Category: Adobe

How to prepare yourself for Flash CS4 ACE exam

Just passed! I become Adobe Certified Expert on Flash CS4!

Like Flex with AIR certification I’d like to share my experience to prepare yourself for ACE exam of Flash CS4.

First of all… EXPERIENCE! You must work, play and work & play with Flash CS4 IDE and Actionscript 3.
More experience you have on Flash development less you must study for the exam and you have more chance to pass.

Obviously, it’s so difficult to know everything about Flash CS4 from all IDE controls to Actionscript 3 and OOP so there are 2 books that could be helpful to solve this “issue”.

With those book you can create a good base to try ACE exam for Flash CS4 but, if you have read Essential Actionscript 3 could be better for Actionscript side and for your daily work ;).
Another good suggestion is to read Help guide of Flash, in fact Adobe made an impressive job on that guide and you can find lots of interesting stuff; you can download a guide PDF file directly from this link.

Try everything, from import PSD or AI files to prepare files for web or desktop application with AIR, because you may find some questions about AIR and own code syntax!

Finally test yourself before real exam with a very good service (I really appreciate it) like acequestions.com with less then $10 you can try how Flash CS4 exam works and also which kind of questions you could find in that certification.
That’s it! Take a look at Adobe site to read all information to become Adobe Certified Expert and… GOOD LUCK!

A real workflow with Flash Catalyst and Flash Builder

Yesterday I take part of a pre-event labs at MAX called: Creating Application for the Flash Platform where Matt Boles show how to create a real workflow with Catalyst and Flash Builder.

I was interesting in this pre-event because I had some questions in my mind that I answered during this session.

First of all, I’d like to spend a couple of words about Matt Boles; guys Matt rocks! I love so much his training skills, how he explains during the session and also how he moves around the room, bring my attention for the whole duration of the session.
I think one of the best teacher that I ever seen, thank you so much Matt!

So come back on Catalyst and Flex 4; session was interesting and there are some things that I’d like to share with you:

  1. until now and probably also in the final release, if you create your project in Catalyst, then bring it to Flash Builder and start to modify it, you CAN’T go back to Catalyst…
    This is a problem because I’m sure that during a real project there will be some changes to do, so you must do that via Flash Builder Design mode or via code.
  2. Catalyst doesn’t export Flex Modules but only custom components, I talk about that with Matt and he is agree with me, after your work in Catalyst you must create in Flash Builder a Module Container and create modules for each custom components.
    So you’ll study to organize very well your assets during design process.
  3. I think that could be miss a part of a process that is a study of GUI usability, I mean, when you create a RIA or a desktop application you must study how users interact with it so if a designer starts to work on GUI but he doesn’t know how Flex works could be a big problem and you must refactoring the code to add a new functionalities or to group some components.
    Maybe could be useful start project with a meeting where designer and developer (and project manager or producer too) define informations (GUI, functionalities and so on) to create the final application and with a software like Balsamiq, define how to manage all components and custom components.
  4. I was surprise about Flash Builder design view, totally different of Flex Builder 3 one; could be useful when you want to make some little graphic changes at your project.
  5. Very cool news is data wizard of Flash Builder where in few steps you can retrieve remote data and then create VO for your application.
    Associate data to a component is really easy, just a drag ‘n’ drop in design view to a component.

This is a little resume of a day with Flash Builder and Catalyst, in a couple of hours starts the first official day at MAX with a Keynote that I think will be very interesting and with tons of news, so start to take a look at labs. I’m sure that Flash Player 10.1 become your best friend!!!

Obviously, feel free to add comment to this post and we could start an interesting conversation on how is the best way to realize a RIA or desktop app with Flash Platform.
I’m so interesting to know what do you think about that!

See ya 😉

Flash, Flex and SEO

During the flight from Philadelphia to Los Angeles I read a book that I wait for long time and finally arrive a couple of months ago but I’ve never started to read before.

The book is Search Engine Optimization for Flash by Todd Perkins, the first that talks about this argument and also about how to make your Flex RIA searchable from spiaders, so I was so exciting before start to read.

My final impression is that you don’t need to read this book if you are a developer because there aren’t new things to do…
I can resume the book in those few best practices:

  • Use SWFObject because make your SWF file more easy to read for spiders
  • Use SWFAddress or URLKit to rewrite url of your page but it’s useful only for RIA or site usability, not for SEO because HTML is the same for all pages, change only the page url.
  • Avoid to develop a full flash site if you are interested to indexing your project
  • Remember to “talk” with spiders via META tag in HTML page
  • One of most important thing is to make a relevant title of your HTML page
  • With FP 10 you don’t make anything to indexing your contents (dynamic or static text) because spider navigate trough SWF file to retrieve informations
  • Remember that you can set XMP file for your Flash project but until now, search engines don’t use those informations

I think that’s all, I hope to find more about how can create searchable content with Flash (there is a good PDF file in adobe website) but I think that there is no way.
We are only at the beginning of a big mountain and I hope that Adobe starts to make something new in next few months… maybe at MAX 2009 also, but I really don’t know.

MAX 2009

Another year and another Adobe MAX obviously!

This year I decide to take part in a new pre-event called Creating Applications for the Flash Platform, this labs will be dedicated to Flash Builder and Flash Catalyst integration… I think could be very useful to understand a new point of view to create RIAs and Desktop Applications and how to integrate this workflow in our company.

During the conference, this is my schedule:

Monday, October 5, 2009
– Building Flex and Adobe AIR Service Clients
– ActionScript 3.0 Tastes Good (and Is Good for You, Too!)
– Advanced Data Visualization with Flex
–  What’s Coming in Adobe AIR 2
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
– Building a Scalable Interactive Video Solution Using P2P in Flash
Builder
– Flash Builder 4 Advanced Tips and Tricks
– How NOT to Code Flex
– ELIPS 3.0: Mobile Flex Builder Toolkit
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
– Real-Time Collaboration Deep Dive: Using Adobe Flash
Collaboration Service
– Building Mobile Applications with Adobe AIR
– Making Real-Time Data Come Alive With Flex Data Visualization
– Effective Form Design for Developers
– Tackling Memory and Performance in Flash, Flex, and Adobe AIR

Monday, October 5, 2009

– Building Flex and Adobe AIR Service Clients

– ActionScript 3.0 Tastes Good (and Is Good for You, Too!)

– Advanced Data Visualization with Flex

–  What’s Coming in Adobe AIR 2

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

– Building a Scalable Interactive Video Solution Using P2P in Flash

Builder

– Flash Builder 4 Advanced Tips and Tricks

– How NOT to Code Flex

– ELIPS 3.0: Mobile Flex Builder Toolkit

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

– Real-Time Collaboration Deep Dive: Using Adobe Flash

Collaboration Service

– Building Mobile Applications with Adobe AIR

– Making Real-Time Data Come Alive With Flex Data Visualization

– Effective Form Design for Developers

– Tackling Memory and Performance in Flash, Flex, and Adobe AIR

I hope to find many people to share ideas, knowledge and skills… see you there guys 😉

Why AIR is called AIR? my crazy idea

Yesterday morning when I came back from an AS3 course in Venice, when I was in my car (it was too hot!), I started to think why AIR was called AIR (I know I’m totally crazy!).
So, feel free to follow me in this mind trip:

1. There aren’t any kind of Adobe software where in own name there is “Adobe” word, in fact we talk about Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Flash, Adobe AIR, but if you read in long version Adobe AIR you’ll read Adobe Adobe Integrated Runtime… bad sound!

2. AIR is a technology that allow you to bring your web contents and put on user’s desktop to create an “offline software”.
In 1996 Macromedia published a whitepaper where, for the first time, they talked about RIA (Rich Internet Application), so a kind of online software.

So AIR is the opposite of a RIA (one works online the other one mainly offline) and if you reverse the word R I A, you can find A I R!!!

I think that, after called this technology AIR, they think about the real acronym and marketing strategy.

I know, I’m crazy… but it’s funny… isn’t it?! 😀

How to switch from Actionscript 2 to Actionscript 3… in September for FREE in Milan and Rome

During September I’ll take part of Arrivano i Guru Tour, an Italian event that allow designers, developers and photographers to learn new stuff for FREE about Adobe technologies!
In fact, the event starts in September until to the end of October and you can see it in 10 differents Italian cities.

In the last event you can find a special guest… Katrine Eismann, on of the most important person in creative digital retouch world!
I decide to talk about a big problem for a lot of developers: How to switch from Actionscript 2 to Actionscript 3 during my sessions in Milan (27th September) and Rome (5ht September).

During my session we can see the power of new AS3 features,  architecture of new Flash Player and differences of both languages.
You can see a real mirror from AS2 scripts to AS3 scripts and how to porting your daily “Actionscript life” to a new step: more interesting and powerful!

If you’d like to have more information take a look at the site or feel free to contact me leaving a message on my blog or dropping me an email.

I hope to see you during this event and remember that is a great opportunity to learn more and for FREE!

See ya!

Flash Builder Beta is out… my first tests

Finally is OUT! New Flash Builder version is out in labs.adobe.com

I spent all the evening to try new features, so I think that could be useful talking about that in my blog.
The new features that I like so much are:

  • States / Library / Modules: States are totally changed in a new version that make easier write in MXML, I love so much includeIn and excludeFrom attribute to decide in which state you can put or remove a particular component.
    If you want you can work also with group and add in the same group N states.
    Library is a new object that works like Flash library, so you can create a Definition (like a Symbol) and reuse it during your application, make attention because you are working with Element and not Child!
    States and Library increase a lots application KB so I prefer work with Modules that load in runtime mode. They have a new particular argument when you try to load it that is ByteArray (more information on Migration Guide on labs).
  • Automatic getter / setter / event handler: YESSS! I switch to FDT in last month because I increase my productivity to write AS3 code, now with Flash Builder you’ve a couple of actions to create getter, setter and event handler, that’s so cool!
  • New Drawing API: we have a lots of new interesting MXML tag to define a shape like a square or a rectangle, but the most interesting is Paths that allow you to create particular lines and shape with bezier curve via code
  • Advanced CSS selectors: another interesting feature is the new way to refer a component via CSS, in fact you can interact with MXML structure (all buttons in an hbox must be red and all buttons in a vbox must be black).
    Very easy and cool!
  • Flex Theme: that’s one of my favorite features, in fact with Flash Builder you can create custom Flex Theme and skin your application in a second! You can find more information about Theme in Ted Patrick blog.
  • DateGroup: Instead of using Repeater to repeat a particular object, now we have DataGroup that defines a dataprovider and how to render it via an ItemRender or an ItemRenderFunction.
  • Switch a Flex project to AIR: finally if your client doesn’t know what he wants, you can swtich a Flex app into an AIR desktop application directly from context menu of Package Explorer (new name of  Flex Navigator panel).

Remember to read Migration guide, it’s so interesting! Stay tuned for next Flash Builder and Catalyst tests!
Another great resource that is now live to see Flex 4 features is Tour de Flex that you can view directly from Adobe web site.

Bye bye

@PyCon with Flex and AIR

Here we are! My first conference of the year is PyCon 3 in Florence from 8th to 10th May.
This is THE PYTHON conference in Italy, there will be very cool and strong developers of the Python world from all over the world.

In this edition I propose a session about Python, Flex and AIR on how to integrate those technologies all together.
I think could be very interesting for Pyhton developers approach this RIA world and find a new way to create an amazing GUI with Flex and AIR.
It will be my first time there and I start to study Python only on January, so I’m very happy to take part on this event.

If you’d like to come, please feel free to tell me and add a comment on this post!
See you there guys.

UPDATE
I make a post about PyCon 3, in few days I’ll put conference photos on my Flickr account, stay tuned!

I’m just come back from 3GSM World Congress

Here we are!
Yesterday I came back from Barcelona (what a wonderful city!), I was there for 3GSM World Congress invited from Adobe to show our latest Flash Lite contents made in collaboration with Mutado, an Italian creative and interactive company.
It was amazing for us and I’d like to thank you Adobe people to give us this opportunity, thank you guys!

Adobe stand was amazing I love it so much and also Adobe announced lots of new stuff from new Flash Lite player delivery to new challenge that allow developers to win $30.000!

Flash Lite challengers is a contest that will finish at the end of May and we’ll know winners in the middle of June.
Main prize is $30.000 for the best Flash Lite application, but there are also categories prizes from games to applications, it’s a great opportunity to show your mobile content and win!
More information about this challenge on Adobe site

Another great news is that now, we have a new way to distribute our Flash Lite contents, in fact if a device goes trough a Flash Lite content on the web browser or download a Flash Lite application, if this device doesn’t have installed Flash Lite 3.1, it will be downloaded from web and installed on the device.
More information about this new way to deliver your content on Labs site.  

Also Adobe and Nokia give us a new opportunity to invest in mobile projects with Open Screen Project fund ($10 million), in fact this fund is created to help companies and developers to join in mobile Flash world!
More information about it in open screen project site. 

Finally I put a review on mobile.actionscript.it about new Flash Lite devices like Palm Pre or Nokia N97, so feel free to comment it (and take a look about our new mobile website).

 If you want to see a quick tour about 3GSM feel free to take a look on my Flickr account.

3GSM World Congress 2009

Hi All,

it’s long time that I don’t write down a post.
In last months I changed lots of things, new fellows, new tutorials, new customers and big projects to develop with AIR and Flex.
So lots of things to do!

This year I’ll be at 3GSM World Congress for the second time, so if you will be there, please feel free to tell me, maybe you can drop me an email or add a comment under this post!
I’ll arrive at 15th and I’ll come back 20th February, so 5 amazing days in Barcelona.
If you don’t come, don’t worry I’ll post about this great event when I’ll be there and… there is a special surprise for anybody that follow this blog, so stay tuned and take a look at this blog in next few days.