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September 26  |  Conferences + Flash CS4 + Flash Player  |  23 comments

Want an advanced copy of Flash CS4?

OK I know that is a stupid question. Of course you do. Well I’m very excited to announce that Adobe will hosting a free Flash 10 Camp at the Adobe SF office on the weekend of October 10th. This will be barcamp-style event where you get to see sessions by Adobe employees (myself included) and also get to take part in some actual development using Flash CS4 and Flash Player 10. Not surprisingly we will also be holding some contests for prizes, including fresh-of-press versions of Creative Suite 4.
This is a full weekend of Flash 10 training with a price that is hard to beat. Remember people are paying tons of money to go to Flash conferences so this is truly a steal. If you live anywhere in the vicinity of Northern California and don’t come to this event, all I can say is that they are doing wonderful things in mental institutions these days. OK that’s a Seinfeld line but it’s very fitting in this case. I’ll be doing a keynote on Sunday morning (the 12th). We will also be broadcasting certain sections online if you live too far away to attend in person.

Go and register right now before it fills up!
Lee


September 26  |  Actionscript + Flash CS4  |  61 comments

Flash CS4 Actions Panel FAQ

Those of you who have watched my CS4 tour video may have noticed that I didn’t mention the Actions panel at all. Unfortunately this was not omitted in order to save some surprises for later. The reality is that there isn’t much new to report on this front. Here are some FAQs about the panel we love to hate.

Are there any enhancements to the Actions panel is CS4?
As far as I know there was only one feature added in CS4 and that was case-insensitive code hinting. This was something that Keith Peters and others had requested and I’m happy that we could include it. I know it’s small, but hey it’s something.

What about that blog post where you asked for our feedback?
All of that feedback was sent to the Flash team and it will definitely be used to guide future developments to the panel. The problem was just a matter of timing. I came on board at Adobe a little too late in the CS4 timeline and most all of the resources were already committed to other features.

Why didn’t Adobe make more enhancements to the panel in CS4?
There are a many things that factor into deciding on new features for Flash. One of the complaints we heard a lot with Flash CS3 was the lack of new stuff for designers. The amazing new features that I demonstrated in the video are things that the Flash community has been asking for, for a long time. The reality is that we don’t hear that many complaints from customers about the code editor. In my opinion this is because people have given up on it and moved on to other options like Flex Builder, Flash Develop, or FDT.

So what should I use to write ActionScript for Flash?
There are many options available to you. First off, I don’t think the Actions panel in Flash is as bad as everyone makes it out to be. I still use it for most stuff and, while I do miss custom class code hinting, I have just learned to live without it. If you are doing heavy OOP then you will want to use a professional editor like Flex Builder, Flash Develop, or FDT. If you’re a minimalist then you can use a bare-bones editor like TextMate.

Is there anything that can be done to improve the editor?
Absolutely. Make sure you bring it up every time you see someone from Adobe. I will be lobbying internally for improvements but it definitely helps when the community raises a fuss about stuff like this.

While there may not be much good news about the Actions panel, I think you’ll agree that this is the most feature-packed version of Flash ever.

Lee


September 24  |  Flash CS4 + Tutorials + Video  |  43 comments

gotoAndLearn Flash CS4 feature tour

I just finished uploading a new tutorial that takes you on a tour of some of the exciting new features in Flash CS4. Anyone that suggests that this is not a major release is indeed, quite insane. This video only touches on some of the new features but I think you will agree that they are things that the Flash community has been wanting for a long time. There are only a matter of weeks before you’ll be able to start playing with it yourself. Check it out at http://www.gotoandlearn.com.

Lee


September 22  |  Actionscript 3 + Examples + Flash Player  |  35 comments

Flash Player 10 Text Ligatures Demo

[Update: Out of respect for people who don't have Flash Player 10 you now have to click on the image to launch the example.]

The new low-level text engine in Flash Player 10 is quite complex and most Flash developers won’t use it directly. Adobe is planning on releasing an advanced set of text components later this year that utilizes the new engine and will provide an easy way for developers to take advantage of the new features. With that being said, if you WANT to roll your sleeves up and use the engine by all means go for it. Perhaps you can develop some great components for the rest of us to use.

Below is an example of the new advanced ligature support in Flash Player 10. There are two things that you need in order to see the demo. The first is obviously Flash Player 10. The second is the font Adobe Caslon Pro which should already be installed if you have CS3.

The TextLine class is a new DisplayObject that contains blocks of text built with the new engine. The ElementFormat class sets up the format of a particular block of text and allows you to set, among other things, the type of ligatures to use. You supply a value from the LigatureLevel class. This demo below shows the difference between two of the modes, LigatureLevel.EXOTIC and LigatureLevel.NONE. You can type new text to see the effect on different character combinations. The important pieces of code are shown below the example.

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var font:FontDescription = new FontDescription();
font.fontName = "Adobe Caslon Pro";

var elementFormat:ElementFormat = new ElementFormat();
elementFormat.fontDescription = font;
elementFormat.fontSize = 60;
elementFormat.color = 0x000000;
elementFormat.ligatureLevel = LigatureLevel.EXOTIC;

var tb:TextBlock = new TextBlock();
tb.content = new TextElement("fj fi ct ff", elementFormat);
var tl:TextLine = tb.createTextLine();
tl.x = 25;
tl.y = 120;
addChild(tl);

September 18  |  PHP  |  31 comments

An overview of ZendAMF

This week I attended the Zend/PHP Conference where we officially announced the addition of AMF into the Zend Framework. I thought it would helpful to give an overview of what this means to Flash developers, especially those who are not familiar with Zend.

What is Zend?
Zend is a company that develops a wide array of solutions for PHP developers. They make Zend Studio, which is an Eclipse-based IDE for doing PHP development. We also announced that we are working with Zend so developers will be able to install the Flex 3 Eclipse plug-in into Zend Studio for tight integration. The Zend Framework is a combination of an MVC framework in addition to a wide variety of utilities for doing everything from connecting to Flickr to database interaction. I just started using the Zend MVC framework for gotoAndLearn and so far I like it a lot. There is a little bit of a learning curve if you are not completely familiar with MVC concepts.

What is ZendAMF?
ZendAMF is essentially the addition of AMF support into the Zend Framework. You do not have to use the MVC framework to use the new AMF features. The workflow is very similar to the one used in AMFPHP. This is no accident, as both implementations are being done by Wade Arnold. Essentially you create a PHP class with methods that can be called directly from Flash or Flex. Take a look at my tutorials on AMFPHP for more on how to do this. I’ll let you know when the first stable release of ZendAMF hits the streets. It should only be a matter of days now.

So what about AMFPHP?
Wade will continue to run this project but using ZendAMF will be the only method that will be officially supported by both Adobe and Zend. This means that it will be thoroughly tested and potentially more reliable than AMFPHP. Again, the difficulty level of working with either is about the same. Look for a tutorial on ZendAMF very soon.

Lee


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