Tag Archives: labs

Raising the bar… again: FP10.1 & AIR2 betas on Labs

by Serge Jespers on 17. Nov, 2009 in AIR, Flash Platform, Flash Player, labs

Wohooow… It’s always great to wake up to new toys to play with! Flash Player 10.1 and AIR2.0 are now available on Adobe Labs.

This is a very exciting release for Adobe. Not only is it the first time that we sim-ship Flash Player and AIR for all 3 major operating systems (Mac, Windows & Linux), Flash Player 10.1 is also the first runtime release of the Open Screen Project. While we’re only releasing the beta version of Flash Player 10.1 for the desktop we do plan to roll out additional betas prior to the release with more features, performance improvements, new tooling options and support for mobile platforms. I’ve been lucky enough to play with some smart phones that already have Flash Player 10.1 and I am absolutely amazed to see the performance on these devices. It’s also great to finally have FP10 in the browser on a mobile device. It’s great to see you can now have the full web in your mobile browser!

We’ve already talked about and demoed some of the new features at MAX. Check out the feature page on Labs for a complete list of new features in Flash Player 10.1 and Christian Cantrell’s blog for a comprehensive list of new features in AIR. Christian also has a bunch of code samples on his blog demonstrating the new features. Also check out Adobe TV for more demos and tutorials.

Don’t forget… These are pre-release BETA releases. While the Flash Player and AIR teams do their very best to maintain backward compatibility, things may break. And that is exactly why we do these public betas. If you do come across an application that doesn’t work, make sure you tell us about it!

I can’t wait to see what you guys are going to build with this new set of building blocks… Flash on!

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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.

[ Read more ]

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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Weekly blend – The MAX-edition

by Serge Jespers on 22. Nov, 2008 in MAX2008, Weekly blend

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With so many announcements at MAX (and after), I thought it was a good idea to do a round up of all the cool stuff we announced/showed/released this week.

Alchemy: Alchemy is a research project that allows users to compile C and C++ code that is targeted to run on the open source ActionScript Virtual Machine.

Bolt: Bolt is the code name for a new Eclipse based development tool that you can use to build applications for ColdFusion. Click to sign up for the beta.

Centaur: Centaur is the code name for the next release of ColdFusion. Beta applications are now being accepted. Click for more info.

Cocomo: Cocomo is a Platform as a Service that allows Flex developers to easily add real-time social capabilities into their RIA.

Configurator: Configurator is an open source utility that enables the easy creation of panels (palettes) for use in Photoshop CS4.

Durango: Durango allows developers, designers and end-users to easily mashup independent components to create new applications or extend existing Durango-enabled applications.

Flash Catalyst: Flash Catalyst is a new professional interaction design tool for rapidly creating application interfaces and interactive content without coding.

Genesis: Genesis is the code name for a new product initiative at Adobe with the objective of joining business applications, documents and the web on every knowledge worker’s desktop with integrated collaboration capabilities.

Gumbo: Gumbo is the code name for the next generation of Flex.

InContext Editing: InContext Editing is an online service that allows designers to create, manage, and control editable web pages.

PatchPanel: A first glimpse at combining the dynamic control of ActionScript with the power of Adobe’s Creative Suite.

Pixel Bender 5: An image and video processing infrastructure with runtime optimization on heterogeneous hardware.

Stratus: A new communications protocol called the Real-Time Media Flow Protocol (RTMFP). The most important features of RTMFP include low latency, end-to-end peering capability, security and scalability.

Text Layout Framework: The Text Layout Framework is an extensible library, built on the new text engine in Adobe Flash Player 10, which delivers advanced, easy-to-integrate typographic and text layout features for rich, sophisticated and innovative typography on the web.

Wave: Wave is an Adobe AIR application and Adobe hosted service that work together to enable desktop notifications.

Wow… That should keep you busy for a while ;-)

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Dreamweaver, Fireworks & Soundbooth in public beta

by Serge Jespers on 27. May, 2008 in News

It’s always nice to wake up to some goodies to play with. This morning (depending on where you are obviously) we released beta versions of the next versions of Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Soundbooth on Adobe Labs. These betas should give you some idea of the direction that CS4 is taking.

dreamweavercs4_225x50.jpg
Notable new features:
New user interface
You’ll see this one across other components of the next version of Creative Suite and I like it very much!

Photoshop Smart Objects
You could already drag and drop PSD files into a Dreamweaver page in CS3 but now these are actual Smart Objects.

Subversion integration
I’m sure some of you will say: “Finally”.

WebKit preview
Dreamweaver now uses WebKit to preview pages in design view. Hoorah! 

More new features on http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/dreamweavercs4/.

fireworkscs4_225x50.jpg
Notable new features:
AIR authoring
Make an interactive prototype of your AIR application directly within Fireworks and deploy it as HTML with CSS, Flex or Flash.

Adobe type engine
Fireworks now has the Adobe type engine to produce superior type design in a way that is familiar to Photoshop and Illustrator users.

More new features on http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/fireworkscs4/.
UPDATE: Alan Musselman has an in-depth presentation online where he walks through all the new features Fireworks has to offer.

soundboothcs4_225x50.jpg
Notable new features:
Multitrack
This must have been the most requested feature! And yes… Soundbooth is now multitrack!

Matching volume levels
With just one click, Soundbooth analyzes and adjusts the audio levels

More new features on http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/soundboothcs4/.

Go get them at labs.adobe.com! All betas are available for Windows and OSX and will work alongside your CS3 installations. These betas provide you an opportunity to give feedback on the next versions of these applications. If you find a bug or have feedback, make sure you file it on the beta forums.

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