Kevin Lynch’s Web 2.0 Keynote / Flash Catalyst Demo
Here is Kevin Lynch’s Keynote from the Web 2.0 conference where he shows how to build a full application using Illustrator, Flash Catalyst, Flex Builder, Flex and the Facebook ActionScript 3 API.
Mike Chambers
code = joy
Great,
It’s like Flash + Flex (or FDT IDE) but in this case, designer don’t have to know Flash, just use Illustrator or photoshop
dav
4 Apr 09 at 4:50 am
[...] ????? ?? Kevin Lynch ?? ????? ?-Flash Catalyst ???? ????? ??? ???? ????? ?????? ????? ????? ?? ??????? ?????: [...]
Flash Catalyst demo ??????? ?????? | FlashDev
4 Apr 09 at 8:29 am
This is awesome Mike. Is there any chance I could get into the beta on Catalyst? I was a beta tester for Macromedia Central (how many years ago was that?) and have been building a number of things with Flex — including a project that I have been trying to port into Facebook (http://apps.facebook.com/bahaiexplorer). Next step is to make it into an AIR app…
brian
5 Apr 09 at 1:45 am
[...] > Kevin Lynch’s Web 2.0 Keynote / Flash Catalyst Demo at Mike Chambers [...]
localToGlobal » Blog Archive » news review -> 14th week of 2009
6 Apr 09 at 1:25 am
[...] classes and various magic to get the functionality that you would like. I have to admit to liking Kevin’s demo of Flash Catalyst at Web 2.0 Expo and how it lets designers build out a scrollbar. We should be inspired to do tools like this. What [...]
Creating custom scrollbars with CSS; How CSS isn’t great for every task on Dion Almaer's Blog
6 Apr 09 at 9:01 am
[...] Demonstration of the new Flash Catalyst application from Adobe, currently in beta. Seems pretty impressive, although as always with things like this it’ll be where the quick bits of coolness stop and the ‘getting under the hood’ starts which is where it’ll win or lose. Hopefully the Flex output will be nice and clean and not a crazy bloated mess. [...]
Feed » Common Agency
6 Apr 09 at 1:02 pm
Nice demo, and pretty amazing accomplishment with Catalyst but…
First Adobe comes with AS3 to make java developers and alike happy(my own opinion, but shared by lots of people), and “deselopers”(designers upgraded to developers) like me unhappy.
Next I start to learn AS3 at a forced pace to catch up and keep my skills on the edge…”I’ll rule some more years, whee”, so far so good.
And now you bring Flash Catalyst to make things easier for the designers and “harder” for the developers, I don’t get it, really!
Example:
My boss is a ‘I “know” how to code that’ designer, of course every time he tries he ends up facing a code road block and asking me to fix it, which I do, but at the expense of wasting extra time trying to figure out what he did in the first place, and he is too attached to his AS1 small knowledge, put yourself in that scenario please :)
He knows I need that extra time and does not complain about it, but can’t learn from the experience and keeps doing his thing no matter what, not funny.
Now, I can easily imagine my boss playing with Catalyst, cook some stuff pretty quickly and then expect that I can finish the job just as fast as he did, which is a big fallacy, you will say “why, Catalyst provides all the classes, you just need to tweak some code here and there”, but I doubt it, see:
Any programmer tends to go with his own proven/tested/improved solutions, even if adopted ones – Tweener, Papervision3D, etc-, you don’t believe me?, just ask around the regular Flash gurus, I don’t remember any of them using the included components in Flash, or the Adobe tweening classes, hey, even I ended up coding my own solutions, with borrowed knowledge from everywhere, but twisted to fit within my logic, and to be flexible enough for clients odd/custom requirements.
So unless every programmer starts to think the same way and using the same logic used in Catalyst, or for that matter in any “one for all” solution, I can’t see a big success, one of the sides is going to complain/need something extra always.
I hope I’m speaking too soon though, and I hope too that Catalyst will be compatible with Flash CS, not only Flex, as lots of people don’t touch Flex, particularly in designer oriented environments, I know I wouldn’t be doing/supporting Flash stuff after 10 years if I had only Flex to do the work :)
Freddy
7 Apr 09 at 12:06 am
[...] mike chambers – mike lynch’s keynote aboute Flash catalyst and facebook api http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2009/04/03/kevin-lynchs-web-20-keynote-flash-catalyst-demo/ [...]
7/05/2009 « Robertopriz’s Weblog
7 Apr 09 at 6:57 am
You’re so right Freddy … 100% agreement … thumbsUp
cheers
Dizzy
DizzyNorthFrag
8 Apr 09 at 8:26 am
@Freddy – that as1 small knowledge was a good thing, and in my opinion, Adobe needs to figure out how to let those guys in the door again. AS3 is too hard for them and fails too often, with cryptic messages. The new errors are important for an engineer centered language and environment like Flex. It has killed the productivity of designer/hacker/ Flash users though, and made everything harder.
The biggest problem with AS2 was that it failed too silently, and didn’t kick up enough warnings. Now when AS3 fails, it kicks up errors that halt execution, and which don’t make any sense to designers and lower level hackers. The easy fix, which could still apply to AS3 (at least in some environments like Flash) would be to add more warnings, but continue execution in a way that more closely resembles the way Javascript works. Basically, make it behave like a scripting language again – they are much more forgiving. (there are other needed things – scripting against a DOM built with generic Legos is an easier model to hold in your head than a highly specialized organic class hierarchy).
We might even be able to recreate a dynamic language based culture around Flash again, which in my opinion has been lost with AS3 (but continues in Javascript and Canvas – something Adobe should tap into). Heck I’d even be happy with Javascript or HaXe on the timeline (maybe an API for third parties to add their own compilers?), as long as it all compiles to cross language compatible ABC bytecode.
Flash Catalyst seems like an attempt to create a UI which attempts to deal with the bondage and discipline of AS3 for the users visually. I’ve never actually seen this done successfully in other programs (maybe Director?), but maybe we’ll have to wait and see (and I do wish the best of luck to Adobe with it). I suspect Catalyst, which is married to Flex, is not going to be the salve that we traditional Flash developers are looking for. I suppose I should defer judgment though.
Kevin Newman
10 Apr 09 at 9:36 am
I don’t develop applications all the time but I love making interfaces: I am proficient with AS3 but I never learned Flex properly. I found its components too “closed” and hardly customizable. When I need to make apps I find workarounds to create my interface layout using the Flash IDE.
Also I still prefer making the graphics for my own lightweight buttons and code their behavior.
I never used the GUI components Adobe provided in Flash and I will never do for one simple reason: they are too difficult to edit.
So instead of Catalyst, how about a good Project Panel, a better component inspector and finally a decent coding environment inside the IDE for a start?
danilo
15 Apr 09 at 4:49 pm
[...] April 3rd, 2009 by Mike Chambers See full Article here – http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2009/04/03/kevin-lynchs-web-20-keynote-flash-catalyst-demo/ [...]
A Flash designer/developer must see - Kevin Lynch’s Web 2.0 Keynote / Flash Catalyst Demo -Reblog | Remarkable Things
20 Apr 09 at 9:01 am
[...] Kevin Lynch’s Web 2.0 Keynote / Flash Catalyst Demo Kevin Lynch building a full application using Illustrator, Flash Catalyst (pre Beta), and Flex Builder (tags: FlashCatalyst) [...]
Eismann-SF News
21 Apr 09 at 12:02 am
Kevin Lynch’s Flash Catalyst Demo At Web 2.0 Keynote…
Now that some of the Flash Catalyst hype has died down some, this demo is sure to get some of its potential fans pretty excited all over again. Here is Kevin Lynch’s Keynote from the Web 2.0 conference where he shows how to build a full application……
Flash Speaks Actionscript
23 Apr 09 at 5:00 am
I think the separation of the two allows for people to specialize and become experts at one thing rather than people who are just getting buy with several different things. I’d rather not see a designer using messy generated code that doesn’t necessarily fit the circumstance at hand and then the developer has to go back in and clean up a big mess which makes his job harder.
It may make sense to just to add this into FLEX and sell more copies of FLEX as opposed to targeting designers because at the end of the day the designer is just going to design in PHOTOSHOP, ILLUSTRATOR, or FIREWORKS and hand the file over to the developer.
So if anything this is yet another developer tool and the additional functionality provided with FLASH CATALYST should be apart of FLEX rather than a whole new program.
Chris
25 Apr 09 at 4:18 pm
I think the separation of designer and coder allows for people to specialize and become experts at one thing rather than people who are just getting buy with several different things. I’d rather not see a designer using messy generated code that doesn’t necessarily fit the circumstance at hand and then the developer has to go back in and clean up a big mess which makes his job harder.
It may make sense to just to add this into FLEX and sell more copies of FLEX as opposed to targeting designers because at the end of the day the designer is just going to design in PHOTOSHOP, ILLUSTRATOR, or FIREWORKS and hand the file over to the developer.
So if anything this is yet another developer tool and the additional functionality provided with FLASH CATALYST should be apart of FLEX rather than a whole new program.
Chris
25 Apr 09 at 4:20 pm
i must say that something about flash catalyst just doesn’t wash with me. the majority of the designers i work with are great at generating concepts, colour schemes, typography and layout etc., but terrible at thinking out how an interface should work technically.
there are always endless questions to designers like “what about this button’s rollover?”, “what about provision for this type of transition”, “won’t we need a control that does X?”, “did you design anything for this state?”. to imagine that visual designers are always going to be able to usefully create stripped down apps in catalyst is naive i think.
what’s more, as a developer with creative roots i usually have a lot of input to the design, look and feel and functionality of an app as i develop it, and the apps i make usually really benefit for these extra rounds of iteration. i feel like catalyst could in some cases rob me of part of my job that i love, and impoverish projects where developers are capable of constructively improving the interface as they build.
i think the designers in the vast majority of creative agencies i’ve worked in are simply not interested in getting involved in the technicality of a project to the level that catalyst demands, and are too busy too learn. likewise, busy developers are not going to take the time to learn a tool that probably drastically decreases the flexibility of what their able to produce.
my two pennies worth anyway :P
Jed
30 Apr 09 at 7:49 am