shaun smith

So Ted Patrick opened up a can-o-worms with a post entitled “The Future of the Flash Platform”:

http://onflash.org/ted/2009/08/future-of-flash-platform.php

It sparked a little bit of an uproar from some hard-core developers (mad respect, you crazy cats!) – definitely worth a read (including all the commentary):

http://blog.joa-ebert.com/2009/08/06/this-is-an-outrage/
http://ncannasse.fr/blog/the_failure_of_as3

http://blog.andre-michelle.com/2009/as3-failure/

To Ted’s credit, he’s been taking the responses very well.

Updates (the conversation continues):

http://www.peterelst.com/blog/2009/08/09/making-the-case-for-actionscript/
http://blog.hexagonstar.com/actionscript-beaten-like-a-ginger-stepchild/
http://www.arpitonline.com/blog/2009/08/09/my-take-on-the-has-actionscript-failed-debate/
http://coderhump.com/archives/481
http://artjumble.com/blog/?p=82

I’ve just started looking into Parsley: http://www.spicefactory.org/parsley/

First thought: version 2 is exactly what I’ve been trying to build with RobotLegs. Read more…

If you haven’t checked it out yet, head to Balsamiq and click Try it now.

It doesn’t take much playing around to see the potential of Mockups. Read more…

I’ve always found the default Eclipse App Icon to be a bit.. lacking. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only person who feels this way. Occasional quests to find a better icon have usually resulted in disappointment. My latest search lead me to this icon. Not great, but it inspired me to finally sit down and try to create my own.

The First Stab

Here’s my initial attempt:

Mac OS X Eclipse Logo 256x256 on Black

Read more…

RobotLegs AS3 is a Dependency Injection Driven MVCS Framework for Flash and Flex inspired by PureMVC.

Actors may be dependent on actors below them in the diagram, but should not be dependent on anything above them.

Commands, Services and Proxies may dispatch system events, but should never listen for them.

Mediators may both dispatch and listen for system events. Read more…

Constructor injection is theoretically superior:

Constructor Injection vs Setter Injection
Constructor vs Setter Injection – Constructor is Better
Setter injection versus constructor injection and the use of required

Before I built RobotLegs I was sold on constructor injection. My prototype, however, used SmartyPants-IOC which lacked constructor injection, so I bit my lip and used setter injection. In practice I found that often, especially with framework actors, it was incredibly convenient. Read more…

The State Of The Game

There are some great Flash and Flex application frameworks out there right now. Mate, Swiz and PureMVC (update: and Parsley!) stand out. The authors of these frameworks realized that the Flash Platform is different enough to the JVM to warrant a fresh approach to application design.

Read more…

Great news: SmartyPantsIOC, a Dependency Injection framework for Flash and Flex has been released. Check it out here:

http://code.google.com/p/smartypants-ioc/

I guess that means that it’s time for me to release RobotLegs – an MVCS micro-architecture for Rich Internet Applications inspired by PureMVC, Mate and Swiz! But first, I have to write a little demo application for it.. coming soon!

Warning: This is long and probably VERY boring.. unless you are an AS3 junkie, and you’re interested in so called “lightweight micro-architectural frameworks” for Flash and Flex.

A couple of weeks ago I played around with Mate and Swiz. I already knew a little about Dependency Injection (in theory anyway), but playing with those two frameworks really drove the point home: applications are potentially MUCH easier to write, and much more flexible, when you take advantage of Dependency Injection. Read more…

Update: This was fixed and released in Player 10.0.42.34.. Woop! (Wed, 9 Dec, 2009)

Mousewheel scrolling is not properly supported by the Flash Player on Mac OSX. There is a bug in the Adobe bug tracker here:

http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-503

But I feel that it’s misleading, and dilutes the issue. Firstly, the title has the word Flex in it. Secondly, it’s complaining about mousewheel support in Safari on Windows XP! Perhaps that is why it currently only has 10 votes.

The actual issue is that the mousewheel doesn’t work in any version of the Flash Player on OSX. It’s just a side-effect that it affects Safari on Windows.

This is a HUGE issue – Flash is all about Rich GUI these days, and OSX users are still without proper mouse support! How could this be an issue with only 10 votes?

At some point, the Flash Player will HAVE to support the Trackpad (with vertical and horizontal scrolling) properly, or risk continuing to look like a piece of ancient technology that doesn’t properly integrate with modern operating systems. I don’t think that’s an exaggeration: OSX users are generally very critical of UI nuances, and this is a biggie!

In the meantime there are a number of workarounds:

• Simple Solution for Mousewheel Events
• AS3 Mousewheel on Mac OSX
• Mac OS X Mouse Wheel Support for ActionScript 3 Flash Applications
• Flash MouseWheel Implementations for Mac OS X

Update: The bug entry has been edited a little to better reflect the problem.
Update: This was fixed and released in Player 10.0.42.34.. Woop! (Wed, 9 Dec, 2009)