Adobe Developer Connection improvements

While I'm sure lots of people are focusing on Flex 3 and AIR 1.0 going live, and I hope lots of people think that the new opensource.adobe.com site is great, we've also made a bunch of improvements to the Adobe Developer Connection (ADC).

Since I know there is a lot of news for people to digest right now, here are the highlights of changes to the ADC. (with more detail below)

1. New navigation just for developers - the collapsible panels that made their debut back in October now extend across the site.
2. The ADC content has returned to the center of the page
3. The Search UI and functionality has been enhanced
4. Some of our existing membership benefits got better - more on that below.
   

So for those of you that want to get back to playing with the latest shipping technologies, just check out the updated ADC. And then you can feel free to stop reading. Don't worry. I won't be offended.

But for those of you that are interested in the details, here they are....

The new navigation extends across the entire developer site, so with just a few clicks, you should be able to find just about any necessary Adobe developer resource you need. And we've removed the regular Adobe.com navigation, with just a link to the Adobe.com site at the top. The goal is to provide just what you need and nothing to get in the way of that.

Content is back in the middle. Back in December, when Adobe.com got a makeover, the ADC content got pushed to the left side of the page. A few days ago, even in advance of this post and the big launch of Flex 3 and AIR 1.0, ADC content moved back to the middle. The pages were always designed to display content in the middle so hopefully its easier for you to browse and read now then it was just a few days ago.

Third, the ADC search box is now more closely aligned with the centered content, so it no longer floats out on the right side as it did starting in December. We added in the ability for a user to narrow down their search based on the type of content before they conduct their search. Thats a nice little time saver in my opinion.

Lastly, when you login to the ADC, you get a whole bunch of benefits for free. We've updated two of the more interesting ones. The ADC introNetwork - which lets you visualize your relationships with other developers and designers based on things like your skills, projects, and personality - now includes the ability to use video in your profile.

And we've made a number of enhancements to the Developer Desktop AIR application. The app got a facelift, and you can still track and get desktop notifications of changes in bugs in the public bugbase at bugs.adobe.com. The new feature that I think is pretty cool though is the new Component Explorer in the ADC Desktop. It aggregates a wide range of Flex components and lets you browse though and track updates to them. Be sure to login, then download it and check it out.

See, like I said, lots of details. So when you are done downloading all the new stuff, blogging, writing a few apps, etc, take breath and check out the new stuff on the ADC. In addition to all of this stuff, there is of course the new content, around Flex, AIR, and BlazeDS. Please let me know what you think about the changes to the ADC via the comments in this blog. And even more importantly, let me know what we can continue to improve, or do differently to help you find the information you need as quickly as possible.

Adobe open source site goes live

As Flex 3 and AIR 1.0 go out the door, some other very exciting things for developers are happening at Adobe. I'll have some news in a later post about the Adobe Developer Connection, but right now I want to share the news about the new Adobe Open Source site.

This new home for open source projects from Adobe serves as a hub to connect developers with all the code, projects, and news that we can. And for projects that Adobe hosts, like Flex 3 and Blaze DS, we have Subversion setup to let you check out the code, documentation, forums, and bug bases.

Plus, whats kind of interesting, at least if you ask me, is that the content publishing on the site is all handled by a wiki. So thanks to the good folks at Atlassian, for granting us an open source license to Confluence.

So check it out, and be sure to add the open source news rss feed to your feed reader. As always, let us know what you think.

Facebook Flash and Flex

I've been talking to the folks from Weekend Apps over the past few days, and they are getting 100 or so developers together in Santa Clara next weekend, February 22 to 24th, to build 20 Facebook apps in less than 3 days.

And since I'm biased, I think its very cool that Alex Notov will be presenting on how to use Flex to build a Facebook application. Adobe is helping out by providing some giveaways - one Creative Suite bundle (the winner of the suite can choose between Design Premium, Web Premium or Production Premium) and 2 copies of Flex Builder 3 (when it ships).

If you want to learn more, or happen to be in the Bay Area and want to join these guys, you can join their Facebook group, or visit WeekendApps.com.

For me, I'm just looking forward to seeing the apps at the end of the weekend.

The RIA universe is ever expanding

Once again, apologies for being quiet for so long on this blog. But there is so much exciting stuff going on right now that I had to stop for a second and make sure I shared the news with anyone who reads this blog, just in case you didn't hear about this anywhere else.

First, earlier today, O'Reilly and Adobe launched a new site called InsideRIA.com. This new community site covers all things RIA, including Flex, Flash, AIR, and AJAX. Rich Tretola is the editor and Andre Charland is the lead blogger. I'd definitely recommend checking it out.

Secondly, in the past few months, we've expanded the Adobe team that works with the development community. Specifically, we've added three new team members to spend a lot of time supporting Adobe RIA developers. The team is comprised or Raghu Rao, Anirudh Sasikumar, and Sujit Reddy Gurrala. All of them have great blogs, so you may want to pay them a visit. And if you haven't seen them online responding to technical questions on the wide range of forums and lists, then I'm sure you soon will.

Lastly, if you haven't heard about it already, the Adobe evangelism and product teams are hitting the road, bring the latest news about AIR and Flex to user group near you. The tour is underway already but there are a lot more events coming up. Check out the schedule at http://flex.org/tour/

- Jonathan

Did You Know...vol. 4

OK, so it has been awhile since my last post, but sometimes you just get busy!

Lots of good nuggets today, so I am going to dive right in!!

Did you know that:

• Mike Chambers and Lee Brimelow are doing a mini AIR user group tour in Europe? Be sure to check out Mike's most recent blog post for cities and dates. This is going to be a great tour so be sure to check it out if it is coming to a city near you!
• Adobe SF is hosting a RIA Developer Camp on November 5? This will sell out fast, so be sure to register early!
• The Adobe Mobile & Devices user group managers collaborated on a huge Flash Lite mobile game contest? Click here for more information.
• The Pacifica beta was open? Check out Renaun Erickson's blog for more details on what Pacifica is and how to sign up.
• Starting in November, Adobe will be making Flex Builder 2 available to qualified students and educators worldwide at no cost! Check out the press release for additional details.

If you already knew all of the above then you are keeping one step ahead of me!!

Until next time...

Ed Sullivan

Great new content and videos on the ADC

Craig Goodman, George Fox, Hong Qiu, Amy Wong, Stefan Gruenwedel, Michael Koch, and Julie Campagna continue to churn great technical content and videos on the Adobe Developer Connection (ADC).  If you haven't seen this stuff, or aren't a member of the ADC, and don't subscribe to the biweekly update or RSS feeds to get updated, then you may have missed some of this. 

Here's a laundry list of great stuff for you.

- Jonathan

**************************

Adobe AIR
 
Uploading files to a server from an Adobe AIR application 
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/flex/articles/uploading_air_app_to_server.html 
 
Mashing up Google Maps with Adobe AIR
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/ajax/articles/air_map_mashup.html 
 
Taking a Flex app to the desktop
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/flex/articles/flex_to_air_migration.html 
 
----------
 
Flash
 
Creating a preloader in ActionScript 3.0
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/actionscript/articles/lightweight_as3.html 
 
----------
 
Dreamweaver
 
Introducing the Adobe Spry framework for Ajax
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/spry_simulations.html 
                               
----------
 
Flex
 
Communicating between Flex and .NET
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/communicating_flex_dotnet.html 
 
Building a standalone Adobe AIR app on salesforce.com with Flex 3
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/flex_air_salesforce.html 
 
----------
 
Flash Lite
 
Flash Lite 3 video capabilities
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/devices/articles/fl3_video.html 
 
----------
 
ColdFusion
 
ColdFusion 8 Server Monitoring - Part 2: Using the Server Monitor in production
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/coldfusion/articles/monitoring_pt2.html 
 
Learning stored procedure basics in ColdFusion 8
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/coldfusion/articles/stored_procs.html 
                               
----------
 
LiveCycle
 
Passing credentials using WS-Security headers
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/livecycle/articles/passing_credentials.html 


Developer Videos
 

These live on the MAX blog, and if you haven't been checking that out, you may have missed it. 

Rick Treitman, Buzzword / Virtual Ubiquity

http://blog.adobemax2007.com/2007/10/get-buzz-on-buzzword.html

Flex, AS3, deployed via Flash player (AIR version soon to come)

Troy Hahn - Auburn University Fisheries website

http://blog.adobemax2007.com/2007/10/nothing-fishy-about-spry.html

Dreamweaver /Spry data set, along with Contribute, Acrobat (PDF), and Captivate

Anthony Franco, Discovery Channel's Cancer Collage

http://blog.adobemax2007.com/2007/10/living-with-cancer-ria-with-mission.html

Flash and Flex

Frog Design - Disney Travel Agent App

http://blog.adobemax2007.com/2007/10/online-offline-travel-planning-to-magic.html

AIR, Flex, and Flash and Photoshop CS3 for building comps

Alan Queen - Digimix

http://blog.adobemax2007.com/2007/10/meet-alan-queen-developer-of-digimix.html

AIR, Flex and ActionScript 3

John Wu - Ora Time and Expense Tracker

http://blog.adobemax2007.com/2007/10/meet-john-wu-developer-of-ora-time-and.html

AIR, HTML, JavaScript, EXTjs framework

Ed Finkler - Spaz.AIR

http://blog.adobemax2007.com/2007/10/meet-edward-finkler-developer-of-spaz.html

AIR, HTML, JavaScript

Tom Bray and Robert Cadena, Searchcoders Dashboard

http://blog.adobemax2007.com/2007/10/meet-tom-bray-and-robert-cadena.html

AIR, Flex and LiveCycle Data Services

Marc Hughes, AgileAgenda

http://blog.adobemax2007.com/2007/10/meet-marc-hughes-developer-of-agile.html

AIR, Flex, PHP

Rachel Roth, DHAP - Pirates of the Caribbean

http://blog.adobemax2007.com/2007/10/see-cool-visual-effects-of-pirates-of.html

Flash, Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects

Michael Carbajal, NASA interactive reference guide

http://blog.adobemax2007.com/2007/10/fly-aboard-international-space-station.html

Flash, Photoshop, Illustrator, PDF, After Effects and Premiere

Marc Cadle - OASSIS (Homeland Security)

http://blog.adobemax2007.com/2007/10/learn-about-oasiss.html

100% Dreamweaver, ColdFusion 8 (Flex and AIR app in development)

Josh Hirsch, Big Spaceship / HBO

http://blog.adobemax2007.com/2007/10/rear-window-20.html

AS3, Flash, FLV, Photoshop (comps), After Effects, Papervision

Some additional notes about the Adobe Developer Connection

Since we launched the new Adobe Developer Connection on Friday, I've been thrilled to see a number of posts, as well have had a number of conversations with folks at MAX about how much everyone likes the new user interface.

Over the weekend, a few key membership benefits went live.

1. The ADC introNetwork - This is a professional network for developers and designers who want to share their backgrounds and skills to connect with others, share their knowledge, and perhaps even find a job. There are more than 800 professionals in the network today, including more than 100 adobe staffers. And if you are looking to hire someone for a short project or a full time job, there are 80 people that have said they are interested in being contacted about a job. I have a feeling the number of people in the network is going to increase over the next few days.
2. The ADC Developer Desktop is now live as well - This is a Adobe AIR application and is a handy way to receive desktop notifications about changes in status of bugs in the Flex bugbase What I think is cool, is that you can drag an item from the bugbase website, and drop in into the desktop app to track it. From that point on, when there are status changes to the bugs you are watching, you get toast notifications when the app is running.

You can get access to these applications by joining the Adobe Developer Connection. Once you've signed it, you can click over the introNetwork, or download the Developer Desktop. And if you are attending the MAX conference in Chicago, please join me and some of the folks behind the ADC, as well as the team of folks that helps manage many of our relationships with community leaders tonight, at our Birds of Feather Session. Its at 8:30 pm in room 184B. Hope to see you there!