My Adobe Flash Tech Blog

NTUGuide – My new app on wp7 marketplace

Manikantan — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 06:16:35 +0000

I know this is not the best place, considering the blog’s title itself claims to be “Flash”. I don’t wish to get into this debate of Flash Vs Silverlight or Flash Vs HTML5. I am a programmer and I see technologies as tools. The more tools I can effectively use, the more stronger I become. As a part of my role at Nokia as an evangelist, I have been doing some programming for Windows Phone.

I recently created an application for my Alma Mater called the NTU Guide, along with one of my friends. The application helps you to find places, food and other amenities within the Nanyang Technological University Campus in Singapore. It is a FREE app, and would like if you try it and give some feedback.

Filed under: Forum Nokia, Silverlight, windowsphone Tagged: marketplace, NTU, wp7

New game from Chompgames – Word Hunt

Manikantan — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:47:07 +0000

Hi all,

I first apologise for the long break from blogging. Yes, the last quarter has been busy as an evangelist at Nokia. Recently out of my love for Flash, I re-skinned one of my old keypad games and published it to the Ovi Store. It’s currently available for Free – limited period.

Word Hunt is a keypad version of my own popular game, Happy Sun. Happy Sun made enormous amounts of downloads on the Ovi Store. The game is basically jumbling letters to make meaningful words. You can also request for clues.

Filed under: actionscript, Casual Games, Flash Lite, Flash Lite Game, Mobile Games, Nokia, Ovi Tagged: Flash, games, word hunt

The recent Adobe happenings and some projections

Manikantan — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 09:22:23 +0000

Yes, I have been away for blogging for quite sometime now and my apologies for the same. The last few months have been quite happening with new launches of innovative products by some companies like Adobe and some new events and work at an induvidual front as well. Now that I got a little bit of time, I thought I would post a recap and my perspective of it.

Flash 11 and Adobe AIR 3 is on its way. Molehill will be present full-on in this release. Also coming is Captive runtime for AIR, meaning you can package the runtime along with the app and users don’t have to download AIR separately before installing the app. There are some other cool features in this release as well.

With respect to Adobe, we saw the launch of Adobe Muse(codename). For those who missed it, it is a tool for interaction and experience designers and artists to create highly interactive webpages with no programming. It runs on Adobe AIR technology and from its early impressions, it is likely to mature or get integrated into a big software like Adobe Dreamweaver. Why is it amazing ? Cuz you only need a design or aesthetic sense to create rich webpages and don’t have to know jQuery, or tags. You simply design on a canvas and it gets reflected into a website.

Another fascinating tool that has garnered some early interest is Adobe Edge, that makes animating HTML components or elements easy. In the dawn of HTML5, it is important it’s learning or adoption is smooth. I would say, this is Adobe’s yet another attempt in capturing the supply chain. The idea was very simple, if HTML5 was gonna make animations, transitions smoother, then it also has to be simple for designers to create those rich animations. It was pretty much the premise in which Flash started gaining momentum. Good designs can be planned and improvised only on a canvas and not from a HTML or text editor. So, Adobe Edge provides a canvas for animation which gets translated into HTML5 codes, making life the way it is meant to be for designers.

Seeing such tools emerge, I think interaction designers are gonna be key players in moulding tomorrow’s internet media future. As things evolve, my prediction is that there will only be two major kinds of techies in internet companies – interaction designers (who do all the art/design and basic interaction level coding) and back-end developers (those responsible for data engineering behind the scenes). My argument is that if more and more code components and tools/frameworks( like ones mentioned above) are readily available to make apps/websites quickly and easily, then the work of a front end UI programmer is gonna diminish slowly. With people advocating MVC programming, interaction designers don’t have to bother about data, their schema etc. All they need to do is make sure they have space(real estate) and navigation modes(scrolling and moving between) through that data.

What about HTML5 and Flash ? Yes it’s a hot question. With Flash now available as a tool to develop for iPhone/iPad, does it mark its dominance again ? Not necessarily, because it is not available on the browser yet. Consumers or developers don’t know if the app is running off Flash(translated objective-C bytecode) or native code. With the absence of Flash for 3-4 years on mobile platforms, developers have to an extent learnt to live life the hard way, writing native code. And the huge base of 4 million and 2.5 million apps and games on iOS and Android devices are an evidence to that. On the contrary however, we have seen Flash/Flex apps (like Politifact or Machinatum) top the charts of AppStore. Hence, we are getting positive response for using Flash to develop engaging mobile content. However, on the broader context Flash is beginning to disappear. I even heard recently that Slideshare adopted HTML5 leaving behind Flash. Microsoft (announced during showcase of Windows 8) that only a very small percentage of popular websites have Flash content (other than ads). Slowly, we should begin to accept that HTML5 will be the medium of delivery of advertisements on the internet. Adobe has also understood that and pushing its bet on Rich media applications like 1024px Video rendering, extensive use of GPU rendering for improved performance and 3D content as well. Hence we are seeing a shift in roles, the laggard HTML has caught up with Flash Player of ,say early 2000s.

Filed under: Adobe, Adobe AIR, Apple, Flash, Flash Player Tagged: Adobe, Flash, HTML5

New Playbook app – Confidential manager

Manikantan — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 07:10:15 +0000

I recently launched a FREE app for Blackberry Playbook called Confidential manager. It essentially speeds up the time taken for online purchases, by storing all your Credit / Debit card numbers in one place. All you need to do is swipe between apps and copy-paste the numbers. It comes with a very simplistic and user centric design and interface.

Since the app does not connect to any network and stores all information securely on the device, users can be sure of protection of their data.

Here is the description to the app
Do you struggle doing online payments from your BlackBerry® PlayBook™ ? Experienced the hassle of opening your wallet and keying in the card numbers everytime to pay online ? Well, all that is OLD STUFF. You shouldn’t do it that way. Because time and security are important to you.

Introducing Confidential Manager that reduces online payment hassles to simple copy-paste actions. Launch the app, flick through your credit cards and COPY-PASTE into desired location. The application never connects to the internet and stores all your information securely within the device. So you don’t have the fear of loss of security. Additionally, you set a master password which controls entry into the application itself. Meaning, full protection to your data.

The application supports multiple cards including Mastercard, VISA, Diners Club, American Express, Discover. Even if your card is not supported you can include that information in your Bank Name field, giving you complete flexibilty. Copying of numbers is simply a button click away.

Users of this application are observed to have reduced payment times by 7 times. Experience a smarter online shopping lifestyle.

*COMING SOON*
Support for general email and web logins.

Filed under: Actionscript 3.0, Adobe AIR, Blackberry, Playbook Tagged: online, Payments

Extending Adobe AIR…!!

krishna Raj — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 14:21:49 +0000

(Via adobe) Prior to Adobe AIR 3 release candidate, only Adobe could add core features to the runtime. Developers requiring new features could only wait. Now developers can extend the runtime themselves. This new capability allows developers to:

Achieve deeper integration with target devices
Incorporate legacy native code in their application
Achieve maximum performance for critical code

Rest of the post is here.

Filed under: Adobe Flashlite, adobe flash

AS3 Chrome Extension

Manikantan — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 08:42:11 +0000

Most of us being Actionscript 3 or Flex developers, very often require quick access to adobe documentation. After CS4, the docs don’t come along with the IDE. Although some of the reference can be obtained from intellisense and code hinting, very often I am in real need for complete docs. Today I was suggested by my friend about AS3.0 Chrome Extension. It caches all as3 classes the first time (first time alone it performs index retrieval and takes two or three seconds), and after that you get search suggestions of the classes you type in no time. It is very handy and I would recommend it to all AS3/ Flex devs.

Install it from Chrome Store.

Filed under: Actionscript 3.0, Adobe, Adobe Flashlite, adobe flash Tagged: as3, docs, reference

A game Score ticker in Flash as3

Manikantan — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 10:00:44 +0000

Well, I have been doing a lot of small code UI components that are heavily reused. One such component that I made today was a game score ticker. Remember seeing scrolling numbers in lottery or jackpot genre games, where the numbers keeps flipping until a target number? If you have been playing games, you would have noticed similar elements being used score displays on HUDs in games.

I recently created a similar cmoponent which I intent to use in a future game. But since this can be used useful to others I thought I should share the code behind it. I am not making it a perfect component that is completely customizable. But its very easy to change its features. The slider above allows you to check the functioning of this component, but is no way tagged to the slider component (Illustration purpose only).

Benefits -

1. Simple to skin and extend – its just a movieclip that you can explore and edit.

2. There is also a feature where you can make it blink. Blinking is quite an important glitter effect as it can capture the player’s attention. It can be used when user crosses a milestone or a high score.

3. Designed for 4 digit numbers but easy to extend.

Usage is pretty simple -

simply use (MovieClipName).showValue(numberToShow: String, milestone :int);

// First parameter is the number to which the score ticker scrolls to (0 – 9999). Second parameter is the milestone(0-9999).

You can use this component available as a MovieClip in this FLA(Download). You are free to modify / re-use / distribute it. But I ll be glad if you simply drop in a comment here.

Filed under: Actionscript 3.0, Adobe AIR, Casual Games Tagged: components, Flash, games, score ticker, ticker

Android Open Conference Looking For Speakers

Manikantan — Sat, 28 May 2011 08:37:32 +0000

just wanted to pass some infos of a conference: Android Open Conference Looking for Speakers.

___________________________________________________________________________

View this information as HTML in your browser, click here:
http://post.oreilly.com/rd/9z1zejtt8790e5ljpp06is9pioa9k8klq12g3v027ko

Hi there,

We wanted to ask you to share some information about our new Android Open Conference happening October 9-11 in San Francisco, CA. We’re currently looking for speakers for the inaugural event and wanted to see if you can help us get the word out.

Android Open is for the whole ecosystem – from app developers creating next cool apps to OEMs and carriers hacking the platform for their specific business needs. This is one opportunity to meet and learn from some of the most brilliant minds on the frontier of mobile computing. Our tracks include App Development, Platform Development, and Business & Marketing.

Here is the link to the CFP, deadline is June 1st: http://post.oreilly.com/rd/9z1zkl6ak398qr2eplknjc4u55kdkj3h78s5ts77nu8 and here is some discount info to share:

O’Reilly Android Open Conference
October 9-11, 2011
San Francisco, CA
Get 20% off any pass with code an11ug
http://post.oreilly.com/rd/9z1zj8grl0j0rp0f8lahhuffht6bvt20ete9dhd59ng

Via Alessandro Pace

Filed under: Adobe Flashlite, adobe flash

My favorite AIR apps for Playbook

Manikantan — Wed, 25 May 2011 15:18:02 +0000

So after using the Playbook for nearly one month, I thought I shall list down some interesting apps and games built in AIR that caught my eye.

GeeReader and Pipeline

Both these RSS readers have Google Reader synch options which is very important to me. Similarly I know most of you would also be using Google Reader for managing the several blogs you would follow everyday. Both these apps are free. GeeReader comes with the conventional blog reader UI, but Pipeline has little more electrifying UI though the Google Reader synch option is only valid for 14 days in the Free version. Pipeline also offers offline reading of feeds which is very important.

Scorekeeper

Easily the best UI of any party / family boardgame scorekeeping application. The app focuses on tiny-mini aspects that scorekeeping becomes such a pleasure. You should watch this video ..

Conqu

This is a task management software built on Adobe AIR. This same app is also available on Android marketplace and I saw it being demo’ed by one of the Adobe Evangelists. It comes with a very smooth and sleek UI. Having a task manager with a great UI is very important, when you admire the UI you tend to open the app more frequently and you hence get to check your To-Dos.

Await for another post on my fav games very soon..

Filed under: Adobe AIR, Adobe Flashlite, adobe flash, Blackberry, Playbook Tagged: Adobe, AIR, BlackBerry, Playbook apps

Debug tokens for Playbook development

Manikantan — Sun, 22 May 2011 06:14:08 +0000

Around last month, Blackberry introduced debug tokens that can be used to test/debug applications for developers in the Playbook. My good friend Mitch, wrote a blogpost on how to use the debug token. He describes the entire process in four steps

Initial Requirements, which involves checking whether you have all the files necessary.
Command Line and Terminal, instructions to create and install your debug token onto your playbook.
Preparing your App for Debug Mode, which requires some small changes to your blackberry-tablet.xml file.
Publish to Blackberry Playbook, which involves creating your .BAR file and sending it to your device.

Read the entire post here.

Filed under: Adobe AIR, Blackberry, Flash Tagged: BlackBerry, Flash, Playbook