Last night a few of you asked about FlashMX and Possibilities, so here's what my limited experience has told me. While yes it is "FlashMX" based, but i think it holds relivance as its to do with "Application" development. In that you only use FlashMX as your presentation layer while keeping CFMX / CFC's as your main data mule.
Q. How do you build with multiple developers with FlashMX? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I remember reading somewhere about this technique, so forgive me for not showing Kudos to the person(s) responsible for its concept. A concept was put forward, that you basically have each developer build individual components for your FlashMX Application. Since FlashMX can support some sexy OOP development patterns, you can effectively build allot of your "objects" so that they aren't dependent on each other. To do this, you build the components individually, and then use a either one or more "proxy"components that act as your "shared libraries"; This requires you to basically put in pointers to relevant proxy objects to other sub-components. So essentially you can either build each individual component as its own .swf or bundle lots of components into the one swf, how you do it is entirely up to you and so far as i can personally see, there are no rules. Q. Do you recommend FlashMX as a Client Side Application? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Yes and No, If you want it do basic applications then yes its great. If you need an application made fast, or have a fairly short deadline and you aren't proficient with FlashMX then the answer is a hard NO. FlashMX at the best of times can be the biggest pain in the ass to develop for as its very sensitive to coding requirements, and debugging sometimes can be a pain (even with the built-in tools). Another aspect you must consider is that you are handed a raw palette to work. Every small element you need for say a "form" you will have to build yourself from scratch. You can download and use other peoples components and in a way it will save your butt, but if you are building a large application that is to either go on the web or deployed to client-side executable's, you may come to realise (experience has dictated this) that the "drag n drop" components aren't really efficient and sometimes can be bloatware solutions. Off-the-shelf components usually have various add-on hooks built into them, to allow for various uses of that individual component. Because of such, you can have basically a "Porsche" but instead all you wanted to was a "Go-Kart". So pick and choose your components wisely, if you head down this path and If you can't understand or see how that individual component is made and what its limitations and capabilities are, then in truth its probably not the best thing for you. FlashMX can also issue you the user a large penalty on CPU, if you instantiate components that are filled with say "rows" of data, and behind you have other features (ie pages of "Moby Dick" followed by an animation of a whale squirting water out its blow whole, and then you overlay a rows of data from the whitepages, will no doubt cripple your speed to abnormality). Vector graphics can be your saviour, but they are also you downfall, so whenever building objects or graphical elements weigh up the pro's/con's of using bitmp vs vector. PNG's are also something you will need to weigh up in that do you need the alpha channels? or can you get away with just a flat jpg? Despite Macromedia's preaching FlashMX as an effective Rich Internet Application, it does have limitations and if you are looking for it to replace applications typically made in "C++/java etc" then i'm afraid your mistaken as personally, its not that robust. So at the end of the day, Don't make a wrench into a hammer, pick the right tool for the job and don't compromise on cost as in the long run you will feel the burn of "oops, didn't think of that" mentality. Q. Exoskeleton and FlashMX? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you do decide to head down the path of FlashMX development client side (which we here at Tourism Queensland) have done, then you can do so by buying one of these two products: 1. http://www.northcode.com/products/swfstudio/index.html 2. http://www.multidmedia.com Basically these take your FlashMX capabilities and then add-on extra features while pumping you with excitement as to what you can/can't do. It sort of strips away allot of the barriers put in place with just FlashMX by itself. For Example: Say your application controls the GUI (which FlashMX is perfect in doing), You use FlashMX to control how a user navigates and all those bells and whistles within FlashMX. Then your wise but yet powerful, upper management git decides he/she wants to see a crystal report within your application?? First instinct is to go "F#* yourself mate, it ain't gonna happen"... but closer look you can. How? You simply use the power of Internet Explorer thats how. Majority if not all Windows based platforms have IE built in, with these bolt-on tools for your FlashMX app, you can effectively not only embed a "IE window" within your application, but you can control its position on screen and size. So its kind of a slight of "hand" in that instead of launching an IE window loading your reports, you simply instantiate the IE Control into your FlashMovie and load it within there. This keeps the user locked into your application and doesn't inherit the IE's "shell"(your browser version installed on the clients PC still dictates its capabilities ..4.0, 4.5 5.0 etc..). (I'd love to insert a DHTML/FLASHMX/CFMX/Other Example here but i haven't the time and once you get to understand the above, man.. you just constantly go "WOAH YOU COULD DO THIS AND THAT" to all around you... Other Features within these tools are things like Minimize to Icon Tray, RIGHT CLICK capabilities and so on. So in a way you have best of both worlds, the capabilities of doing precise visual effects within your application (Far more superior then DHTML), while still being able to render normal HTML without extra windows being loaded and giving users the option of Netscape or other browsers... Its not perfect but its a good start. Q. Bookmarks? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ http://www.fullasagoog.com http://www.flashguru.co.uk These two urls are a must :D Q. Any Final Tips/Suggestions ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As the CEO of Microsoft says in his iFilms.com conference... DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS.... - Learn your Tools and read as much as you can, each day someone somewhere has just came up with an add-on solution that makes life easier for you the FlashMX / CFMX Developer. CFMX is the perfect tool for server-side FlashMX development, and while I am biased to CFMX, i truely pitty the ASP/PHP developer out there. - Don't expect it to be easy, as it will no doubt be hard. FlashMX can be a nailbiting sick joke sometimes, but other times it can be the best thing since you're mother gave birth to you...well.. thats argueable.... - Don't Comprimise on time vs clean development... Seriously, if a boss is over your shoulder pushing you to get the software out the door, then so be it.. politely tell him to back off and in the end he'll thank you for it being more solid. - Expect the intial stages to be souly component development and less visual... i've found that people are interested in things being changed on screen (regardless of the fact that you may have designed a way to split an atom in code, unless they can see a picture of a ball being cut in half, they just don't care).. Smoke and Mirros are a good saviour, ie make something to keep the children occupied while you do the hard work. Thats it, It maybe shit, It maybe wisdom, thats for you all to decide. Now.. back to work i go... --- You are currently subscribed to cfaussie as: [email protected] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] MX Downunder AsiaPac DevCon - http://mxdu.com/
