AIR, Flex / Flash, FMS, PushButton, Game… Developer
Archive for January, 2009
Welcome Scrantonians!
Jan 15th
So I was looking at my FeedBurner statistics today, and was surprised to see that some people from Scranton are subscribed to my blog. Sweet!
So welcome, hope things are well, say hi to your mother for me, okay?.
I love The Office.
Tip of the Day – Using Fireworks to skin those Flex Applications
Jan 15th
Today I was going to post about using flashvars and widget development. However, as I started to document the process, it became too much information for a single tip. So I’m going to do a separate post walking you through my widget development process. Now on to today’s tip!
To be honest with you guys, I’ve never really been a huge fan of Fireworks. I’m a Photoshop guy, and I have been since version 5.5 (hooray ImageReady). However, at our last SeaFlex meeting Marty gave a quick introduction into Flex skinning using Fireworks. My eyes were opened! So here is the basic run down of creating Flex skins using Fireworks CS4.
- Within Fireworks go to Commands > Flex Skinning > New Flex Skin
- Select the components you want to skin.
- Skin to your heart’s desire.
- When you’re finished, go to Commands > Flex Skinning > Export Flex Skin
- I created a new folder called testSkin and saved to that.
- Now in Flex Builder. File > Import > Skin Artwork
- Browse to the folder we just exported our assets to.
- Make sure the image to component mappings are correct.
- And…. you’re done.
Amazing.
:: UPDATE ::
Marty just posted a PC (and more in depth version) of the skinning your Flex applications with Fireworks. Read it here!
Tip of the Day – Widget personalization is important!
Jan 14th
Some people call it skinning, others call it customization, for this post we’re going to call it personalization. Having sat in many focus groups… I’ve learned this following pearl of wisdom.
Adding personalization to your widget is incredibly important.
Social Network users spend HOURS customizing their profile to… express themselves. If your widget doesn’t “gel” with their Dwight Schrute bobble head photo, then it’s not going to work for them.
But… what is personalization?
Take a look at Snapvine’s VoicePlayer skins page.
You’ll notice that the widget here has many different flavors or “skins”.
Your widget doesn’t have to be as complex as the Snapvine widget, and frankly it shouldn’t be. One corner that you can easily back yourself into is by making your skins so customizable, that it makes it difficult to add new features or UI components.
Imagine if you will, a widget that allows users to move any button they want, anywhere they want. Then later on, you want to add 3 new buttons to the interface. You have to go back through all of your skins and make the changes to all of them. If you have over 100 different skins that are unique, you have to change and test all of them. Not fun.
When your go down the path of TOO MUCH customization, the widget quickly becomes far too complex, and a burden to maintain. So use KISS methodology when dealing with personalization.
Here are some easy ways to add personalization:
- Allow an image path as a flashvar to be used as the background.
- Point to different external CSS files.
- Allow for colorization of components.
- Custom information – Name, tagline, etc…
Tomorrow’s tip I will discuss how to use flashvars for customized widget information.
Tour de Flex… It’s no rubygems, but it’s a start.
Jan 13th
Mike Chambers has a blog post asking, “How can adobe make the as3 learning curve easier”?
As I talked about in my Why YOU should contribute to Flex post, Adobe wants our input. Here they are again asking the community, “What do you think”?
I commented on Mike’s post.
I think that a more centralized component library and delivery system would make the lives of many developers much easier.
Take RubyGems for example. It’s extremely easy for developers to benefit from the work of others. This has increased the value of Ruby in my eyes tenfold.
As a developer, there isn’t a uniform place that I can go check to see if someone has done this before. So I have to scour the net for a while trying to find a solution by looking through blogs, articles, googlecode, etc…
I know there are a few places out there that make this easier. RIAForge, Adobe Developer Connection, Project Sprouts, Adobe TV, flexcoders.
Most of these sites (blogs especially), have a way to externally interact with them. I think that an Adobe sponsored site or program that would allow a developer to quickly see what’s out there would be an amazing asset to brand new ActionScript developer and veterans alike.
However, I didn’t realize until now, that Adobe is already doing this. This dream “site or program” does exist as the Tour de Flex. Which if you haven’t installed yet, I highly recommend it.
As the title of this post says, it’s no rubygems (not yet anyways)… but it’s a start. Go Adobe!
Tip of the Day – Flex Builder, Open Resource shortcut
Jan 13th
So while thinking about the tip I wanted to write today… I thought about my development process, and trying to identify things that I do to speed up my development. That way I can share them with all of you.
One thing that has become second nature to me is the use of the Open Resource shortcut in Eclipse (and therefore Flex Builder). This handy little shortcut is a life saver.
For all the pcs: ctrl + shift + R
For all the macs: ⌘ + shift + R
This panel allows you the type in the resource you want to open, even if it is open already, and will bring it to focus. It’s amazing! Use it, love it, cherish it.
