Almer/Blank Labs

Just posted an update to ZamfBrowser.  ZamfBrowser can now generate code for use in either Flash or Flex based projects.   …read more…

Roughly one year ago, I decided to sit down and write up some notes, and draft some wires, of where I thought the Flash IDE GUI could be improved to support improved workflow. As I'm sure any power-user of any tool feels, I have my own special beefs with the Flash IDE — some of which I know are silly, and some of which I assume would actually be valuable to a broader audience. But, as CTO/COO of a Flash Platform development shop, where my guys excel in the use of basically every SWF-generating tool there is, I have several opinions based on how I feel, from an operations perspective, the cross-tool Flash workflow should be supported by Adobe's own software.

After thinking over these ideas for a year, one of the suggestions in particular keeps coming back to me. The Library. …read more…

I was recently working on a project in the latest beta release of the forthcoming Flash Builder 4 and wanted to point out the new contextual help feature. What's nice about this feature is that I had just added the highlighted event to the event class and was busy implementing it in a view class and because of FB4's new code-hinting muscle I was able to see everything that I had documented in the event class concerning the event without having to have the event class open. This is definitely a much appreciated usability enhancement. Now, if we could just get editable code (not file) templates (think FDT, Zend Studio, etc), FB4 would be that much closer to being ready for prime time...

..or vice-versa. After starting my new gig with Almer/Blank today, I changed my workflow a bit to incorporate my Macbook along with an external 21″ display. The primary development environment in our projects is Flex Builder.

Well, the first thing I noticed when going in to edit a file was that the line numbers weren’t tracking correctly with the page scrolling. I figured that this was a fluke, so I tried restarting Flex Builder. Nothing. Tried again. No go. With some tight deadlines, I kind of put that aside and pushed through without using line numbers (which really sucks, if you get used to relying on them like me). After things slowed down a little, I came across this bug ticket: http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FB-23023 Basically, the problem arises when using Flex in an external display. Also, it seemed to crop up with the release of Snow Leopard. So, if you’re reading this and have the same issue or know someone who does, please do us a solid and place a vote for that ticket On another note, I’ve also noticed quite a lag when using Flex Builder on the mac lately. I had to force quit today when working on a fairly light project, and I’ve read that others have had performance issues with FB that are related to Snow Leopard. Furthermore, these issues seem to be relevant for both FB3 and FB4… interesting…