ColdFusion Sneak Peak
So I just sat through the ColdFusion sneak peak at MAX, and it was done really fast, so forgive me if I get a few details wrong. The demo involved moving from a CF-based Ajax app to an AIR application. If I saw right, he began by adding a <cfairaccess& tag, and then set a property to CFGRID to mark it as available offline. He views the page in the browser and saves the result as an HTML file. He then uses the normal AIR compiling tools (from what I can tell) to generate an AIR app. It works. Ok - no big surprise there since CF generates HTML, but it is kind of nice as he is now browsing his data in the AIR app.
He then demonstrates how he could add two buttons to set the application in online/offline mode. He showed how the old code uses ColdFusion.Ajax.submitFormat and switched it to ColdFusion.air.submitForm(). He did the trick of save as/AIR compile again and this time the result application was able to detect when the application was offline. He could send mail in offline mode - go online - and see it processed.
It was rather quick and I'm missing a few details (Adobe, consider this your invitation to add details ;) but was really interesting!
MAX Keynote Notes Day 2 - Part Deux
Ok, so what I'm watching now is so cool I stole the computer from the friend next to me. Code named "Thermo", it is a designer tool to help them builder RIAs. This is simply amazing. He imported a PSD which got converted to Flex code. He was then able to select a 'fake' text input and easily turn it into a real Flex text input. Now he is showing converting static data from the original PSD (a row of CD covers), and he is using the editor to convert this to a 'real' data list. He can then apply roll over effects - apply some text data - etc. This is completely amazing stuff here. As a developer this is aesome. It means your designer can hand you a partially complete Flex application instead of just a Flex app.
Now he is converting a fake scroll bar into a real scroll bar. He edits the properties which shows up as layers (apparently good for designers). He selected what piece is the actual scroll thing (what you grab) and what is the gutter. Now he is going to associate the scroll bar with the fake data he created earlier. He just clicks and gets a 'wiring' handler. He drags the handle to the CDs and BAM - thats it. He takes his 6 fake items and told it to add 15 - this way he can really scroll. Now he has 21 items in his fake data. Exporting now to Flex... and it works perfectly.
Amazing - truly amazing product here. It is really going to make our (developers) lifes much easier.
Thermo and Flex Builder share the same project structure which means your dev and designer can share the same source.
MAX Keynote Notes - Day 2
Notes from Tuesday's Keynote
As before - pardon any mistakes, odd grammar, etc. And as my battery is on fumes, there won't be a lot if I have to actually - lord forbid - write with a pen and paper.
Bruce Chizen is up. Speaking of the difficulty of being in charge of a large public company. So why does he put up with all of the pain? Great story - he talked about being back stage at a Dave Mathew's Band concert and the ligthing/tech guys were raving about Adobe products. Ended off saying it is the community that is inspiring Adobe and their employees.
Keven back up - today's product focus is Servers, Services, and Tools.
Servers: (Hmm, do I smell some ColdFusion coming up?) Steven Webster is up now - speaking of Experience Matters. (Um, did I miss the server stuff?) Ah sorry - there we go. Talking about the experience of the back end - what happens 'behind the glass'. Going to focus on LiveCycle ES. (New name for CF? Kidding of course.) Talking about the wide range of services LiveCycle ES can provide. Demoing Eclipse based builder working with a form. Apparently they can scan a paper form and turn it into a rich form (pdf form), which is pretty nice. Rights Management. Example - MFG (manufacturer company) send two requests to two suppliers - shows how the supplier must enter a username/password to read the PDF, and talks about how they can prevent printing/emailing. Supplier A is awarded the contract - rights management can now prevent supplier b from reading the document anymore. Now talking about process (workflow) overview. "Workspace" - flex based app to see what items are available in your workflow. UI is changeable. LC ES has a free developer edition. Kevin is back - and talking about how this stuff will soon (may be soon) available as hosting services.
Now talking services in general. Scene7 Imaging: (Recently acquired by Adobe.) Doug Mack of Scene7 Imaging is up. Joined Adobe in May 2007. Leading "On Demand" rich media publishing. Enables creation of enhanced website experiences. Dynamically rendered "single master image". (Not getting it so far.) Ah - so talks about creative source (psd, etc) going out to a source like Flash/PDF/Flex. Gucci.com is the example. Hmmm, watches. I _love_ watches. User clicks on watch - and S7 handles rendering the higher end version of the picture. Very, very clear close up picture. Shows grabbing URL from site and viewing it in the browser. A change to a URL variable results in a new result. Ie, resizing picture by just changing url params. Next demo is a custom uniform builder. Shows different jersey styles, colors. Shows adding text, and the text wrapped perfect on the model's body. Next he puts a logo on - and it is on the shoulder and rendered perfectly. Very nice. Now he is going to grab a logo from the desktop. Using MAX logo. He adds it to the uniform and it's rendered in real time. Print version shows a very good, very detailed version of the uniform. Now showing prototype QVC AIR application. Pretty well done.
Next presenter is going to talk on SHARE. (Yes, it's all caps.) Let's you share files. (Did you guess that?) Access files anywhere from the net. Free 1 gig of support. Works well with large files. Let's you pick a file to share - who to email it to - and what type of access permission is enabled for the resource. Demo curse! Error on upload. Hah. That's never happened to me. Really. Um. Anyway. Ouch - two times bad luck. Third times the charm. SHARE does virus scan on upload and makes thumbnailing. FlashPaper is used for the preview. You can also embed a SHARE preview into your blog posts. That is darn nice and I can see my using that. (I'll try to do a demo later this week.) I'm curious how well it would work with Powerpoint/Keynote. Yes - they have REST APIs! ColdFusion wrapper coming soon! ;) They are shipping AS wrappers as well. Showed a Flex app that integrates with SHARE.
Next up is Pacifica. Voice - Messaging and Presence support for Flex. Demo shows remote talking/video. Looks like Connect so far. Now sharing a video together. Main focus though is on voice experience.
Next up is CoCoMo. And I'm down to 14 minutes battery. As I just got the warning, I'm going to sign off for now. My very early quick opinion of CoCoMo is that it seems to be Connect related pods to help with real time data, user presence, etc, and will be something you can use in your site (again, this is all about services).
I'll add some comments later for anything important I missed.
It's funny who you can meet at MAX...
Meet my new friend...
MAX Keynote Notes
Keynote notes:
As always - please forgive the haphazard nature of these notes. Any followup questions just let me know. Please note there is a strong change I may misquote/make a mistake/etc so take with a grain of salt.
Keynote begins with an 'experience' video - and my big head looking even bigger (thankfully only for a few seconds). I have to say I didn't sound as bad as I thought I would (had a head cold that trip).
MAX Day 1
Today was a rather busy day - not what I expected for what is normally a slow day before the conference starts off. I got up - worked a bit on some Lucene code - and then went to get my pass for MAX. I then promptly left to go attend the CFUNITED conference down the road. I saw some pretty darn good speakers and gave my CF+Ajax+Apple Pie preso right after lunch. After that I headed back to the hotel - did some work - and then left to wait for Ignite to start up.
As I told my friends - the presentation absolutely scared the heck out of me. I tend to be a very casual presenter. I love to discuss things in whatever fashion the audience wants, going on side topics if they want, speeding up parts the audience may find boring, etc. But Ignite is very rigid. You have 5 minutes and 20 slides. Period. And they control the slides. So as I said - a bit nerve wracking, but it was over a heck of a lot quicker than I thought it would be. (In case folks are curious - I spoke on RIAForge.) After that was the reception and the speaker dinner - and now I'm back in the hotel. (About to read more Harry Potter.)
So nothing terribly exciting to report yet. Chicago is great. It is definitely nice seeing friends and blog readers out there. I'll be blogging from the keynote tomorrow (assuming wireless is up).
My obligatory "Off to MAX" Post
I'm sitting in Lafayette Regional waiting to board my flight to Memphis on the way to Chicago. If you are a reader of the blog and are attending MAX, be sure to say hi to the tall goofy looking guy (wait, this is a tech conference, that may not be specific enough).
I assume everyone remembers the "rules" - while I am gone you are not to find any bugs in my software. Everything works perfectly. These are not the droids you are looking for. Etc.
I'll be blogging as much as possible from MAX, but if you have any specific questions, let me know!
MAX BOF list posted - CFC Session is on again
The MAX Birds of a Feather list has been posted, and once again I'll be hosting a CFC development session. This is a general session open to anyone wanting to talk about writing CFCs, "best practices", or any CFC related topic. (And if no one shows up, then I'm talking about Lost!)
MAX Attendance Record!
Ted blogged earlier today about MAX - and it looks like this one will be the biggest one yet. The hotels are sold out - and the numbers are still growing. Check out the bars... (and no, I don't mean that kind of bar ;)
