A new API for using  Google Analytics Tracking in Flash/Flex projects this API is developed in ActionScript 3.0 and can be used as a component or called in your ActionScript code, Google Analytics Tracking for Adobe Flash seems to solve a lot of troubles and the needed workarounds for making consistent user tracking in your Flash projects, keep reading for a more detailed explanation extracted from the implementation overview.

The Google Analytics Tracking for Adobe Flash component makes it easy for you to implement Google Analytics in your Flash-driven content. This component contains all of the functionality of the Google Analytics Javascript code, and is 100% compatible with the latest ga.js tracking code. The Flash Tracking component is a compiled tracking object native to ActionScript 3, making Analytics implementation intuitive in Flash, and Flex development environments.

You can develop Analytics Tracking for Flash in either Adobe Flash or Adobe Flex environments. Each environment requires a different component, which you can download from http://code.google.com/p/gaforflash/. These components are based on ActionScript 3 and can be set up in one of two ways for each environment:

In Adobe Flash

• Add and configure a simple component in the component inspector and drag it to the stage.
• Import the Flash Tracking libraries directly into your library and start coding.

In Adobe Flex

• Include an MXML component that you configure from am MXML file.
• Import the Flash Tracking libraries into your script tags/AS3 files.

How to use the Component in Adobe Flash

In order to use the Flash tracking component in your environment, you either use the visual tools inside Flash, or you set up the tracking object directly in your code. Regardless of whether you are setting up the component visually or via code, you provide the following elements:

• the web property ID—This is also known as the UA number of your tracking code and looks like UA-xxxxx-yy, where the x’s and y’s are replaced with the numbers that correspond to your account and profile information for the object you are tracking. See Web Property for more information.
• the tracking mode—Choose either bridge mode or AS3 mode. This mode determines how your tracking communicates with the Analytics servers and is described in detail below.
• the debugging mode—No matter which environment or tracking mode you use, you can turn debugging on to validate and test your tracking.

Installation for Flash CS3

Before you begin to use gaforflash to add Analytics tracking within Flash CS3,
you first need to add the gaforflash SWC to Flash CS3.

To do so:
1. If you have Flash CS3 currently open, quit the application.

2. Navigate to the location where you unzipped the Google Analytics zip
and find the swc (e.g. lib/analytics_flash.swc).

3. Create a “Google” directory in one of the following locations
and copy the SWC file there:
- (Windows) C:\Program Files\Adobe\ Adobe Flash CS3\language\Configuration\Components
- (Mac OS X) Macintosh HD/Applications/Adobe Flash CS3/Configuration/Components

Flash CS3 is now set up to support Google Analytics Tracking For Adobe Flash.

Alternatively if you want to use gaforflash in code-only mode
you can do the same as the above and add the lib/analytics.swc,
you will then need to drag the “AnalyticsLibrary” component in your Library.

Installation for Flex Builder 3

Before you can compile your code, you will need to link it to the gaforflash SWC file.

To do so:
1. select Project->Properties.
A Properties dialog box will appear for your project.
Click on Flex Build Path and then select the Library Path tab:

2. Click Add SWC… within the Library Path pane.
An Add SWC dialog box will appear.
Navigate to the location where you unzipped the Google Analytics zip
and select lib/analytics.swc file and click OK.

or

Just drop the analytics.swc file into your Flex project /libs directory

Here’s the link for the Google code project

The gaforflash direct download

More info on the API

There is a new Technology  available at Adobe Labs Codename “Cocomo” is a Platform as a Service that allows Flex developers to easily add real-time social capabilities into their RIA (rich Internet applications). Comprised of both Flex-based client components and a hosted services infrastructure, Cocomo allows you to build real-time, multi-user applications with Flex in less time than ever before. And because Acrobat.com hosts the service, issues like deployment, maintenance, and scalability are taken care of for you.

Add social features to your existing Flex apps or build totally new ones, such as real-time productivity/collaboration apps, multiplayer games, and audio/video chat.

Adobe also announced today the availability of Adobe AIR 1.5, a key component of the Adobe Flash Platform, which enables Web developers to deliver rich Internet applications outside the browser. Offering new features and performance improvements to create more expressive AIR applications, Adobe AIR 1.5 incorporates the open source WebKit HTML engine and now accelerates application performance with “SquirrelFish,” the new WebKit JavaScript interpreter. Adobe AIR 1.5 also includes a new, encrypted database that meets enterprise security compliance requirements while storing data securely on customers’ computers. Additionally, AIR 1.5 includes functionality introduced in Adobe Flash Player 10, such as support for custom filters and effects, native 3D transformation and animation, and extensible rich text layout.

Adobe AIR 1.5 developer release notes
Adobe AIR 1.5 user release notes

Download Adobe AIR version 1.5

UPDATE:

A more detailed  explanation by Robert Christensen in the Adobe AIR Team Blog on  the post Introducing Adobe AIR 1.5

Adobe announced yesterday at Adobe MAX the advancements to the Adobe Flash Platform, a complete system of integrated tools, frameworks, clients and servers to develop Web apps, content and video that runs across various OS  and devices.

Some of the highlights of this announce are the preview of Flash Catalyst( formely code named Thermo in Adobe Labs), a professional interaction design tool for rapidly creating application interfaces and interactive content without coding. Flash Catalyst enables artwork created in Adobe Creative Suite 4 to be imported with full fidelity and quickly converted into dynamic components such as buttons, scrollbars, input fields and more. Finished projects can be published directly to Flash Player or AIR. When combined with the next version of Flex Builder, Adobe Flash Catalyst enables design and development to be done in parallel. This workflow supports iterative development and delivers higher quality results with faster time to market. A preview release of Adobe Flash Catalyst will be available for MAX 2008 attendees. A public beta version is expected to be available on Adobe Labs in early 2009. For more information, please visit www.adobe.com/go/flashcatalyst.

The Flex Builder “Gumbo” preview release, also available yesterday for MAX 2008 attendees, expands the use of Flex to a wider audience of developers, offering new data-centric development capabilities to create rich Internet applications. Gumbo also enhances project productivity through the improved design and development workflow with Adobe Flash Catalyst and improvements to core development capabilities such as the debugger, profiler and code editor. For more information, please visit http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flex/. A new preview release of the open source Flex framework is also available on www.opensource.adobe.com.

Adobe AIR 1.5 is available immediately as a free download for Windows and Mac, and AIR 1.5 for Linux is expected to be available before the end of the year. For more information on Adobe AIR, please visit www.adobe.com/products/air/.

Furthering Adobe’s commitment to the Linux community and as part of ensuring the cross-platform compatibility of Flash Player, a pre-release 64-bit Linux version of Adobe Flash Player 10 is now available on Adobe Labs at www.adobe.com/go/linux64player.This offers easier, native installation on 64-bit Linux systems and removes the need for 32-bit emulation.

UPDATE:

Here’s a link to Adobes Page for The Flash Platform

http://www.adobe.com/flashplatform/

And an image shameless ripped form Keith Peters post on the subject

The new version of the Flash Player 10 ( 10.0.12.36) is out.

You can download it here Flash Player 10

Installation instructions here

more info  on the Flash Player Developer center

In case that you missed it here’s a link to the Adobe CS4 Launch Broadcast event, or watch it right here.

The new version of Flash has arrived along with the rest of the creative suite applications, this version of Flash comes with many  enhancements and it seems that Flash designers and Animators are going to love this version, for developers it’s not fresh news because they been able to download and test the new capabilities of the Flash Player 10 Beta from Adobe Labs.

To give a more detailed review I will have to test it first but here are some of the new features:

 

 

 

After a lot of work Aral Balkan has finally revealed the Site for the first global web based conference Singularity 2008 that will take place this October the days 23-24.
For those of you who don’t know what Singularity is, this is a conference that you can attend right at your desktop no plane, no hotels right at your home, but who is better to explain this that the man who came up with this great idea check the Building Conference 2.0 article of Aral at insideRIA.
The line of speakers for this conference it’s just great covering the whole spectrum of the Web industry from designers to developers to industry voices and as I say earlier there’s no excuse to not get in, Singularity is right in your desktop You Are Singularity.

You still here? what are you waiting for go get your ticket at Singularity08.com if you get yours before the end of April the price is just $99 USD (inc. VAT) so hurry up and get yours.
By the wait you can log to get your Singularity ticket using your Google Account could it be more simple ?

As a final word to Aral ” Congrats Man you’ve done it again”.

Gumbo is the code name of the next version of Adobe Flex and new information about it has been made available on the Gumbo Page of the Flex Open Source site.

Some of the highlights on the next version of Flex include the following:

Themes of the Release

Design in mind
A framework for continuous and easier collaboration between designer and developer.
Developer Productivity
Improve compiler perfomance and add productivity enhancements.
Framework evolution.
Take advantage of the new Flash Player capabilities and add features required by common use-cases.

Ely Greenfield gives us a demo on designer and developer workflow.

And Matt Chotin provides a recorded preso outlining the plans for the next version of the Flex SDK (Gumbo).

Some of the things that Matt says on his preso are quite promising a new namespace added (MXML 2009) to the MXML language to support more toolability and make it easier to describe experience-oriented features such as states and transitions.
A new format that promotes the features available in the Flash Player and is usable by tools to describe various graphic assets, including skins (FXG) this format is already in use by the Fireworks CS4 Beta.
Component and skinning architecture for easy tool participation.
Improved existing experience-oriented features such as states, effects, and layout.
A final release it’s aimed to the second half of 2009.
Bidirectional layouts (mirroring) and text support.
New Video component.

And he also mentions that a new initiative is forming to build a ground-up lightweight/scalable framework for developing at other devices such as mobile phones but it’s a long term aimed to be released at the first half of 2010.

Here’s the link to Mike’s preso

Here’s a link to Gumbo’s White Paper: An Introduction to the Gumbo Component Architecture

Keep an eye on Gumbo’s Downloads page on Adobe’s Open Source site for releases of Gumbos Milestones.

The new Adobe Flash Player 10 Beta 2 has been released yesterday on Adobe Labs, with some improved and new features, like some enhancement of the Audio API, new Loader.unloadAndStop for easier garbage collecting, Linux WMODE, and some changes in the FullScreen keyboard access. for more info and download check Adobe Labs Flash Player 10.