Adobe CS6 Shipping Without Muse and Edge

Adobe Creative Suite 6 is shipping this week,  (May 8th 2012). Along with a passel of new features in the Creative Suite standbys (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks) there are two new products to keep your eyes on: Adobe Edge and Adobe Muse.

Adobe Edge  outputs HTML 5, CSS3 and Javascript  (the group often just abbreviated to HTML5) the technology that is touted by some as the  replacement to Flash for both simple animations (note the word "simple") and interactive productions for the web.

Adobe Muse is presented as a product for creating web site without having to  write code or even look at the code (or presumably having any knowledge of  HTML and CSS).

However, if you look for Edge and Muse in any of the Creative Suite bundles (Adobe Creative Suite 6 Design & Web Premium suites)  you wont find them there, not even in the "Master Collection".

No, Muse and Edge will only be available in the "Creative Cloud".

The Creative Cloud is Adobe's subscription based service whereby you pay a monthly fee and have access to all the Creative Suite products and Edge and Muse.

When subscribing to the Creative Cloud you download the product or products that you need to your computer, install them there and work on them there, locally on your computer not on the "cloud"; you just download them from the cloud and pay on a monthly basis.

If you don't pay,  they stop working.

Obviously Adobe would like more people to use the Creative Cloud and hence are perhaps enticing people with Edge and Muse.

Note also that Edge and Muse can also be purchased separately  outside of the Creative Cloud.

The Creative Cloud is set to launch Friday, May 8th.

We will be writing more about Muse and Edge in the near future.

Best Discount for Adobe Products

As an Adobe Developer and Trainer I often get asked regarding discounts for Adobe products. Here's my, unfortunately, short list to all the ways I know of legally getting a discount for Adobe products.

There are three possible discounts for Adobe products that you may qualify for:

Your Uncle's Neighbor's Son Works for Adobe:

one: you have a friend or relative who works for Adobe.
Typically they'll be able to get the entire suite of products for about $100. 

Your nine your old daughter needs to learn InDesign

two: you are a student. Check out  the educational discounts for Adobe Products:
This link will take you to the educational discount page on the adobe web site. 

 

Your Aunt Louise Volunteers at a the Local Community Center

three: you work for a non-profit organization. Check out the organization Tech Soup (formerly named Compumentors) which specializes in providing support and services for non-profit organization: 

Here's a link to the products page:

The url to their home page is: http://www.techoup.org (from there click on "Get Product" link.

Tech Soup has relationships with many software vendors (including Adobe) to provide highly discounted products to non-profit organizations.

Also don't forget the 30 day free most Adobe products. The "Try It" link can typically be found on the product page for each Adobe product. This is a full version of the product good for 30 days after which it will stop working, at which point you can buy it (at full price) or uninstall from your computer.

Flash and the iPhone: Confusion Still Reigns

This just in: Apple has persisted in their ban of the Flash Player on the iPhone and iPad to the chagrin of many Flash developers and Adobe. For some, it's "ancient" history, for others, surprise: the Flash Player (the plug-in that allows playback of Flash (.swf) files within web pages) is not supported on the iPhone or iPad. And, yes I'm writing this in 2011, not 2009, but many people I speak to are still surprised.

A little history helps clarify:

Flash Professional is the authoring tool used to create .swf files, as is also Flash Catalyst and Flash Builder (also known in earlier incarnations as "Flex Builder.")

To this day, Flash files (.swf files) are still found on many websites and can be seen in all major browsers running on Windows, Macintosh and mobile operating systems such as Android... but not the iPhone/iPad.

Why? Apple claims various and sundry technical concerns but many speculate that it may have to do with the fact that Flash is the number one technology for creating games on the web, and that many apps sold for the iPhone are games. Why pay for an app when you can play a game on the web? Ban the Flash player and you don't have much choice.

What complies the confusion is that when Adobe released Flash CS5 they added a feature that allows you to author iphone/ipad and Android apps using Flash. Note the word "apps", not Flash files playing in a browser that would require the Flash Player, but the ubiquitous and profitable apps.

Adobe's idea was to allow developers to leverage their skills in Flash to create apps for the booming iphone (and Android) app marketplace. Once converted the Flash file would be a native iPhone application: created with Flash but converted to an iPhone app with nary a trace of its Flash lineage.

Shortly after Adobe's announcement, and for reasons open to conjecture, Apple announced that it would be illegal for app developers for the iPhone to use any third party technologies to produce apps. The result was a cacophony of disbelief among Flash developers over a decision that seemed capricious and almost vindictive. After all, once created the app was not dependent on, or in any way linked to its Flash heritage and could be accepted or denied admission to the App Store based on its merits.

The good news: Apple has rescinded that decision, it's now legal to use Flash Professional, Flash Builder, and other third party products, to create iPhone and iPad apps.

The bad news: Apple still persists in its ban of the Flash player on the iPhone and iPad. (Flash files playing within a web page being displayed with the Safari browser on an iPhone or iPad.)

Well-meaning articles with headlines like this "Apple relents on Flash-derived iPhone, iPad apps", still confuse people who are perhaps not so attuned to the nuances of the Flash-iPhone relationship.

To summarize, .swf files created in Flash Professional Flash Builder, Flash Catalyst, etc, play wonderfully in the browsers of desktop computers including the Macintosh, Windows and Linux.

Flash files (aka .swf files) can play in the browsers of smart phones and tablets running the Android operating system but not on the iPhone or iPad.

Flash and Flash Builder can be used to create apps for the iPhone/iPad and the Android operating systems.

Got it? Great, but unfortunately there's more: the latest version of the Adobe Reader (the player that allows you to view pdf files on the web) has a version of the Flash Player embedded inside.

More on the implications on that development for users and developers in an upcoming post.

In Context Editing in Dreamweaver CS4

If you're like me you are a bit cynical regarding upgrades.
I need to see a feature that I need to really get jazzed by an upgrade.

In Context editing in Dreamweaver CS4 is that feature...but it's not for me.
I know Dreamweaver and have worked with it for years and use it to create, manage, edit and maintain web sites. I know HTML and CSS and how to ftp files to a server.

In Context editing is for my clients...who don't know Dreamweaver, don't know html, don't know how to edit a page in Dreamweaver and don't know, html, CSS or any other web technology.

What they need is a simple way to edit a web page on a regular basis without calling me to do it for them. What they need is InContext Editing which allows anyone to make simple edits to a web page in the browser.

For the time being I recommend you peruse this article for In Context editing on the Adobe Labs site InContext Editing on Adobe Labs

In a few weeks I'll report on my experience of implementing it on a site I'm working on.

Playing Sound in Flash Part 1

You all know that you can play sound in Flash.
This post will explore the various ways you can play sound in Flash.
Basically, we can break it down to 3 different techniques:

A: Import the sound into Flash and associate that sound to a keyframe (by selecting a keyframe and then choosing the sound from the "sound" area of the Property panel) when the playhead in the timeline reaches that keyframe, the sound will play.

B: Import the sound into Flash and use Actionscript to play the sound. Note in this case the sound is never associated with a keyframe rather you can play the sound whenever you need to by writing some Actionscript, playing the sound is not dependant on the playhead reaching a particular frame.

C. Keep the sound external to Flash (and the swf file) and use Actionscript to load and play the file. (We will cover details of this technique in another upcoming post.)

The remainder of this post we'll cover details of technique "B" above, using Actionscript to play a sound that's been imported into the Library.

If you use this technique, there is one thing you need to do before writing the Actionscript and testing the movie. It involves the fact that if you have a resource (such as a sound file or graphic) in the library and you don't have a reference to that resource in the timeline, when you create an swf file, either when publishing or just testing the movie, Flash will assume that because there's no reference to that resource in the timeline that you don't actually need it, it assumes you're not actually using it and it throws away the data that represents that resource: why save data that's not being used, but of course you are using that resource, you're just using Actionscript to play it back and not the timeline. You need to tell Flash not to throw it away.

Here's what you do: in the Library panel, select the imported sound file and then right-mouse click on it. Choose "Linkage" and then when the dialogue box appears click on the check box that says "Export for Actionscript".



This is essentially telling Flash not to throw this resource away, you're going to be using it with Actionscript. Also I'd recommend, though technically it's not required, you can just use the name of the sound file without the extension, that you type in a new Class name, in the example above I typed in "mySound" (without the quotes). Note that his is an arbitrary word, you're making it up.

When you click Ok to close the dialogue box Flash will put up a message which says: "A definition for this class can not be found in the classpath, so one will be automatically generated..." Great, no problem. If you know what a class is fine, if not, don't worry about it. Though you will be referencing that class in the first line of code below. Flash is essentially creating a new sound class based on the particular sound name you entered.

After that you can start writing the Actionscript code that will play the sound.
To do so you will need to use the Sound class and create a new instance (object) from it.

To play the sound first use the class name you typed into the linkage dialogue box above and create a new instance of it using the first line of code below.

var myNewSound:Sound = new mySound();

Note, whatever name you used in the dialogue box for the class name is the word you need to use in the line above where I have "mySound". If you used pepperoniPizza as the class name in the dialogue box your code would look like this:

var myNewSound:Sound = new pepperoniPizza( );

The sound wont start playing till you referencre the instance of the sound object you created in the first line and execute the play method:

myNewSound.play();

To stop the sound from playing execute the stop method:

myNewSound.stop();

The completed code for playing the sound:

var myNewSound:Sound = new mySound();
myNewSound.play();

Your homework assignment is to take this code and modify it so that you play a sound when the user clicks on one button and stop the sound when the user clicks on another button.

Note: the screenshot above was taken from Flash CS3 but the technique is the same for Flash CS4 though the dialogue box there looks a bit different you still choose Linkage Export for Actionscript. Also, we're using Actionscript 3 code here which works in either Flash CS3 or Flash CS4.

Flash versus Flash Builder (aka "Flex) Simplified

Adobe has made the beta release of Flex 4 available, but surprise, surprise...it's no longer named "Flex". "Flash Builder 4" is now the official name of the product. The name change will either clarify some people's confusion over what Flex actually did or it will create more confusion as people who have never used the product try to figure out the difference between Adobe Flash CS4 and Flash Builder (aka "Flex").

Here is our humble effort to clarify the issue:

Flash (the traditional version, known officially now as Adobe Flash CS4) started out as a drawing program, then animation was added to it, then interactivity with Actionscript was added to it. The method by which you construct a Flash production is with the "timeline" the interface element in Flash which allows you to construct your presentation over time using a frames-based interface. The timeline is good for producing animations over time...not as good for programmers striving to create interactive Flash productions and applications using Flash for the web. They (programmers) had no experience with using a timeline, it is a totally new and unusual interface element outside the realm of their programming experience.

The solution to the programmer's conundrum with Flash was Flex: a product designed largely for "developers" (aka programmers) using an interface they were already familiar with. Both Flash and Flex output .swf files, the Flash file format that is supported by the Flash Player (the plug-in that needs to be installed in your browser so it can play back a .swf file).

Flex (aka "Flash Builder") doesn't allow you to create animations as does Flash, though you can take an animation created in Flash and play it back in your Flex (Flash Builder) production. Flex (Flash Builder) is optimized for creating highly interactive applications for the web, much of the same functionality can be found in Flash but with Flash you have to deal with that darn timelime and you don't have as many built-in components to help you create an interface for your Flash/Flex-based web application.

Got it? If not, email me and I'll try to clarify further: kdurso@multigroup.com

Adobe Announces Flex Builder Free for Unemployed and Students/Faculty

In a recent announcement, Adobe has made Flex Builder their application for creating Rich Internet Applications applications for the web, free to students and faculty as well as unemployed developers.

Information regarding both offers can be found at the url below:

Free Flex



Flex outputs Flash files (.swf) files and is typically used to create highly interactive files for the web or interactive applications that can connect to the web using Adobe Air. Unlike Flash, Flex has no animation capability but allows you the option to playback Flash files within a Flex application.

Flex uses Actionscript 3 (same as Flash) and mxml, a language based on xml.

Flex is being used on the web for everything from the Sherwin-Williams color picker,
http://www.sherwin.com/visualizer/

to Pikeo, online photo sharing
http://www.pikeo.com/

to Yahoo Maps, the UNO game on Facebook and more.

Adobe is also supporting another site which lists jobs for Flex developers:
Flex Jobs

For more information about Flex and discounted Flex classes at our facility in Silicon Valley please email me at kdurso@multigroup.com