iamdeepa on flex http://iamdeepa.com/blog ruminations on technology Fri, 27 Aug 2010 07:03:42 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.3 en Exciting Developments with Hero http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=68 http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=68#comments Fri, 27 Aug 2010 07:03:42 +0000 admin http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=68 I’d like to share some exciting developments with the Hero release (codename for the next version of the Flex SDK).

The Hero release development practices have changed some from the Flex 4 release. The biggest change is that the Hero release is built atop the latest (and as of yet, unreleased) Flash Player and AIR runtimes. Because of this tight coupling, we have been unable to provide nightly builds that showcase in-development Flash Player and AIR features. Once the current in-development Flash Player and AIR runtimes are showcased in a public release, Hero nightly builds will resume. In the interim, we are releasing semi-regular stable builds that showcase Hero feature work not dependent on features under development in the latest Flash Player and AIR runtimes. The first of such builds has been posted!

This build showcases in-development work like the Spark DataGrid (Tier 1), Spark Image, Spark Form, enhancements to RSLs, OSMF 1.0 integration and the SWF Size Report compiler option. Please download the build and play with the features and provide us feedback through JIRA.

Next, we have announced our first Hero Open Source Iteration meeting! This meeting is a gathering of the product team and the Flex community where we share work that has been completed in past Hero iterations as well as discuss whats in store for upcoming iterations. The first meeting will be on October 1, 2010. You can find more details here.

And lastly, a bunch of new Hero feature specifications have been posted! This includes:

We are eager for feedback through commenting on feature specifications and filing bugs in JIRA.
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]]> http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=68 Wow! Wow! Wow! http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=67 http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=67#comments Thu, 26 Aug 2010 06:16:01 +0000 admin http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=67 Folks, live-blogging from Day 2 keynote at the Flash Platform Summit, Bangalore. Gotta say, I’m blown away by the absolute success of this event - over 1500 attendees have attended both days to hear all about Flash & Flex development and design. Big props to the Adobe India Flash Platform Evangelism team for putting together such a dope event!

I’ve always known the Flash & Flex community in India was vibrant, passionate and super smart. I finally got to experience this in person. I presented two jam-packed sessions: ‘Deep-dive into Flex 4 & Spark’ as well as ‘Flex & Flash Performance Tips & Tricks’.  The turnout was phenomenal and boy did the audience keep me on my toes with tough questions :)

Additionally, I’ve seen some amazing Flex apps demo’ed by Indian SI’s, design shops and Flex agencies. These are apps built with Flex 3 as well as Flex 4 - its heartening to see the interest and adoption of Flex 4 and Spark in the Indian community.

Rock on Flex India!

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]]> http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=67 Speaking at Adobe Flash Platform Summit, Bangalore, 2010 http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=66 http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=66#comments Wed, 18 Aug 2010 04:54:21 +0000 admin http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=66 Folks - On Friday, I’m taking off on a jet plane…to Bangalore to meet some Flex customers and speak at a couple of sessions at the Adobe Flash Platform Summit. I am *beyond* excited to meet developers, customers and Flex/Flash enthusiasts in India!

After the summit, I will be heading out on my sabbatical. A 3 week break from Flex, but I will be back online and rearing to go by mid-September.

Hold down the fort guys, k?

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]]> http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=66 Friends: They Keep It Real http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=65 http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=65#comments Mon, 02 Aug 2010 15:52:13 +0000 admin http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=65 Apologies, non-Flex post, but I had to share since this really made me laugh for like 5 minutes this morning.

You may have noticed I swapped my bio picture out (below) on my blog from a very “I’m tired at the NY subway station at 4 AM photo” for my new corporate headshot. (Yes, in my new role, I now have a corporate headshot). I just did this little picture-swap this weekend. I woke up this morning to find this email in my Inbox, from my good friend and co-author, Doug McCune.

Subject: dear miss high powered management woman

Attachment: deepa.jpg

Body: You don’t fool me.

Man, that really made my Monday (for realsies)!

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]]> http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=65 New Flex 4/Spark online training program http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=64 http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=64#comments Thu, 15 Jul 2010 20:58:05 +0000 admin http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=64 I just wanted to plug an awesome new online training program specifically for creating Spark components and Spark item renderers. The training course covers a broad overview of Spark component and item renderer architecture and walks you through best practices and examples so that you understand exactly how to take advantage of the new functionality provided in Spark. I highly recommend taking this if you’re new to Spark and unsure of how to get your hands dirty.

More information here.

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]]> http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=64 Flex SDK 4 & Flash Builder 4 Updates Now Available! http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=63 http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=63#comments Thu, 01 Jul 2010 06:36:11 +0000 admin http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=63 The Flex team is very excited to announce the release of Flex SDK 4.1 and Flash Builder 4.0.1 which are available for download today!  Flex SDK 4.1 is an update to Flex 4 and includes:

  • Support for mirroring layouts and text in order to support right-to-left- locales. The goal of this new feature is to trivialize the work involved to re-purpose Flex applications designed for left-to-right locales for deployment in right-to-left locales.
  • Native support for Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2.
  • Critical bugfixes and enhancement requests.

To support this new SDK, Flash Builder has shipped an update which lets developers target Flex SDK 4.1 (as well as support applications that target AIR 2). Additionally, the Flash Builder 4.0.1 update contains critical bugfixes. You can grab the Flash Builder 4.0.1 updater here.

Finally, be sure to check out newly shared information about the next release of the Flex SDK (code-named: Hero)!

Sincerely,
Deepa Subramaniam & Andrew Shorten
Flex SDK & Flash Builder Product Managers

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]]> http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=63 Introducing…Hero! http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=62 http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=62#comments Thu, 01 Jul 2010 06:35:28 +0000 admin http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=62 It is with great pleasure that we introduce to you the next release of the Flex SDK, code-named Hero. The Hero release has three main themes:

  • Multi-Screen Development: Allow developers to build applications that target the web, desktop or mobile devices using a single unified framework.
  • Spark Maturation: Polish and grow the Spark architecture by adding new Spark components and capabilities.
  • Large-Application Development: Support developers building large applications by improving fundamental Flex infrastructure pieces.

What’s even more exciting is that these three themes are being satisfied by taking advantage of new features in the next generation Flash Player and AIR runtimes. As those runtimes become publicly available, you will be able to download Hero builds and exercise in-development Hero features in order to learn and provide feedback.

Let’s dive into more detail for each of these themes.

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]]> http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=62 FITC San Francisco 2010 http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=61 http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=61#comments Mon, 28 Jun 2010 17:51:28 +0000 admin http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=61 One of my absolute favorite Flash conferences is coming to my beloved city! FITC San Francisco is August 17th - 19th in beautiful, sunny, joyous SF. Even more exciting is that this will be my first time speaking at an FITC event! Yes, me, a Flex die-hard, will be speaking at a pure Flash conference :) I’ll be talking all about how Flex 4 and Spark let you build beautiful Flex content. I’ll also be covering some of the developments in the Flex framework that allow you to build multiscreen applications. My session description and details are here - I would love to see you there!

If you’ve never been to an FITC event before, let me tell you - they are awesome. You can hob-nob with some of the greatest Flash and ActionScript developers in the world as well as get significant face-time with Adobe engineers and product managers (so its really THE best time to slip in your favorite feature requests, especially at the after parties).

Early bird pricing for FITC San Francisco 2010 ends on July 2nd (this week!) so don’t lollygag and get your tickets NOW. You can use the code “Deepa” for an extra 10% off!

Be there, or be square.

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]]> http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=61 Exciting Announcements out of Google I/O http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=60 http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=60#comments Fri, 21 May 2010 18:01:15 +0000 admin http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=60 The past couple of days marks some serious excitement for Adobe and the Flash Platform! We announced the public beta of Flash Player 10.1 and the availability of a developer pre-release of AIR for Android. Additionally, we are providing extensions to Dreamweaver for HTML5 support and we discussed our intentions for Flash Player 10.1 for Google TV. The announcement I am most excited about is the public beta of Flash Player 10.1. SO much work went in to reducing memory consumption, optimizing performance and improving rendering for devices (ie: flash content responding to landscape mode, multitouch, etc). The Flash Player blog has a *must read* article describing the investments made and the gains received with Flash Player 10.1. Check it out! I hope you’re just as excited as I am for these announcements - I can’t wait to get FroYo on all my Android devices and continue playing around with Flash and AIR.

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]]> http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=60 Interested in joining the Flex team? http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=59 http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=59#comments Tue, 18 May 2010 17:35:23 +0000 admin http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=59 Hi Community!

We have a few job openings on the Flex framework team, both on the desktop related features as well as on the new mobile initiatives. Its very exciting and cutting edge work! The openings are in both the development engineer as well as quality engineer categories. So, if you’ve ever been interested in working on the Flex team, now is your chance. I can personally vouch for the awesomeness of the Flex team as well as Adobe :)

Ideally we are looking to fill these positions in our Waltham, MA office or in our San Franciso/San Jose, CA offices, but interested folks working outside of those areas should still apply. If you’re interested in learning more information, email me directly at: dsubrama at adobe dot com.

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]]> http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=59 Heading to China for the Adobe Flash Platform Summit http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=56 http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=56#comments Sun, 04 Apr 2010 20:30:30 +0000 admin http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=56 I am super excited that in a couple of weeks, I will be in Beijing to speak at the Adobe Flash Platform Summit. China is seeing HUGE growth with Flash and Flex with usage of our frameworks and tools in the enterprise, multi-media, gaming and consumer markets. I will be giving 3 sessions:

  • Understanding the Flex 4 Framework (An overview of the changes and new capabilities brought out with Flex 4)
  • Tackling Memory & Performance in Flex, Flash & AIR (Tips & tricks on how to optimize and fine-tune performance in your applications, including SWF size, startup time, runtime performance and memory consumption)
  • Lab: Application Development with Flash Catalyst & Flash Builder (My first hands-on lab ever! We will walk through the basic capabilities of Flash Builder and Flash Catalyst)

I am really looking forward to meeting with Flex & Flash developers and customers in China!

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]]> http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=56 Mirroring layouts in Flex http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=55 http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=55#comments Fri, 02 Apr 2010 17:06:40 +0000 admin http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=55 Now that Flex 4 is out the door, don’t be fooled into thinking the Flex SDK team is resting on their laurels! We are planning a followup release to Flex 4 which should come out in the first half of 2010. This release will include support for Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2 as well as contain some new feature work and critical bugfixes.

The feature I’m most excited about is the new “layout mirroring” feature. This feature allows developers to mirror their layouts for right-to-left locales. The intent of this feature is to trivialize repurposing a Flex UI designed for a left-to-right language (like English or French) for a right-to-left language (like Hebrew or Arabic).

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]]> http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=55 Flex 4 and Flash Builder 4 have left the building! http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=54 http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=54#comments Mon, 22 Mar 2010 04:51:57 +0000 admin http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=54 On behalf of everyone on the Flex and Flash Builder product teams, it is with great pride that we can announce that the final versions of Flex 4 SDK and Flash Builder 4 are available for download today!.

We’ve been working hard on these releases to make the Flash Platform the best RIA development platform ever and one that you can confidently bet on when you are asked to create your next generation applications.

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]]> http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=54 Flex advanced data visualization components now part of the FREE open source Flex SDK! http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=53 http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=53#comments Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:23:11 +0000 admin http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=53 I just wanted to blog about an announcement I made at the 360Flex San Jose keynote on Monday morning. I announced that currently, the advanced data visualization components (Advanced DataGrid, OLAP DataGrid and all the charting components and libraries) are now part of the free open source Flex SDK offering! No longer do you need a Flash Builder Professional license to use those components - they are now part of the standard SDK offering. So go forth and code!

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]]> http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=53 360Flex - Keynote and Conference Sessions! http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=52 http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=52#comments Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:45:33 +0000 admin http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=52 I am super excited for the kickoff of 360Flex San Jose on Monday, including my Monday morning keynote! This will be the first ever keynote I will deliver and this keynote is what I have been eating, drinking and sleeping the past couple of days. True to 360Flex keynote fashion, we will have two videos made by the Flex SDK team to unveil. I’ll post the videos to youtube after the conference is over.

Additionally, I have a session on Tuesday morning titled: “Whats New in Flex 4 that is NOT Spark!”. This session will focus on the features and capabilities added to Flex 4 that are not directly related to the new Spark component and skinning architecture.

If you’re coming to 360Flex, please come and say hi in person!

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]]> http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=52 Update to SDK 3.5 Released http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=50 http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=50#comments Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:05:58 +0000 admin http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=50 I just wanted to make sure everyone was aware that we have posted an update to the Flex 3.5 SDK that went out in December. This update addresses a critical bug with the AIR auto-updater UI (SDK-24766). The fix has been posted in a rebuild of the 3.5 SDK called 3.5a and can be found here (under the Latest Milestone Release Builds table).

We encourage all developers using the 3.5 SDK to updgrade to 3.5a for continued development. The fix that went into this updated build does not affect the signing and caching of the 3.5 RSLs that went out with the original 3.5 SDK in December.

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]]> http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=50 A New Year, A New Role http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=49 http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=49#comments Tue, 02 Feb 2010 03:29:33 +0000 admin http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=49 I am incredibly thrilled to share some news with you guys. After some soul-searching and pondering I’ve decided to move from my Lead Computer Scientist role on the Flex SDK engineering team and join the Flex Product Management team to work as a Product Manger focusing on the Flex SDK. I am sure somewhere out in the virtual world, money is being exchanged by certain friends and cohorts since this seems like a natural move for me (and one based on precedence if you remember the early career of Matt Chotin :)).

So officially starting today, I have joined the Flex PM team and am focusing on the feature set and future of the Flex SDK. Matt, as well as Vera Carr, are continuing on within the Flex PM team as well.

I am incredibly thrilled and jazzed to move into this new role as it builds nicely on the engineering background I have (over 6 years on Flex!) as well as opening doors to meet new customers, encounter awesome Flex projects and really help shape the future of such an innovative and successful family of products like Flex.

As part of my new role, I openly welcome feedback and thoughts from the Flex community. Don’t hesitate to email me directly: dsubrama at adobe dot com.

And with that, onwards to the release of Flex 4!

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]]> http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=49 Flex User Study Underway http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=48 http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=48#comments Tue, 22 Dec 2009 22:50:56 +0000 admin http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=48 Flex users: We have a Flex User study underway that will immensely help us in planning the next couple of versions of Flex. We are taking the results of this survey super seriously - so please, spend a few minutes taking the survey here.

There will be prizes for survey takers (sorry, at this time this is North America only) which include:

  • One Apple 64 GB iPod Touch
  • One Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5K 9 MP Digital Camera with 10x zoom
  • One of two $250 gift cards from Amazon
  • One of five $100 gift cards from Amazon

Please help us out by taking the survey - your responses are greatly valued!

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]]> http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=48 My Top 10 albums of 2009 http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=47 http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=47#comments Thu, 17 Dec 2009 19:17:38 +0000 admin http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=47 Let me be frank - there is nothing Flex or Flash related in this post.

Every year around this time, my friends and I compile a list of our favorite ten or fifteen albums of the year and share (and then gloat when Pitchfork, cokemachineglow and others have similar rankings to our own). Normally I compile this list and send around random emails to friends and fellow audiophiles, but this year I thought it might be nice to actually use my blog to share some meaningful (to me) thoughts that were not Adobe related. [Yes, I have those once in awhile].

I can’t say it was a stellar year for new music, but for every Miley Cyrus and Lady Gaga album sold, others were creating truly inspired, moving and fun music. Several of the albums below were therapeutic for me as I moseyed through work and life this past year. Its nice to think through the various highs and lows of the year and reminisce about the music involved…kind of like the soundtrack of my past year.

So, with that, let me present to you my top TEN albums of 2009.

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]]> http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=47 Its a bird…its a plane…its OUR PM CHECKING IN CODE! http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=46 http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=46#comments Sat, 05 Dec 2009 00:37:06 +0000 admin http://iamdeepa.com/blog/?p=46 Yes, you read it here. Matt Chotin, Product Manager to the stars (of Flex) has…ahem…CHECKED IN CODE!

Exhibit A: [svn:fx-trunk] 12569: 9 new sample themes and an update to the wireframe theme (Author: mchotin) 

What is this, the first code checkin in 3 years?

We are proud of you Matt! Keep the coding skills sharp!

Does this mean I can now transfer some of my bugs to you?

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