Adobe AIR has a new frisbee : I mean logo

Mike Chambers has just released the official Adobe AIR logo on his blog. AIR was originally code named Apollo and that had a logo. Then when the AIR name was released we got a new temporary logo. But here finally is it's official log. Fair enough it's not out of beta yet. Apparently the three bits represent the three technologies that AIR is built on : Flash, HTML, PDF. Despite what the logo seems to suggest putting together those three technologies in AIR doesn't result in a hole. Though perhaps it's not a hole. Perhaps the content is so effective that it becomes invisible. That is surely the goal with RIA's; to make something where the end user is so focussed on the content that they forget about the GUI and the technology.

Beedigital has set up a poll to get the communities initial response to the logo. Cast your vote.

Further speculation on the AIR hole from Alex Bustin over at "The Back Button". He suggests there may be a connection between the hole in the AIR logo and the hole in the new Photoshop logo. Perhaps we should be expecting a new holey Flex logo etc...

Melbourne's Adobe Refresh : debrief

Yesterday I attended Melbourne's Adobe Refresh event. This event gave you a little bit of that excitement you get when you attend an event like MAX. Sure all the news had been blogged a month earlier. Personally, I looked at some of that news in detail and some I'd just glanced at. Refresh was about making some time to hear and see what matters in detail. We do a lot of Flex work. So it was the Flex related stuff that got me excited and there wasn't much that wasn't Flex related (in one way or another). The most interesting project for me is Thermo. The demo we saw showed a Photoshop comp converted into a working Flex application by selecting graphics (or groups of graphics) and telling Thermo what sort of component they are. This included creating a horizontal scrolling List and adding states and effects to the component. All this is done in the same format as Flex development so the converted comp will be ready for handing over to the developer (and back to designer for tweeks if necessary). This could make a very real difference to our workflow.

A lot of the other exciting things they demoed related to applications built with Flex ; things like Adobe Share, Buzzword, Adobe Media Player to name a few.

With Media Player they demonstrated some in player advertising. In case you've never seen it Media Player allows you to subscribe to video feeds and then watch selections from that feed when you are ready. One example feed they had was for CSI. Great idea but I found the advertising a bit invasive. I can see how the media owners might find this attrative but I wonder how comfortable the end user will feel. There are some very compelling alternatives out there for accessing TV shows. Media Player offers a very painless alternative as long as it isn't over-burdened with distracting features.

Some of the things (i.e Pacifica) seem like they might take a while to have an impact. But that doesn't mean I didn't come out churning over the potential these offered for the future.

MAX : Sneak Peak Videos

A lot of very interesting videos are emerging from MAX 2007. But they are published all over the shop. So it seemed like a good idea to collect the links here for easy access. Let me know if you see any I've missed:

• Thermo : Flex for Designers
• Photoshop Express
  
• Flash Player 10 (Astro)
• Collection of Sneak Peaks (Peter Elst)
• Flash "Next"
• Flash on C/C++
• Flash Applications on Linux
• Seam Carving
• Photoshop Express
• Flash Home on Mobile
• PDF Packaging

Adobe CS3 : Install Headache

I've just spent a good part of the last 24 hours installing Adobe CS3 Web Premium.  Sure I didn't spend the whole time on the install.  But I was doing something towards it for most of my waking hours.  I have never had so much trouble installing the web studio before.  Perhaps the most disappointing part was that I couldn't use my serial number with the trial software I installed last month.  Consequently I had to uninstall every application before trying to install the suite (each application took 20 minutes to uninstall).  This was a real headache as I don't have a DVD drive and the suite only comes on DVD.  This is clearly mentioned in the system requirements so I can't grumble here.  But it wasn't an unreasonable assumption that I could use my serial number to activate the trial software.  In the end I had to transfer the 2GB of install onto a Flash drive and install from there (I wasted quite a bit of time exploring other options before I found this solution; which required the purchase of a 2GB+ Flash drive).

I made one big mistake while uninstalling the Flash trial; I didn't uninstall the Flash player and plugin because I needed them for Flex. When I ran the installer I couldn't install Flash because it said I already had Flash (because I hadn't uninstalled the player and plugin).  In the end it took another 20 minutes to uninstall the two remaining Flash components before I could re-run the installer.

The final small obstacle was that I couldn't activate the software without disabling my firewall.  This wasn't a big thing (though I didn't feel comfortable about needing to disable my firewall). 

My question at the end of all this is why does it need to be so difficult (and I know from searching that my experience is mild compared to some).  Most of the issues seem to come from an attempt to make the different applications interact more seamlessly.  Most of the install (and uninstall) time is spent dealing with "shared components".   But I'd give that up in a second if I was given some options about how I want to install and use the software.  I rarely need my applications to work hand in hand.  What I want is for them to start quickly, run efficiently and take care of the job at hand with as little fuss as possible so I can move onto to the next part of the workflow.  I'm sure I'm not speaking for everyone.  But at the same time I'm sure I'm not the only user who feels this way.

Adobe CS3 : Suite Inconsistencies

One the new features that I'm loving in Photoshop is the new compact panel system. When not in use panels appear as a cluster of grouped buttons on the right hand edge of the interface. Selecting a panels button (i.e Layers) opens that panel for use. Selecting a different panel will close the current one. It also seems to have enough intelligence to know when you're likely to want to keep it open. So far I haven't found any annoyances using this system in Photoshop. In fact more than once I've been heard to exclaim loudly how much I love it.

The same system is used in Flash and Illustrator. But hasn't been added to Fireworks and Dreamweaver. This adds a significant inconsistency between applications within the suite. Sure this is a minor gripe. Theses applications were originally released by two companies in two completely unrelated suites. So it's not a surprise that both suites of software aren't fully integrated in this first post merger release. But that doesn't mean I can't be working in Fireworks wishing I had that great compact panel system that they have in Photoshop.

The one post-Macromedia product that does have the compact menu is Flash. But the system is no where near as stable and intelligent as the Photoshop implementation. The problem seems to mostly effect the larger panels like Help and Actions. The Help panel in particular seems to be very flakey in it's behaviour. I guess we'll need to wait for CS4 to see these things sorted out.