I thought the new Techmeme share icon was a bit strange but after reading Gabe’s comment, I discovered that there’s a bit of a dust-up over what icon people are using to indicate sharing.
But what I didn’t realize until now is that part of the Open Icon set includes a Geotag Icon, which I will now be using extensively.
TweetInteresting writeup over on PHPArchitect.
That is the most important thing that Flex brings to Flash: professional grade tooling. The Flex framework, which Adobe has open sourced, makes application development quick and painless for programmers familiar with event driven programming.
One of the things that fascinates me about the Flash Platform is the number of different types of web professionals it attracts. Those web professionals have very different goals so we largely try to stay out of the way and let them create what they want. But to make them productive we create tools and sell them. But trying to have one tool that does everything isn’t practical. Flex was always intended to be a developer-centric way to create Flash applications and I think Flash Builder 4 is going to show that off better than the previous versions.
TweetMihai is doing a webinar on debugging Flex and PHP.
Join Mihai Corlan while he goes through the basics of debugging a Flex and PHP application.See how to work with:
- Flash Builder 4
- Xdebug
- Eclipse PDT
to ensure a bug free project. The presentation will take about 45 minutes, leaving 15 minutes to answer any questions you might have on this subject.
Xdebug looks like a cool project and I know Mihai has been finding it very useful as part of the client-server debugging workflow.
TweetHTML and Flash working together to find each other.
Geolocation is a good example. HTML5 is going to get a geolocation API that works just beautifully even on devices with no GPS. Flash based applications will (currently) only get access to geolocation APIs when targeting the AIR runtime on mobile. Some browsers (I only know of Firefox 3.5 on Mac and the WebKit browser on the Nexus One) already support the HTML5 geolocation API… So why not use that to get geo information into your Flash based application?
There are few things I love more than geography and by extension, geolocation. It’s the digital overlay of the world. How can that not be cool? And this particular example is nice because it’s an area where HTML5 is ahead of Flash Player. Just like HTML can use Flash to implement ideas it hasn’t nailed down yet, Flash can use HTML to implement ideas that it hasn’t got yet. Bliss.
TweetCalling all Silverlight developers.
If you are a .NET developer today your skills and much of your code will move forward. If you are Silverlight or XNA developer today you’re gonna be really happy.
I am shit-hot excited about Windows Mobile 7 Series. I think it looks great, and I love the design elements from the latest Zune software (something I also really like). And I think what seems to be their developer strategy is awesome. Take expressive platforms like Silverlight and XNA and bake them right into the DNA of the phone. The result is going to be some really slick looking applications.
I also used to talk a bit about a divergence in the strategies for Flash and Silverlight. Obviously they’re still competitors, but if the Silverlight experience on WinMo 7 is application based, I think it does represent a big difference in how Silverlight and Flash are approaching the mobile space. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong, just different strategies based on the two companies strengths. But in the end, I have a lot of faith that the Silverlight designers and developers I know are going to help build an ecosystem around Windows Mobile 7 Series that will look next-gen.
Plus, with guys like Anand Iyer shifting focus to WinMo, it’s clear it’s a very important part of the strategy for Microsoft.
TweetYouTube opens up captioning for all videos….sort of.
I know I work for Adobe, but this is the kind of thing that pisses me off. Flash gets such a bad rap from the open standards crowd who hold accessibility so highly but as of right now there isn’t any way to do captioning in HTML5 videos. So when YouTube makes a big announcement about improving and enhancing accessibility by adding captions to all of their videos, no one mentions that it’s just the Flash videos.
I realize that the HTML5 feature on YouTube is in beta, but it isn’t like this is something that anyone has figured out yet for HTML5 video. It’s listed as “unwritten documentation” on the Chromium site, which basically means “we aren’t sure how this is going to work”. But no one does. The closest thing I’ve found is a jQuery plugin that’s in the early stages.
Not only is there no clear codec for HTML5 (something that in theory Google will remedy with the purchase of On2) but captioning support, something that Flash has made easy and ubiquitous, isn’t a feature that’s looking like it will be implemented soon.
But it’s going to kill Flash….riiiiiiiight….
TweetThe Flash Player team has a new blog:
The team wanted to start this blog to share with you information about how things work in Flash Player, why they work the way they do, tips, tricks, and other interesting behind-the-scenes details.
I think the AIR team blog has been pretty good at showcasing customers and providing updates to the product. Glad the Flash Player team has a blog as well. And hoping to see some geeky stuff from Thibault, the newest Flash Player product manager, on the new blog as well.
TweetThere are other implications. By extending a hand to HTML5 Microsoft will move ahead adoption of the standard in a large way. The better HTML5 does, the worse Flash does, given their tendancy [sic] to step on each other’s toes at every turn.
By most accounts, I think HTML5 has never been better. Wider browser support, a lot of momentum. But the same can be said for Flash. Flash Player 10 was the most quickly adopted Flash Player version yet.
Maybe HTML5 and Flash aren’t stepping on each other’s toes as much as pushing everyone forward.
TweetCool blog post by Don Dodge on platform shifts and how the world of technology is evolving. It also kind of mixes with a guest post on TechCrunch about the fragmentation of mobile.
The more interesting question for Flash developers is how the platform shifts and the fragmentation of mobile devices affect the Flash Platform. I think that the TechCrunch article is wrong, we are starting to see a coalescing around Flash. The Open Screen Project has signed up every major mobile partner except for Apple including RIM, Nokia, and Palm. If you trust AdMob’s stats, that’s a pretty good swath of people across multiple regions. Now that said, we need to deliver and users don’t yet have Flash Player on their devices, but it’s close. Serge Jespers, my evangelist compatriot, makes a good point in his video about trying to find all of the Flash-enabled devices. We’re on the verge of a crap-ton of devices in the hands of actual users.
What’s unique about this approach is that these will be available over the air. I don’t think we’ve talked about specifics, but part of the Open Screen Project is that the devices have to allow over the air updating of the most recent runtimes. It’s far, far, far from a silver bullet in overcoming mobile fragmentation, but it’s getting momentum.
That leads into what’s driving runtime adoption: great Flash applications. Having played with Flash Player 10.1 on the Nexus One, I can tell you some things work great out of the box and that performance is quite good. But a lot of Flash content just wasn’t made for the small screen and it shows. Think of how much bigger a finger is than a mouse pointer and you’ll see the problems. I think the “hover” issues are completely overblown, but there is a big difference between Flash content in a mobile browser and Flash content in a web browser.
One of the implications of this platform shift is that the current web experience won’t translate 1:1. I think this is one area where the iPhone has been successful is by “shrinking” the web and making it touch-based without requiring any changes by the sites themselves. It feels like you have the whole web. But that’s an interim step and it has its limitations even on the iPhone. If you want to be on the cutting edge of this new shift as a Flash developer, you’re going to have to structure your applications in such a way that you can easily customize the user interface for multiple screen sizes.
My hope is that we’ll see a number of frameworks and tools that do just that, but I think we’re in that period of freedom where it’s going to take a bit of elbow grease to show everyone how it’s supposed to work.
TweetWhile my primary focus is (and remains) Flash, I am an interactive developer. I would be sorely remiss to ignore other technologies. Not only does knowledge of other technologies potentially open new project opportunities, but it lets me reinvest ideas and mental models from them back into my work with Flash. Working with C# has already sparked some new ideas for me (not to mention a few AS3 feature requests). Knowledge of alternative technologies also lets us suggest the best possible solutions for our customers or talk them out of a bad one.
That thought should be extended to all technologies, including HTML5. As an interactive developer you have to be familiar with the technologies around you. The best part is that it’s a great way to get ideas for what you want in Flash/AS3 as Grant is finding with C#.
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