Since my initial Adobe Max conference five years ago, the then Macromedia (before their acquisition by Adobe) were speaking about Wealthy Internet Applications or RIA’s as the way forward for the net. At that time they’d lately launched Flex 1 and were predicting a really different Web experience for that finish user.
five years later and I must ask myself if the finish user’s experience with Web has altered that dramatically. In addition to the lots of of video content that’s available today, nearly all websites continue to be created using HTML and just companies with endless budgets have had the ability to produce glimpses of Adobe’s vision. So was Adobe wrong within their conjecture? No, I believe these were place on, however the primary problem could be that the software didn’t exist which may allow Web-site designers and developers to construct RIA’s.
Flex 1, by Adobe’s own admission, would be a crude first attempt for creating RIA’s. Flex 3 in comparison is a far greater program, but there’s still an issue. Flex is really a developer’s program, its internal language is Flash ActionScript. Therefore unless of course you understand ActionScript or you’re a coder and like learning computer languages then Flex is most likely not really a tool the typical Web Design Service will adopt.
Even bigger Web production houses with groups of graphic artists and developers found the job-flows, moving in the designers vision in to the back-finish development, confusing and frustrating.
Fortunately many of these issues may soon be considered a factor of history. Certainly probably the most spoken about product at Adobe Max 2008 would be a new Flash Catalyst program. Despite the fact that Flash Catalyst are only released in ’09, you receive the sensation Adobe is really looking forward to it they just couldn’t wait to inform us.
So what exactly is Flash Catalyst? Well basically it is a designer’s tool that will really simplify the RIA work-flow process between Designers and Developers. Designers the very first time have a program where they are able to import all their artwork from programs for example Illustrator, Illustrator and Flash after which design the completely functional RIA interface. Because the back-finish will still need be coded with a developer, the important thing distinction with Flash Catalyst is the fact that designers can help to save all of their operate in a format that the developer can certainly understand and use.