Video: Flex 3 Effects

Adobe TV has posted a video of me talking about Flex 3 effects. This is basically a subset of the material I covered in my MAX presentation, specifically about the Flex 3 effects architecture: Tween, Effects, Transitions, and so on. No demos this time, just slides, but hopefully helpful if you're trying to figure out how all of these classes and capabilities work together.

Effects are, I think, one of the cooler things about the Flex platform, especially when they make it so easy to provide simple state transitions for a richer user experience. Understanding how they all fit together can help you make more 'effective' use of them.

Enjoy....

AS34J2: ActionScript for Java Developers, Part Two

The suspense is over, life can return to normal: JavaWorld has posted the second and final installment of my two-part article, ActionScript for Java Developers, which is based on a presentation that James Ward and I did at the Devoxx conference in December.

Part 2 is a bit deeper than Part 1. Now that we've gotten past some of the basic syntax issues in the languages, we're able to get into more complex topics, including Properties, Dynamic aspects of ActionScript, and Functions.

Enjoy...

Devoxx Talk Posted on Parleys.com: 'The Future of Rich Internet Applications'

The Parleys.com site has just posted the talk that I did at Devoxx in December with Matt Chotin (Flex SDK Product Manager) and James Ward (Flex Evangelist).

Go check out the presentation on the parleys site itself. Parleys is a fantastic Flex application, from the player that you watch the videos in to the publisher that they use to actually create these video/slide/demo-rich presentations. Nice work by Stephan Janssen (founder of Devoxx and Parleys.com) and Benjamin Dobler (developer of the Flex viewer and publisher).

Enjoy...

Video: Smarter Effects in Gumbo

Here's another video from Adobe TV. In this one, I'm showing a couple of applications that demonstrate some of the intelligence that we're building into the new effects in Gumbo (the codename for the next release of Flex). Specifically, these demos show some of the new automatic behavior of the Fade effect and the new "autoReverse" capability of transitions.

As with any Gumbo demos, you should not get too locked into the specific APIs, since we're still very much mid-development. For example, all of the effects currently have an "Fx" prefix in the classnames which should be going away soon. But the point of the applications is to show the functionality and behavior of the effects, which is here to stay.

I should/will post the code and applications soon, but my workspace is a bit torn up at the moment, since I'm in the middle of more cool-o effects features. As soon as that's cleared up, I'll update this post to have the code available. Meanwhile, grab the popcorn, sit back, and enjoy all 6 minutes and 8 seconds of:

AS34J1

JavaWorld has just published Part 1 of a two part article entitled ActionScript for Java Developers (though I prefer the more unparsable name AS34J). It's based on a presentation that James Ward and I did at the Devoxx conference in December, walking through various aspects of similarity and differences between Java and AS3. The point is not to promote one language or platform over the other, but rather to take a closer look at AS3 with Java-tinted glasses. Enjoy...

Really Live Cycle Data Services

I don't usually go in for PR announcements here; I figure that kind of stuff is covered pretty well in other places. But I had to mention this one that I just saw:

Amgen Tour of California Leverages Adobe Flash Platform

Apparently, the race will be streamed live over the web using Flash.

Pretty excellent, but my favorite part is the product name of the Adobe server software that's helping to enable it: "Live Cycle Data Services"

Perfect.

It's like Flash being used for photography, or Flex for applications in the rubber industry, or AIR applications for atmospheric monitoring. I'll be on the lookout for more product name-appropriate partnerships. Brand reinforcement is so critical.

Video: Gumbo Effects

Adobe TV has posted a video where I talk about some of the new effects capabilities in the next release of Flex, codenamed 'Gumbo'.

For example, the effects can now animate arbitrary objects and types (not just UIComponents and Numbers), which enables things like the new FxAnimateColor effect. Also, there is a new 'easing function' interface that makes the built-in easing functions more flexible and also 'easier' for custom implementations. And there's new repetition behavior that makes reversing and looping animations simple.

Work is still ongoing: we're adding more functionality to the effects system constantly. In fact, I'd better get back to that now. Meanwhile, check out the video for a preview of where we're headed: