Tag Archives: flash builder

Flash Catalyst/Builder Screencast

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I mentioned this in my post about the Flash Builder and Flash Catalyst Beta launches but I wanted to make sure to give props to the guys at Universal Mind. We worked with Darron Schall and Francisco Inchauste to create a good workflow demo and I think they did a really solid job. A lot of us will be using some parts of this demo on the user group tour and it includes a bunch of new features from Catalyst, from Flash Builder, and ColdFusion 9 so it does a great job of showing off the workflow. I’ll try to post the assets soon as well. I took that demo and created a screencast that shows it off.

flash_catalyst_tutorial_screen1

The screncast walks you through the basic workflow of taking a Photoshop file, importing it into Catalyst, and turning the artwork into components. Then in Flash Builder we use some of the new design-centric development features to wire up that artwork to an actual data source. All of the data is coming from a ColdFusion server using the new ORM/Hibernate functionality.

Flash Builder and Flash Catalyst Betas Now Available

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Flash Builder Flash Catalyst LogoWe just dropped the bits for both the Flash Builder beta and the Flash Catalyst beta. These represent a big jump in how people are going to work with the Flex Framework and I’m happy to see the hard work of the teams now available to everyone. So grab the bits and start creating some Flash content. Important: If you installed the MAX public beta, check the bottom of this post for some instructions that will help you through some install problems that may come up.

Keep in mind that we’re still early for both Catalyst and Builder. We won’t have everything we want in Catalyst 1.0 but this beta represents a HUGE step over what some of you saw at MAX last year so we’re making a lot of progress. It’s snappy, it’s tightly integrated with the CS4 tools, and it opens up a whole world of design centric tooling for the Flex Framework. What makes this all possible are the fundamental changes to the Flex SDK for Flex 4. We’ve completely separated the logic from the look of a component which means designers and developers can collaborate without stepping on each others toe’s. We’ve abstracted the layouts so you can dynamically change the layout of components creating some very cool looking components. We’ve integrated Flash Builder with a lot of your favorite backend technologies so it’s easy to consume and generate services to connect to data.

I’ve created a screencast to help people check out the new features. It goes through the workflow of moving from a PSD to Flash Catalyst and on to Flash Builder when you want to bring in real data.

Flash Catalyst Tutorial

There are a lot of resources to make sure you get up to speed quickly using the new tools. Here’s a good list:

If you’re having trouble uninstalling the MAX preview and installing the public beta, give these steps a try:

  • Uninstall Catalyst
  • Download the Mac version of the Repair tool from this page: http://www.adobe.com/support/contact/licensing.html
  • Run the Repair tool with the default options.
  • After the Repair is complete, re-install Catalyst and enter the SN when prompted by the installer.

Flex Builder “Gumbo” is Being Renamed Flash Builder

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color_wheelDo you remember the wheel o’ icons that John Nack posted on his blog when the CS3 branding first came out? I wasn’t a big fan when I first saw them but they’ve grown on me a lot since then. But right in the middle were a bunch of grey/black icons and right behind the black Fx that we all know and love was an Fb icon for Flex Builder. For some reason that never got used and to this day I don’t know why. So my first reaction to the changing of the name from Flex Builder to Flash Builder is that it’s about damn time.

I came up as a Flex developer. I’m still a Flex developer. If you’ve ever seen me try and demo Flash CS4 you know how much of a trainwreck I am when I’m outside of my precious eclipse-based IDE. In the early days there was a pretty solid line between people doing Flex and people doing Flash. But as Flex Builder evolved, a lot of people started using it for AS3 only projects. The “traditional Flash developer” would move between Flex Builder and Flash CS4 a bit or had started to use Flex Builder as their primary development environment even if they weren’t using the Flex Framework at all. As the Flash Platform has grown up, the types of people using the tool has increased. And that’s what a good tool should do; it should be basic and powerful enough to meet a variety of needs.

Flash builder Logo

So with the name change, we’re acknowledging that the tools for creating Flash content are independent of frameworks or other parts of the Flash Platform. And I don’t see how that’s a bad thing.

Some of the push-back I’ve seen has been from Flex developers who enjoyed a clean break from the perceived baggage of the Flash brand. For you guys, not much is changing. Knowing the Flex Framework inside and out is still going to be a much-demanded skill. You’ll still be able to call yourself a Flex developer, you can still say you know how to build Flex applications and you can still pitch clients on Flex instead of Flash. No one is going to ask you what tool you’re using. The Flex brand still lives. The bigger concern, and one I think is more valid, is one like Constantiner posted:

Ok. What we have now? We have Flash IDE and Flash Builder IDE (looking forward for questions from customers and colleges about what is difference and why Flash Builder IDE has advanced code editor but can’t compile fla-files and Flash IDE can compile them but useless for serious coding?). And we have Flash Catalyst which can use projects imported from Flash Builder IDE but can’t share the same project and can’t edit fla-files. And have one ugly child aka Flex SDK which is what? How to explain colleges and customers why Flash Builder IDE hasn’t timeline and can’t build flas but can use something which called Flex SDK (why Flex? why Flash?). And in other hand Flex SDK can be used to develop only in Flash Builder IDE and Flash Catalyst but not in Flash IDE. And what about beginners? Why Adobe going to drive them mad?

I can tell you after watching this whole experience that at a big company doing something as simple as a name change takes a LOOOOOONNNG time. Let alone trying to take two mature products like Flex Builder and Flash CS4 and get them to work better together. So Constantin is absolutely right when he says that there are still a lot of things that need to happen. But now that the naming is set we’ll keep working on bringing the tools closer together so that you can interchange between all of them as well as the design tools on the Creative Suite side.

I’m less concerned about people figuring out which tool to use. As I see it, here’s the landscape for Adobe’s Flash Platform tools:

flash_platform_des_dev

The developers to the platform will use Flash Builder, the designers can use Flash Catalyst, and those of you who are creative developer rockstars will continue to use Flash Professional to create some great content.

Hopefully this clarifies the name change a bit. We’re going to be doing a huge user group tour to talk about Flex 4, Flash Builder, Flash Catalyst, and ColdFusion 9 in June, so if you want to find out more, check with your local user group. The long and short of the announcement is that all of your tools and technologies are staying the same, we’re just working on making them play better together.