Development tidbits, struggles, revelations, and still some Flash

Flash Catalyst isn’t even in public beta yet, but based on the potential I see with the preview release handed out at Adobe MAX, I could see Flash Catalyst replace the Flash IDE eventually.

Now currently, FC is being billed as a tool for interation designers for creating UI mockups to use for wireframing, adding interactivity to your AI, PSD or FW files, getting client sign-off and handing off to your developer. The big goal is that behind the scenes, FC is built on Eclipse and actually is building a Flex Project file (FXP actually) to take into Flex Builder and wire up to live data. Talking this idea over with others, I’ve heard some same that isn’t the focus of Flash Catalyst or its not intended for that, yada yada.  But when FutureSplash hit the market, who thought we’d be building web applications with it eventually?

Looking very briefly at both Flash CS4 and Flash Catalyst while wearing the “designer hat” , in both tools I can draw, import from existing Photoshop, Illustrator, and Fireworks files, animate using the more intuitive After Effects-like timeline , add interactivity via built-in features/behaviours and even go “behind the scenes” and add more advanced interactivity via ActionScript. I can easily see users looking at FC to build what they currently use Flash IDE for. Even Adobe’s own marketing on the FC site states “Flash Catalyst can output a finished Flash SWF or AIR application that’s ready to publish on the web.”

Ok. so Flash Catalyst 1.0 won’t kill off Flash CS4, but given a bit of work and some tools we haven’t seen yet, and the desire by Adobe, I could easily see FC 1.5 or 2.0 replace the Flash IDE and for the record, I see that as a good thing.  Here are the PRO’s for killing off the Flash IDE in favor of Flash Catalyst 2.0

1. The Flash IDE has a horrible ActionScript editor. We complain about it all the time, and I’m not convinced that Adobe wants to fix it. Seems like a lot of Flashers jump into Flex for the code editor first, and then play with the Flex SDK later on.
2. No longer held back by the Flash .FLA file type.  The .FLA blows. Every new version of Flash creates a new FLA that isn’t backwards compatible. Its not efficient when working with a team who uses SVN (can’t be diffed).
3. Finally on a level playing field with the “Flex guys”.  Under the hood, we’d be using the same tool, same code base, same components and would have a shared project file. No longer feeling slighted because one or the other got tools that the other didn’t.

So for this to happen, a lot of work would need to happen to Flash Catalyst to make it compete with the Flash IDE. First off, we’d need more drawing tools. The preview release of Flash Catalyst from Adobe MAX only had the bare minimum of tools, and I would image Adobe is hard at work on a lot more drawing tools.  We’d also need a Motion Editor for Flash Catalyst, along with the 3d and IK tools that the Flash IDE has.  There are more items that would be required but those are the essentials to bring Flash Catalyst on par with the current Flash IDE. Its something that I think is very achievable by Adobe.  And maybe… its something they are planning as well.

Way back in April, I had been looking for an Eclipse plugin to format MXML and came up blank.  Today I found one (thanks to Digital Media Minute) and it works great. I just used to clean up some old code of mine, plus reformat some code I inherited from another developer.

Flex Formatter:  http://flexformatter.sourceforge.net/ Download the .jar file and place in your Flex Builder or Eclipse plugins folder and restart FB or Eclipse.  There is a pretty extensive configuration panel that you can use to modify the formatting to your standards (Window > Preferences > Flex Formatter). Additional information on the formatting options is here: http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=137421&group_id=248408. You can also import/export your settings so you can share with your team.