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Ok, the first version of the post title was even more tough, something like “Adobe, burn in hell!” or so. But finally I got easy and decided to choose something more journalistic.

The thing I want to talk about is buying Adobe products. Comparing different Flex development tools I’ve found there is no absolute winner. And I’ve decided to buy Flash Builder 4. The trial period will expire but project development should go on.

So as far as I moved to the small country in the Eastern Europe calling Montenegro, there is no chance to find any local resellers. Anyway nor Adobe neither Google knows nothing about. It is not so easy to buy something here and this is a reason I prefer online stores. I hadn’t any problems with buying software online with my credit card. A couple of clicks and my license is in my GMail account. Buying soft from Apple’s AppStore is the same story — just a couple of clicks.

But Adobe is something different. Their way to sell products is new word on the market. If Adobe deals the same way with partners I can understand why Steve Jobs finally rejected Adobe’s attempts to cooperate. Ok lets return to the Adobe store. First I can’t find any relevant countries at all. No Montenegro. No even Serbia. What should I do? I’ve decided to register some account with USA address. A long Flash preloader, then a couple of Flash runtime exceptions and finally The Form. Filled address etc and then continue. Another exception and infinite progress sign… That’s cool for me. Great product!

Finally I’ve received an email and realized the registration process successfully finished. Without any email verification. God bless Adobe developers: they didn’t ask my credit card number during registration. Because I can misprint my email address easily, right?

Ok. Lets go further. When I tried to pay using PayPal I’ve got another infinite progress sign. The second attempt gave me a message my PayPal address and Adobe Store address isn’t match. So I should sit in the same place all my life if I deal with Adobe. Great to know.

Then I tried to use my credit card directly. And verification process begins. The first stage passed. Then I got a message my card will be verified within one business day.

A little lyrical digression here. When I tried to choose the exact version of Flash Builder to buy I’ve decided to buy cheeper version. But maybe the ugly navigation of Adobe Store is great thing for Adobe to deal with the first time visitors. While I tried to find version comparison etc. I’ve decided to buy Premium version. It was a kind of impulse.

But when I got an email message with information that I should wait I finally got regretted that I didn’t choose cheeper version. I’ve almost canceled my order but finally decided to finish the deal as is. Three hours later I received an email with the message:

We appreciate your recent order; however, we regret that we are unable to process the transaction at this time.

As far as I can understand they didn’t like my credit card. Apple likes it, eBay likes it, JetBrains likes it, a lot of other software vendors likes it. But Adobe is something different.

THe interesting thing about is the message contained a cynical advice:

Or, you can find a reseller (www.adobe.com/buy) that will be able to help you with your order.

Should I talk you there is no option for Montenegro nor online neither offline? The only thing I need is to buy license key online. It is so simple. A lot of companies offer it.

As far as I can search I’m not the only person with the same kind of difficulties. Abdul Quabiz, the famous Flex developer from India, has the same problems repeatedly.

And now please answer the simple question: what should client do if he can’t buy a piece of software? Maybe it is true? Maybe Adobe encourages software piracy?

P.S. It seems to be I’ll choose Realaxy ActionScript Editor which is developing here in Montenegro. They’ll release private beta at the end of next week. It will be something special! More news about are coming…

Update: I’ve added issues in Adobe Labs Ideas for possibility to buy products online from every location in the world. One for Flash Builder, one for Flash Catalyst and the last for Flash Professional. You can find more ideas I want you to vote in my dedicated post.

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As we wrote recently a lot of people doesn’t like new brand Adobe Community Help in Flash Builder. And there is popular issue on Adobe Labs Ideas about it. As for me personally I can understand Adobe with this new universal AIR based solution for all the CS5 products. But universality in product line parts can be not so obvious for users. Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Flash Catalyst and even Adobe Flash Professional are mostly designer’s solutions. Doesn’t consider the fact that Adobe Catalyst is Eclipse based tool. For designers it doesn’t matter.

But Flash Builder is definitely developer’s tool. And is obviously Eclipse based. Is an Eclipse plug-in to be precise. And Flex/ActionScript developers with Flash Builder are not a kind of spheric cows in vacuum. They can use other Eclipse based tools the same time. Adobe pretends to attract Java developers in Flex development as the most probable auditorium. And a lot of Java guys uses JDT. Which is Eclipse plug-in too. There are a lot of useful plug-ins for every day using in process of server/client development. Believe me.

And all the plug-ins have universal help system which is common on Eclipse platform. Not using that help system is the same as creating, for example, your own Address Book for your application on Mac OS X (as Microsoft with their Entourage done). It is VERY inconvenient and confusing. Because Eclipse help system has all that you need: TOC, search, bookmarks, hyperlinks, possibility to open in external browser and even online search.

But Adobe implemented their own tool. Why?

Anyway very talented developer from Ukraine Rostislav Siryk aka Rost (manager and cofounder of Ukrainian Adobe Flash Platform User Group) run new project on Google Code to solve that issue. Let me introduce FFBD (Friendly Flash Builder Docs) to make Flash Builder docs usable in Eclipse. It is an Adobe AIR client to import Flash Builder documentations from Adobe Community Help into native Eclipse help system. The first version is now available for testing.

And of course as far as project is open sourced all kinds of participation are welcome. You can test it and provide feedback. You can help with ideas and coding. Or just write out a couple of lines about the tool in your blog to spread the news.

For now there is a couple of open issues aka TODOs for our friendly FFBD. Maybe someone has some useful thoughts about?

Anyway meet FFBD and lets make it worth alternative!

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I think it is not so new information for the most of my readers but anyway… Adobe just launched the new great service Adobe Labs Ideas. The idea of Ideas is pretty simple. If you have Adobe ID (it is very easy to obtain it) you can add your own suggestions about Adobe AIR, Flash Builder, Flash Catalyst, Flash Professional, Flex SDK and WorkflowLab. And of course vote and devote for existing requests.

What is the advantage of Ideas? Adobe has JIRA for issues etc. But JIRA requires additional registration, it is geeky and it is official for Adobe employees. If you fill some issue there they have to fix it or (as usual for critical conceptual issues) they assign Deferred status, low priority or even close the issue. And of course you need to fill a lot of fields there like your OS version, Flash Player version, product version etc. It is not so convenient.

Adobe Labs Ideas is easy about your complains and ideas. Adobees have no reason to close your issue. Because it is not official. It is just community tool. So it is much more powerful, right?

The only thing still disappointed me is low activity. Come on guys! Lets vote! We (developers, managers, designers, animators etc.) are real power! You can even watch for new issues via RSS! No reasons to miss this opportunity!

After that preface I want to ask you about one little thing. Please spend a couple of minutes and vote for a set of my favorite issues:

• Quick Fixes in Flash Builder. As you know Flash Builder is Eclipse based tool and Eclipse is a platform with some standards and traditions. A number of developers use Eclipse not only for Flash/Flex development but for server side Java for example (like me). So we have great Java editor called JDT which can fix problems automatically (yes it fixes bugs and problem by itself!). And it is very unclear for every Java developer why Flash Builder hasn’t these features? IntelliJ IDEA has quick fixes, FDT has. But the flagman product from the vendor… Another reincarnation of the issue is over there. Vote both
• Meet all the latest Eclipse versions. It will be supergreat if Flash Builder versions was always tested against the latest Eclipse builds including milestone builds and 32/64 bit Cocoa-versions. It is very disappointing to keep two Eclipse instances opened at the time. And Flash Builder is show stopper as usual The related issue is Support 64 bit Cocoa eclipse on OSX.
• Replace Adobe Community Help with native Eclipse help system as in Flex Builder. As I mentioned above Eclipse platform has its own standards and tools. One of them is help system. It is a way to find all the info in Help the same way for all the other tools (I mean Eclipse platform and plugins). And it is a way to get context help for any class under cursor. With new help we only can see that Adobe offers very convenient thing… But the convenience is only for Adobe. Maybe it is not so easy to create help content applicable both for Eclipse help system and Adobe Community Help (as additional standalone app)? I heard something about XSLT to convert one XHTML to another
• Link back from traces in console for Flash Builder. And again it is very usual thing for every day using to click on an entry in Console stacktrace and open corresponding resource automatically. Exactly on a line. But usual for Java developers on Eclipse platform. Adobe please provide it too!
• Code Template feature in Flash Builder. Yes it is provided by Sourcemate but for additional $79. For a must have feature.
• Release the Headless Player. I’ve explained that feature in one of my previous posts.
• Don’t use the “Deferred” status in JIRA anymore. Hehe. There is a related idea.
• As described in my post about buying Adobe products from some countries online, I’ve added issues in Adobe Labs Ideas for possibility to buy products online from every location in the world. One for Flash Builder, one for Flash Catalyst and the last for Flash Professional.
• Option to create nonvisual MXML component through the New… menu in Flash Builder. Now this wizard is limited to create only visual MXML components
• Host some central Flash/Flex public related Maven repository. It will be supergreat if Adobe will host some public Maven repository for Flex/Flash libraries. It will be a great step towards community and just an other prove of Adobe’s openness We know there is Cairngorm 3 Maven repository but it is just a set of swc files in Subversion without index etc. Please host some Nexus compatible repository. And it will be great if any developer can submit their own artifacts there. I believe it is much more effective for opensource community than any marketplace.
• A lot of other great requests!

So please involve! We can change the future!

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All the latest Flash platform related news are about Adobe’s rebranding of Flex Builder which is now Flash Builder. You can read more from Serge Jespers, Lee Brimelow, Duane Nickull, Mark Doherty, Tim Buntel or Ryan Stewart and the Lee Brimelow’s FAQ. And I’ve decided to share some thoughts about this decision.

As we know Flash was born as animation technology and then become RIA platform with its own scripting language etc. To be precise the RIA definition itself is derived from Flash MX. So we have animation platform with some interactivity (ActionScript) and very great IDE for animation (timelines, tweens etc) but EXTREMELY poor for scripting with very basic code editor and procedure code in frames across application movie.

Time by time the situation is changing. Flex technology with declarative MXML was launched earlier than MS’s WPF with XAML (and MS possibly didn’t think about WPF/E aka Silverlight that times). Flex was right targeted for developers to develop APPLICATIONS (not movies). Right, developers-developers-developers just before MS’s XAML/.NET based family with great designer/developer workflow.

But anyway who knows about Flex? Before >=2 version almost nobody knows. A lot of Flash developers can’t adopt this new technology for number of reasons. And the situation was broken after Flex 2 was released. We can call it as the victorious procession of Flash platform for developers. But who knows about this procession outside Flash community? A much less amount of people than we can expect.

The most people just things nothing if I represent myself as a Flex developer. They don’t know about the subject and even don’t care. And if I try to explain my specialization in terms of Flash platform they become excited — oh yes! It is great tool for animations, rich banners, YouTube and promo sites. But what you say? You write code? ActionScript code? How very interesting. But ActionScript is very poor programming language, you know? What? It now supports classes? And even some other cool features? Great! But what about IDE? MS has great Visual Studio for their WPF and Silverlight but Adobe has just Flash IDE with just VERY BASIC code hilighting. It is funny you know? What? You have Flex Builder which is Eclipse based and has some code editor which is not so powerful as JDT but has a couple of features? Really? That’s cool, guy! Sorry, I’m hurry now. See you!

It takes a long time to divide Flex as developer centric technology from Flash as technology for creative people. Ok. We have Flash platform as an umbrella for all this family. Flash (means timeline and poor code editor)? Platform (WTF?)?

In other side everybody knows Visual Studio. And calls it great (I can’t share it — in my opinion VS is not great as code editor but can be with ReSharper for example). And new Silverlight technology (developers, developers, developers!). Nobody can doubt Silverlight is great for developers. And it has really great designer/developer workflow (which Flex Flash will have only with Flex Flash Catalyst released). Maybe it isn’t great for animations but who cares?

Ok. What we have now? We have Flash IDE and Flash Builder IDE (looking forward for questions from customers and colleges about what is difference and why Flash Builder IDE has advanced code editor but can’t compile fla-files and Flash IDE can compile them but useless for serious coding?). And we have Flash Catalyst which can use projects imported from Flash Builder IDE but can’t share the same project and can’t edit fla-files. And have one ugly child aka Flex SDK which is what? How to explain colleges and customers why Flash Builder IDE hasn’t timeline and can’t build flas but can use something which called Flex SDK (why Flex? why Flash?). And in other hand Flex SDK can be used to develop only in Flash Builder IDE and Flash Catalyst but not in Flash IDE. And what about beginners? Why Adobe going to drive them mad?

Well, Silverlight has ONE brand (which was divided from WPF). Maybe they won’t attract a lot of creative persons aka designers and animators but they have good positioning. So now Adobe tries to do the same using Flash brand. Which become well-established for creative persons but not for software or enterprise developers (sorry for that f-word enterprise word). And never will. It is much more effective to use Flex naming for all the Flash platform parts in this situation (hope creative persons won’t bear a grudge for it and won’t become MS persons ). Yes Flash is de-facto standard for web animation and MS is very poor about creativity. So I hope Flex player can be successful.

Or maybe it is better to introduce some new generic brand for Flash, Flex and AIR (the whole platform)? Anyway Flash Builder is way to nowhere.

Anyway it is just only my opinion

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For a long time I spend more than 90% of my developing sessions writing Java code (yes, Spring, JPA, BlazeDS etc). As a Flex developer I felt not very comfortable for a first time but my current project (you can believe me it is a great project!) requires a kind of person who can wear two hats — both server and client developer.

But now I’m very pleased to that situation. The point is that I can surely say: I prefer to write Java code with much more pleasure than Flex. Don’t mind I still love Flex but I’m talking about IDE world. I use JDT+WTP (both Eclipse based) for my Java coding and Flex Builder 4 (prerelease program) for Flex side.

Flex Builder has a lot of cool features you can easily put in product’s feature list (yes its all about marketing). It has great design view. It now has some code generation and (can’t you believe that?) getter/setter generation+file templates. FlexUnit support also sounds good to advertise Flex Builder. And of course a couple of refactorings. That’s great for version 4! We’ll see even more in version 10 I hope.

But I’m just developer. I don’t need this design view at all. Please remove it from my Flex Builder bundle. I still can’t use FlexUnit support and (to tell the true) don’t believe I’ll use it any often. Because of it can’t compile as fast as in Java projects and (and it is annoying thing) it always launches in Flash Player as ordinary Flash application. There is no headless Flash Player and corresponding issue in Adobe JIRA is still without changes and any priority (it isn’t so cool as Design View, right?). And there is no way to intercept all the player exceptions (corresponding JIRA issue — two years old — is still low priority) so you can only rely on timeout to check if tests are failed silently. But the main principle of unit tests is to be fast. If they are very slow to compile and launching them always switches to the browser or debug view and finally take some timeout — what do you think about how often I’ll run them? You know the answer.

I’m not a graphic designer. I’m just a developer. I spend most of my working time in code editor. And can’t enjoy it. But!

The good thing is I use Java editor to develop server side. And I have almost perfect code editor for free. It is just 3.4.2 version and hasn’t build in design view (but available as separate free plug in for Swing and SWT) but I really enjoy writing code there.

I have a lot of navigation options. I have very fast code analysis. I have quick fixes. I have templates which really rules. And I have very useful and fast unit tests. I even don’t need to run server to be confident — my tests are guaranteed my code is working. Getters/setters you say? A lot of dialogs and manipulations? In JDT I can only press ⌘1 and voilà. I have getter/setters generated. A lot of features for everyday coding.

If you think this post is just unproductive complaints I can answer you’re not right. I’ve found the solution. Just divide you working day between Java and Flex. 60/40 or even 90/10. And you can enjoy both comfortable coding and cool looking result (I mean great Flex apps). At least I’m pretty happy now. And wish you the same.

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