Flash Team

Hey Mike - I had almost forgotten about the lessons that were with 4 and 5 - they were a great tool to get folks started - I remember referring back to them alot myself. I think that part of the appeal is that you dont have to switch environments and thought modes (like flipping back and forth from your screen to a manual or a website tutorial, etc) and this helps your focus remain on the task at hand of learning the tool. I think the stuff you could add with robodemo to enhance this would be great. Custom panels with video and tutorials, along with JSAPI controls of the Flash environment would be really very useful. I see this as a great opportunity to present tutorials and learning/training materials at all skill and experience levels.

If a solid framework for developing this type of material delivery was put together I see a lot of opportunities for third party training delivery on the tool as well.

It would also be helpful for some of the more complex interactions - a perfect example for a good tutorial would be using the data components - if you have ever tried to explain to someone the flow for using and xml connector component with a dataset component to bind to a datagrid and all the various panels - either verbally or by putting together some screenshots and explaining all the places to click - you know the complexities involvedm and that a walkthrough via a video would allow the greatest sense of continuity and cohesive explanation.

I think its a great idea and I for one would welcome its return especially with some new enhancements and capabilities.

Take care,
Rob

hey, I'm in Los Angeles...it would be cool to shoot the breeze with the Flash Team.

Bringing back lessons is a GREAT idea! I think if you kept them simple and interactive like they were in previous versions, that would be cool. But many would like to follow along with them while trying to simulate them with their own document - perhaps make them modular enough to exist as their own panel that can be used as a mini-video teacher. Provide a navigation so user can pause, rewind, fast forward, etc...
I would LOVE to help contribute to any animation lessons if you have the need.

Hey, before heading to Los Angeles next week:

have a look here:

http://www.sephiroth.it/index.php?blogId=2004_08_30_weekly.html

Would be nice if you coiuld pass this to those guy(s) responsible for the latest *bug-fixes* on the v2 components.

*grumbling*

1stpixel

I learned a little bit of Flash in college (Flash 4 had just came out), but REALLY learned how to draw and animate in it from the Lessons in Flash 4 and 5.

I think animated lessons would certainly be interesting, but I think more value is seeing and tinkering with the actual .fla file. That's very useful for beginners, a big key to Flash is just understanding how a file should be set up.

So my vote would be to give them the .fla files (especially in cases where ActionScript is used) and supplement it as much as possible with text or animated presentations.

I use Flash every day and have done so for the last five years. I'm a certified Flash developer and a certified MM instructor. I make my living using Flash in the production world { CD-ROM style development, Flash Remoting, Pocket PC development, straight animation work } and teaching people how to use Flash.

With Flash MX, I felt like the tool had finally reached a point where everyone involved could be proud of what it had become. However, with the latest version, the tool took a major step back. With the hasty release, the lack of documentation, the buggy and SLOW performance, it's clear the focus has been lost. Elipsis was meant to solve these issues but I've had more headaches since the updater. Slideshows + CuePoints + Updater = 8 hours of troubleshooting. Also, why on earth should existing remoting documents BREAK when updating to the latest components. They all break.

The point of this rant is this - the new version of Flash should only add features that are rock solid. Adding features like timeline effects - what does that actually add? Nearly every student laughs when they see the output of that feature. Not exactly the response the developers want.

Make the release svelt. Make it sing again. Also, drop the product split - it's confusing to the customer and puts the features in the wrong versions. Why wouldn't slideshows be available in the non-Pro version? Who do you think needs that feature the most?

While I'm at it - here is a request. Make the standalone PPC player available to everyone. I wholly believe the market is untapped simply because there is a $500 roadblock. Most companies don't want to pay that cost so they avoid the technology altogether.

I believe Flash is a technology that can be the center of rich media's future. The things we can do with the tool now compared to a few years back is amazing. I just want to enjoy it again. Good luck with the upcoming release.

Bring Back The Lessons! They were great, made sense and I actually used them.
Thanks for reading this

Examining how .FLA files have been put together first-hand has been crucial to my understanding Flash and seeing what is truly possible. I have also have experience in Robodemo, which I think is a subpar Macromedia application, and while it would be useful to offer tutorials in this app, the FLA's so much more valuable.

Background: The first version I used was UltraDev 4 on a Mac G4. Embarrassing as it is to admit, I never did figure out the Generator feature of UltraDev. The explanations for Generator (and just about every other feature) were aimed at Win users.

REQUEST #1: PLEASE make sure that all instructions are tested by someone using a Mac -- there are a few things that work differently on Macs, and it's *incredibly* discouraging to waste time "translating" from Win-based instructions. Most explanations cover both Mac and Win; however, when this doesn't occur, it's very frustrating.

LEARNING ABOUT ActionSCRIPT: I don't know how many other Flash users share my aversion to earlier programming languages like Fortran and BASIC (circa 1976)... but I'd sworn off *ever* writing code for any purpose, in any language, on any sort of machine. Then... I saw ActionScript. (When I first purchased Flash, I had no idea this was an element of the software.)

In other words, I thought that I was buying this cool thing that would allow me to create animations -- now, here I am several years later trying to think through developing RIAs and other mini-apps. I can't be the only non-programmer who loves working with Flash so much that we want to keep learning about it.... but I find that the learning is now waaayyyyy beyond the earlier phase of "draw a circle." Now, I have to think about how to store that circle, where else I may want to use it, what to link it to... in other words, the complexity has increased many-fold. As a result, I suspect that more users -- new and otherwise -- will require more "conceptual knowledge" over and above the type of user instructions that were adequate for older, simpler versions of the software. Components are a good example of this -- you need some conceptual background to tackle these, whereas when I started using Flash, it was quite easy to simply click on the circle tool and draw a circle.

REQUEST #2: Please include CONCEPTUAL explanations in your presentations and documentation. BTW: I've found Phillip Kerman's 'ActionScripting in Flash MX' to be especially helpful in trying to figure out ActionScript and it's myriad possibilities. I've thought about why I seem to like this book, and I suspect that its because he provides CONCEPTUAL knowledge in the early chapters. He uses lots of clear analogies, which I have found quite helpful. Puttering around with FLA files is certainly part of the Flash learning experience, but somewhere it's important to stumble on a good explanation of the Big Picture: what should I learn first? How is this related to that other task?

I find that without CONCEPTUAL explanations (as background), I can't generate the sort of mental models that I need to become proficient with a tool as complex as Flash. I think most users need a conceptual framework within which to integrate new info. (My analogy would be that I need to have a good foundation before the 2 x 4s go up in building new synapses to store all this new knowledge.)

REQUEST #3: RoboHelp Demos would be great -- if you do them, here a few features that I'd find quite helpful:

(1) an "estimated time" about how long I should expect to spend on a tutorial. (e.g., "10 to 20 minutes" is more manageable than an hour.)

(2) a related FLA file, to mull over later - perhaps even coming back to the demo a second or third time after investigating the FLA file.

(3) some simple (optional) Q&A questions at the end of a Demo, so that I "self-test" (to be confident that I understand the critical decisions (or sequence of actions involved in reproducing the task). That way, I can be sure that I correctly undertand what I just viewed in the demo... Because it's not unusual for me to "think/assume" that I understood something, and then run into trouble when I reproduce it on my own. It would be nice to be able to run through a sequence, or list, to be sure that I'm on the right track.

Background: The first version I used was UltraDev 4 on a Mac G4. Embarrassing as it is to admit, I never did figure out the Generator feature of UltraDev. The explanations for Generator (and just about every other feature) were aimed at Win users.

REQUEST #1: PLEASE make sure that all instructions are tested by someone using a Mac -- there are a few things that work differently on Macs, and it's *incredibly* discouraging to waste time "translating" from Win-based instructions. Most explanations cover both Mac and Win; however, when this doesn't occur, it's very frustrating.

LEARNING ABOUT ActionSCRIPT: I don't know how many other Flash users share my aversion to earlier programming languages like Fortran and BASIC (circa 1976)... but I'd sworn off *ever* writing code for any purpose, in any language, on any sort of machine. Then... I saw ActionScript. (When I first purchased Flash, I had no idea this was an element of the software.)

In other words, I thought that I was buying this cool thing that would allow me to create animations -- now, here I am several years later trying to think through developing RIAs and other mini-apps. I can't be the only non-programmer who loves working with Flash so much that we want to keep learning about it.... but I find that the learning is now waaayyyyy beyond the earlier phase of "draw a circle." Now, I have to think about how to store that circle, where else I may want to use it, what to link it to... in other words, the complexity has increased many-fold. As a result, I suspect that more users -- new and otherwise -- will require more "conceptual knowledge" over and above the type of user instructions that were adequate for older, simpler versions of the software. Components are a good example of this -- you need some conceptual background to tackle these, whereas when I started using Flash, it was quite easy to simply click on the circle tool and draw a circle.

REQUEST #2: Please include CONCEPTUAL explanations in your presentations and documentation. BTW: I've found Phillip Kerman's 'ActionScripting in Flash MX' to be especially helpful in trying to figure out ActionScript and it's myriad possibilities. I've thought about why I seem to like this book, and I suspect that its because he provides CONCEPTUAL knowledge in the early chapters. He uses lots of clear analogies, which I have found quite helpful. Puttering around with FLA files is certainly part of the Flash learning experience, but somewhere it's important to stumble on a good explanation of the Big Picture: what should I learn first? How is this related to that other task?

I find that without CONCEPTUAL explanations (as background), I can't generate the sort of mental models that I need to become proficient with a tool as complex as Flash. I think most users need a conceptual framework within which to integrate new info. (My analogy would be that I need to have a good foundation before the 2 x 4s go up in building new synapses to store all this new knowledge.)

REQUEST #3: RoboHelp Demos would be great -- if you do them, here a few features that I'd find quite helpful:

(1) an "estimated time" about how long I should expect to spend on a tutorial. (e.g., "10 to 20 minutes" is more manageable than an hour.)

(2) a related FLA file, to mull over later - perhaps even coming back to the demo a second or third time after investigating the FLA file.

(3) some simple (optional) Q&A questions at the end of a Demo, so that I "self-test" (to be confident that I understand the critical decisions (or sequence of actions involved in reproducing the task). That way, I can be sure that I correctly undertand what I just viewed in the demo... Because it's not unusual for me to "think/assume" that I understood something, and then run into trouble when I reproduce it on my own. It would be nice to be able to run through a sequence, or list, to be sure that I'm on the right track.

Background: The first version I used was UltraDev 4 on a Mac G4. Embarrassing as it is to admit, I never did figure out the Generator feature of UltraDev. The explanations for Generator (and just about every other feature) were aimed at Win users.

REQUEST #1: PLEASE make sure that all instructions are tested by someone using a Mac -- there are a few things that work differently on Macs, and it's *incredibly* discouraging to waste time "translating" from Win-based instructions. Most explanations cover both Mac and Win; however, when this doesn't occur, it's very frustrating.

LEARNING ABOUT ActionSCRIPT: I don't know how many other Flash users share my aversion to earlier programming languages like Fortran and BASIC (circa 1976)... but I'd sworn off *ever* writing code for any purpose, in any language, on any sort of machine. Then... I saw ActionScript. (When I first purchased Flash, I had no idea this was an element of the software.)

In other words, I thought that I was buying this cool thing that would allow me to create animations -- now, here I am several years later trying to think through developing RIAs and other mini-apps. I can't be the only non-programmer who loves working with Flash so much that we want to keep learning about it.... but I find that the learning is now waaayyyyy beyond the earlier phase of "draw a circle." Now, I have to think about how to store that circle, where else I may want to use it, what to link it to... in other words, the complexity has increased many-fold. As a result, I suspect that more users -- new and otherwise -- will require more "conceptual knowledge" over and above the type of user instructions that were adequate for older, simpler versions of the software. Components are a good example of this -- you need some conceptual background to tackle these, whereas when I started using Flash, it was quite easy to simply click on the circle tool and draw a circle.

REQUEST #2: Please include CONCEPTUAL explanations in your presentations and documentation. BTW: I've found Phillip Kerman's 'ActionScripting in Flash MX' to be especially helpful in trying to figure out ActionScript and it's myriad possibilities. I've thought about why I seem to like this book, and I suspect that it's because he provides conceptual explanations in the early chapters. He uses clear analogies, which I have found quite helpful. Puttering around with FLA files is certainly part of the Flash learning experience, but somewhere it's important to stumble on a good explanation of the Big Picture: what should I learn first? How is this related to that other task?

I find that without CONCEPTUAL explanations (as background), I can't generate the sort of mental models that I need to become proficient with a tool as complex as Flash. I think most users need a conceptual framework within which to integrate new info. (My analogy would be that I need to have a good foundation before the 2 x 4s go up in building new synapses to store all this new knowledge.)

REQUEST #3: RoboHelp Demos would be great -- if you do them, here a few features that I'd find quite helpful:

(1) an "estimated time" about how long I should expect to spend on a tutorial. (e.g., "10 to 20 minutes" is more manageable than an hour.)

(2) a related FLA file, to mull over later - perhaps even coming back to the demo a second or third time after investigating the FLA file.

(3) some simple (optional) Q&A questions at the end of a Demo, so that I "self-test" (to be confident that I understand the critical decisions (or sequence of actions involved in reproducing the task). That way, I can be sure that I correctly undertand what I just viewed in the demo... Because it's not unusual for me to "think/assume" that I understood something, and then run into trouble when I reproduce it on my own. It would be nice to be able to run through a sequence, or list, to be sure that I'm on the right track.

Prom Gown-Prom Dress-Bridal Gown Directory offers wide range of carefully selected web sites about what we value most: Prom Gowns, Prom Dresses, Bridal Gowns, Bridal Dresses and more. You are welcome to browse categories that interest you most and visit sites that we selected. The directory is now at its seed stage and growing fast. Welcome to Prom Gown-Prom Dress-Bridal Gown