Posted in Blog, Flash, JavaScript, xHTML/CSS
Some developers’ feelings get hurt that many clients are starting to ask that sites be built without Flash. Some other developers are getting defensive and whiny that so many people are buying iPhones and iPads, and either not caring that they don’t run Flash, or not even noticing.
But the adventurous, curious, forward-thinking and/or more well-rounded developer types out there are getting to know HTML5 and CSS3, if only to add to their primarily Flash-y toolbox. Yeah, these technologies aren’t 100% ready yet and may not be for a while…but since when did waiting around in this industry (or marrying yourself to one technology) do you any good?
At any rate, one of the better primers on HTML5 right now looks to be HTML5rocks.com. And be sure and check out their slide presentation on the new features.
Posted in Blog, JavaScript, xHTML/CSS
In anticipation of doing more JavaScript development, I went back to look at the state of my editors on hand. BBEdit was always a favorite for quick-and-dirty text editing, and has a very simple interface with some good, basic tools for, say, quickly throwing together a table or other assortment of HTML tags…but it was lacking for serious development.
A while back, I upgraded to Coda. I really love the interface, and it has nice built-in tools for FTP and SVN. But I want robust JavaScript functionality, and while the code completion is satisfactory (aside from some minor built-in typos), JQuery support isn’t what I was looking for.
I had given Aptana Studio a quick look as a helper for building AIR with JavaScript. But I recently gave it a full test drive as a JavaScript editor and I really love it. The code hinting and auto complete is great, JQuery support (as well as the support for other frameworks) via easily installed plugins is fantastic. There’s also debugging, robust HTML/CSS code assist, live preview, aq DOM outline view, and FTP. What’s more is, having built a ton of ActionScript applications with Flex/Flash Builder, the Eclipse-style interface is very familiar to me, even though it’s more cluttered than Coda.
Not to mention: it’s open source! Check it out.
Posted in Blog, Flash, General Tech
There’s a ton of back-and-forth about why Flash isn’t on Apple’s iDevices (and all that implies about Flash, Apple, “open” standards, etc.) lately. And being steeped in both the Flash platform and Apple products, I’ve watched the debate in its various forms very carefully.
Today, Steve Jobs issued an open letter on the subject of Flash, and it’s somewhat telling. Many of the points are merely interesting, debatable or even sometimes unclear. But what seems very much to the point is this paragraph:
“In addition, Flash has not performed well on mobile devices. We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it. Adobe publicly said that Flash would ship on a smartphone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010. We think it will eventually ship, but we’re glad we didn’t hold our breath. Who knows how it will perform?”
So, for all the time (a few years now) that Adobe has pushed or expressed interest in or hoped for getting Flash on the iPhone and now the iPad, it’s failed to get a reliable, non-Flash lite version of the Flash player on any of the other mobile platforms that would welcome it with open arms. If that changes soon, with Android or a Google-powered tablet, would Apple reverse course?
Posted in Actionscript, Blog, Flash
In all the talk about the coming HTML5 standards and the, on some people’s parts, presume death of Flash, there’s a lot of anticipation and speculation going on. Despite the fact that a few modern browsers are implementing aspects of HTML5 now, new web standards for HTML5 are still a long way off, relatively speaking.
While it seems inevitable that HTML5 will take a big chunk out of some common Flash tasks like delivering video, there is a balanced opinion coming from many RIA developers about the likelihood of Flash dying off when you stop to consider how far ahead of the standards plug-ins generally are.
Here’s a good article from an RIA developer who argues that predictions in this area, especially those slanted towards the death of plug-ins like Flash, are probably premature. You can also read it on read it on the original author’s blog.
Posted in Actionscript, Blog, Flash
Lee Brimelow, platform evangelist for Adobe Flash, gives us an early runthrough of key Flash CS5 features. Really good stuff includes integration between Flash Builder (or Flex Builder, as it was) and the Flash IDE, excellent code hinting in the ActionScript panel, a more open file format than FLA (XML documents and exposed assets), and SWFObject as the embedding technology when publishing.
In a separate post, he demonstrates compiling a Flash file into a native iPhone app.
Posted in Blog, General Tech
At TED India, Pranav Mistry demos several tools that help the physical world interact with the world of data — including a deep look at his SixthSense device and a new, paradigm-shifting paper “laptop.”
He says he’ll open-source the software behind SixthSense to open its possibilities to all.
Posted in Actionscript, Blog, Flash, General Tech
Adobe Labs recently announced “Slider,” a mobile version of the Flex framework for smartphones and other devices. Excited to see it in action, but a beta won’t show up until 2010.
Posted in Actionscript, Blog, Flash, General Tech
Exciting news for Flash developers: With the forthcoming Adobe CS5 upgrade, you’ll be able to build native apps for the iPhone. Apparently things like multitouch, geo-location and the accelerometer will be fair game, as well. Note that you won’t create media running in a mobile version of Flash Player, but rather an actual application that’s automatically converted into iPhone SDK-compliant code (OS 3.0 and above), which can be signed and compiled using Xcode and submitted to the App Store.
Posted in Blog, Flash, JavaScript
InsideRIA has a tutorial that walks through using a tool called Aptana Studio for rolling HTML & JQuery into AIR applications.