A little something using  the wonderful HYPE Framework by Joshua Davis and Branden Hall

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all !!!

Last week I had a trip to Mexico D.F. ,  and was very disconected from the Flash Community and the Blogs, so in an attemp to catching up with the Flash World here’s a news roundup of some of the things that I missed on the last week, in case you miss them too here’s a list :

1.- Adobe Wave

Adobe Wave it’s a new tool built in AIR that just got released as a beta in Adobe Labs, this tool let’s you stay updated on your favorite sites and it’s right at your desktop to stay update with some of the sites already working with Adobe you just click on the Get alerts with Adobe wave badges on those sites and you’ll start receiving updates from that site.

It’s seems a great way to get updated on your social network without even opening your browser nor navigating to various sites to get those updates will try it ant tell you how it went.

Some of the feature partners of Adobe are:

MySpace
Digg
AOL
Atlantic
Lastminute.com
Venture Beat
Variety
LiveStation
1000 Mikes
Evite
Qik
UstreamTv
Revision3
TheFind.com

Download here  by clicking in the Adobe Wave  Badge and try it yourself

2.- Adobe AIR 1.5.2

Adobe just released an update to AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime ) to the version 1.5.2

You can download it here and read the release notes here.

This update includes  improved reliability, compatibility, and security. Listed below are various of this improvements:

• System requirements
• New features in AIR 1.5.2
• API changes
• Version information
• Fixed bugs
• Known issues
• Installing Adobe AIR
• Install AIR applications
• Tips and tricks
• Adobe AIR SDK

3.- Adobe Flash Platform Blog  launched.

The official Adobe Flash Platform blog launched last week  if you’re a Flash Platform developer this will be a very helpful resource  you can read it here or grab the RSS feed.

If you still prefer the E-Mail Flash News Newsletter you can subscribe here.

4.- Open Source Media Framework.

Open Source Media Framework (OSMF), currently in public prerelease, enables developers to easily assemble pluggable components to create high-quality, full-featured playback experiences. The open aspect of the framework enables collaborative development for web video monetization, with lower costs and faster turnaround.

Open Source Media Framework complements and solidifies Akamai’s Open Video Player initiative,” said Tim Napoleon, chief strategist, of digital media at Akamai. “OSMF leverages code from Akamai’s Open Video Player and Adobe’s expertise and resources to assist media companies and publishers in redefining the benchmarks for online video experiences that are powered by standards based workflows.

• OSMF is the open source part of the Strobe project that enables easy-to-build media players optimized for the Adobe Flash Platform
• The flexible OSMF architecture enables developers to easily create unique playback experiences that can leverage plug-ins for advertising, reporting metrics and content delivery along with standard video player features such as playback controls, video navigation, buffering and Dynamic Streaming. OSMF provides standard functionality along with plug-ins from third parties so content providers have the flexibility to adapt monetization strategies to specific content and the needs of their audiences.
• OSMF includes an API for partners to build plug-ins for value-add services. OSMF will enable more innovation around media experiences on the Web by allowing partners to easily experiment with new services for content providers, which spans content delivery, presentation and monetization.
• OSMF source code and pluggable software components are available immediately under the Mozilla Public License and available at www.OpenSourceMediaFramework.com.

4.- Open Source Text Layout Framework

The Text Layout Framework is an extensible ActionScript library, built on the new text engine in Adobe® Flash® Player 10 and Adobe AIR 1.5, which delivers advanced, easy-to-integrate typographic and text layout features for rich, sophisticated and innovative typography on the web. The framework is designed to be used with Adobe Flex® or Adobe Flash Professional and is included in Flex 4, code named “Gumbo”. Developers can use or extend existing components, or use the framework to create their own text components.

See the feature tour and the online rich text editor demo on Adobe Labs.

5.- Adobe Flash Player 10.0.32.18 Update

This Update contains fixes for critical vulnerabilities identified in Security Bulletin APSB09-10 Flash Player update available to address security vulnerabilities. The update replaces the Debug and Release versions of Flash Player 10 browser plugins and standalone players that are included in the initial release of Flash CS4 Professional (player version 10.0.2.54). All users are encouraged to apply this update. These new players are version 10.0.32.18.

The Flash Player 10 updates are included in the ZIP file below. For instructions on how to update Flash CS4 Professional, please go to this technote.

Adobe Flash Builder 4  (formely  Flex Builder 4 ) and Adobe Flash Catalyst are out on Adobe Labs going to download and try them out before posting a proper review meanwhile more info on Ryan Stewart’s blog and Andrew Shorten’s Tutorial

Flash 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 workflow, and data-centric application development. For an overview of the features included in this first public beta release, please read Tim Buntel’s What’s New in Flash Builder 4 article and watch the new feature videos. As always, the Flex 4 framework is included within Flash Builder, so please also read Matt Chotin’s What’s New in the Flex 4 SDK article.

Adobe® Flash® Catalyst™ is a new professional interaction design tool for rapidly creating user interfaces without coding.

• Transform artwork created in Adobe Photoshop® and Adobe Illustrator® into functional user interfaces.
• Create interactive prototypes with the ability to leverage them in the final product
• Publish a finished project as a SWF file ready for distribution
• Work more efficiently with developers who use Adobe Flash Builder™ 4 to create rich Internet applications (RIAs). Designers use Flash Catalyst to create the functional user experience then provide the project file to developers who use Flash Builder to add functionality and integrate with servers and services.

Go get Flash Builder 4

Go get Flash Catalyst
Flash Builder 4 Standalone Installer

• Download Flash Builder 4 Installer for Windows (EXE, 285 MB)
• Download Flash Builder 4 Installer for Macintosh (DMG, 277 MB)

Flash Builder 4 Plugin for Eclipse

• Download Flash Builder 4 Plugin for Windows (EXE, 314 MB)
• Download Flash Builder 4 Plugin for Macintosh (DMG, 306 MB)

Flex Component Kit for Adobe Flash Professional CS4

• Download Flex Component Kit for Flash Professional CS4 (ZIP, 224 KB)

Flex 4 Test Automation Plug-in

• Download Flex 4 Test Automation Plug-in (ZIP, 390 KB)
• Download Flex 4 Test Automation Demonstration (ZIP, 7.2 MB)

Flash Catalyst Beta

• Download Flash Catalyst for Windows (EXE, 292 MB)
• Download Flash Catalyst for Macintosh (DMG, 335 MB)

More Adobe Resources:
Learn about Flash Builder 4

• Video: Introducing Flash Builder 4
  Discover new design-centric, data-centric, and developer productivity features in the beta.
• Tutorial: What’s New in Flash Builder 4
  Learn about the three main feature themes in this release.
• Resources: Flex for ColdFusion developers Learning Center
  Explore the new data-centric development features of Flash Builder 4 beta.

Learn about Flex 4 SDK

• Tutorial: What’s New in Flex 4 SDK
  Learn what you’ll find as you explore the Flex 4 SDK beta.
• Tutorial: Differences between Flex 3 SDK and Flex 4 SDK
  Learn about the differences in architecture, components, layouts, use of states, and effects.
• Tutorial: Effects in Adobe Flex 4 SDK ― Part 1: Basic Effects
  See the basic infrastructure of the new effects in this release.

Working with Flash Builder 4

• Video: Developer Productivity in Flash Builder 4
  Presenter: David Zuckerman; Adobe
• Video: Handling Large Recordsets in Flash Builder 4
  Presenter: Tim Buntel; Adobe
• Video: Debug and Test Code in Flash Builder 4
  Presenter: David Zuckerman; Adobe
• Video: Work with Flex 4 SDK in Flash Builder 4
  Presenter: David Zuckerman; Adobe
• Video: PHP Services in Flash Builder 4 (Part 1)
  Presenter: Tom Lane; Adobe
• Video: PHP Services in Flash Builder 4 (Part 2)
  Presenter: Tom Lane; Adobe

So it finally happened  the IDE(Integrated development environment) known till now as Flex Builder it going to be    renamed as  Flash Builder , why ?  To me it’s easy It makes a lot more sense,  yes you can use the Flex Framework and yes you can use also build AIR apps and ActionScript 3.0 projects but at the end the result  its the same your project gets compiled as an .swf file , so maybe this rename of the IDE should have happened earlier,  it would have evited some confusion. This means that the Flex Framework it’s going to be renamed ? apparently no the flex framework stills and the Flex SDK stills the same but who better to explain it than Lee Brimelow and Duane “Chaos” Nickull check out their posts on the subject.

Hope this is the first step towards the process of integrating  the Flash tools and not just renaming them.  I haven’t used Flash IDE coding panel since who knows when, hope the Flash Builder and the Flash Professional IDES one day get along real well.

UPDATES:

Serge Jespers (Adobe Platform Evangelist ) explains in a little more detail why the renaming of Flex Builder to Flash Builder.

Keith Peters thoughts on Flash Builder

Ryan Stewart post Flex Builder “Gumbo” is Being Renamed Flash Builder

Lee Brimelow’s Flash Builder rebrand FAQ

Peter Elst Flex Builder gets rebranded to Flash Builder

Mihai Corlan (Adobe Platform Evangelist ) About the rebranding of Flex Builder into Flash Builder

Chuck Freedman The FlashFlex name game.

Adobe Strobe it’s a new media video player framework from Adobe  that intends to set an standard for media players.

If this work out it wold be really helpful, nowadays every developer and company has it’s own way of building a player not following standars for a simple reason, there are not any standars, so hopefully  Strobe will help to solve that problem.

Strobe framework will work as a plug-in model if you need some specific behavior of the player you would build  the necesary  classes on top of the framework. This would be a relief  for those developers  who need a video player but for one reason or another end uo rewriting the entire player.

Quoted fro Adobe’s

Strobe provides new delivery and monetization options for video distribution. Anyone can develop modules that plug into Strobe media players and enable things like advertising insertion, content delivery and syndication, micropayments, viewer authentication, transaction handling, and business model controls. With an open framework, the future of web video monetization can be developed collaboratively with lower costs and faster turnaround.

So let’s wait and see once Adobe Strobe is released.