[FlashMove]

Thanks for those who have participated in the FSUG 2nd event for 2007.
The presenters gave very insightful tips on how to use the latest inventions of air, flash cs3 and flex!
The presenter Arul did a synposis on the after session here.

Now, we love to get some feedback from the FSUG members on what you think we be good to have on the next session!

Pease give your vote your post whatever interests you here!
Thanks for the vote!

[miumiu]

Hi, I think the session was cool. Learn a few things about AIR and flex.

As a designer, I went to the session hoping to learn about AIR and flex, in a way of how to improve the design work much more efficiently, esp in term of user interface design or interface development(like transition and interaction , etc). However, it was not well covered in that area. Most of the introduction is given to the coding developement which I feel that I am in the wrong context. Which I also think the students may feel lost at times.

Maybe in the future session, it should briefly describe what will be discussed and share, and audience it is targeting to( maybe like only designer, or novice programmer and etc.)

Designer is another breed of people actually. Thus, if you are able to show more cool stuff about coding, it will arouse more designer interest towards coding. Maybe coding cool stuff like programming art from people like Joshua Davis or Yugop. It is a great gel between design and code.

http://www.apple.com/pro/profiles/trafik/
Things like this will arouse the interest of designer or people who like to touch on programming initially.And that is what the flash is initially build for - the artist, illustrator and designer. Introducing database, API and table stuff is quite hard to swallow.

My 2 cents worth.

Nevertheless, it is great to learn that there is a lot of avid flash programmer. It is great to know you guys.

Cheers

[Shunjie]

These are a few topics I can present in the future. =)

1) Introduction to FlashLite Applications
2) More AIR - Drag and Drop, FileSystem and SQLite
3) From AS2 to AS3 - See the Differences
4) Flex Databinding Techniques
5) More AIR 2 - Signing your application and doing Automatic Updates
6) Introduction to Flex Charting
7) Using AS3 Flickr Library - get ur Frob and Tokens
8) Flex - Styling, Skinning, CSS and embedding your fonts, graphics
9) Creating Mashup with Actionscript 3.0

Topics that I will like to hear

1) Flex Architecture with Cairgorm
2) Flash Design Patterns with PixLib
3) Animation using Fuse
4) PV3D
5) Modularizing your Flex applications and application domains in Flex
6) Flex Data Services
7) Combining Flash and After Effects
8) Fisix Engine
9) Flash Video Techniques
10) Flash Media Server

Cheers,
Shunjie

By the way Flashmech has also posted the summary of his presentation at
http://blog.flashmech.net

[x[E]nOn]

I did not attend the recent session. But I did attend the session before this. So what I am going to write is based on the previous session.

Throughout the session, I have found that it was merely introducing features or possibilities that flash has. At there, I have been told that Flash has this component, flash could do this, Flash has this new cool thing and Flash has this and that.
But all these possibilities that Flash has, could be read over the internet. We could simply spend 15mins of our time after work, google 'Flash', and we can read those that were introduced in the few hours.

I find that the session could be more helpful in someways. Say for the session that I had attended. Flash remoting was introduced. So, oh great. For one moment, I thought I am going to know how to do Flash remoting. But I felt disappointed for the next. The speaker has been telling us that we could download this library, do this and do that, 'write something that connects this to that' and something so that 'that could send back to this'.
During the session, there was also another talk which some of the new features of Flash CS3 was introduced. This one took close to or more than an hour.

If the entire session was meant to tell the possiblities of Flash, the true purpose and power of this Flash User Group is not unleashed. Let's just google 'Flash CS3' and we will know how much possiblities Flash has.

During the Flash Remoting talk, wouldn't it be better if the speaker could really demonstrate a simple Flash remoting example for people who are new to understand the concept behind it? Typing out the codes and explaining them. And for the new features of CS3, instead of showing how we can move the menus to the side in the Flash interface, wouldn't it be better to show the difference of AS2 and AS3? Differences like say the new AVM, using Display List in AS3, AS2 VS AS3 syntax(type out instead of verbal explanation), etc.

If all these were meant to be figured out and read by ourselves after the session, then...wouldn't it be better for us to just get an Actionscript cookbook off the shelf and read it during our free time or when travelling in the train.

I agree with miumiu in some sense. Designers, visual artists need to know how to do cool effects and animations. During the session, things like physics, mathematics and calculations, with explanations could be demonstrated. These are also very interested things in Flash.

Honestly, I am very happy that we have such a community in Singapore. However, I believe that the session should not merely just tell the possibilities but do a demonstration to educate the audience. I have heard enough of the possibilities of Flash. It is endless. Now we need to know how we could implement these possiblities. This Singapore Flash User Group is going to help all Singaporeans Flash developers to improve themselves and will definitely be able to. This profession is still growing in Singapore and user groups like this one would help to act as a catalyst to the growth.

I am looking forward for the next session. I have voted for Papervision as the next session's topic. Hope it will be talking on Papervision. And yes, I have known that Papervision could do 3D. Now, is a matter of HOW I could use Papervision and tips using it.

this is just my honest opinion, and, 2 pence worth.

good luck, and cheers!

[Shunjie]

I think we are all learning and and its good that the Flash community in Singapore are getting more and more involved in the User group.

Personally, I believe that each presenter has their own style but as a group, we can give pointers to one another so that we can gradually improve and make the UG meeting a much better one. No one is a 'bad' presenter and no topic is a 'bad' topic. Different presentation styles and topics suits different people and I think with adequte feedback, everyone of us can learn. End of day, we can here together not for profit, but for a single purpose - The passion for Flash!

So, keep the comments and feedback coming. You can even be a presenter yourself! No one is too green to. (You refers to yes, you , the reader. )

We only have 2 runs so far. Definitely as we progress, we can have more Flash Goodness, Geekly Stuff, Cool Stuff, Design-licious Stuff to play with.

[ronnieliew]

Nice to have feedback from those who attended, like what Shunjie mentioned. Every presenter prob have his/her own way of sharing the information. As long as the aim of sharing is achieved, I think its good.

Hope to have more runs and more participation!

[ArulKumaran]

I liked all the presentations for the last UG Meeting. Arul Prasad presented how to build a Flickr application in Flex using MXML and ActionScript 3. Flash developers who are new to flex will feel as home with his presentation.

I wanted to take it as a challenge to modify his application so that it does not require a script tag and no manual actionscript coding

You can download his original source files from here

Here is my no actionscript version of it with the following improvements

• Showing a Busy Cursor while loading the search results
• Triggering search when user presses Enter key on the search text input
• Center aligning the Images in the search results
• Avoiding the nasty scrollbars in the thumbnails
• Adding a ToolTip for the thumbnails

Here is my MXML code

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!--FileName: Flexr2.mxml -->
<mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" layout="absolute">
 <mx:HTTPService id="fService" url="http://api.flickr.com/services/rest/" 
   result="tileList.dataProvider=fService.lastResult.rsp.photos.photo"
   showBusyCursor="true">
  <mx:request xmlns="">
   <method>flickr.photos.search</method>
   <api_key>1eb41a64951d6322d486c387210c61ef</api_key>
   <tags>{tagsTxt.text}</tags>
  </mx:request>
 </mx:HTTPService>
 <mx:ApplicationControlBar dock="true" id="appControlBar">
  <mx:Label text="Flexr 2.0" fontWeight="bold" fontSize="23"/>
  <mx:TextInput id="tagsTxt" width="100%" enter="fService.send()"/>
  <mx:Button label="Search" id="searchBtn" click="fService.send()"/>
 </mx:ApplicationControlBar>
 <mx:TileList id="tileList" top="8" bottom="8" left="8" right="8">
  <mx:itemRenderer>
   <mx:Component>
    <mx:VBox width="120" height="150" toolTip="{data.title}" 
     verticalGap="2" verticalScrollPolicy="off" 
     horizontalScrollPolicy="off">
     <mx:Image width="120" height="120" horizontalAlign="center" 
      source="http://farm{data.farm}.static.flickr.com/{data.server}/{data.id}_{data.secret}_t.jpg"/>
     <mx:Text text="{data.title}"/>
    </mx:VBox>
   </mx:Component>
  </mx:itemRenderer>
 </mx:TileList>
</mx:Application>

Regards,
Arul

Note to the Admin: We should allow .mxml file attachements

[arulprasad]

Thats soo freaky! I mean, not even a line of AS!?? ??

Cool!

[FlashMech]

Hi all, sorry it dint occur to me that the best place to probably post the link to my presentation during the last FSUG meet is here.

What can I say, I'm blur.

Anyway, here's it!
http://blog.flashmech.net/talks/2007...h-tips-tricks/