Flash files can now be found and indexed. - Fantastic!

Update: More info and objectives.

Tags: adobe flash, yooba studio, flash content, google, search, index, seo

Most developers working with Flash and Flex applications have come across Flash Tracer, a Firefox addon which makes it possible to ouput trace() commands in a panel/window in the browser window. An unvaluable tool which I'm sure many of you uses. Until recently, there hasn't been that many alternatives, but now there are:

Arthropod is an AIR application that lets you log/debug your applications by simply importing one class and using the Arthropod command log() instead of the usual trace().

Another alternative is ThunderBolt AS3 which is a logging extension letting you control the output of your messages in a more flexible way than trace(). For the output, ThunderBolt uses Firebug or the AIR application ThunderBolt AS3 Console.

Both projects are very interesting alternatives, giving you more control of how the messages are formatted. ThunderBolt is open source, hosted on Google Code.

Tags: logging, debug, flash tracer, arthropod, thunderbolt, firebug

I was attending the on AIR Tour Europe in Stockholm with one of my colleagues in the begining of the week. Mike Chambers, Ryan Stewart, and the rest of the gang of Adobe AIR talked about developing for their new cross-plaform runtime. Very interesting and releaxed happening. Of course we got some nice swag too, including a t-shirt, a print of Actionscript Reference and O'Reilly's pocket guide "Adobe AIR for JavaScript Developers" to mention a few. The stickers we got I put on one of our Guitar Hero controllers; nice red touch.

 

 

 

 

Tags: on air, air, stockholm, flash, flex, guitar hero, mike chambers, ryan stewart

The Flex compiler has an option to generate a link report. This is a file that contains information on classes, dependencies and more for a Flex-project. Maybe the most common use for the link-report is to compile modules against it to optimise them for a certain application, but it can also be used to find classes and packages that might be included in your project without you knowing it, adding to the projects total file size.

The link-report file is a plain XML file, perfectly readable as it is. That said, there are tools to make even more use of the file. I have had experience with two such tools, both of them AIR applications that parses the link-report and presents the information in a more user-friendly way.

ItDepends has a very nice feature that lets you see exactly which classes that refers to a certain class, very handy for identifying unnecessary classes and reducing file size.

Link Reporter Visualizer is a tool similar to ItDepends, but also features a nice tree map, that you can zoom in on to get a very clear graphical view of package sizes:

I recommend any serious Flex developer to take a look at these tools and all their features, as there is much to be gained from using them!

Tags: flex, link-report, air, itdepends, link report

Last week, Adobe released the first public beta of the Flash 10 player, codename Astro. Here at Yooba HQ, we've been trying out some of the new, exiting features and thinking of different ways to take advantage of these in future versions of Yooba Studio.

I believe Flash 10 will bring lots of good, and not only in terms of the more obvious features (I'm thinking of the pseudo-3D and GPU-rendering) but also the revamped text engine and the improved drawing API.
It's allready possible to try Astros' features out by making some adjustments to the Flex environment, but still we're eagerly awaiting docs (other than Senoculars nice tutorial) and some more tools to play with.

Yooba is really exited about Astro, and what cool features it can bring Yooba Studio (and you!).

Tags: astro, yoobastudio, studio, flash player, 3d

So, we’ve had our first encounter with potential buyers and users. The overall feedback was very good, but it has also lead to the fact that we need to rewind and revise a few basic functions in our service. Or rather implement a few functions.

We see lots of advantages, and a few necessities, of having Yooba Studio as web based service, and in many aspects we differentiate our service against traditional software’s.  But if you look at usability, I can’t get into details, we still need to keep an eye on what functions the user might want from the environment that he or she is used to. – I.e traditional software’s.

One thing that we want to communicate is that Yooba Studio is going to be the marketers complement, in the ways they work today, both when in comes to the marketing communications itself, and in the ways that content is produced.  That means that our users will still work in Photoshop, Illustrator etc. as they’ve always done, but to get branded Flash content they’ll complement with Yooba Studio. Therefore it’s crucial for us that the transition between these environments isn’t becoming a lengthy procedure. In reality that means putting a bit more effort on some fairly basic features that in the end necessarily don’t get noticed, but if they wouldn’t be there it could cause a rather annoying situations for our users.

Tags: yooba studio, photoshop, software, flash, content, usability

The humans’ online adventure is still a rollercoaster ride with constant changes, twists and turns. Today 10 year old kids are building their own web sites, exchanging html codes with each other to spice up their appearance in the social networks.

 

You can today easily make great online creations without having a single clue about html. There are services like JAlbum where you can produce and publish your entire customized online photo albums, and now Yooba Studio where you can create and publish flash applications from small widgets to entire web sites without ever heard of basic web site terms like css or href.

 

The development can be compared with that in image editing. Not only going digital, any amateur can today adjust their photos automatically in software like Photoshop Elements, after a 30 minutes course in a digital photo magazine, to do what even was difficult for experts some years ago.

 

Before you know it, there will only be tools to create the most fabulous online creations. When the 10 year old kids become 18 they will since long time be bored with how websites are built today and haven’t only adopted the newest tools, but also started to build tools we haven’t heard about yet, to make it even easier to do magic.

 

So if you don’t see a dinosaur when you look in the mirror tonight, be sure that people will look like they have seen one when they meet you, one day in near future when you state that you know html.

Tags: html, flash, software as a service, jalbum, yooba studio

Last time I spoke a bit about the three probably largest RIA technologies: Adobe Flex, Microsoft Silverlight and Sun JavaFX.
This time, we're going to take a short introductionary look at Mozilla Labs Prism.

As described at the Mozillas Developer Center, Prism is a "simple XULRunner-based browser that hosts web applications without the normal web browser user interface". So, what exactly does that mean? Prism allows you to run web applications (built using XUL) from the desktop, without the need to fire up your regular browser.

XUL is a markup language, used to describe applications made for Prism (or any other XULRunner) and works very much like MXML or XAML. Together with XUL, JavaScript is used to write the application logic, and CSS is used to style the applications. There's a lot Prism has in common with other RIA technologies and I think it's good that we have several options to choose from, even though considering the actual choosing can be a tricky part.

What could speak for Prism is the possibility that applications using XUL could be launched either from the desktop or from within a browser (such as Firefox 3) supporting it. With the Firefox market share growin, more and more users will be able to run these applications.

Marco Casario made a good presentation where you can find more on the different RIA technologies.

As with the prevoius mentioned RIA technologies, I think it's worth keeping an eye on Prism. And, they have a pretty icon.

Tags: mozilla, prism, xul, firefox

As with every development project, there's a decision to be made what technology you're going to use to build it and with Yooba Studio things were no different. Since we were building a RIA, the options narrowed down a bit. Having years of experience developing with Flash, the choice for us was Adobe Flex.

That was quite some time ago. Since then other technologies have shown up, and I'm guessing making the decision today can be quite hard for a lot of developers. Inside RIA recently compared the three big ones: Adobe Flex, Microsoft Silverlight and Sun JavaFX.

Silverlight has the advantage of a very mature developing platform (Visual Studio) and a huge developer community. Sun is offering an interesting thing with JavaFX, building on well known technology and with the recent announcement of it being used in the Blu-Ray specification making it even more interesting. One thing that speaks for Flex is the fact that applications made with it can be used by alot of people, without them having to download and install another plugin. Also, the recent release of Flex Builder 3 presents developers with a great tool for design as well as coding.

The choice we made of Adobe Flex as 'our' RIA technology still stands today, but it's going to be very interesting to see what Microsoft and Suns RIA offerings can bring in the future.

Tags: adobe, flex, microsoft, silverlight, sun, javafx

One of Yoobas main capabilities include creation, the other ones are publishing and evaluation. I don’t want rank these; they’re all vital parts of our service. But if we take a closer look at the creative bit; we get into Yooba Studio.

That’s where the magic happens.

This is where you create your campaigns or marketing messages. The platform is based on multiple templates that you, within certain limits, can customize for your purpose.

The main benefit is within the process of creating a full scale campaign. If you don’t possess certain skills, you get the built-in fx, features etc., and if your specialty is to design; you do what you always do and implement your work into Yooba Studio. When you’re done in Yooba Studio; you have an engaging activity for your end-user. It’s ready to publish.

What you haven’t done is the programming...

Tags: yooba studio, internet marketing, campaign, rich media,