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Flash Catalyst learning resources

Andrew Spaulding — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 00:34:00 +0000

Since Adobe Flash Catalyst was officially announced at Adobe MAX 2008 I’ve kept a list of my favorite blog posts, videos, screencasts and links to downloads and tutorials. Hopefully these resources will help in getting you started.

For the developers, you’ll find some interesting reads on FXG and why we have gone down this path, as well as a great post on an approach towards design patterns when developing a single application for multiple screens.

If you have other links to tutorials, screencasts, skins or other Flash Catalyst related downloads/links I’d love to hear about it!

Downloads
Download both Flash Catalyst beta and Flash Builder 4 beta from Adobe Labs

Adobe Flash Catalyst beta
Adobe Flash Builder 4 beta

Learn to use Flash Catalyst
Follow a series of tutorials to learn about the Flash Catalyst feature set and what you can achieve when integrating with Flash Builder 4, and designing from Photoshop CS4, Illustrator CS4 or Fireworks CS4.

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashcatalyst/tutorials/

Flash Catalyst Team Blog: Explorations and Lessons

Screencasts and presentations
This is a small collection of screencasts from various conferences, presentations and tutorials relating to Flash Catalyst.

Kevin Lynch’s keynote from Web2.0 expo

Mark Anders’ FITC session

FlashCamp San Francisco 2009 keynotes and sessions

FlashCamp San Francisco 2009 session slides

Lee Brimelow’s two part tutorial on Flash Catalyst and Flex 4

Ryan Stewart’s Flash Catalyst/Flash Builder screencast

Mark Szulc’s Flash Catalyst beta 1 demo in 4 minutes

Other cool downloads and links
Other links I’ve found worthwhile, especially the tutorials and resources on the Flash Catalyst Team Blog.

Flash Catalyst Skin Library

Flash Catalyst Team Blog

Using FXG assets as custom markers in Google Maps

Mark Anders on FXG vs SVG

Mark Anders’ thoughts on FXG Design and Motivation

Design patterns with Flash Catalyst and Flex 4
An interesting read on an approach to creating and developing dynamic user interfaces that are targeted at multiple devices (think multi-screen applications)

Passive Multi-View design pattern: Creating Dynamic Flex UI’s using Flash Catalyst and Flex

Raising money for charity with Adobe AIR!

Andrew Spaulding — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 14:42:25 +0000

Visit www.visionair.info

I hope you can help me out and also help a good cause.

We are having a competition to raise the most $$$ for the â€œFred Hollows Foundationâ€? which gives the gift of sight to those in the developing world who could not otherwise afford a simple cataract operation.

It only takes $25 to bring the operation to one person or just $250 for ten people.

Please help this very worthy cause and help me and my team “visionAIR” win this competition.

To donate, please visit http://www.visionair.info between 4.30 pm Thursday 10 April and midday Friday 11 April.

This is tax deductible (depending on your location) and you will be issued with a receipt for tax purposes so please dig deep.

If you can encourage your friends, family and work mates to do the same. If you are able to encourage the company you work for to pledge/donate as well, that would be fantastic!

We’ve also written an AIR application as a widget so you can track the progress of the team! I’ll provide source code after the event.

A work in progress, just applied the new theme

Andrew Spaulding — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 03:49:28 +0000

Just applied the new theme, finally, after a few months. It’s basically the Grid Focus theme by Derek Punsalan. It was recommended by Chris Marmo, a friend of mine who works for Information Architects in Japan.

Just some minor tweaks to go, but I think i’ll keep it as simple as I can. If the site doesn’t work for any reason please leave me a comment. Feedback is welcome.

FlexDaddy site update

FlexDaddy site update

Andrew Spaulding — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 06:03:54 +0000

I’ve just enabled my new theme, with absolutely no mods, just a clean install of the Redoable wordpress theme. Now it’s time to make some changes, mostly small, but at least this is a start More to come soon…

UPDATE – well, the site is totally barfed in IE, and in this day and age cross platform is the go! So I had to turn it off… back to square one

Taking my sweet time

Andrew Spaulding — Wed, 23 May 2007 02:44:03 +0000

Well, I’m sure many of you have noticed that I’m still to move hosts and update the template as well. I’ve been taking my sweet time, and it’s so damn easy to forget the blog with all this work that’s going on.

This weekend I have Saturday at home alone, so I can geek out and finally update and move the site to it’s new location. Might even throw in some Xbox Live during the day if I finish the blog move on time

Flex Daddy out.

Time for a change

Andrew Spaulding — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 12:04:52 +0000

Over the next few day’s I’ll be moving web hosts, so there may be a down time in posts (not that I post all that much anyway, and that needs to change!). I think I need a “nudge” kinda like how Twitter nudges you once a day if you haven’t yet updated what you’re doing :-p

I plan to make some changes to the site as well. Nothing major, mainly just a color change, and I’ll keep the layout because I like it’s simplicity.

Thanks to everyone who continues to visit! I’ll be back soon with more stories from the Flex world.

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The biggest Flex apps of 2006

Andrew Spaulding — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 07:09:16 +0000

Flex‘s biggest year has passed, with the future only opening larger doors with the likes of Apollo etc, but let’s take a look at some of the public Flex applications that launched in 2006:

In no particular order –>

AFR Access

One of the largest public Flex applications to date, AFR Access is an RIA that uses all the information sources of The Australian Financial Review to deliver news articles, live market information, residential and commercial property trends along with many other news and information services. This site aggregates approximately 20 – 30 feeds from sources such as Reuters, The Australian Stock Exchange, The Wall Street Journal, Aspect Huntley and Map Data Sciences, to name a few.

Sony Ericsson Phone Selector

Browse Mobile Phones, Accessories and more in this online selection and filtering tool. In a similar fashion to the Adobe Flex Store sample application, users can filter the mass selection of phones and accessories with categories such as take photos, play music, surf the net, access email etc.

Kodak EasyShare Gallery

The rename of Ofoto finds this Flex application more tightly integrated with the Kodak family. Kodak EasyShare Gallery provides consumers with an interface to view, store and share their photos or to create photo albums and other specialty products using an intuitive Flex experience.

NOMOS Online

Made with Flex 1.5, Amsterdam Schiphol Airport released a noise monitoring application to display the current noise emission data from aircraft in the area. The data is mapped and updated frequently so you can use this as a real time dashboard. This would make for a perfect Flex Data Services application.

Pikeo

Web 2.0 you say? Well you can’t get any better than this, a photo sharing RIA built with Flex! A nice UI, customized so not to look like a typical Flex app, and a good use of effects and transitions gives this app all the eye candy it needs. But that’s what’s cool about it, along with the free 1Gb of storage. Check it out!

Motionbox

Using Flex and Flash Media Server, Motionbox allows users to share videos online, similar to Youtube. The thing that sets it about however, is the ability to highlight, tag and share segments of videos rather than the entire clip. Using a filmstrip interface, the navigation within the clips is a breeze.

Trenitalia – Viaggia Treno

Trenitalia, the Italian public transport operator launched their Flex 1.5 application that allows users to get all the up to date train time table information in a simple manner. With maps and data readily available the right information is easy to find. A perfect use case for a Rich Internet Application.

Fidelity Labs

Fidelity Investments have been busy with Flex for internal use, but by also releasing some beta projects on the side on www.fidelitylabs.com. Be sure to check out their Savings Rate Finder, Free Checking bank search, Financial Search engine and the Fidelity Mortgage Search.

Belgacom TV Portal

Search for movies and concerts on demand, check out the TV schedule for different regions, broadcasts, languages and/or subscription types. This is an excellent portal into all things on the cable network. Built using Flex 1.5.

ESRI ArcWeb Explorer

ESRI created a set of Web Service API’s for integrating mapping and GIS content into browser, desktop, mobile and server applications. This is more than just a mapping app, the services include functionality to solve business problems such as analyzing demographics or tracking vehicles across locations. The ArcWeb Explorer provides a sample of this functionality.

And some from 2005 that deserve a mention –>

Harley-Davidson Customizer

Ever dreamt of owing a Harley?! Now you can customize the whole bike online with this fantastic Flex app. Choose from hundreds of accessories to truly personalise your next purchase, or just have a play! Easy Rider look out!

Intelligent Finance Mortgage Offset Calculator

Another Flex 1.5 application, this app delivers a mortgage calculator and information about mortgage options to customers all within a single and easy to use interface. Information is presented in multiple formats, both graphical charts and text, allowing the users to visualize their mortgage savings.

Yahoo! Maps

Fully released in 06 (Beta 05). A lot of us seem to forget that Yahoo! Maps is a Flex application. We must just take these kind of online services for granted these days, but Yahoo! Maps provides a fantastic interface to search locations, maps directions, find points of interest etc. And better yet, there is a great API set to help you integrate this with your own RIA or web site.

This is just a small taste of some of the RIA experiences created throughout 2006 by some of the world’s larger and well known names. Please post links and descriptions to other Flex apps released throughout 2006 in the comments.

You can check out some of the other apps on the Adobe Flex Showcase Finder.

Here’s to a bigger and brighter 2007! Cheers!

2007 means more …

Andrew Spaulding — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 00:25:28 +0000

… posts! It’s time to get back into the blogging world. Flex Daddy has been very quiet of late, but if I’m to take a New Year’s resolution, then blogging more frequently is one of them.

Happy New Year everyone!

Spaulds.

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This post comes to you via inflight wireless!

Andrew Spaulding — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 00:19:54 +0000

Well I must say, this isn’t something I ever thought I’d be doing. Writing a Flex Daddy post over inflight wireless on Singapore Airlines?! Why not! Especially when it’s free! That’s right, $0.

Anyway, time to kick back and relax, watch a movie or two … hmm, maybe on the return flight I could pack my portable hard drive in my carry on bag and play World of Warcraft? Or is that getting a little too carried away? Hehe

No more bad behaviour!

Andrew Spaulding — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 01:32:35 +0000

Hopefully I’ll have no more spam (or at least minimal spam) to deal with, as I have just installed Bad Bevahiour 2 and the BBStats plugin for WordPress. It was just getting out of control! And to it’s credit it has already blocked 26 malicious attempts including a few spam comments. I’ll leave it running for a few weeks to see how it goes, but if you have any trouble accessing flexdaddy.info or posting a comment please let me know by sending an email to andrew [at] flexdaddy [dot] info.