New Snippets Panel Extension for Flash CS3!

I just polished off my second panel extension for Flash CS3. Thissnippets panel allows you to store code snippets that can easily be copied to the clipboard for easy insertion into the Actions panel. There currently is no editor for the snippets so you are left to edit an XML file in the same folder as the panel. You can click the pencil icon to get the path to the XML file though. I have included some example snippets with the extension. Follow the steps below to try it out: Download and install the Snippets extension. (Right-click and choose Save Link As or similar) Open or restart Flash and choose Snippets from the Window > Other Panels menu. Select a snippet and then press the Copy to Clipboard button. Paste it into the Actions panel. Let me know if you find any bugs with it. You can also leave a comment here if you think you have an idea how to make it better. Thanks,

What is Happening to Flash?

The other day a blog post written by Corban Baxter got the attention of a few of us inside of Adobe. This post voiced concerns about the current and future direction of the Flash authoring tool. I think these concerns are valid and I think many in the Flash community share them. So this post is my attempt at explaining what is happening within Adobe, and how Flash fits into our future. The way I’ll do it is by answering some questions that I hear fairly frequently when I talk to Flash folks.

Is Adobe planning on phasing out the Flash authoring tool?

Absolutely not! The Flash authoring team is hard at work on Flash CS4 and they are adding some amazing new features that will make the Flash community very happy. Trust me on this, Flash is about to change for the better. All of this started with Flash and Adobe is acutely aware of this. Of course there will always be other tools that come along to meet the needs of our ever-expanding community, and often these will grab the headlines, but Flash will not ever take a backseat to any new tool that comes along.

With ActionScript 3, is Adobe trying to focus more on developers?

This is where it gets a bit tricky simply because the Flash community contains such a wide variety of people from different backgrounds and skills. This is what I love about our community. The term devigner has emerged to describe people who are skilled at both design and development and this is exactly the type of person that best flourishes inside of the Flash authoring tool.

The ActionScript language has had to mature in order to allow us to continually push the limits of what’s possible on the web. Learning the new language is not easy and a lot of times it can be somewhat more difficult to do certain things as compared to AS2. But the amazing capabilities and performance of AS3 makes learning the language well worth the effort.

As a side note, I have been trying to focus my tutorials on AS3 as of late to make up for the lack of sufficient training out there. Most Flash classes still teach AS2 so it can be hard to get started. With this being said, you can absolutely still create Flash movies using AS2 as you take the time to transition to the new language.

Will Flash CS4 be focused on designers or developers?

Releases of the Flash authoring tool have always been cyclical when it comes to the target audience. Flash MX 2004 was heavily focused developers with the release of AS2. Flash 8 was focused squarely at the designer crowd and gave us such gems as the bitmap API, runtime filter tools, and a great new video component and codec. Continuing the cycle, Flash CS3 was focused primarily on adding support for AS3 and all that it entails. With this being said, each release has included great features for both designers and developers, regardless of what its main focus was. The way I see it though, is that all these features are geared for devigners, as we work on both sides of the aisle.

Now back to the question. Flash CS4 is clearly aimed at the interactive designer crowd and will contain such things as a completely revamped timeline and a brand new animation engine. All I can say is that auto-keyframing is finally here! Adobe has demoed a lot the new features at conferences such as MAX and FITC so I won’t rehash everything here. But if you are a designer, Flash CS4 will blow your mind.

Will the code editor ever be any better inside of Flash?

All I can say is that if you are holding your breath on this one, please resume breathing normally, as I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself. This is my biggest gripe with Flash and it has been for a long time. Unfortunately, overhauling the Flash code editor is just not on the roadmap right now. The reasons for this are many. Firstly, the general consensus is that hardcore programmers are using Flex, not Flash. You tell me, is that true? Making these kinds of changes to Flash are also not as easy as you may think. Before coming to Adobe I would say things like “why can’t they just put the Flex editor inside of Flash.” Ha ha, was I ignorant. Things don’t work like that in software development. I don’t want to paint too gloomy a picture here as the editor will get new features when possible, but for those hoping to have something on the level of what is inside of Flex, my response to you for the time being is that you’ll have to use Flex.

Why isn’t there better integration between Flash and Flex?

This is one area where we have really dropped the ball in the past. It often seems like two completely different companies create these tools. Here’s to hoping that things improve soon. Nuff said on this one.

Will there ever be a way for visual designers and video pros to make interactive Flash movies without having to be exposed to ActionScript?

All I can say on this front is that Adobe is very aware that this community exists and that they have been kind of left out of the action in the past. So, yes, there will be a way. Saying what it will be would get me fired so please just be patient on this one. Your day is coming I promise.

Ok that’s it for now. I’ve been writing this on a plane heading to DC and I need to go back to playing Bejeweled. Thanks to Corban for letting us know what’s up.

Help Me Improve the Flash Code Editor!

Thanks for everyone’s response to my previous post. All of that feedback is being read by the Flash team and it really does make a difference. But now I have something to ask of you. I would like to compile a list of any bugs/quirks/features that you have in regards to the code editor in the Flash IDE. If we can get a good list together quickly, I’ll see how many of them I can get the team to do for CS4. Brand new features will likely not make it but they are good to list anyway. The three categories are defined as:

Bugs

This is an existing feature in the editor that is just plain broken.

Quirks

These are minor tweaks to the editor that, if fixed, would make all our lives much easier. I suspect most will fall into this category.

Features

These are full-blown new features. One example would be to have custom class introspection. These represent quite a bit of work for the team.

Just format your responses similarly to mine. Again, I can’t promise anything, but we should be able to get some of these into CS4.

Spread the word!

New Video Tutorial on ActionScript 3 Advanced XML

This tutorial builds on the last one and gets into more advanced topics such as how to deal with custom namespaces. The finished application consists of a Kuler theme viewer where the user can cycle through the most popular themes simply by clicking on the stage. All of this is done in the Flash IDE without any OOP. Remember that just because all you hear about is OOP and Flex, doesn’t mean that you need to use them to do some pretty complex stuff. Check out the tutorial and play with the finished application below. Click in order to change the theme.

New Event Generator Extension for Flash CS3!

I’m really excited to announce my first extension for Flash CS3 called Event Generator. This simple extension will save you lots of time when it comes to writing event handler code for your MovieClips that are out on the stage. The workflow couldn’t be any easier. You simply select the MovieClip on the stage and then check off the events that you want to generate in the panel. You can then copy the entire code block to the clipboard for easy insertion into the Actions panel. Follow the steps below to try it out: Download and install the Event Generator extension. (Right-click and choose Save Link As or similar) Open or restart Flash and choose Event Generator from the Window > Other Panels menu. Stop writing your event handlers by hand! Let me know if you find any bugs with it. You can also leave a comment here if you think you have an idea how to make it better. Thanks,

InsideRIA Site Launched by O’Reilly

O’Reilly, makers of the best technical books on the planet, have just launched a new RIA portal site which looks to be very cool. I was going to be involved with this site before I started at Adobe but now I’m just relegated to being a reader. Andre Charland, who I got to know on the bus tour this last summer is one of the main contributors so I’m sure it will contain some great content. I’m not really an “RIA guy” myself but I still like to keep up on the latest information. Check it out!

Red Interactive Does It Again

I will be heading to Vegas in a couple of weeks to see UFC 79. This New Year’s card is going to be incredible and it features the long-awaited matchup of Chuck Liddell taking on former Pride champion Wanderlei Silva. As always the folks over at Red Interactive have created an awesome site for the event. One of the coolest things is the preloader which consists of a heavy bag that you can punch with your mouse. Hey it’s the little things that get me excited 

I really want to interview these guys about their work but they are tough to get a hold of. If you work for Red Interactive, drop me a line.

Papervision3D Carousel Example FLA

Below is a little example of a 3D carousel using Papervision3D. There are many advantages in using a 3D engine rather than the “fake” methods that I have shown before. The biggest is that the engine will take care of scaling and perspective which makes your code much cleaner. You will also get realistic perspective and rotation which is nice.

You can download the FLA file here and if you have any questions about extending it, go on over the GTAL forums and ask around.

Flash and PHP: Thoughts from the PHP Zend Conference

Today I wrapped up from three days at the PHP/Zend Conference in Burlingame, California. My duties there were to work the Adobe booth and also to deliver the Adobe keynote which happened yesterday morning. I had a great time at the conference and talked to a ton of really smart people from the PHP community. Below are some of the things that I took away from the last few days.

• - The PHP community is very similar to the Flash community in a lot of ways. There are a lot of really bright people and they vibe is definitely laid back and somewhat edgy.
• - My keynote session was very well received and I was amazed at the attendance for it, as it started at 8:30. The crowd seemed very interested to hear about how they can put a richer front-end onto their PHP backends.
• - My honesty about how I “have never written a line of ColdFusion in my life” and about how “we use PHP all the time at Adobe” went over really well at the conference, but not so well within Adobe after they read this article  .
• - There is a lot of confusion about Flash and Flex and how they relate to one another. It is something that is really hard to explain to people who have little to no experience with the technologies.
• - After researching the many ways to connect PHP to Flash and Flex I’m now really excited about doing some tutorials on this topic. Look for them soon at gotoAndLearn().
• - The PHP communty seemed genuinely excited about the potential of AIR. I showed them several demos including the eBay Desktop which they absolutely loved. I can see these guys creating some really cool apps in the future.
• - I used to think that I new PHP well, but after attending this conference, I’m clearly an intermediate user at best. These guys know their sh*t!

All in all this was a great conference and it was nice to present to a different audience than I typically do. Hearing the PHP community’s views on the RIA space was really refreshing as I’m usually talking to people who love Flash.

Video of 3D Features in Flash Player 10 (Updated)

Below you can watch the video of the new 3D features coming in Flash Player 10. I was genuinely surprised at this announcement and it immediately got me asking questions about it. I have been able to find out the following information:

• - Adobe did not buy Papervision3D. It is a new engine that is being built by Adobe. It’s unclear if the Papervision3D team is involved in its development. Update: Papervision3D is not involved in this work.
• - The 3D capabilities are essentially the same as Papervision3D. This type of 3D is commonly known as “Postcards in Space.” As of now there is no support for the collada or shader support though. I’ll need to check into this more to get more details. Update: There are no plans to add these types of features to Astro and PV3D will remain the optimal solution for this.
• - The new 3D support is hardware-accelerated (see note below) unlike Papervision3D which has no such support. Update: The public demo at MAX was not HW accelerated but the player team is experimenting with ways of making all areas of the player faster. That’s all I can say publicly  .

I will continue to ask around about this and will report anything new that I find out.

Update: I heard from a reliable source that the 3D will be hardware accelerated. Let me dig some more to see if that is correct or not.

Papervision3D onAIR Bus Example

I was just playing around with Papervision3D today so I decided to make a quick and nasty 3D scene with the onAIR bus. It doesn’t get much more primitive than this. Take a cube and map on squared-off PNG files of the bus wrap. Leg 3 of the bus tour starts on September 24th in New York City!

You can get the source FLA if you want to check out code.