David Deraedt

As a follow-up to my previous post about how HTML files could be treated as application views, I'd like to take some time to dive deeper into a notion which has seemingly become essential in JS based application development: templating. And before you ask: yes, deep inside, I'm convinced this picture is absolutely relevant to this whole story. 

But first, please keep in mind that topic is still relatively new to me (at least when compared to my background with the flash platform) so the following is definitely subject to some caution and should be considered as "early conclusions". So I guess what I mean is that I'd really love to have your input on all this. ;)

As a front end developer, I've often been questioning whether HTML can really be treated as an application view descriptor, in particular in comparison with languages like, say, MXML. Of course, experience has shown that it could be done, but that necessary doesn't mean that it's the right tool for the job.

The first thing that strikes me, and what I'd like to share with you today, is the not so obvious relationship between html pages and application views, and the consequences in terms of strategies for source code organization.

HTML files, pages, and application views

Since we - Adobe - officially announced the decision to move the flex SDK and related tools to the Apache foundation to focus on web standards, I have seen many reactions from the flex developer community, including frustration, anger, but mostly skepticism.

As a long time freelance flex consultant, I can understand those reactions. The very reason why I became a flash / developer is because I was sick of web standards limitations. But now, I'd also like to tell you this: I think now is a good time to re-evaluate this whole situation and see what technology best fits your needs.

I just gave a little talk at Back From Max Paris about the new features of AIR 3, with a particular focus the Captive Runtime and Native Extensions. Talking about Native Extensions, here's the page I mentioned where you can find a bunch of ready-to-use native extensions made either by Adobe or the community.

Here comes my first mini tutorial on how to get started with Starling development. I'll focus on the project setup.

Downloads
Download and install Flash Player 11 RC1 debugger version.
Download the Adobe AIR3 RC1 SDK
(No need to download the playerglobal.swc, it's included in the AIR SDK)
Download the Starling files from the Starling website.

UPDATE: The slides and samples are now available for download. Thanks to everyone who attended the session!

So you've built a great app, and of course you want it to be used by everyone and their mother, probably by taking advantage of the new multiscreen capabilities of the Flash platform?

Then remember: having your application running on every device does not mean much if your users simply can't understand it. If you're truly committed to reach as many users as possible, you want to internationalize your application.

Hi all,

Just a quick update to tell you guys that, as promised, Lita, Lupo Translator and Lupo Manager are now open source projects (released under GPL). You can access the source code using the URLS of the SVN repositories given below.

Also, I'm looking for help, especially with Lita. This software has been installed more than 20,000 times, I have daily bug reports / feature requests, and I just cannot keep the pace. If you have good experience with AIR and Flex development and want to join either Lita or Lupo, please send me a message.

SVN repositories

Launch application

By now, every Flex developer should be familiar with the basics of the new Designer / Developer workflow: importing art coming from Illustrator or Photoshop into Flash Catalyst will automatically let the user convert the related graphics data into MXML skins, MXML components, and embedded assets, which will be used in our final Flex 4 application.

However, there are times when your workflow may require to simply copy and paste some FXG code exported from a graphic tool directly into your MXML files.

So this is it. Starting today, I will no longer work as a freelance contractor since I have the immense pleasure to join Adobe. I'll be taking Thibault Imbert's prior position - web consultant - as he joins the Flash Player team in San Francisco (congrats again, Thibault ;) ). This is of course a great opportunity, and I'm very excited about what's going to happen.