Effects in Flex 4 SDK Beta: Part 1

As part of the beta launch, I wrote an article about the new effects that are part of Flex 4.

They asked for a single article of about 2500 words, and I churned out a monster weighing in at over 10,000 words. Apparently, I have a way with words: way too much.

After much gnashing of teeth and painful whittling down, we compromised on 2 articles. Part one, which covers the Animate superclass of the new effects and a handful of the more basic effects, is now live. Look for Part 2 soon. (Update: Part 2 is now live)

Check out the other articles while you're there - my articles focus specifically on effects and ignore a lot of the other great changes in the release (because I knew other articles would cover them and because I was having a hard enough time getting the article down to a reasonable size without trying to explain more). For example, Matt Chotin (Flex Product Manager) wrote an overview of the new features in What's New in Flex 4 SDK beta and Joan Lafferty (on the Flex SDK QA team) covers differences in this release and the last one in Differences between Flex 3 SDK and Flex 4 SDK beta.

Lots of stuff to read. Should keep you busy while we keep working on finishing the release.

Flex 4 SDK: Beta than Eva

It's here, it's hot, and it's beta than ever - it's the Flex 4 SDK Beta release!

This release has it all, including a new component model, new states syntax, declarative graphics, and new effects. Check out the articles on the Flex Devnet Site for more information about the release. Flex 4 Beta represents what we've been aiming at for the Flex 4 release. For the most party, we just have some minor tweaks left on some of the features, some bug fixing to make it rock solid, and of course fixing any issues that come from beta feedback.

Go grab the beta build, try it out, and let us know what you think.

JavaOne, Too

For those not following my Java blog (what, one post per year isn't enough?), I thought I'd mention that I'll be back at the JavaOne conference this year, speaking about Flex, Java, and fun graphics/animation stuff.

The main thing for me this year is the presentation that I'm doing with Romain Guy, called "Move Your Users: Animation Principles for Great User Experiences". We'll be presenting at 11:05 on Wednesday (June 3rd), and again at a repeat session on Friday afternoon (June 5th). This year's talk will be less about code and more about concepts and design principles. Should be fun.

I will also be assisting Duane Nickull in his lab on creating PDFs with LC ES and other server-side stuff that I should really learn one of these days. There is also an Adobe event at Jillian's on Wednesday from 6:30-9:30 PM - stop by the Adobe booth for more information. Speaking of the booth, I'll be spending some quality time there when not in sessions doing some small talks, demos, and generally hanging out trying to look like I work for Marketing. Stop by if you're around the show floor.

Video: CodeDependent #2, er, 7

Now things are really moving...

The next episode of CodeDependent, "A Moving Comparison," is out. There are actually 7 episodes in the show so far, but 5 of those are reruns, rendered onto the spiffy new CodeDependent set. (I suspect that the earlier versions of those episodes, rendered on the standard Aodbe Developer Connection backdrop, will become collectors' items. Somewhere. Sometime. Perhaps they will be re-master and re-released someday, as "Codedependent Classics").

This latest show is a brand new one, starting right where the first one, "Graphics in Flex 3 and Gumbo", left off. In the first episode, I compared simple custom graphics in Flex 3 to simple graphics in Flex 4 (codename Gumbo). In this episode, I compare simple animations in Flex 3 and Gumbo on those same graphics objects.

Here's the video:

Here are the demos:

And here is the source code.

Enjoy.

Video: Codedependent Reruns Already?

Usually, a show has reruns after at least one successful season, when everyone's on vacation and the actors are playing hardball for contract renewals and the public is demanding content that just isn't there. But with CodeDependent, we have reruns after just one show. It's either that popular or the producers are just trying to amortize the costs for that amazingly expensive and glamorous CG set backdrop.

In case anyone's checking out the CodeDependent video page, or the Codedependent show on iTunes, I wanted to point out that there are a small number of reruns in the pipe. That is, there are a few videos that came out in the last several weeks on Adobe TV before the CodeDependent show existed (our people were still talking to their people, the unions were on strike, the writers wanted more donuts, and we were all doing the usual bickering and negotiating that is a natural part of any major show production) that have been sucked up under the CodeDependent banner. The producers have taken the old content and basically re-rendered it with the nifty new grayscale backdrop. Same content, different look, like plastic surgery without the cost, wider smile, and mortality risks.

There will be a handful of these reruns coming out in the next few days, then it's back to new content. I think this is probably the only time there will be reruns on CodeDependent, but maybe if there's a writers' strike next year, we'll see old home movies of me pushed as CodeDependent shows.

In the meantime, I'll continue to post items here on this blog when there is new content. Look for a new show in a few days...

Video: CodeDependent #1

Adobe TV has just posted the first in what I hope to be a very long run of my new show, “CodeDependent”. Fortunately, the show is not on the Fox network, so that may give it a better chance of not being canceled.

The CodeDependent show is not that different from the videos I’ve been doing already: short tutorials on various aspects of Flex and Flash that I find interesting. The biggest change is that they should be more regular (we’re aiming for an every-other-week schedule as we settle into it). Also, they producers gave me a nifty new grayscale CG set design to match my nifty old grayscale CG personality.

This first show is a simple tutorial on Flex 3 and Flex 4 (codename Gumbo) graphics. For the Flex 3 demo, you'll see how to drop down into ActionScript code to draw simple graphics through the Flash APIs into your Flex application. For the Flex 4 version, you'll see you to do the same thing through MXML graphics tags. In future episodes, we'll build on these simple examples and see how to animate the objectsand how to get more realistic animations. (Can you feel the suspense of this cliff-hanger? I’m trying to incorporate standard television series techniques into the show. Look for a laughtrack soon.) But I’m getting way ahead of myself.

Here’s the video:

Here’s the awesome demo application:

And here’s the source code.

Enjoy. And welcome to my show…

Effects and other Flex Stuff at Flash Camp SF: May 29th

Mike Chambers just posted info about Flash Camp San Francisco on the evening of Friday, May 29th at the Adobe offices in SF. I'll be talking about Flex 4 effects at 9:10 PM. That's about 10 minutes past my bedtime, so I'll probably hit the coffee harder than the beer that evening. This gathering is primarly about Flex 4, Flex Builder 4, and Flash Catalyst. Go read about the event, check out the schedule, and register. It's free, but space is limited, so register now.