Flash Enabled: Flash Design and Development for Devices FROM OUR EDITORS
The Barnes & Noble Review
You know Flash is great for creating rich content for web browsers...but how about Flash for Windows Pocket PCs? Cell phones? HDTV? Cable set-top boxes? Sony Playstation 2 games? This is wild stuff -- and you can learn about all of it in only one book.
Flash Enabled covers virtually all the issues you�ll encounter in developing Flash content for non-PC devices -- especially, how to fit your content into minuscule screens and tiny processor and memory footprints. There�s a full chapter on animation for devices (what works well, such as close-ups, and what doesn�t). There�s also excellent coverage of building Flash user interfaces for devices (a fast-growing market opportunity for Flash developers).
The book is especially thorough on Flash development for the Pocket PC (sorry, no Flash Player exists for Palm yet). Here, you�ll find detailed coverage of everything from typography to data loading and processing considerations. Some of this information is applicable to multiple platforms (be careful with gradients; avoid ActionScript�s slow string operations). Other information is platform specific (how to change important Registry settings on the Pocket PC).
When it comes to developing Flash content for devices, some bumps in the road remain. For instance, Flash MX no longer supports the server-side Macromedia Generator authoring that�s covered here, and nobody�s sure when the Playstation 2 Flash Player will be officially released. But mobile rich media is the future, Flash looks like the best way to get there, and this book is the fastest way to get started.
(Bill Camarda)
Bill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2000 and Upgrading & Fixing Networks For Dummies®, Second Edition.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Flash Enabled guides Flash designers & developers in creating content and applications for multiple devices with Flash and other tools. Focusing on the Pocket PC platform, this book also discusses considerations in developing Flash for set-top box systems, cell phones, and lays the foundation for devices such as the Palm. The book targets four main concepts: 1)design/development considerations, 2) creating content once & deploying to many platforms, (including info on using MM Generator to author content in Flash and serve it to Palm Pilots and cell phones that don't yet have Flash Players), 3) creating Flash content for Pocket PC, and 4) application development using Flash integrated with middle-ware. Throughout this book the authors provide guidelines, step-by-step tutorials, workflow, best practices, and case studies.
Author Biography:
Christian Cantrell is a software developer specializing in web-based and network applications. After studying writing at George Mason University in Northern Virginia, Christian began designing and building web-based data collection systems in ColdFusion. For the past two years, he has been integrating Java, Java Server Pages (JSP), Flash, and Generator into various large-scale commercial applications. He is the author of the white paper "Macromedia Generator and Java" posted on Macromedia's online Support Center and is listed as the lead inventor on two pending patents involving user interface design and real-time rich media generation. Most recently, he has turned his attention toward platform-independent development for mobile and embedded devices, concentrating on integrating Flash user interfaces with lightweight Java server software.
Mike Chambers has been creating applications primarily utilizing Flash, Generator, and Java for the past three years. He also has experience working with ASP, JSP, PHP, and ColdFusion. He has spoken about Flash and Generator at various conferences, including Macromedia UCON and FlashForward. He is co-author of Generator and Flash Demystified. Mike received his Masters degree in International Economics and European Studies from the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in 1998. Mike currently works with Macromedia.
Branden Hall, a well-known member of the Flash community, can most often be found regulating on the highly popular Flashcoders (http://hattyfig.figleaf.com) mailing list that he founded over a year ago. He also can often be found speaking at various conferences, teaching, or geeking out one of his many bits of electronics. In his spare time (ha!) he loves playing with Linux, working on the arcade machine he is building, mountain biking, and playing with his lovely wife Patti. Both he and Patti work at Fig Leaf Software in Washington D.C.
Robert M. Hall is currently the Senior Developer for mCom LLC (http://www.mcom8.com/) located in Philadelphia, PA. Robert architects projects and develops ATM machine interfaces, award-winning Internet banking software, and wireless device applications. Robert uses a variety of technologies in his work but his favorite tools of choice are Flash, PHP, and MySQL. Prior to mCom, Robert was a consultant at Citicorp and a web developer for USABancShares.com. Recently, Robert contributed a chapter to Flash MX Magic for New Riders. If Robert is not enjoying the outdoors with his girlfriend, he can be found listening to music, reading, or tinkering with electronics and trying out new technologies. Usually a piece or two of his experiments will wind up on his personal web site: Feasible Impossibilities (http://www.impossibilities.com/).
Andreas Heim is from the small town of Hattenhofen, close to Stuttgart, in Germany, a center of German car engineering. Originally intending to become a professional soccer player, his education took him into the area of media studies and programming. After creating an interactive CD-ROM, his focus shifted from film and video to interactive media. His school required him a six-month internship, which brought him to Smashing Ideas where being a soccer-playing-and-beer-drinking German intern was highly respected. He had so much fun in Seattle that he extended his stay to one year, before deciding to stay permanently. Andreas currently works on all kinds of cutting-edge digital media projects, including bringing Flash to devices. He enjoys his time outside of work snowboarding and playing soccer.
Craig Kroeger creates Flash-friendly, vector-based pixel fonts perfect for large or small screen applications available at http://www.miniml.com. The purpose behind miniml is to encourage functional and beautiful design by providing inspiration and resources. After Craig received his BFA in Communication Design from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, he co-founded Fourm Design Studio. Craig would like to thank his beautiful wife, Jen, for her belief, his friends and family, and those who believe in the true value of design.
Steve "Leo" Leone (http://www.unplug.tv) is currently a freelance illustrator/ designer, and former Art Director of NexusGroup. Prior to joining NexusGroup Leo was Director of New Technology for Braincraft. He holds multiple design awards and has been involved in some of the most innovative Flash projects to date. Leo was a key player on such award-winning projects as USABancShares.com, Mitsubishi Imaging, Space.com's Space Arcade, and Braincraft.com. Recently, Leo co-authored Flash 5 Dynamic Content Studio for Friends of Ed.
Markus Niedermeier is a producer, writer, and director in Munich, Germany, who frequently works on integrated concepts for TV and the Internet. Markus' production experience ranges from multimedia theater to a major network soap opera, from indie DV to high-end 3D animation. For the German Film Awards, he has supervised the production of videos and graphics for the live show, TV broadcast, and web site. With Munich design collective coma2, he has provided content and consulting for leading web clients. Markus wrote and directed Germany's first commercial Flash web-cartoon, animated by Smashing Ideas, for hugely popular "Diddl-Maus". Another collaboration with Smashing Ideas resulted in a Flash-generated cartoon character for a German TV-show pilot by Schwanstein Entertainment.
Bill Perry is a senior consultant at Prosum where he focuses on web design and wireless application development for various clients. With a degree in industrial design, Bill brings with him a discipline in design that has helped him adapt to the changing environment of multimedia over the past seven years. Always wanting to be on the cutting edge of technology, and Flash in particular, Bill found an area in which he can excel-the combination of Flash, Pocket PCs, and wireless connectivity. He put together http://www.pocketpcflash.net as a Flash development resource for Pocket PCs and has received much recognition from this effort. He is a member of Team Macromedia, has spoken at several conferences, is on the advisory board for the Pocket PC Summit, and has been a technical editor for several books. Currently, Bill is exploring alternative uses of Flash applications in wireless Pocket PC environments.
Fred Sharples studied film with an animation emphasis at San Francisco State University. He went on to work at Macromedia as director of the Multimedia Creative Services Department. Fred is the founder of Orange Design, a digital creativity company that specializes in Flash application and game development. Under Fred's direction, Orange helped develop the first Flash user interface for a Sony PlayStation 2 game, the first Flash "dashboard" for a broadband portal with live weather and stock reports, and a Flash user interface for a television set-top box. Orange also created Old Navy's online game collection and, in collaboration with MarchFIRST, also helped develop Barbie Pix, a Flash-based painting program that lets users make online pictures, save them, and send them to friends. Fred has been a speaker at FlashForward New York and San Francisco. Additionally, Fred was a contributing author for the bestselling Flash book Flash Web Design-The Art of Motion Graphics by Hillman Curtis.
Glenn Thomas is one of the founders of Smashing Ideas, a leading digital media services company. Smashing Ideas' projects include the Madonna "Music" Shockwave Single, Email Chess, webcasting the Sydney 2001 Paraolympics, Pocket PC games, and web animation shows, such as Zombie College. He has been involved with Flash since its inception and has spoken at numerous industry conferences. He authored the book Flash Studio Secrets that details innovative ways of using Flash in the real world.
Phillip M. Torrone is director of product development of Fallon Worldwide. Co-author of many books on rich media and mobile devices, Phillip Torrone is a designer, developer, and inventor. From developing applications and hardware for the first PDA, the Apple Newton; to creating the first 100% Flash-based Generator-driven online bank; to creating rich data-driven content for cell phones, devices, and automobiles, Phillip applies his diverse skill set to push the boundaries of current technologies. Recently featured in Wired magazine, Phillip currently sits on the Macromedia Advisory Board and regularly keynotes industry conferences and events around the world. As this book was going to press, Phillip was awarded Microsoft's Most Valuable Professional award in the mobile devices category. This award recognizes a recipient's technical expertise, community spirit, and willingness to share information. Fallon's clients include BMW of North America, And1, Citi, drugstore.com, EDS, Holiday Inn, International Truck and Engine Corp., Lee Company, Microsoft, Nikon, Nordstrom, Nuveen Investments, PBS, Ralston Purina, Starbucks Coffee Company, Timberland, Timex, and United Airlines. In Phillip's spare time he runs flashenabled.com/mobile-a collection of reviews, news, applications, and inventions. The site, which has been featured in Wired, on TechTV and CNN, and hundreds of other places, currently has over three million visitors per month.
Greg Burch is a Software Engineer who specializes in Flash. He is a true advocate of seeing Flash being in everything from your car to your refrigerator. In Greg's most recent project he was a programmer for a company building out an extended Flash Player for a wireless device. He also has a lot of experience with its conventional uses, for things such as web applications and games. Although Greg dabbles in all sorts of programming, his true love is pushing Flash beyond its limits.
Troy Evans is currently the Macromedia Flash Player Product Manager and has served as Product Manager since 1999.
SYNOPSIS
Macromedia's Flash Player allows developers to create content once and then deploy it among many devices. This guide presents step-by-step instructions for using Flash to create multimedia applications, animations, and content for multiple devices and platforms such as Pocket PC, TV, cell phones, and ATMs. A sampling of topics includes typography in Flash for devices, developing Flash content for the Sony PlayStation 2, and using Flash for developing touch-screen kiosks. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
ACCREDITATION
Phillip M. Torrone, Director of Product development of Fallon Worldwide. Co-author of many books on rich media and mobile devices, Phillip Torrone is a designer, developer and inventor. From developing applications and hardware for the first PDA, the Apple Newton; to creating the first 100% Macromedia Flash-based Generator-driven online bank; to creating rich data-driven content for cell phones, devices, and automobiles, Phillip applies his diverse skill set to push the boundaries of current technologies. Recently featured in Wired magazine, Phillip currently sits on the Macromedia Advisory Board and regularly keynotes industry conferences and events around the world.
Fallon's clients include BMW of North America, And1, Citi, drugstore.com, EDS, Holiday Inn, International Truck and Engine Corp., Lee Company, Microsoft, Nikon, Nordstrom, Nuveen Investments, PBS, Ralston Purina, Starbucks Coffee Company, Timberland, Timex, and United Airlines.
In Phillip's spare time he runs flashenabled.com/mobile a collection of reviews, news, applications and inventions. The site has been featured in Wired, TechTV, CNN, and hundreds of other places, the site currently has over 3 million visitors per month.
Branden Hall, a well known member of the Flash community, can most often be found regulating on the highly popular Flashcoders(http://chattyfig.figleaf.com) mailing list that he founded over a year ago. He can also often be found speaking at various conferences, teaching, or geeking out one of his many bits of electronics. In his spare time (ha!) he loves playing with Linux, working on the arcade machine he is building, mountain biking, and playing with his lovely wife Patti. Heworks at Fig Leaf Software in Washington D.C.
Mike Chambers has been creating applications primarily utilizing Flash, Generator and Java for the past three years. He also has experience working with ASP, JSP, PHP and Cold Fusion. He has spoken about Macromedia Flash and Generator at various conferences including Macromedia UCON and FlashForward. He is co-author of Generator and Flash Demystified.Mike received his Masters in International Economics and European Studies from the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in 1998. Mike currently works with Macromedia.
Glenn Thomas is one of the founders of Smashing Ideas, a leading digital media services company. Smashing Ideas' projects include the Madonna "Music" Shockwave Single, Email Chess, webcasting the Sydney 2001 Paralympics, Pocket PC games and web animation shows such as Zombie College. He has been involved with Flash since its inception and has spoken at numerous industry conferences. He authored the book Flash Studio Secrets which details innovative ways of using Flash in the real world.
Phil Scott Tinkering with computer programming since age 10, Phil Scott has had a bit of an early career start, and ended up growing up through a variety of M.I.S. and software development positions. While actively developing expert systems, long-time interests in programming languages, telecommunications and Client/Server business systems propelled this engineer and project manager into the growing frontier of the Internet in early 1995. With the year 2000, and the beginnings of convergence between wireless Internet and portable devices, Phil became enamored with the wireless and wearables movement, and is now insanely geeky with his own wearable creations strapped to his bod. Current interests are Internet Applications, Artificial Intelligence, Flash Technology and Wearable Computing.
Andreas Heim -is from the small town of Hattenhofen, close to Stuttgart, in Germany, a center of German car engineering. originally intending to become a professional soccer player, his education took him into the area of media studies and programming. After created an interactive CD-ROM, his focus shifted from film and video to interactive media. His school required him a six-month internship, which brought him to Smashing Ideas where a being a soccer-playing-and-beer-drinking German intern was highly respected. He had so much fun in Seattle, that he extended his stay to one year, before deciding to stay permanently. Andreas currently works on all kinds of cutting edge digital media projects, including bringing Flash to devices, while enjoying his time outside of work snowboarding and playing soccer.
Fred Sharples studied film with an animation emphasis at San Francisco State University. He went on to work at Macromedia as director of the Multimedia Creative Services Department. Fred is the founder of Orange Design, a digital creativity company that specializes in Flash application and game development. Under Fred's direction, Orange helped develop the first Flash user interface for a Sony Playstation2 game, the first Flash "dashboard" for a broadband portal with live weather and stock reports, and a Flash user interface for a television set-top box. Orange also created Old Navy's online game collection and, in collaboration with MarchFIRST, also helped develop Barbie Pix, a Flash based painting program that lets users make online pictures, save them, and send them to friends. Fred has been a speaker at Flash Forward New York and San Francisco. Additionally, Fred was a contributing author for the best selling Flash book Flash Web Design - The Art of Motion Graphics by Hillman Curtis.
Craig Kroeger: was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where he is one of the four principals of Fourm Design Studio. His personal website features Flash-friendly vector-based pixel fonts perfect for most screen applications, large or small. Craig received his BFA in Communication Design from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design.
Markus Niedermeier is a producer, writer and director in Munich, Germany, who frequently works on integrated concepts for TV and the Internet. Markus' production experience ranges from multimedia theater to major network soap opera, from indie DV to high-end 3D animation. For the German Film Awards, he has supervised the production of videos and graphics for the live show, TV broadcast and web site. With Munich design collective coma2, he has provided content and consulting for leading web clients. Markus wrote and directed Germany's first commercial Flash web-cartoon, animated by Smashing Ideas, for hugely popular 'Diddl-Maus'. Another collaboration with Smashing Ideas resulted in a Flash-generated cartoon character for a German TV-show pilot by Schwanstein Entertainment.
Steve "Leo" Leone Art Director for the Nexus Group & former Director of New Technology for Braincraft, Leo is an award winning designer and has been involved in some of the most innovative Flash/Generator projects to date. Leo was a key member on such projects as USABancShares.com, the world's first all Flash/Generator Online bank. Leo's involvement on other award winning projects such as Mitsubishi Imaging, UPS, Space.com's Space Arcade and Braincraft.com have given him the opportunity to be both a speaker at Macromedia events and conferences as well as a creator of several demo applications used by Macromedia in showcases and training. Recently, Leo co-authored Flash 5 Dynamic Content Studio for Friends of Ed.
Bill Perry is a senior consultant at Prosum where he focuses on web design and wireless application development for various clients. With a degree in industrial design, Bill brings with him a discipline in design which has helped him adapt to the changing environment of multimedia over the past seven years. Always wanting to be on the cutting edge of technology, and Flash in particular, Bill found an area in which he can excel - the combination of Flash, Pocket PCs and wireless connectivity. He put together pocketpcflash.net as a Flash development resource for Pocket PCs and has received much recognition from this effort. He is a member of Team Macromedia, has spoken at Macromedia User Groups, is on the advisory board for the Pocket PC Summit, and has been a technical editor for several books. Currently, Bill is exploring alternative uses of Flash applications in wireless Pocket PC environments.
Christian Cantrell is a software developer who specializes in web-based and network applications. After studying writing at George Mason University in Northern Virginia, Christian began designing and building web-based data collection systems in Cold Fusion. For the last two years, he has been integrating Java, Java Server Pages (JSP), Macromedia Flash and Generator into various large-scale commercial applications. He is the author of the white paper "Macromedia Generator and Java" posted on Macromedia's online Support Center and is listed as the lead inventor on two pending patents involving user interface design and real-time rich media generation. Most recently, he has turned his attention toward platform-independent development for mobile and embedded devices, concentrating on integrating Flash user interfaces with lightweight Java server software.
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