Andrew Shorten

We held an event in London exclusively for digital agencies on Monday 25th February to coincide with the launch of Flex 3 and AIR - one of the sessions that I presented was ‘Flex 3 Designer/Developer workflow’.

The aim of the session was to overcome some of the perceptions that people have around Flex and highlight how designers can contribute to the production of a Flex-based application. I’ve uploaded the slides I presented to Adobe Share.

Some of the common myths that we hear in relation to Flex include:

• Flex is only used for ‘Enterprise’ applications - FALSE! Check out the Flex Showcase for inspiration
• Flex requires expensive server software - FALSE! Flex is free, open source and doesn’t require any particular server technology.
• Flex and Flash don’t work together - FALSE! Get the Flex Component Kit for Flash CS3 and use Flash to create content and components for Flex.
• Customising the default Flex look & feel is difficult - FALSE! Use CSS-based styling or Adobe CS3 tools to create visual skins
• Flex only has a fixed set of visual components - FALSE! There are lots of additional components or you can create your own!
• Flex applications are large - FALSE! Flash Player 9 (update 3) supports caching of the Flex Framework, reducing the size of your Flex applications dramatically.

Whilst some Flex applications will use the default look and feel (internal applications, data dashboards, etc) there are some great examples of Flex applications where designers and developers have collaborated to create rich, compelling and expressive visual experiences - take a look at Betfair, Volkswagen UK and Picnik.

In each of these cases the development teams were building applications that needed to be maintained and supported for years to come and hence building on top of the Flex framework provides them with significant advantages over using Flash CS3 (note: Flash CS3 is still the choice for creating expressive and interactive content, it’s just not the right tool for every job).

As a designer, you can now contribute to the development of a Flex 3 application in the following ways:

• Use Flex Builder’s design view to apply styling to Flex components
• Use Fireworks to create UI layouts based on the Flex components and generate code that a developer can then use
• Use templates in Fireworks or Photoshop to create bitmap-based graphical skins that replace default skins used in Flex components
• Use templates in Flash or Illustrator to create vector-based graphical skins that replace the default skins used in Flex components
• Use Flash to create components or containers that can be used in Flex projects

The links above reference articles, tutorials or video content on the Adobe Developer Connection site - before you get started though you’ll need the following updates for your CS3 products:

• Flex Design Skin Extension for CS3
• Flex Component Kit for Flash CS3

Quite rightly there has been a lot of buzz around Thermo, and having spent some time with the product team last week there is no doubt that this will change the way we build Rich Internet Applications in the future, but it’s important to note that with Flex 3 and CS3 designers have an important role to play today in creating RIAs.

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As announced back in November, the on AIR tour is coming to Europe this year - we’ve now posted the details of all the dates and locations for on the tour website.

If you didn’t follow the US tour last year, then essentially in each location we’ll be running a one day conference on Adobe AIR, with technical sessions, showcases and discussions. All the events are free and are open to anyone interested in learning more about AIR - you do need to register in advance though.

Mike Chambers has all the details here, but in summary the dates/locations are as follows:

First leg, March 31st - April 11:

• Madrid, March 31st
• Paris, April 2nd
• Amsterdam, April 4th
• Brussels, April 7th
• London, April 9th
• Dublin, April 11th

Second leg, June 2nd - June 13th:

• Stockholm, June 2nd
• Berlin, June 4th
• Warsaw, June 6th
• Prague, June 9th
• Munich, June 11th
• Milan, June 13th

I’ll be at the Brussel/London/Dublin and Prague/Munich/Milan events and look forward to seeing you there! Check out the agenda (the events are a full day with something for everyone), register and then spread the news

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Following on from the first Poker Tournament for Adobe developers back in November, it’s great to see that we’re sponsoring the next event which is to take place on Monday 25th February in London - just one week from today!

The event is open to all designers and developers using Adobe’s software, with an array of fabulous prizes on offer - individual CS3 products for everyone on the final table and a copy of CS3 Premium (web, design or production) AND a ticket to MAX Europe 2008 for the overall winner.

You don’t have to be a poker expert to come along - drinks will be provided and it’s a great opportunity to talk Flex/Flash/AIR with fellow developers.

Go to the PokerCoder.com website for more information and to register for the event (essential - you won’t get in otherwise!).

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You can’t help but know from all the media coverage that today is ‘Super Tuesday’ in the US, when some 24 states vote on who they will back for the Democratic and Republican nomination for the next US election.

In the UK, BBC News has used Flex to build a map-based tool which provides readers with an overview of the states participating in Super Tuesday, as well providing a historical view on how each state has voted in the election over the last 60 years.

The BBC has often used interactive maps during previous US and UK elections built using Flash, but this is the first time that the new Flex-based version has used.

You can view the application on the BBC News website.

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