Device Central is going through some significant changes and improvements to cater for a Flash Platform that is maturing and growing across multiple screens. In this episode, we take a look at an early pre-release version of Device Central CS5 and some of the new features particularly around Device Profiles.
I’m hoping to bring some more video tutorials on Device Central CS5 in the new year, as it progresses through the beta phase. I also have one more video to deliver in this current Flash Lite series, so stay tuned!
I was unfortunately unable to make it to the recently run FITC Moible conference in Toronto (Canada is on my MUST visit places list), but I managed to catch a lot of content through various blog posts and Twitter feeds. There was some particularly interesting demos and slides around Flash for the mobile platform, and a “well done” Scott, Thomas, Mark and other Flash presenters for the time they spent spreading the word according to Flash!
Here’s some of the news that filtered out from FITC:
Flash Lite 4: A new version of the Flash Lite player with AS3 support, running as a browser plugin and standalone player (for BREW apparently) on lower-end devices. With all of the opimisation work that Adobe have done on the Flash Lite player over the past couple of years (Project Tamarin, etc), it’s at a point where keeping this “lite” version of the player for limited devices is a positive move.
Flash Player 10: The version for more powerful devices, again running as the browser plugin. Standalone applications will run using AIR Mobile (all sometime later in 2010)
Device Central 3: There’s some cool new features in the next version of Adobe’s mobile testing application …
Geo emulation – emulating GPS location services on devices
Better device profile filtering in the Libraries
Easier process for creating your own profiles (something that just about everyone has asked about at some point!)
SWFPack AIR application for packaging SIS and CAB files
I’m really looking forward to Adobe MAX in a few weeks time, and getting a chance to seeing more of this demonstrated and talked about.
Another video in my series “Developing with Flash Lite” has just been uploaded and is ready for viewing – “Animation in Flash Mobile Applications“. Animation can greatly enhance the user experience of mobile applications, and Adobe Flash, with its roots as an animation tool, has no lack of capability in this area. This episode looks at three methods of creating movement (motion tween, onEnterFrame() and the Tween Class) and how these can impact your Flash mobile application.
In this episode I go through some of the various ActionScript techniques for changing and managing application screens, or views, that you might want to use depending on what you’re building (for example prototypes or production applications).
Posted 06 Jul 2009 — by Dale Category Adobe, Training
The recording from my Adobe eSeminar from last week is now available online. “Creating and Packaging Flash Mobile Applications” is a walk-through of creating and testing apps in Flash CS4 Professional and Device Central CS4, and packaging those apps with Adobe Mobile Packager 1.1 – aimed at developers and designers who are new to mobile. Take a look at the Training section here on my blog for links to other recordings and resources.
I'm currently the Experience Architect and Team Lead for the "Appland" team at Vodafone Hutchison Australia, based in Sydney. Views on this blog are my own and not that of my employer. More about me.
