Tag Archives: Adobe

HTML/JS/CSS and Tooling

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I enjoyed this post by Grant Skinner that walks through his view of the evolution of technology and where/how/when tooling starts to come in. Adobe makes tools for web professionals. That’s what we’ve always done and that’s what we’ll do for a long time. You could even paint a broader brush that we make tools for creative people to share their creations. Watching our own evolution over the past year or so with regards to HTML tooling has been very interesting. We got some flack for not moving in earlier, but as Grant rightly points out, tools are a major investment and only once you have stability can you make that investment. It was never a matter of momentum around HTML or a focus on Flash, it was just the fact that things weren’t quite ready for tools.

In fact, I’d argue they still aren’t. But we’ve taken that as something that comes with the web. It’s always evolving, always moving, and while things will start to coalesce more and more, in the end, you have to get in and be ready to move. That’s kind of the approach we’ve taken with Adobe Edge. We just released Preview 4 of Edge which incorporates a lot of features that people have been asking for. Some of it I’m not even sure if it was on the original roadmap. But the Edge team made a conscious decision to be very agile, to build Edge in such a way that it could incorporate customer feedback quickly, and then getting product management on board to do lots of versions very quickly. I think it’s worked out very well and despite being on the earlier side of Grant’s curves, I think Edge will be a very helpful tool for a lot of people because of it.

Developer tools are a bit of a different story in terms of both ecosystem and readiness in my mind. There isn’t one, big, HTML IDE that people seem to like (akin to Flash Builder, Eclipse or Visual Studio). Instead people seem to be using a lot of different things and experimenting. What actually seems to be most popular right now are the basic text editors like TextMate or Sublime (my favorite). These seem to be focused on helping smart people work faster. Lots of shortcuts, lots of snippets, but not a lot in terms of helping along the learning process. And I think that’s just where we are now as far as HTML/JS/CSS tooling. But I’m excited to see that evolution as well and see what happens when frameworks get a bit more standardized and more general web developers start jumping into JS more and more. Will those people need a more robust HTML/CSS/JS editor that’s still developer centric? And I think the answer is yes, but I think it’s also tough to really see what that would look like until the JS/HTML/CSS stack is a bit more solid. But I’m excited to watch it and find out. And from what I’ve seen of Adobe’s HTML tooling side, we’re taking a good approach and I’m excited to see what people think as the PMs share more and more of it.

Congratulations MAX Masters

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My second year being involved in the planning of MAX was even more rewarding than the first. And the average scores for all of ours speakers were up over last year so it seems like the content is resonating with attendees and we continue to draw great speakers. Thanks to everyone who spoke at MAX this year for making it a huge success.

But we also like to call out the best of the best. This year it was really tough to be a MAX Master and so a huge congrats to the following speakers who made the cut.

  • Adam Lehman, Adobe Systems
  • Bryan O’Neil Hughes, Adobe Systems
  • Chris Converse, Codify Design
  • Chris Kitchener, Adobe Systems
  • Colin Smith, Adobe Systems
  • Dani Beaumont, Adobe Systems
  • Dave Helmly, Adobe Systems
  • David Nuescheler, Adobe Systems
  • Duane Nickull, Adobe Systems
  • Greg Rewis, Adobe Systems
  • Jack Davis, Wow, Inc.
  • James Williamson, Lynda.com
  • Jason Levine, Adobe Systems
  • Jim Babbage, Adobe Systems
  • Joe Rinehart, Booz Allen Hamilton
  • Marc Esher, Booz Allen Hamilton
  • Michael Chaize, Adobe Systems
  • Michael Labriola, Digital Primates
  • Michael Ninness, Lynda.com
  • Mordy Golding, Design Responsibly
  • Nicholas Zakas, NCZ Consulting
  • Patti Sokol, Adobe Systems
  • Paul Trani, Adobe Systems
  • Russell Brown, Adobe Systems

Adobe Financial Analyst Meeting Being Live Streamed

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Quick heads up that Adobe is going to webcast the financial analyst meeting on November 9th starting at 10:00 AM EST. The press release mentions:

At the meeting, which is being held in New York City, Adobe’s management team will outline the company’s vision and business strategy.

I haven’t been to one of these, so I’m not sure what you should expect (plus it lasts 7 hours) but it should be a good chance to see what Adobe is thinking.

Flex Mobile European Tour 2011

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Next week I’m going to be hitting the road with my colleague Mihai Corlan to spread the news about what Adobe has been up to the past few months. The primary reason for the trip is to show off the work the product teams have done with Flex on devices. Mihai and I are going to be doing some hands-on sessions showing just how easy it is to build great looking applications for iOS and Android. Bring your laptop, a copy of Flash Builder, and a device and we’ll walk you through all the steps you need to go through to start building and deploying mobile applications.

The other part of these events is providing some firsthand demos of some of the things we showed off at MAX. I think MAX was a major turning point for Adobe and Mihai and I will be showing off the touch tooling, talking about the creative cloud, and showing all of the things Adobe is up to in the world of HTML5. Plus we’ll give you some sneak peaks of the next generation of the Flash Platform. So there’s a ton of info and you’ll have the chance to ask questions firsthand. 2012 is going to be a great ride for the Adobe community so we want to make sure you have all the info you need to be successful.

Here are the cities we’re hitting:

Update: For those of you in the UK, there is an event on Monday, the 7th. I couldn’t make it out in time for that, but Mihai will be there covering everything.

November 9th

November 10th

November 11th

November 14th

November 15th

November 17th

November 19th

Can’t wait to see you and talk about application development and Adobe’s 2012.

MAX Reflections

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I’m sitting down with some tea while my little girl is taking a nap feeling the big exhale from MAX. The energy of the past few days has been largely fantastic and I always find MAX to be rejuvenating both from a professional standpoint and a personal standpoint. Getting to connect with the community and my colleagues at Adobe has been great. In the contrast to the buzzing of MAX, the current deep quiet of my house leaves me reflecting a bit on the week.

This will go down as a very transformational MAX. The announcement of the Creative Cloud and the fact that it will include all of Creative Suite Master Collection as well as the touch tools and services (including TypeKit) is one of the biggest things I’ve seen from Adobe in a long time. And it feels like we’re jumping in with both feet and getting back to the core of what Adobe does: empowering designers to create with great tools. I thought the news about the single edition of the Digital Publishing suite was a perfect example of that. It makes the blossoming world of digital publishing accessible to more people.

The PhoneGap announcement was, for me, the most significant announcement of the week. By acquiring Nitobi (fantastic guys) and contributing the PhoneGap project to the Apache Foundation, Adobe took a huge, huge step into the world of HTML5. It was a perfect way to start a day 2 keynote that focused on the things Adobe is doing to be a part of the HTML5 ecosystem.

Based on the Twitter stream there seemed to be a feeling that the lack of traditional Flash indicated that Adobe is giving up on it. I think that misses the big picture. With the Nitobi acquisition and the embracing of PhoneGap, Adobe is making a significant and meaningful bet on the web and cross-platform mobile applications. This can’t be overstated. For Flash developers we have AIR, which will let you build cross-platform mobile applications. For HTML developers we have PhoneGap, which will let you create cross-platform mobile applications. Both are web technologies that don’t require developers to be locked into a specific operating system or type of device. You see the same thing with our digital publishing suite; it doesn’t matter if you want to deploy on iOS, Android, or PlayBook, you can. And that’s possible largely because of the web formats that go into creating the DPS apps.

This isn’t about Flash versus HTML, this is about supporting creative and interactive content across the broadest platform in the world: the web. Whether it’s mobile apps or browser content; animations, interactive web applications, or 3D gaming experiences, Adobe genuinely believes that the web is the best way for our customers to deliver their creations. By making PhoneGap a cornerstone of our story, I think we’ve proven our commitment to that mission.

I’m glad I was at MAX to see all of this in person.

Edit: This is a great piece by Daryl Taft of eWeek that talks about Flash and HTML. And it’s great to see that the “and not or” message is getting picked up. But what I like about this particular message is that when you follow it upstream a bit more, it just means we love the web. And if that’s the case (and I feel like it is) then the technology becomes secondary to the goals of helping people create cross-os and cross-device content with web technologies.

Flash Player 11, AIR 3, and Flex/Flash Builder 4.6

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Today is a pretty big day for Adobe developers. We’re officially announcing Flash Player 11, AIR 3, and Flex 4.6 and Flash Builder 4.6. The bits will be available in early October, but we’re announcing things today to help provide developers with information on what’s coming. I’ve been at Adobe for 4 years now and it’s been a very interesting 4 years as the landscape has evolved. It’s definitely been an up and down ride for Adobe developers, but the world has never been a better place for interactive developers, and these set of releases provide a ton of functionality aimed at helping Adobe developers create content in the most cutting edge places.

Gaming

We’ve been doing a lot of work to help enable console-esque games on top of the Flash Platform. Flash Player 11 includes Stage3D, which is going to open up a whole new world for game developers. Zombie Tycoon and Tanki are initial examples of what can be done and I can’t wait to see what comes of it. I’m reminded very much of the early days of Flash where a bunch of creative people were given a technology that was pretty open-ended and poked and prodded to create a bunch of very cool things. I think we’ll see that kind of revolution with Stage3D because of the ubiquity of Flash and the creativity of our developer community. Also in the gaming bucket is a framework we’re working on called Starling, which leverages Stage3D to create a super-fast way of doing parts of 2D games. It’s a great merger between the underlying technology/performance benefits of Stage3D and the kinds of things people want to do in 2D games. I think it’s also going to see some traction beyond games as agencies start to use it to enhance 2D content.

Mobile Applications

Flex and AIR have really found a great place in mobile applications. The performance enhancements in 2.7 made building native-experiences with AIR possible and we’ve seen some great examples of that in action including Machinarium and Caltrain Times. I’ve been impressed with performance on my 100 Days of Exercise application on iOS. I’m incredibly, incredibly excited by what this means for Flash. There’s a definite need to create mobile apps that can be deployed to multiple application stores. The Flash Platform provides a way to create great looking, high-design applications with near-native performance that can run on multiple devices. That’s a big deal.

And this release of AIR 3 goes where we haven’t gone before on the Flash Platform with native extensions. Now if there are features that aren’t included in AIR, like access to a credit card reader, you can build those extensions in native code and then link them to your AIR applications and leverage those libraries. It’s a great mix of native for specific use cases and AIR/Flash for fantastic user interfaces. It’s a big, big, big deal to be able to extend the platform and it’s a huge step.

I also think we have one of the best mobile-tool chains out there. Flash Builder 4.6 is going to help with creating those native extensions while also enabling the use of captive runtime in AIR so your applications don’t need to rely on the external AIR runtime on Android. Combine that with the enhancements that are coming in Flex 4.6 and it adds up to a world class mobile development platform that lets you reach more devices that matter. Flex 4.6 is especially exciting because of the new components that have been added. Flex and AIR are far and away the best toolset for interactive developers or any mobile developer who needs to create content for multiple devices. The apps you can build with Flex and AIR are going to stand out from the boring, standard apps that have started to litter app stores. Creativity will win the day and creativity is at the core of Flex/AIR.

Beyond

So this is a huge release, and I’m excited. But I’m also excited about the future of Adobe and how we are responding and will continue to respond to the evolving marketplace. As Danny Winokur, VP and GM of the Flash Platform, said recently:

“We’re not so concerned about what the right technology is for that as long as we’ll be able to deliver those experiences. We’re working with Microsoft and other members of the HTML community including Google, Apple, and others to enable rich experiences on HTML5.”

This is not a technology war. Adobe is about enabling developers to build the best possible experiences with the technology they want. We want to build tools and services that cater to that ethos. That takes the form of cutting-edge gaming features like Stage3D and world-class mobile app features with Flex, AIR and Flash Builder. But HTML5 is exciting for a lot of reasons, and Adobe will help developers there as well. If you’re an interactive developer, the future is very, very bright for you.

So you better get a good pair of sunglasses.

Beer List for Flash Camp 2011

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Most of you know that I’m a pretty serious beer person. And since we have a fantastic beer store, City Beer, just up the street from the SF office, it makes it easy to get good beer for events like Flash Camp. I just finalized the list and we’ve got some great beers. At this point you should have no excuse; it doesn’t get better than mobile development and great beer.

We’ve got some great sessions, the product teams are coming to help answer questions, and it will be a lot of fun to show off the Flex mobile story in person.

Adobe SXSW Roundup

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If you haven’t been to SXSW, as a geek, you need to go at least once. The badge is pretty cheap for what you get, and the experience is unreal. As I’ve gone to SXSW I find myself going to fewer and fewer panels, but there is always very good content. And the subject matter is incredibly diverse so you can geek out on everything from development to food. But the best part is connecting with people. One of the best things about SXSW is that everyone there is happy to talk to you about anything. There are always a few people who came to pitch their stuff, but even they’re fun to talk about and the enthusiasm they have is infectious. We held some Adobe events at breakfast and lunch and I got to meet some really fun people who were jazzed about what Adobe is doing.

We also had our crack video team at the event and they did a ton of video. To get a feel for what it was like at SXSW, check out the videos below. And hopefully we’ll see you there next year. Big thanks to the Edge team, and the CS marketing team for putting on some great Adobe events at SXSW this year.

There’s a cool video about the Interactive Web Awards, which we sponsor and some of the winners and how they use Adobe tools. Some of the finalists for these awards are amazingly impressive.

We also snuck some of the next-gen features in Flash Professional and Dreamweaver and did a couple of videos of feedback from the people that came to the session. You can find Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

Open Source Media Framework Marketplace

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If you’re doing anything with video you’ve probably heard of the Open Source Media Framework (OSMF). It’s one of the cooler projects at Adobe and provides a component that can be customized and extended for whatever you want from video delivery.

OSMF includes a robust plug-in architecture that lets developers extend it and add features. The OSMF team has put together a marketplace for tutorials, white papers, and plug-ins for OSMF. It looks like it’s a great resource for all things OSMF and a bunch of the Flash media rockstars have already contributed content. The guys at Realeyes Media have put up an example plugin that lets you track analytics when using OSMF. Almer/Blank has a reference card that covers the important parts of OSMF. And Jodie O’Rourke has a getting started article for an introductory look at OSMF.

I think it’s a cool way to expose a bunch of developer-related content. If you’re knowledgeable about OSMF, definitely think about contributing some content. And if you’re just wanting to show video, take a look at some of the plug-ins and documents that make it easy. And everyone should check out the StageVideo Plugin for using StageVideo with OSMF.