declaratively setting per-state property values on objects to automate changes in the UI between states.

Video: Animating Filters in Flex 4, Part II

Animating Filters in Flex 4, Part II, the next episode in the gripping and suspenseful series CodeDependent, is now available from Adobe TV.

This episode is the sequel and stunning conclusion to the previous one, Part I, in which we saw how to use, and not use, the AnimateFilter effect for animating filter properties in Flex 4. This time we see how to properly animate properties of filters which persist on objects when the animation ends.

Here's the video:

Here is the demo application:

And here is the source code.

Here's where you can find CodeDependent on iTunes.

And here's where you can find CodeDependent on YouTube.

Enjoy.