Why I am not writing anything technical about Flex?

Yesterday, some developers asked me in Flex India meeting, why I am not writing technical posts about Flex on my blog?

Well, I have never been regular though there was a time I was quite active on flexcoders.

Anyway, there are more reasons for that:-

1. I am working for a startup, which keeps me busy all the time.
2. Our product targets Adobe Flash Player 7/8 runtime, which means, my main work is about ActionScript 2.0.
3. I am also doing some work in Java (server-side), also trying to contribute in user-interaction (just my opinions) and thinking of new features for our product.
4. In my personal time, if I get some, I play with AS3/Flex 2.0/Other-things.

Working in a startup is fun, I can contribute in many ways. I am trying to use all my experience to help team to come up with new features, better-user-interface (only suggestions or criticism:)), better testing-strategy etc.

I could imagine the transformation happened in last ten months. I have started thinking beyond a particular technology. I became very user-focused, started thinking about cool features, usable interfaces etc.

Hey, that doesn’t mean, I don’t think about ActionScript/Flex; ActionScript/Flash-Player is still my love. I still read blogs, scan-through flexcoders and other mailing-lists, read-docs etc. I am also trying to find ways to use ActionScript 3.0 at work, propose things.

I am working on couple of personal (free time) projects (in AS3/Flex2.0), which would be released whenever I am done with coding, testing and examples. I learnt from my past small-work (JSFLCommunicator, HTTPURLLoader etc) that don’t release unpolished things. There was a reason, why I did it in past - I used to take a problem, solve it and share how I solved. But people, who started using it, considered it finished or stable. I couldn’t change things often or broke things when I changed something. There is a responsibility in releasing something in public-domain.

Hope, that answers the question :-)

Flex and Apollo Videos

Mike Chamber just announced a video site that would feature videos on Flex/Apollo. I feel, videos say more than words. I love watching videos that show tech-stuff.

Check out video.onflex.org

Summary of Flex India meeting in Bangalore

We had meeting with John Koch[1] and Flex developers in Bangalore, it went well. It was good to meet developers from different companies (SAP, Adobe, Student etc)/startups (Mogulus, Sunguard) and learn what they are doing, what kind of problems they face etc. It was great to meet some folks (Mrinal, Mogulus guys et al) whom I have been talking to over email/IM.

John Koch talked about different efforts within Adobe for globalization, documentation localization, community development and his experiences with communities in China and Korea. He also shared his vision for Indian Flex/Apollo community and different community programs he is working on.

Earlier to that, John Koch, Manish Jethani and I met for lunch-dinner on Saturday. We talked, around 5-6 hours, on variety of things ranging from Indian culture, Flex/Apollo, community, open-source/FSF, development culture in India and different Adobe community programs for India and South Asia.

BTW! We might be having a website that would aggregate content from local resources (blogs, mailing-lists, job-posts etc) as well as existing resources (flexcoders, flex_india, mxna, apollocoders, dev-net and different blogs). There is no intention to fork knowledge-bases. However, if there are strong reasons (languages, regional etc), there could be separate mailing-list/website.

I believe in having one central place for knowledge-sharing, we already have in form of flexcoders and apollocoders; flex_india is there for announcements, networking and some small discussions. I suggest everyone to use flexcoders for any technical discussion, most probably you would find answers in archives already.

We might be setting up flex-india.org for such things. I would post more details about it in later posts, we would surely need your help, please let us(flex_india) know if you want to volunteer.

[1] Adobe Developer Relation Manager of Asia

Update: I missed mentioning Mrinal’s post about meeting. Thanks to Mrinal for helping out with Venue arrangement.

Update for Indian Adobe Flex Community

There are many things (discussion, some meeting etc) going on, to set-up Indian Flex/Apollo community.

I am talking to some developers in Pune to setup a Flex usergroup in Pune. There is a meeting with John Koch[1] and some flex developers, this weekend, in Bangalore. Please check out the discussion going on flex_india list for details. If you want to join, please let me know at [mail at abdulqabiz dot com].

We might be setting up a conference-call (or Adobe Connect session) for a general discussion with all flex developers from india. I would send out the details on flex_india mailing list and post the details here too.

Please join flex_india group, if you have not yet. That’s the main mailing list for any announcement and discussions.

[1] Adobe Developer Relation Manager of Asia

Technorati tags: flex, community, india, update, flex_india

FlexBook - amazing Flex component

Ely, an architect in Adobe Flex framework team and charting guru, has created FlexBook - an amazing Flex component. It’s not just another page-flip component, it’s more than that. It can be used in various ways (as container, application, renderer etc), which means it is very customizable.

I just love the different use-cases shown by FlexBook examples. For example FlexBook’s transparent Anatomy shows how it can be used in eLearning context.

Source code would be there soon, meanwhile it’s worth checking out FlexBook samples.

BTW! Ely has been creating some amazing components since he has started blogging. It’s really inspiring to see how he manages time to do all this out of his busy schedule, that shows how much he must be enjoying doing things, that shows why Adobe Flex charting components are so cool, I can imagine some 3D charting stuff must be going on there :-)

Open Source Flash Player - My thoughts

I read most of posts on this subject but specifically responded to Ted Leung’s post. I am posting my thoughts here for wider audience, so content is slightly changed to address general audience rather than one person.

My question to those who want to see open-source implementation of Flash Player, can they mention some points, which would allow them to do things better if Flash Player would have been open-source?

Anyway, coming back to the subject. I like FSF and Open-Source philosophy, a promoter now. Though, I used to have different thoughts in past. I am always excited to see projects which provide different (free as in beer or freedom) options..

I have been watching Gnash closely. I wonder, how it would make my life better. I can imagine a few good things:-

• port it to different devices without requiring any license from Adobe?
• use it in 3D game as texture-renderer
• use it as desktop-renderer for SWF
• use it on a platform (FreeBSD) where Adobe Flash Player is not supported?

Some concerns:-

• an open-source project tends to be forked at sometime, I am not an expert but I have seen some examples.
• which leads to multiple implementation
• which would make my life harder, I would be required to think of all these platforms while writing my apps, adds more to testing etc.

Hence, I hope, Gnash is completed and I also wish it doesn’t compete with Adobe Flash Player in area where Adobe Flash Player already works, specially as a browser-plugin for all supported platforms.

I think, Adobe is more serious about different platforms than Macromedia was, may be Macromedia was smaller in size. I am hopeful and expect better things in coming future. Adobe is committed to do things and if they make some money by selling tools, I don’t mind that.

Adobe has different ways (email, prerelease programs, forums, blogs, user-groups etc) to take community feedback and it would be great if everyone can help can help Adobe to come up with features, we would like to see.

BTW! Developers are not required to buy tools. I use VIM and Flex2 SDK to develop applications.

Offtopic: Crazy Frog Bros - funny video

While working on some syndication-stuff, I noticed following video among Google’s Top 100 videos. It made me laugh, kids are doing good :)

Technorati tags: google, video, crazy frog, funny

Apollo update (features, dates etc)

Mike Chamber just posted about upcoming Apollo alpha release on Adobe Labs.

Kevin Lynch also talked about Apollo in Adobe Engage event. Jeff Barr has posted details about conference and Mind Map (requires FreeMind) of Kevin’s session on Apollo. I have converted it to HTML and PNG.

::: Technorati tags: adobe, apollo, plan, freemind, mind map, engage :::

FlashLite 2.1 Launcher for Series 60 2nd edition

Update: I fixed a bug which prevented the launcher from exiting. Optimized the code.

Leonardo Risuleo posted another article on how to create a FlashLite 2.1 launcher. I have read his other article on Adobe devnet. Interestingly, I have also been thinking/doing on same thing for last some days.

I have modified his code to work on Series 60 2nd edition (not tested on all). Also added functionality where SWF would be opened after some delay, because FlashLite player takes around 6-7 seconds to show splash-animation.

You can download the source. You would need Carbide.C++, if you want to compile without doing much.

If you want to test without compiling, copy Twitter App to E:\Others\Opera\ and then install .sis.

If you are going to build your own launcher, you would need to change following things in “inc\FlashLite21LauncherConstants.h” :

• SWF file-path
• KMaxWaitTime - You might want to adjust the delay after some test. Default is ten seconds.

Apart from that, please make sure your project has your unique UID. You can either use from protected range or get one from Symbian. You can register on https://www.symbiansigned.com/ to find more details.
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Technorati tags: flashlite, launcher, symbian, series60, 2nd edition, carbide

Air Deccan - Review

I wrote about my experiences with Air Deccan (domestic airline in India) in 2005. But that post is still read every day and lots of people share their views through comments. Today, that entry received it’s 100th comment.

Comments can really serve as a good review, in this particular case, I can see mixed views (positive and negatives), stories and experience of other folks who used Air Deccan’s service.

Read it here.