A–C
D–H
I–Z
Developer services
Project centers
Community resources
- Adobe Cookbooks (share code)
- CSS Advisor (browser bug fixes)
- Exchanges (share components)
- Adobe Labs
- Adobe Open Source
- Forums
- RSS feeds
- Bug base
- User groups
- Adobe Community Experts (ACE)
- Developer events
Integration
Product documentation
Downloads
Samples
Training and books
- Online training
- Classroom training
- Certification
- Adobe Developer Library
- Adobe Press
- Safari Books Online
Newsletters
Blogs
Archives
ADC program
Additional resources
James Polanco
Aaron Pedersen
Table of Contents
Developing WorkflowLab: An inside look at the Adobe Flash Catalyst and Flex 4 development process
In early July, Shafath Syed and Doug Winnie of Adobe contacted us with an exciting idea and opportunity. They wanted to build an Adobe Flash Platform based tool to give people a better understanding of project workflows and how technologies can help the project lifecycle. The twist was that the tool needed to be built using Adobe Flex 4, Flash Catalyst, and Flash Builder, which are all still in beta, and the public alpha of this tool had to be ready for Adobe MAX 2009.
One of the more daunting yet intriguing challenges of this project was trying to determine the best way to adopt and apply all the new changes to the Flex 4 design and development workflow. Our team at DevelopmentArc has a long history with Flex, so we are quite comfortable with the existing workflows, features, and quirks of Flex 3 based development.
Yet Flex 4 and Flash Catalyst change the way we work, and many of the existing approaches need to be modified or even scrapped for better workflows that fit seamlessly in the new Flex paradigm. Unfortunately, best practices have not been solidified or defined by the community yet, meaning that we had to adopt theoretical development practices and experiment with them during this project.
This article examines some of the challenges we faced while designing and developing WorkflowLab and explains how we resolved them. Perhaps some of the ideas we tried will help you and your team build a successful project in Flex 4, or at least get our collective mind thinking about new and better ways to make Flex applications using these upcoming technologies.
Requirements
In order to make the most of this article, you need the following software and files:
WorkflowLab alpha
Flex 4 beta
Flash Builder 4 beta
Flash Catalyst beta
Prerequisite knowledge
Familiarity with WorkflowLab, Flex 4, Flash Catalyst, and Flash Builder 4.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License
About the authors
James Polanco is the co-founder of DevelopmentArc, a boutique consulting firm that specializes in web application and user interaction front-end development. James specializes in application development and has provided system architecture and code development on projects such as Scion.com, Toyota.com, and Adobe kuler Desktop. James was also a Senior QE Team Lead on the Adobe Flex Builder team focusing on ActionScript 3.0 development harnesses and automated testing systems.
Aaron Pedersen is the co-founder of DevelopmentArc, a boutique consulting and development firm that specializes in web application and user interaction front-end development. Prior to DevelopmentArc, Aaron was an Interactive Architect at DHAP Digital.
