RIA Development with Adobe Flex and Flash

Innovation and the Adobe Flash Platform from michael chaize on Vimeo.

ABOUT THE MEETUP SESSSION

Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5 software is the new RIA interaction design tool for creating Rich Internet Applications. You can transform Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Fireworks artwork into expressive, fully interactive projects without writing code, and leverage the reach and consistency of the Adobe Flash Platform. In this session Rob Huddleston (Adobe Certified Instructor and published author) will be giving us an overview of Adobe Flash Catalyst. Some of the topics will include:

Overview of Flash Platform and Catalyst’s Place in the Designer/Developer Workflow
Creating Interactive Designs
Transforming Static Artwork into Interactive Components
Using Pages and States
Smoothing Animation
Round-trip Editing with Adobe Illustrator CS5
Publishing to SWF and AIR
Adding Design-time Data
Using Layout Tools
Working with Video and Media
Integrating with Adobe Flash Builder

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Rob Huddleston has been developing web pages and applications since 1994, and has been an instructor since 1999, teaching web and graphic design to thousands of students. Rob is an Adjunct Professor in the Interactive Media program at the Art Institute of California, Sacramento. He is an Adobe Certified Instructor, Adobe Certified Expert, and Certified Developer, serves as an Adobe User Group Manager, has been named as an Adobe Community Professional for his volunteer work answering user questions in online forums. He also helps users as an expert moderator on Adobe’s Community Help system. Rob lives in Northern California with his wife and two children. Rob is the author of XML: Your visual blueprint™ for building expert websites using XML, CSS, XHTML, and XSLT; HTML, XHTML and CSS: Your visual blueprint™ for designing effective websites; Master VISUALLY: Dreamweaver CS4 and Flash CS4 Professional, ActionScript 3: Your visual blueprint™ for creating interactive projects in Flash CS4 Professional, the Flash Catalyst CS5 Bible and the forthcoming Web Design: Your visual blueprint™ for creating expert Web sites. You can visit Rob’s blog at http://www.robhuddleston.com

SESSION DATE, TIME, AND LOCATION

May 17th - 12:30 - 1:30pm Eastern - this session will be delivered online live with Adobe Acrobat Connect so you can join us from the convenience of your work office or home.

http://www.meetup.com/onlineflashplatform/

SESSION SKILL LEVEL

This session will be of interest to all levels of Flash designers and developers. Since Adobe Flash Catalyst is a new software solution, there is plenty to learn for Flash professionals of all levels.

ONLINE FLASH PLATFORM MEETUP GROUP

Join us for a free Adobe Flex Training Seminar - ‘Your Flex App Looks Like Poo’ - with Garth Braithwaite
Monday - April 19th, 2010

ABOUT THE SESSION

Garth is a well informed and very entertaining guy - in this online session we will be discussing design roles and give you some good ideas on how to take your Rich Internet Applications to the next level. We will be exploring skinning Workflows, skin requirements, creating custom preloaders, and overhauling the application interface.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Garth Braithwaite is a Senior Flex Developer at Rain where he specializes in Interaction Design in HTML/CSS/JS and on the Flash Platform. Additionally Garth hosts RIA Radio, a weekly podcast for O’Reilly and InsideRIA; co-authored The Flex 4 Cookbook; speaks at conferences like Flash and the City, 360|Flex, and MAX; and teaches. Garth is an Adobe Community Professional (ACP), an Adobe Certified Instructor (ACI), and an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) for: Flex, Flash, Illustrator, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and InDesign. He can be found on twitter as GarthDB.

REGISTER FOR THIS EVENT
For more information and to register for this online event, please join the Online Flash Platform Group.

This has been a big news week for anyone that is interested and/or working in Adobe Flex or ColdFusion. On Monday Adobe Systems announced the final versions of Flash Builder 4 and the Flex 4 SDK. In Flash Builder 4, it is easier than ever to connect to back-end services with a complete set of data centric development features. There are also many new design and development workflows with Flash Catalyst and Flash Professional, as well as enhancements to the core code development features that are essential to developer productivity. There are over 90 new features in this release, and you can use them with both Flex 3 and Flex 4 to gain big improvements in development time, integration and building more expressive apps.

In sync with the release of Adobe Flash Builder, Adobe also announced the release of ColdFusion Builder. This new Eclipse-based IDE for ColdFusion development is deeply integrated with ColdFusion 9 in addition to making it fast and easy for CF developers to create Flex applications with integration between ColdFusion Builder and Flash Builder. ColdFusion Builder comes with a copy of Flash Builder 4 Standard.

It is not difficult to find great information, free tutorials, and blog articles on this new software release, but here is a quick link listing if you are looking for more:

Adobe.com Flash Builder 4 Landing Page

Purchase Options for Flash Builder and ColdFusion Builder

The New Flex.org Website

What’s New in Flash Builder 4

Learn Adobe Flex in a Week – Free Flash Builder Online Training

Developers Speak Out About Flash Builder 4

I have been noticing a ton of Adobe bashing in my blog reading lately! No Flash on the iPhone, no Flash on the iPad, ColdFusion is dead …. on and on. I suppose everyone has their opinions and passions but personally I just try to focus on the small things in life that make me happy …. like getting my work done FAST so I can go out an have some fun! Just one of the reasons why I am staying with ColdFusion:

10. FAST - yes ColdFusion is fast, it is fast to learn, fast to implement and fast to code. ColdFusion is not the first language that I have had to learn and I am sure that it will not be the last. One thing I can say for sure is that I learned ColdFusion FASTER than any other language.

9. ColdFusion is EASY to learn. Yep, I learned it FAST because it is very easy to learn. Especially, if you are from a web designer background. ColdFusion is a processing language looks very simliar to HTML. So, if you are from a static web design background, you will feel right at home with Adobe ColdFusion.

8. You only need a couple of books to learn ColdFusion. Yep, and you really don’t have to look very hard to find them. The ColdFusion 8 Web Application Books by Ben Forta, Ray Camden, et al should be plenty to get you started. Don’t have enough money to buy the WACK books? No worries! You can download the FREE Adobe Authorized ColdFusion Training books and source files from Adobe.com.

7. ColdFusion has two great commercial software tools that you can use for coding. I have been using Adobe Dreamweaver since version one and I will probably always use Dreamweaver. Although I am starting to feel more at home working in ColdFusion Builder, I still prefer to work in DW for CSS and design. ColdFusion Builder will probably be more attractive to you if you are from the JAVA world or if you also work in Adobe Flash Builder. Also, if you already have Eclipse, you can take advantage of the FREE CFEclipse plugin.

6. Oh yeah, the JAVA world. Basically ColdFusion is a set of JAVA modules that reside on your server, handling requests for data and returning it in whatever format you like. So, maybe you know JAVA or .NET and feel you have no need for ColdFusion. More power to ya! I have worked with JAVA programmers in the past and I my current place of employment has plenty of JAVA programmers. Fact is that I don’t want to be a JAVA programmer, nor do I want to be a .NET programmer. I just want to build a quality data driven web site in record time that does not give me code wrangling headaches. ColdFusion is perfect for just that goal.

5. ColdFusion is Adobe software. Oh crap! Now I am starting to sound like an Adobe fan boy. But, actually I am really not an Adobe fanboy. I am a Allaire/Macromedia fanboy that got dumped into the Adobe fanboy club by acquisition. The bottom is that I like the idea of using a web development language that was pioneered by a kick-ass web development tools company and is still backed by the leader in software tools for web development.

4. ‘Where’s the beef?’ ColdFusion works great with other Adobe tools. Really great with other Adobe tools. If you wanna see some of that beef in action, check out this Adobe.tv video: Building a ColdFusion-Powered Apps.

3. But doesn’t ColdFusion cost money? Uh … yep, most good things in life cost money. Don’t ever forget the number one rule of retail: ‘You get what you pay for and you pay for what you get.’ But, with shared hosting services out there you can host your ColdFusion web applications for a reasonable monthly fee. Most ColdFusion hosting providers specialize in just ColdFusion, so you will get great support and expertise if you have any issues. Here are a couple of my favorite CF hosting providers. Fusionlink in Atlanta, GA and CFDynamics in Texas.

2. So you need to host your own dedicated server with ColdFusion? If you are unable to afford the licensing costs of the Enterprise ColdFusion server, you might want to check out Railo - free open source alternative for ColdFusion application development.

1. FAST and EASY! Did I mention that ColdFusion is FAST and EASY. Very easy! With the learning resources above, a few cups of coffee, and a few hours in front of your computer, you will be up and running with your data-driven web site.

And that my friends is why I LOVE ColdFusion. It is fast and easy so that I can get the job done, and then head out for some fast and easy Friday night fun!

Getting started with a new technology can sometimes take lots of time and effort. Fortunately, if you are already dealing with Adobe Flex, then AIR is just a few steps away. If you are new to both Flex and AIR, a great way to get started is by building a simple RSS feed reader or some other type of simple widget that makes use of the httpservice component in Adobe Flex. There are quite a few free tutorials on the web that will easily show you how to build a simple application such as this. One of the better tutorials can be found at the following link: RIA Codes - Desktop RSS Reader with AIR and Flex

This simple tutorial will get you started and along the way you will no doubt learn some of the advantages of the Flex/AIR framework, as well as some of the drawbacks. Don’t forget to check out the AIR/Flex quick tip for adding a custom icon from Ray Camden’s blog and the Adobe Developer Connection article on building an Adobe AIR install badge.

Download the fxappdeveloper blog reader sample AIR application. Be sure to download the latest verison of Adobe AIR® (Adobe Integrated Runtime)

Adobe® Flash® Builder™ 4 (formerly Flex Builder) public beta release is now available at Adobe Labs. The first thing that you may notice is that they are renaming Flex Builder to Flash Builder. This name change will create a clear distinction between the free open-source Flex framework and the commercial IDE.

Flash Builder 4 delivers a long list of new features, plus improvements to many existing features.There are three main themes to this release: developer productivity, designer-developer workflow, and data-centric application development. For an overview of the features included in this first public beta release, be sure to check out Tim Buntel’s What’s New in Flash Builder 4 article and watch the new feature videos. As always, the Flex 4 framework is included within Flash Builder, so be sure to check out Matt Chotin’s What’s New in the Flex 4 SDK article.