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New on Adobe Labs: Squiggly – spell checking engine for Flash Player and AIR

by Serge Jespers on 22. Sep, 2009 in Flash Builder, Flex, adobe, labs

One of the most requested features for both Flash Player and AIR is definitely a spell checker. Grant Skinner released a spell check engine about 2 years ago and it has been used in number of different applications. While it was totally worth the cost, I did hear from some people that they thought this was an expensive solution. Adobe also recognized the need for a spell check solution for Flash Player and AIR and a small team has been working on this for a while.

Today Adobe released a first preview version of Squiggly. The Squiggly library allows you to easily add spell checking functionality in any Flex 3 based text control. The distribution package consists of a utility for building your own spelling dictionaries, a sample English dictionary, an ActionScript package that checks individual words for spelling accuracy, and sample code that demonstrates “check as you type” functionality [demo]. At the moment the library only supports English but the team has promised to address this limitation in a future release.

Links:
Squiggly on Labs
Download Squiggly
Download Squiggly ASDoc
Squiggly forum

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Get your Flash Catalyst & Flash Builder beta now

by Serge Jespers on 01. Jun, 2009 in Flash Builder, Flash Catalyst, News

fc100.jpgfb100.jpgWe’ve been talking about Flash Catalyst (the project formerly known as Thermo) and Flash Builder 4 (the updated and renamed Flex Builder) for quite some time now. Today, we’re releasing the first public beta for both products.

I am really excited (and I’m pretty sure all of us at Adobe are) to see what you guys are going to create with these new tools and how it’s going to improve your workflow. You can get the betas on Adobe Labs. To help you get started, we’ve created a bunch of tutorials and samples to get you going. I’ve just listed a couple of them here. For more tutorials and samples, check out the Adobe Developer Connection. Flash on!

Flash Catalyst:
Getting started with Adobe Flash Catalyst beta | Adobe Developer Connection-1.jpgThe purpose of this tutorial is to introduce designers, familiar with Photoshop, to the basic concepts and workflow involved in using the beta version of Flash Catalyst.

This tutorial covers all the skills and techniques needed to take a concept from a static file to a completed interactive, multimedia interface.

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fcfbdcd.jpgIn this tutorial Andrew Shorten shows you how to build an employee address book application that lets users enter search criteria and view a list of results fetched from a database (via a ColdFusion service), from which they can select an employee to get their full contact information. The completed application could work either as a browser-based application (using Adobe Flash Player) or a desktop application (using Adobe AIR).

[ Read more ]

For more information, tutorials and samples for Flash Catalyst, check out http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashcatalyst/tutorials/

Flash Builder 4:
mattchotin.jpgMatt Chotin (product manager for Flex) provides an overview of what you’ll encounter as you play with the new SDK and framework.

The work on the Flex SDK has been focused around three primary themes: “Design in Mind”, “Developer Productivity”, “Framework Evolution”.

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buntel.jpgTim Buntel (product manager for Flash Builder) provides an overview of what’s new in Flash Builder 4. While the name has changed, this is still the evolution of Flex Builder 3—a professional-grade, Eclipse-based development tool designed to help you rapidly build rich Internet applications (RIAs) and content using the open-source Flex framework—but with an incredible collection of powerful new features.

[ Read more ]

For more information, tutorials and samples for Flash Builder 4, check out http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashbuilder4/tutorials/

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Next version of Flex Builder will be named Flash Builder 4!

by Serge Jespers on 16. May, 2009 in Flash Builder, Flash Platform

fb.jpgWhen we named project “Thermo” Flash Catalyst, everyone started speculating about where we were going with this. Soon after, rumours about renaming Flex Builder started to float around in the community and today is that day… The next version of Flex Builder will be named Flash Builder 4. And I think it makes total sense. This change will provide better naming consistency for the Flash family of tools and position Flash Builder as the development tool for the Flash Platform. Not convinced? Let me try to persuade you.

When you build applications in Flex Builder, you’re building them with the open source Flex Framework and/or ActionScript. The applications then get compiled in to a SWF-file that runs in the Flash Player. When talking to customers, I regularly got asked if you needed “Flex Player” installed to run an application and that is exactly the type of confusion that we want to solve. By renaming Flex Builder to Flash Builder, there is no doubt what you are going to build using this product. You’re going to build an application that will run on the ubiquitous and trusted Flash Player.

While we are renaming the next version of Flex Builder to Flash Builder 4, it will still be the same Eclipse-based IDE with lots of exciting new features. We are not renaming the open source Flex Framework or the free Flex SDK. Also, if you’ve been calling yourself a Flex developer, there’s no need to go and print new business cards. You will still be building applications with the Flex Framework, so no change there. We will also continue to promote the use of the Flex Framework and Flex development in general.

I know all of you are really excited about the upcoming releases of Flash Builder and Flash Catalyst and while we haven’t announced any release dates yet, I can tell you that we will be releasing public beta versions of both products this summer. So if you haven’t planned your summer vacation yet, you may want to hold off on that and plan on playing with Flash Catalyst beta and Flash Builder 4 beta during the summer. That’s what I’m going to do ;-)

Also, you may want to check with your local Adobe User Group. We are doing a pre-release tour through 119 different locations in June. So if you want to find out more about what we are doing with the upcoming beta releases of Flash Catalyst and Flash Builder, this would be a great place to start.

If you have any questions or comments about this upcoming name change, feel free to leave a note below.

Update: Lee Brimelow just published an FAQ about the rebranding.

Flash on!

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