Macromedia Delivers Flex Builder
613469
Macromedia promises to speed development of Internet applications with a new tool for its Flex platform. With Flex, enterprises can add interfaces to strategic applications, including visual
589386
Adobe unveils Flash Home, a mobile version of Flash, and Flash Cast 2, an 'offline portal solution.'
565535
Adobe updates its Web development tool with support for Microsoft .Net.
662626
O'Reilly's ONLamp.com website has posted a new tutorial that merges PHP with another powerful web technology - Flex.   With all the hype (and money) surrounding buzzword terms like Web 2.0 and Rich Internet Applications (RIA), it's easy to wonder, "How can I integrate that into my PHP application?" Certainly, Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax) technologies that use JavaScript code are a good option. But you should also have a look at the Adobe Flex framework. With Flex, you can quickly build functional, attractive user interfaces in Adobe Flash that communicate to your PHP web application through XML.   They go through the usual of showing what Flex is and how it flows in a web application. From there, they move into the tutorial portion - installing the Flex Builder software, creating a new project, testing using Flex Builder and the construction of a sample application (store/access a list of subscribers).
444698
On the Zend Developer Zone, there's a new tutorial talking about one developer's method for creating a link between Flex and Drupal to create a data entry form.   Why Flex? Because I'd like to be able to put the widget on any site and Ajax has security issues there. Web browsers, quite rightly, ensure that Ajax pages only request data from their server of origin. So it's much harder to host an Ajax widgets on external sites without kludges like IFrames or Script tag data transit. Flex allows data access from different servers. So it's far easier to write widgets that can be hosted externally.   You'll already need Drupal installed to start working with the tutorial - he chose Mac OS X as his platform of choice, but this setup will work with any installation that supports Flex. He uses the AMF protocol to interface with the PHP scripts on the backend (via AMFPHP) and a small update will need to be made to Drupal to get it to cooperate.   The rest of the tutorial shows how to create the Flex interface - making a simple information form that takes in a user's name, address and phone number and updates the Drupal contact information for them.
512915
Macromedia (Quote, Chart) took the wraps off its first developer tool for its Flex platform that it says will encourage more people to build rich media and Web-facing applications.
657225
In this new blog post, Mike Potter points out two examples of the AMFPHP package in action as provided by Renaun Erickson.   The source code to both examples is available as well.  (You did know that Flex applications have the option of publishing the source code right? [...] To publish the source code for your own application, in Flex Builder select Project -> Publish Application Source...)   He also mentions an upcoming update to the PHP RIA SDK by Adobe to include some of these sorts of examples. Check out the mailing list for more.
656107
The move is part of an effort by Macromedia to expand the use of its Flash format into a broad foundation for delivering Web services and media.
752565
The new beta API for Adobe ActionScript will allow developers to build Web-based applications using Adobe Flex and Flash software using a native API for improved performance over current methods, MapQuest said.
198086
Genuine cross platform - not by us An open source version of Microsoft's potential Adobe Flash challenger, Silverlight, has been developed within two months of being unveiled as a beta.â¦
628064
With itsÂ acquisition of Macromedia in late 2005, Adobe Systems won control of the Flash technology that has become a nearly ubiquitous way of authoring and viewing interactive and multimedia content on the Web. Now, the 25-year-old software company with deep roots in creative applications and an iron grip on electronic documents thanks to its de facto-standard PDF document format, has its eye on development and content presentation across all sorts of platforms and devices.
503397
Despite the options available with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, accommodating their differences can be maddening. Enter Silverlight, a plug-in for multiple Web browsers on multiple platforms that makes it easier to create rich content. By Adam Nathan. 1202
497077
PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 5.0 and PREMIERE ELEMENTS 3.
728399
New PostScript RIP gives designers more options in output formats.
578385
Blog: In a major revamp, Adobe LiveCycle customers can choose between PDF or Flash for Web-based work-flow applications.
258872
(InfoWorld) - Adobe's ColdFusion software for building Internet applications and Web sites is being improved with Microsoft .Net support, enabling .Net objects to be invoked from within the ColdFusion language. A public beta of ColdFusion 8, accessible here, is to be offered on Wednesday. The general release is set for mid-year. Version 8 is the first Adobe-branded release of the former Macromedia technology. ColdFusion is a server-side Java application; it is partnered with a markup language for writing ColdFusion applications. .Net support in the upcoming version 8 bridges the Java and Microsoft worlds. "Customers don't need to select one technology to the exclusion of the other," Tim Buntel, Adobe senior product marketing manager, said. Also featured in ColdFusion 8 is generation of PDF documents as well as capabilities for working with PDF forms and manipulating existing PDF documents. Support for the JBoss application server has been added, also. For developers, Adobe is adding interactive debugging based on the Eclipse IDE. A Server Monitor capability, meanwhile, identifies bottlenecks in the server. Adobe's Flex rich Internet application technology and AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) components are leveraged in the new product for integration of complex environments with intuitive interfaces, Adobe said. ColdFusion differs from Flex in that Flex is a client-side technology featuring a language and compiler to convert code to Flash content. With ColdFusion, the server-side technology can integrate with databases and Java and .Net objects while also offering text searching. However, ColdFusion also can generate an HTML interface for Web applications. The ColdFusion upgrade puts to rest questions about Adobe's commitment to the technology after acquiring Macromedia, said analyst Ray Valdes, research director for Internet platforms and Web services at Gartner.Â  "People may have wondered if Adobe appreciated ColdFusion, and I think they do. I think it's part of their enterprise software strategy," Valdes said. While Adobe recently offered the Flex software development kit to the community at large via open source, there are no plans to open-source ColdFusion. This stance gives the company the ability to make certain ColdFusion integrates with other Adobe technologies, Buntel said.
266403
(InfoWorld) - Adobe Systems Inc. has officially named its new Apollo runtime "Adobe AIR" and will release a beta of the technology Monday along with a beta of the next version of the company's Flex development environment. Public betas and software development kits (SDKs) for both AIR and Flex 3 will be available Monday, marking the first time Adobe is simultaneously releasing its programming model and runtime for building rich Internet applications (RIAs) that can be run both on the Web and locally on the desktop, said Michele Turner, vice president of product management and developer relations at Adobe. Together, Flex and AIR are designed to bridge the gap between developers who write code and designers who use tools such as Adobe Dreamweaver and Flash to build Internet applications that have rich multimedia capabilities. MicrosoftÂ is encroaching on the space Adobe currently reigns, however. The company has integrated a version of its .NET runtime into its newÂ Silverlight Web technology which is aimed squarely at Adobe Flash. Silverlight can run video and multimedia applications cross-platform within different browsers. Both AIR and Flex 3 betas can be downloaded from Adobe Web sites. Adobe AIR (which stands for "Adobe Integrated Runtime") lets developers take applications built not only in Flash, but also in HTML, AJAX, and other Web-development languages and create them to run locally on a user's desktop. Flex is the development environment that can be used to build applications for AIR. AIR works as a wrapper, which makes it easy to take code from an existing Web application, wrap it in the runtime, and transfer it to the desktop. Developers can use Flex Builder to transfer Web applications into the AIR runtime, which must be installed on the desktop or embedded directly in the application to enable it to run locally, similar to how the Flash player runs Flash applications in the browser. New features for AIR that can be found in the beta are enhanced support for HTML, Ajax and Javascript, as well as the ability to integrate the PDF (portable document format) into AIR applications. The beta also includes tighter integration with Adobe's Dreamweaver Web design tool so developers can easily repurpose Dreamweaver applications to run on the desktop using AIR. Adobe also has added new features to Flex 3's beta, including tighter integration with Adobe's Creative Suite 3 package of Web, multimedia and image creation and design tools. The test version of the Flex 3 also includes a new tool that analyzes the performance of an application while it's being built to let a developer know where it might be running slowly and how it can be optimized to run more efficiently and faster. Additionally, Adobe has reduced the size of files created with Flex 3 so any application built using the tool will inherently run faster than applications built using Flex 2, Turner said. Â