Category Archives: Flash

Mobile Flash Player: RIP

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It’s been an uphill battle since “Thoughts on Flash” and this year things were finally leveling off. I was getting buy-in from important pockets of my organization and now Adobe’s message has utterly annihilated all the work I’ve done putting mobile Flash in a positive light. I’m not wasting any more time convincing people if Adobe itself isn’t standing behind the technology.

We will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile device configurations (chipset, browser, OS version, etc.) following the upcoming release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook.

Now, instead of saying “Sure! We can do that in Flash!” – I’ll have to say “Well, HTML cannot do what you want, sorry… maybe we can just take expectations for this web app down a few notches?” Really, really sad state of affairs – especially when considering that mobile Flash Player works really well on the devices I use regularly.

I’ve never targeted mobile Flash Player for application development – have always done desktop Flash Player and AIR desktop or AIR mobile. However, being able to reassure clients that their desktop web project was accessible on mobile phones and tablets over certain platforms was often enough to convince them to go with Flash Player for certain advanced website functionality. Personally, I LOVE being able to view browser-based Flash content on my mobile devices.

Most all of my books, videos, and whatnot over the past year or so have revolved around AIR and mobile… so while it definitely does excite me to think that more resources can be placed into furthering AIR on mobile, as a user of mobile Flash and a strong advocate of mobile Flash across Android, QNX, and beyond… this decision absolutely weakens the perception people have for the rest of the platform.

The way in which Adobe just dropped the news on loyal customers after years of gathering pretty strong support from the Open Screen Project and other partners is probably the worst part in all of this. I’ve written a lot on mobile and Flash on this weblog. I’ve written how Steve Jobs is wrong, how Flash on mobile works well, et cetera… I stand by my previous statements.

I love what Adobe is doing with Flash Player 11 and AIR 3. I have 2 eBooks scheduled for publication by O’Reilly next week on both these topics. I’m also doing work with Adobe Edge and various elements of the “open web stack” – so I get that it’s important to support all of these solutions… it just feels so much like an ill-informed blood-sacrifice to dismiss mobile Flash Player in this manner. I think Peter Elst put it best with his analogy of removing a limb. Seems very unnecessary and Adobe has done great harm to many core supporters in the community and with outside perceptions.

I’m really floored by this decision. I hope I am wrong in my analysis. Thibault Imbert and Lee Brimelow seem to think that this is a good move. They are the ones that know for sure… or at least they are better informed than I…

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.

Some additional articles on the subject (both positive and negative):

Flash to Focus on PC Browsing and Mobile Apps; Adobe to More Aggressively Contribute to HTML5

Flash to Focus on Apps for Mobile

Focusing

Et tu, Adobe? Flash Player homicide

Flash Player Mobile, a Post Mortem.

Adobe abandons mobile Flash development

Without mobile, Adobe Flash is irrelevant

Adobe’s November 9th Case Study in Message Failure

OccupyAdobe

Clarifications on Flash Player for Mobile Browsers, the Flash Platform, and the Future of Flash

My Thoughts on Flash and HTML (as Expressed in an Email to “Tech News Today”)

Still Waiting…

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Here’s a simple, observable lesson for historical perspective:

Adobe LiveMotion will *destroy* Macromedia Flash! (tweets from 2002)

AJAX will *destroy* Adobe Flash! (tweets from 2005) ...though this could go for 'Macromedia Flash' too.

Microsoft Silverlight will *destroy* Adobe Flash! (tweets from 2007)

Sun Microsystems JavaFX will *destroy* Adobe Flash! (tweets from 2007)

HTML5 will *destroy* Adobe Flash! (tweets from 2009)

Adobe AIR will *destroy* Adobe Flash! (tweets from 2011)

Guess what? Not dead yet. Not by a long shot.

Stay tuned to happenings around Adobe MAX next week for more insights :)

Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 Books

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Adobe today announced that Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 will be shipping fairly soon. This is great news for the community because the runtimes are LOADED with great new features. How do I know the features are great? Because I’ve been working with them for the past couple of months while writing a set of companion books for O’Reilly about them both! In fact – the drafts are complete as of last night and are currently in tech review.

What’s New in Flash Player 11

Comprehensive Quickstarts for Browser-Based Experiences

Author: Joseph Labrecque
Publisher: O’Reilly Media (October, 2011)
ISBN-13: 9781449311094
Pages: 60 (estimated)

This book will detail the various enhancements, new functionalities, and general improvements available in this new version of Adobe Flash Player. Each item is explained in detail and when possible, a series of screen captures and a full code examples will be provided, enabling you to both grasp the new feature in a visual way, and integrate the feature into your own code quickly, based upon example.

What’s New in Adobe AIR 3

Comprehensive Quickstarts for Desktop and Mobile

Author: Joseph Labrecque
Publisher: O’Reilly Media (October, 2011)
ISBN-13: 9781449311070
Pages: 80 (estimated)

This book will detail the various enhancements, new functionalities, and general improvements available in this new version of Adobe AIR. Each item is explained in detail and when possible, a series of screen captures and a full code examples will be provided, enabling you to both grasp the new feature in a visual way, and integrate the feature into your own code quickly, based upon example.

More information will be provided once these books are in the hands of the editor!

Creating Custom Context Menus in Flash

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The assets for my 5 minute quick tip talk for the 2011 Adobe Education Leader Institute are located here. This is the completed example (Flash Professional CS5.5):
[download AEL2011_FlashContextMenu]

Here is an image preview:

Custom Context Menus!

Here is the SWF:

Flash Player 10.2 or greater is required!

And here be the code bits!

package  {
	import flash.display.Sprite;
	import flash.ui.ContextMenu;
	import flash.ui.ContextMenuItem;
	import flash.ui.ContextMenuBuiltInItems;
	import flash.net.URLRequest;
	import flash.net.navigateToURL;
	import flash.events.ContextMenuEvent;

	public class CustomMenu extends Sprite {
		private const MENUITEM_FVM:String = "©2011 Fractured Vision Media, LLC";
		private const MENUITEM_JOSEPH:String = "Joseph Labrecque";

		public function CustomMenu(){
			buildMenu();
		}

		private function buildMenu():void {
			var myMenu:ContextMenu = new ContextMenu();
			myMenu.hideBuiltInItems();

			var menuItem0:ContextMenuItem = new ContextMenuItem(MENUITEM_FVM);
			menuItem0.addEventListener(ContextMenuEvent.MENU_ITEM_SELECT, visitURL);

			var menuItem1:ContextMenuItem = new ContextMenuItem(MENUITEM_JOSEPH);
			menuItem1.addEventListener(ContextMenuEvent.MENU_ITEM_SELECT, visitURL);
			menuItem1.separatorBefore = true;

			myMenu.customItems.push(menuItem0);
			myMenu.customItems.push(menuItem1);

			this.contextMenu = myMenu;
		}

		private function visitURL(e:ContextMenuEvent):void {
			var site:String = "";
			switch(e.target.caption){
				case MENUITEM_FVM:
					site = "http://fracturedvisionmedia.com/";
					break;
				case MENUITEM_JOSEPH:
					site = "http://josephLabrecque.com/";
					break;
			}
			navigateToURL(new URLRequest(site), "_blank");
		}

	}

}

Adobe Press: Mobile Development with Flash Professional CS5.5

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I’m happy to announce that I’ve undertaken a new authoring project for Adobe Press along with co-author Peter Elst and video2brain! The project is titled Mobile Development with Flash Professional CS5.5 and Flash Builder 4.5 : Learn by Video and is available for preorder on the Adobe Press website and at Amazon.com.

At this point, I’m nearly half-way through recording my video segments for the project and feel as though everything is coming together really nicely. I’m using Flash Professional for most of my segments, although the lessons Peter is working on will cover Flash Builder as well. While the Flash Professional code editor definitely leaves something to be desired after doing so much work with Flash Builder, I’m finding the focus on Flash Pro to be a rather welcome one for myself. I expect recording to be completed during the first week of June.

Anyhow- this makes two major publications so far this year- both of them on topics that I just cannot get enough of!

Note that I’ve set up a page to include information for all my publications over at http://josephlabrecque.com/books/.

Mobile Development with Flash Professional CS5.5 and Flash Builder 4.5 : Learn by Video

Authors: video2brain, Peter Elst, Joseph Labrecque
Publisher: Adobe Press; 1 edition (August 26, 2011)
ISBN-10: 0321788109
ISBN-13: 978-0321788108

Mobile Development with Flash Professional CS5.5

After an industry debate that made headlines for months, designers and developers can use their Adobe Flash Professional, Flex, and ActionScript skills to quickly begin developing applications for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, as well as for Android devices. In this in-depth course, you’ll learn from the ground up how to set up your system to become a mobile developer, create applications, and master each step of the publishing process.

Where to buy?