Proscenium Review 1 Released on Labs

“Proscenium” (codename)  is an ActionScript 3 code library built on top of the Flash Platform Stage3D APIs that allows for rapid development of interactive 3D content.   It is being released to encourage easy experimentation with 3D content in Flash, and to garner feedback on the API design.

Download Proscenium

Enabling the Flash Debug Player on Chrome

Have you ever tried to debug your Flash content from within Chrome only to find out that Chrome thinks you don’t have the correct version of the Flash player.  I am sure most developers have come across this at some point.  Mims H Wright was nice enough(or forced to) provide a nice problem/solution to this issue.  Be sure to say thanks!

Particle Editor for Starling Framework

Check out this in-browser particle editor for the Starling 2D Framework for Flash Player 11. Export your particle effect as a Starling particle extension and embed them into your Starling projects as usual.

Preloading TLF runtime shared libraries in Flash CS5.5

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 introduced a new type of text field to Flash called TLF text. TLF text has several advantages over Classic text, such as advanced formatting options, better font compression and rendering, and support for complexly formatted languages. In order to support TLF text, Adobe Flash Player was updated to change how it loads the related runtime shared libraries (RSLs) and the content you define in the SWF file.

In this article, you’ll learn about the changes to Flash Player and the best options for publishing files containing TLF text.

Simple Stage3D Benchmark

Flash 11?s new Stage3D API gives us hardware-accelerated 3D graphics, which is a major jump forward for Flash-based games and simulations. Along with this comes some added responsibility: we must now care about our users’ graphics cards. Today’s article features a simple benchmarking application that you can run to get a basic idea of how Stage3D is performing on a certain computer.

Wave Goodbye to Adobe Wave

As of April 15th, 2011, Adobe Wave is being discontinued. Adobe Wave was a desktop alert and notification software gets the information you care about right to your desktop. When a friend posts a status update or there’s new content on your favorite site, be the first to know. With Twitter being the ultimate Buzz word, this product really had no chance.

Adobe Pass for TV Everywhere

Adobe announces the Adobe Pass service, a new authentication solution that enables pay TV subscribers to easily access premium content from virtually any Internet-connected device. Leveraging the Flash Platform and HTML5, Adobe Pass allows pay TV providers and content owners alike to deliver a wider range of content on more platforms – including Windows, Mac OS, Android, iOS, Blackberry and Google TV – and ensure a high-quality, secure user experience.

Promoted by the broadcast and cable industry as TV Everywhere, Adobe Pass makes it possible for pay TV providers to authenticate their paying subscribers online and provide them with the anytime, anywhere content experiences that audiences crave, taking TV Everywhere from concept to reality.

Wow…this opens the door for so many partnerships.  Good News!

Video: Flex on the iPad

Check out this video showing a sample Flex application running on the iPad. This Mobile Trader application shows chart manipulation and drill-downs using touch events, real time market data updates (in lists and charts), as well as video-conferencing (with your financial advisor) and screen synchronization between clients (“simulations” and “what-ifs” collaboration use cases).

Convert Adobe Flash FLA files into HTML

I know I am little bit late on this topic but for those that don’t know of Wallaby. “Wallaby” is the codename for an experimental technology that converts the artwork and animation contained in Flash files into HTML. This allows you to reuse and extend the reach of your content to devices that do not support the Flash runtimes. Once these files are converted to HTML, you can edit them with an HTML editing tool, such as Adobe Dreamweaver, or by hand if desired. You can view the output in one of the supported browsers or on an iOS device.

News Flash Weekly is the beginning of an on going series rounding up the most recent Flash-related news.  With everything being so fast paced nowadays, this series is meant to slow it down a bit and allow you to catch up on the industry’s news. Enjoy and feedback is always welcomed!

This week’s roundup includes preview releases of 64 bit Flash Player, Adobe Flash Builder “Burrito”, and Adobe Flex SDK “Hero” along with the availability of Adobe AIR 2.5.

64-bit Flash Players out on Labs

After being deprived from a 64 bit version of the Flash Player, Adobe has finally released preview versions of full 64-bit Flash Players for Mac, Windows and Linux. Adobe Flash Player, codenamed “Square”, is a preview release that enables native 64-bit support on Linux, Mac OS, and Windows operating systems, as well as enhanced support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 beta.

You can download the preview release from the Adobe Labs website for all platforms.

Adobe AIR 2.5 is Now Available!

With the excitement surrounding the preview release of 64-bit Flash Player, it was short lived due to Adobe’s announcement at the Adobe MAX 2010 conference surrounding the availability of Adobe AIR 2.5 for televisions, tablets, smartphones and desktop operating systems.

Adobe AIR 2.5 now supports:

• Smartphones and tablets based on BlackBerry Tablet OS, Android and iOS
• Desktops running on Windows, Macintosh and Linux operating systems
• Televisions with Samsung as the first television manufacturer to ship Adobe AIR in its line of Samsung SmartTV devices

Also available on Adobe labs is the Adobe Flash Professional CS5 Extension for AIR 2.5 which allows you to publish content and applications to the latest AIR 2.5 release.

Adobe Flash Builder “Burrito”

Adobe announced the preview release of Flash Builder “Burrito” which includes support for developing mobile and multi-screen applications and accelerated coding for Flex and ActionScript projects.  On top of all of this, this version also intends to improve designer/developer workflow through supporting bi-directional workflows between designers and developers.  Can’t wait to get my hands on this!  Get your hands on a download now!

If you’ve got the time, I would definitely checkout the Adobe Max 2010 keynote on Flash Builder “Burrito”.

Adobe Flex SDK “Hero”

The Adobe Flex SDK “Hero” preview release shows off many exciting new components and capabilities along with integrated support in Flash Builder “Burrito” and Flash Catalyst “Panini”.  With the Adobe Flex SDK “Hero” release, the Adobe team focused on three major initiatives:

• Allow developers to use Flex for multiscreen application development
• Further mature the Spark architecture and component which was introduced in Flex 4
• Make incremental improvements to core Flex infrastructure to ease large application development

Adobe Max 2010

Like all other years, Adobe Max looks to stun and awh the Adobe community and this year was no different.  If you weren’t one of the lucky one’s to check out the Adobe Max keynotes, be sure to check out all of the Adobe Max 2010 keynotes available on Adobe TV. There is some good stuff there!

At last year’s Max conference, a new Adobe technology called Adobe Wave was revealed that demonstrated how web content publishers could easily publish notification to their user’s desktops.  The Adobe Wave client is built on Adobe AIR allowing users to receive near real time notifications of new content, a new social interaction, or another notification that the publisher would like to let you know about.

Earlier this summer, this previewed technology was added to Adobe Labs for both users and publishers.  For those of you that have ever used Growl notifications for Mac OS X, the style of notifications is very similar.

The Potential of Adobe Wave

Personally, I feel that Adobe Wave has some legs and if widely adopted can provide a streamlined connection with the content publisher and user.  As web users, we are always looking for a way to stay on top of the web’s content.  Adobe Wave simply provides content publishers the right tool to do just that in almost real time.

Overall, I think this is an exciting technology and indicates that our needs of how we receive our content are evolving.  This is definitely something I will be keeping a close eye on.  Don’t forget to check out, the video overview for both publishers and consumers.  Also, for more information, visit Adobe Wave on Adobe Labs.

The day that many of us have been waiting for has arrived. Today, beta versions of both Flash Builder 4 and Flash Catalyst are now available for download via Adobe Labs. The two new beta releases have been in closed beta for quite some, but as of today the doors are now opened.

A Little Bit About the Two

Flash Builder(formerly Flex Builder) 4 delivers a long list of new features, plus improvements to many existing features.There are three main themes to this release: developer productivity, designer-developer work-flow, and data-centric application development.

As for Flash Catalyst, this new tool looks to vastly improve designer/developer work-flow when dealing with the Flex Framework and development of RIAs.

Further Readings:

While the news of the beta releases of Flash Builder 4 and Flash Catalyst is still young, I have compiled a list of resources that will help you get up to date topic. Enjoy!

• Overview of Flex 4(Gumbo)
• Top 10 Changes in Flex 4
• Beta versions of Flash Catalyst and Flex on Labs
• Learn to Use Flash Builder 4 and Flex 4 SDK

The new Adobe XMP Library for ActionScript is now available for download on Adobe Labs. Adobe Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) is a labeling technology that allows you to embed data about a file, known as metadata, into the file itself. XMP is an open technology based on RDF and RDF/XML. With this new library you can read existing XMP metadata from Flash based file formats via the Adobe Flash Player.

Alchemy Toolkit Released!

Last week, Adobe announced the release of Alchemy Toolkit which allows users to compile C and C++ code into Web applications that run on Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR.  Essential allowing users to use their exisitng C code and present it in a way that is accessible to all users with the Flash Player plugin is a huge step for the Adobe Flash Platform.

Doom Meets the Adobe Flash Platform

With that said,  Michael Welsh from Newgrounds have been busy since Adobe released Alchemy to cook up a fully playable version of the epic classic, Doom.   The game will run directly in your browser and looks and feels like the real thing.  However, performance of it is somewhat dependent on the your computer’s performance, but who cares…it’s DOOM!

Additional Resources:

• Play Doom!
• More info on Alchemy
• Download the Alchemy Toolkit

Adobe Labs has just announced an update to the beta version of Adobe Air for Linux.  This beta update adds support for a ton of new AIR features along with fixing a some existing bugs.  See the release notes for more information regarding this beta runtime.

Additional Resources:

• Download Adobe AIR for Linux
• Give feedback on the forums
• See the full Release Notes