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March 15, 2007

Make Flex Development More Like ASP.NET

...or like ColdFusion, PHP, JSP, etc. Tonight, one hour from now, at 7:00 PM PST we're releasing a new web tier compiler on Adobe labs. This allows you to simply copy the Flex files into a directory visible to your server and your app will be compiled automatically when you request the main application file using your web browser. The resulting model feels very similar to working with ASP.NET.

Who would be interested in this? My feeling is that it's best for people who don't want to or can't use Flex Builder, such as Linux developers, as it really streamlines working with the free SDK. However, it could be useful to Flex Builder users too.

It is available for both Apache and IIS, and runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and you can access it here after 7PM PST tonight.

All that's needed is a Java Runtime Environmnet (JRE). This has NOTHING to do with Flex Data Services and FDS applications will not run with it. It does NOT require J2EE. It's just a simple piece of software you can deploy to make Flex development more like standard web development. Enjoy!

Posted by Mark Anders at 06:00 PM | Comments (7)

March 05, 2007

Flex 360 Keynote

I gave the keynote at Flex 360 this morning and overall it went well. I showed a number of cool examples, including some that hadn't been seen before, that I think help illustrate what makes Flex magical.

The first example I showed was something I wrote, which is a partial implementation of SVG as a set of Flex components. The way it works is different from actual SVG implementations, in that there is no interpretation of XML. Instead, I have a set of Flex components that, when you apply the rules of how MXML maps ActionScript objects to XML, look like SVG. So you can embed SVG into your Flex app and the Flex compiler turns it into a set of objects that render the SVG content.

I also showed a bunch of examples that are available on the web that illustrate what I think are important concepts in Flex. The examples are are really cool and look great. The first one illustrated the way Flex allows you to build new things via composition. The finished example was Doug McCune's very cool MXNA navigator. You can see it here. This was built from other components, such as Ely Greenfield's fisheye component and Josh Tynjala's treemap component, as well as the work of Alex Uhlmann and Ben Stucki. Doug talks about how he did it here.

I showed some other examples such as Ely's LightTable example, which you can find here as well as two applications that are stretching how one thinks about Flex apps.

The first is Picnik, which is very nice image editing program. What I think is interesting about it is that it looks like a standard web app, but is implemented in Flex. This might seem like a contradiction to some. After all, should one really create something that looks HTML-ish in Flex? To me, the answer is, if that's what you want to do, go for it, as long as you create a compelling user experience. I think Picnik has created something that's functional, responsive and easy to use.

The second example I showed was Virtual Ubiquity's word processing app, code-named Buzzword. They're still in stealth mode, but you can find the latest information at their site. This is a really amazing app and goes far beyond what you see in AJAX based word processors. For example, it does advanced text wrapping around images in ways that you can't do in HTML.

Mike Downey joined me on stage to demo Apollo and he showed Buzzword running as a desktop app. He also showed a bunch of other Apollo stuff, some of which I believe hasn't been seen before. Of course, people seem to be going crazy every time they see Apollo stuff, so I probably should have done the demo myself so that Mr. Downey wouldn't upstage me, but he does a great job and is a nice guy as well, so it was great to have him there.

Of course, since this was a keynote, there had to be a snafu, and there was. While cmd-tabbing between applications on my MacBook, the entire machine locked up! At the time, I thought that it could be because PowerPoint is a Rosetta based app. However, afterwards, someone told me their theory as to what happened. They said that they've had lockups on their Mac when cmd-tabbing after having added a secondary monitor as in a presentation scenario. His Mac was a G4 PowerBook, not an Intel Mac, so the Rosetta angle wouldn't apply. It's an interesting theory!

Anyway, I was able to reboot and everything else went well. There's a great buzz at the conference and I'm sure there will be lots of posts detailing more of what goes on at Flex 360!

Posted by Mark Anders at 10:25 AM | Comments (4)

March 04, 2007

Heading down to San Jose for Flex 360

I'm heading off to San Jose today for the Flex 360 conference and I'm really excited about it! This is my first Flex specific conference and the fact that it's sold out means that it should have a lot of energy. That it has been organized by EBay kind of blows me away!

In the past, when I've been involved in technology specific conferences, such as for ASP.NET, the conferences were always organized either by conference, training or consulting companies or by the company producing the technology. Having a company that uses the technology put on the conference is a new one for for me but I think reflects the type of excitement you see around Flex. That the company is one of the top internet companies around makes it pretty incredible.

There's a great line up of speakers, both from Adobe and from the community. At the office on Friday I saw Chafic Kazoun and Grant Skinner, both of whom are well known in the community and will do a great job presenting.

There is also a lot of excitement from Flex team members. David Zuckerman is practically bouncing off the walls and will give a kind of unique session on how to extend Flex Builder to do cool new things. He's also threatened to spill the beans on what goes on inside the Flex team, and though I'm no longer officially on the team and so probably won't be included, if he does say anything about me, please don't believe it!

Now, you might wonder why I'm heading down to San Jose today, since the conference starts tomorrow and I live in San Francisco, which is just a short drive away, and since I'm not listed as a speaker. Well, I'll be giving tomorrow's keynote presentation, with assistance from Mike Downey, and it starts at 8:30, so I need to be there bright and early. I'll actually be showing some cool stuff in the keynote including some things that I've never shown in public before, so I'm really looking forward to it.

Hope to see you there!

Posted by Mark Anders at 10:15 AM | Comments (0)