Topic Archive: Adobe

Mash Note: Tumblweed: Tumblr blogging client written in Adobe AIR

Brian Dillard, Wednesday, June 4, 2008 @ 2:26 pm

I haven't tried to hide my ambivalence about Adobe's move into the RIA market. That's why I feel duty-bound to share my positive experience with a newish AIR application: Tumblweed, a desktop client for the Tumblr micro-blogging service.

Currently in beta release, with new iterations coming quickly, Tumblweed lets you post photos, quotes, links, audio and full blog posts - any of Tumblr's supported content types - without hitting your browser. None of this would be possible, of course, without Tumblr's http-based API. But props to Tumblweed creator David Merino for building an application that's minimalist yet user-centric.

Tumblweed currently supports a subset of the functionality you can access on-site. You can create posts, though editing or deleting them appears to be wonky (at least on my machine, a MacBook Pro running OS X Tiger). You can drag-and-drop photos instead of using a clunky, web-based upload mechanism. You can even copy images directly from the clipboard.

It would be nice if Tumbleweed provided better visual feedback about the image currently being uploaded. I expect such usability issues to improve in subsequent releases. In the meantime, thoughtful touches abound. For instance, the Snapshot dialog lets me take a photo using my Mac's built-in camera and upload it to Tumblr just like any other photo.

As a blogging client, Tumblweed already delivers value. As a showcase for AIR, it overcame my cautious cynicism about Adobe. The melding of webapp and desktop capabilities proves as compelling in practice as it did in theory at last year's Adobe MAX conference. It pains me to admit it, but I find myself eager to build an AIR app of my own.

• Digg
• Reddit
• del.icio.us

Comments (1)

agile ajax

Upcoming Conference: FITC Chicago 2008, June 22-23

Dietrich Kappe, Friday, May 30, 2008 @ 7:27 pm

Another Chicago area conference coming up: FITC Chicago 2008, from June 22-23 at the Chicago City Centre Hotel & Sports Club, 300 E. Ohio. We're even supporters. So what is it beyond the platitudinous "design and technology" event?

Obviously there's going to be lots of talk about how to develop Flex and Flash applications. Also how to develop online/offline apps with Adobe Air. Heck you'd think Adobe was a sponsor.

If designing RIA's with Flash/Flex/Air is your thing, you want to be here. It's not free, but based on last year's event, well worth the $125-$250 (depending on which sessions you go to).

Update: If you sign up here with our special ninja supporter code of PATH15, you get 15% off.

• Digg
• Reddit
• del.icio.us

Comments (0)

agile ajax

A case study in Flash UI annoyances: style-card.com

Brian Dillard, Tuesday, May 20, 2008 @ 2:16 pm

Maybe I read too much Victorian literature, but I've always wanted a personal calling card. Recently, I decided to get one: a little something to help new acquaintances remember my phone number, email address and important URLs. Based on a recommendation from Time Out Chicago, I turned to Style Card, a slick consumer service that promises a less generic riff on the basic business card.

Here's how the company describes its product:

It's a social networking card created by you for the purpose of sharing your details and your style. Let people get to know the real you – or the not-so-real you.

Sure, I could have fired up an Adobe product, used a commercial printing service and gotten 1,000 copies of my own design for about $25. But owing to my lack of graphic design mojo, I decided to shell out $59 (plus shipping) for a mere 80 shiny, round-cornered Style Cards. The 3,000 percent markup is ridiculous, but I wanted to see whether I could benefit from the company's idiot-proof design interface. Besides, I figured I could get a blog post out of the experience. I wasn't wrong.

Continue reading »

• Digg
• Reddit
• del.icio.us

Comments (0)

agile ajax

FlashDevelop: Open Source Flash IDE

Dietrich Kappe, Thursday, May 8, 2008 @ 1:44 pm

Despite my previous post, there is some activity around Open Source and Flash. For one, there is an Open Source Flash IDE, Flashdevelop. Right now it is tied to Windows, and it requires you to download the free debug Flash player and the Flex 3 SDK.

• Digg
• Reddit
• del.icio.us

Comments (0)

agile ajax

Adobe “Open Screen” is not “Open Source”

Dietrich Kappe, Thursday, May 8, 2008 @ 11:09 am

So Adobe is opening up their Flash platform via the Open Screen Project. Opening up in this case doesn't mean "Open Source," more like Open Spec. The spec for SWF has been published since 1998, but it came with onerous licensing restrictions. Adobe has now removed those licensing restrictions and promised to publish more API and protocol details.

Why is Adobe doing this? From their FAQ:

The Open Screen Project is working to enable a consistent runtime environment – taking advantage of Adobe® Flash® Player and, in the future, Adobe AIR™ – that will remove barriers for developers and designers as they publish content and applications across desktops and consumer devices, including phones, mobile Internet devices (MIDs), and set top boxes. The Open Screen Project will address potential technology fragmentation by enabling the runtime technology to be updated seamlessly over the air on mobile devices. The consistent runtime environment will provide optimal performance across a variety of operating systems and devices, and ultimately provide the best experience to consumers.

Some bloggers have speculated that this initiative is aimed at creating a Flash/AIR runtime on the iPhone. Maybe. But right now this thing looks more like an industry cooperative (not necessarily a bad thing) rather than a dynamic open source project.

• Digg
• Reddit
• del.icio.us

Comments (0)

agile ajax

Disaster relief, brought to you by United Way and ColdFusion 8

Brian Dillard, Friday, October 5, 2007 @ 9:40 am

My earlier post about the Adobe MAX developer conference left out one of the most interesting sessions: the keynote, which was presented with no small amount of sound and fury. The segment devoted to ColdFusion 8 proved particularly fascinating. Scott Fegette and Ben Forta appeared on stage to talk about their week-long effort to modernize the United Way's volunteer website. Adobe offered their services in this regard as a way to give back to the community and, coincidentally, highlight the power of ColdFusion 8. I applaud this act of volunteerism on behalf of volunteerism, but I can't say I'm in love with the results.

The old site included a fairly long, scrolling demographic survey that was used to collect information about volunteers. It contained a mixture of required and optional fields. The form itself could definitely have used some interface improvements; I'd love to see what somebody like Luke Wroblewski could have done with it. But I was a little shocked at what Fegette and Forta did: They simply wrapped it in an accordion widget and called it a day. You can see the results here.

Sure, there's now some cool behind-the-scenes code that compiles a custom PDF of volunteer resources based on your answers to the survey. But the form itself has gone from an interface that's low-tech but usable - everyone knows how to scroll down a page till they find a submit button - to one that's both up-to-the-minute and confusing. By wrapping all of the optional questions in a separate section of the accordion, the designers have pretty much guaranteed that nobody's going to fill them out. They interface concedes as much when it implores users with this instructional text: "Please continue to section 2 of the survey below." If you have to explain how your interface works, you've probably under- or over-designed.

To make matters worse, there's practically no validation on the client or server side. Here's the code to  validate the presence of a ZIP Code:

<script language="javascript">
function checkForm(){
    var zip = document.more.zip.value;
    if (zip ==''){
                alert("Please enter your Zip Code.");
                //after alert popup, send focus back to firstname field
                document.more.zip.focus();
                return false;
        }
    return true
}
</script>

Of course, considering the ZIP field inexplicably defaults to "0," checking for a blank field doesn't really help much. You can provide a ZIP Code of "0" and an answer to exactly one of the questions on the survey and still receive your customized set of PDFs. That left me to wonder just how much customization is actually provided.

I applaud Adobe, Fegette and Forta for their charity, so I won't detail any more bugs, design flaws or lapses in standards. (Other folks have already taken up that cause.) I will, however, pose this question: Why would one of the leading software companies in the world, known for its stunning visual tools and eager to gain market share as a platform for serious software development, choose to demo something in front of 4,000 conference attendees without ensuring that it adheres to rigorous technical, aesthetic and usability standards?

• Digg
• Reddit
• del.icio.us

Comments (0)

agile ajax