April 3, 2006
Layering Flex over AJAX and collaborating with data services -- whoa!
Christophe just posted an example of how to layer Flex over AJAX to do video chat and shared whiteboard as an overlay to Google Maps. You could use this to draw a route on a map for someone else to see, for example.
I think my head is going to explode.
http://coenraets.com/viewarticle.jsp?articleId=100
Posted by sho at 9:11 AM
March 6, 2006
Slides from Flashforward 2006
As promised, here are my slides and notes from Flashforward. Some things you will need to know:
- The layout syntax uses the new beta 2 syntax, which is not out yet.
- The notes cover a bit less material than the slides. That's because the notes were finalized before the slides were, in order to get them printed on paper for conference attendees. If I have time, I may extend the notes but with so much going on, I am not sure I will have time to do this.
[Speaker notes - doc] [Speaker notes - pdf]
Posted by sho at 1:51 PM
March 2, 2006
Impressions from Flashforward
Just got back late last night from Flashforward. Quick impressions:
- Huge attendance -- I don't have exact numbers but I hear it was ~1400?
- Loved Erik Natzke's talk. Very inspirational. Wish I'd been able to see Grant's talk as well, but I had a meeting.
- Talked to lots of people about Flex. I was pleasantly surprised by the enthusiasm.
- I had a few people say to me, "I don't get it.. is Flex an easier version of Flash?" This is obviously not what Flex is, and I think this means we need to be clearer in how we talk about it. During the keynote, I emphasized how easy it was to put an application together, so I can see how you could walk away with that impression.
- Had an interesting talk with Moses Gunesch about tweens. I wish I'd been able to stay to hear his session.
- Found out what shots of Southern Comfort and lime taste like (thanks, I think, Chafic)
- Really enjoyed David Schroeder's talk about sound design. Made me think about sound in a whole new way.
Posted by sho at 12:47 PM
February 15, 2006
MXML text completion control v. 0.5 (aka down with combo boxes!)
I've always been frustrated by the way HTML applications use pull down menus. How many times have you had to pick a country out of a huge pull down menu? Do you use the mouse to scroll down to the country? What about using the keyboard? You have to keep hitting the same key over and over. Neither approach is easy.
Meanwhile, text fields that offer completion hints are starting to become standard for Flex and AJAX applications. Typicaly, these are used to let you quickly pick things that you've already typed into the box. They are not used for picking, say, a country from a list of countries.
I believe text input fields that offer hints for possible completions should be used instead of combo boxes 95% of the time. Down with combo boxes!
1) When you want to use the mouse, it is just as simple.
2) When you want to use the keyboard, it gives you better feedback on what you have typed already.
3) It gives you an obvious affordance to "start over" when you've made a typo.
4) It gives you more immediate feedback.
Here is a relatively simple version of a text completion control for MXML. Unlike most versions of this type of control, this is also optimized for the above case: picking from a list of predefined strings.
When you want to pick from a list of predefined strings, just supply the list of all strings as the dataProvider of the control (just like how ComboBox works), and set the "mustPick" flag to true.
Let me know what you think. Are there bugs? Do you think the heuristics are wrong? Is this a good idea in general?
P.S. I've also had to include some other random classes as part of this. I plan on officially distributing these classes and other classes once they are more baked.
Posted by sho at 8:25 PM