Flex Doc Team

I want to tell you about Blueprint, which we released on Adobe Labs last week and just last night updated to include support for Mac, Windows, Flex Builder 3, and Flash Builder 4.

Blueprint is an innovative code-centric search application, initially delivered as an Eclipse plug-in. It is a custom search tool that searches only for code (for now, it searches just for MXML and ActionScript). So, for example, if you search for DataGrid, it returns a set of code examples that use the Flex DataGrid control. But what's really cool is that you can easily highlight, copy, and paste chunks of code right into your application, all without leaving Flex/Flash Builder.

For more information, see the Blueprint page on Adobe Labs

Posted by Randy Nielsen at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hi everyone,
As most of you know, I also manage the ColdFusion documentation and I'm happy to announce that, as of this morning, the ColdFusion 8 HTML-format content (aka LiveDocs) now uses the Community Help commenting system. We first rolled out community help as a pilot project for Flex and then deployed it for all of the CS4 products last fall.

What does this mean?

• The content under http://livedocs.adobe.com/coldfusion/8/htmldocs uses a different commenting system. (The original code name for the project was Ion, so you'll sometimes hear people refer to this as "Ion commenting.")
  
• One difference: Comments display by default and inappropriate comments are moderated out. In the old system, comments were hidden by default and appropriate comments were moderated in.
  
• Community Help is more than updated commenting:
  
  • You will also notice an enhanced ColdFusion Support page, now renamed to Help and Support.
    
  • When you search, we now use Community Search, which is a custom system than pulls in results from a predefined list of all the best ColdFusion resource inside and outside of Adobe. This is a process of continuous improvement, so if you see that we're missing a site, just let me know (ranielse [at] adobe [dot] com).
    
  • Moderators include Adobe employees and external ColdFusion developers. As the system grows, I'm sure that we'll be inviting more of you to be moderators.
    
  • We now assign points to helpful comments. Depending on whether you point out a typo or post a 100-line code example, we'll asign you anywhere from 5 - 50 points. We haven't quite figured out what to do with the points, but at some point, we'll ask high-point achievers to join the moderators (and we'll probably send out swag or something).
    
• We don't have a migration utility, so it'll be at least a week before I've copied existing CF8 comments to the new system. Please be patient.

For more information:

• Introduction to Adobe Community Help


• ColdFusion Help and Support Page

Regards,
Randy Nielsen

Posted by Randy Nielsen at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There's a new web site that guides new users through the process of learning Flex. It organizes a variety of examples and tutorials based on the role that you select. You can choose a learning path for developers, designers, managers, or architects. Each path leads you to a series of tutorials, videos, code samples, and documentation links.

Here's the URL:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/learn/

While this site might not have alot of new content, it provides a new way of exploring existing content. It ties together information from Adobe resources such as the standard Flex docs, DevNet, and The Edge newsletter, plus outside web sites such as InsideRIA.com and OnFlex.org.

The folks who put together Learning Paths are eager for your feedback, too. Check out the Flex Learning Paths forums, and tell them what you like and don't like about the experience.

Posted by Matthew J. Horn at 3:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our friends and co-workers on the LiveCycle Learning Resources (aka documentation) team have started a blog. If you get a minute, check out http://blogs.adobe.com/livecycledocs/ and I think you'll be pleased. Over the past few years, we've worked a lot with the LiveCycle doc team as we integrate LiveCycle with both Flex and LiveCycle Data Services (formerly known as Flex Data Services) and I have to say that they are a very sharp bunch.

Posted by Randy Nielsen at 7:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hi all,
Last Fall, we invited about a dozen developers to join the Flex Learning Advisors private Google group. This group is a feedback community of internal and external Flex advocates that discusses ideas, provides feedback to the Flex Learning Resources (aka documentation) team, and helps validate decisions as we move into the open-source world of Flex 4. Additionally, members of the Adobe Developer Center team are actively involved in the Flex Learning Advisors and some of the Learning Advisors provide feedback on upcoming DevCenter content.

We've covered a lot of topics in the last nine months, including the Flex 3 Getting Started Experience, the Flex Developer Center, and our Community Help pilot.

We want to expand the Flex Learning Advisors to a wider group, so if you're interested in participating, go to http://groups.google.com/group/flex-learning-advisors, click "Sign in and apply for membership", and I'll approve you.

-Randy

Posted by Randy Nielsen at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)