Flash Catalyst
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- airey0
yeah, i've had a play. for designers wanting to get into flash it seems pretty good. AS and flash purist's will no doubt disagree but they're generally a bunch of cunts anyway.
- noiseisthis0
its all about flash mx 2004 and AS1.0 :D
- FredMcWoozy0
this just for demo purposes only? I wonder why adobe doesnt do their own version of site grinder.
- MrT0
I wonder why he says 'beta' like 'Vader' as in Darth.
It's such a chore being English.
- CyBrain0
That extremely quick shot of the code that gets generated looks like some kind of mark up language and nothing like any version actionscript. That would concern me if I wanted to go to code view (sort of like Dreamweaver)
I think this is an overcompensation for how far they took Flash out of Designers' hands when they went to Actionscript 3. If they came up with a version of actionscript that built on AS2 and not a complete spleen-busting overhaul, they wouldn't be in the position of trying to win so many people back.
I know that's opening a can of worms, but you have to admit, a lot of people find AS3 unapproachable.
- My flash bud had a conniption fit when AS3 came out. He couldn't understand why.FredMcWoozy
- I guess AS2 is completely different then AS3.FredMcWoozy
- yep, like a new language. most of the fundamentals are completely different.airey
- but much better once you get the hang of it. many of the irritations of as2 got fixed, but yes, very intimidating to people coming from as2.jpea
- I just finished my first site in AS3 and learned a lot but trying to target MCs is an inexact science at best.CyBrain
- airey0
yeah, i think it's a great bridge for designers from photoshop to a fully functioning site that works with advanced needs (relatively speaking of course), with small budgets. unlike a sitegrinder kind of thing, which is a downloadable turd.
if anything it'll possibly give flash a little boost as many people have used the advancements of jquery/moo tools to create sites that would probably have been only in the realm of flash a few years ago.
or not.
- adev0
Those demo videos are misleading, big time.
Does anyone notice the designer is making a Sushi Finder that looks like it's supposed to work in multiple cities? And she's supposed to be making a finished product?
Yet if you look at her "files" they'd only work on Hamachi, and only Seattle, WA. It looks like you'd have to duplicate some of that artwork over and over just for the little arrow tabs on the menu to sit on the different categories of sushi. And what about that map/google map? Is that static. I kind of doubt there's a function in FC to import google maps data. That means a developer has to go into there and edit the code FC created to add scrolling maps and probably zip code lookups, restaurant searching, etc.
Everyone knows editing program generated code is a nightmare -- just look at most WYSIWYG HTML code!
It's a neat idea, and may work for certain small tasks, but it looks to me like it'd really only be good for prototyping. It's kinda like using Dreamweaver's PHP/ASP functions to connect to a database and pull in data. Great if you don't know how to really do it, but annoying, bloated and un-editable if you do.
Can't wait to see Adobe Flash Catalyst on job skill requirements. Actually I bet it's already on a few...
- hang on, back up there. you mean i can't believe advertising? what about the mcdonald burger photos!?!airey
- airey0
true about the complex code but as it's within flash, it will probably mean the difference between a 4 and 6 second loading time and if the studio that employs catalyst are happy to just use that than bad code is irrelevant. obviously bad css/xhtml/html can be dire but within flash the code can do whatever it likes. in fact it would probably make sure that it doesn't make errors like many noob AS peeps such as constantly running sprites, scripts that compete with each other, runtime errors, etc. it would mean a dumbed down version and many awesome advanced scripted events wouldn't be available but you'd just outsource that anyway.
also, if this makes itself able to easily use xml or a content management system then i'd guess plenty of studios currently not doing web as much would up the services.
- WeLoveNoise0
is it just a simplified version of Flash i take it ?
- not really. it's hard to explain. an AIR application that build swf is probably truer.airey
- ah okWeLoveNoise
- rock&roll0
I've been using Catalyst for a wile and its a pretty dope app for quickly doing interactive IA's for clients and such. More importantly its meant to tightly integrate into flash builder 4 and the Flex 4 framework. The tool is meant to bridge the gap between PS Flash and Builder. We mainly use it to skin components and build simple prototypes that we hand of to our developers which then use the core assets and strip away the unneeded or redundant code. Beta 2 has added allot of great features.
- BIGGESTDOGINTHEWORLD0
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Played with it, just felt like it was made for developers rather than designers... meaning it was made by developers to make their job easier but not necessarily to make a better end product.Bet things made with it run fucking dogshit too, the Flash team is so far off the mark these days I doubt they will ever get back on course
- by developers i mean the lazy flash dev types, not the miniscule % of talented onesBIGGESTDOGINTHEWORLD
- maximillion_0
rock&roll gets the point of it and a few other miss it completely
- CyBrain0
So, this is for designers that don't know much Actionscript who want to present to clients or internally just to quicky demonstrate functionality or maybe some animation, then once you get approval, you can hand it off to a serious developer who probably uses Flashbuilder/Flex. That person strips out the code and uses the rest as a skeleton to start coding from scratch.
Does that sound about right?
- hallelujah0
people try to do too much with flash anyway, you can make a lot of sites with a toolbox of a few basic components
- plash0
This video demonstration reminds me of Macromedia Director. anyone know if catalyst supports Lingo ?