To be fair though, I would be just as frustrated to see a message that says “sorry, iOS users, we can’t show you this page.” I guess my point is that JS isn’t without it’s drawbacks and sites should always degrade gracefully.

Found on the otherwise impressive site: http://flashtml5.com/

First, if you don’t know what I’m talking about, check out the news. I think the best explanation comes from Mike Chambers’ Blog and a corresponding post on the Flex Team’s Blog.

Don't panic! Take a deep breath and look at this cute bunny

Not much has changed with the Flash Platform

If you read closely, not that much has really changed. The problem is perception. Let’s review what is going away and why it’s not as crazy as it might sound.

Mobile Flash Player

Adobe is discontinuing work on the mobile Flash Player. I don’t know the numbers of people building Flash content for Android but I suspect it’s not incredibly high. I would also wager that even Air on Android/iOS is still far from critical mass, but Adobe say they will continue to support this. The desktop Flash Player will stay the same and for the foreseeable future continue to surpass HTML5 in features and cross-platform functionality.

Another way of saying this is that the Flash Platform remains the best choice for the tasks that it was already the best choice for. Mobile was never one of these and some applications, like video players, may have lost that title to HTML5. But in cross-platform, rich-media, deeply interactive experiences on the web, Flash is still ahead of the competition.

Flex is still here

Adobe is discontinuing its support for the Flex SDK. However, it will stay around as an open source project (it was already open source.) It may never get better than it is already, which so far has been good enough to become the platform of choice for many Flex developers.

Flex cannot get any worse than the next version 4.6, which you were probably looking forward to until today. And you know what, that’s okay. We don’t need to be so obsessed with the next thing that we change careers because the next next thing has an uncertain future. I happen to know of some projects that are still using Flex 3 and will probably never upgrade. Why? The user doesn’t know the difference between mx and spark skins.

It may also get better after being untethered from Adobe and in hands of the Flex Community. In other words, we’re in charge now. The Spoon community, who is inheriting the Flex project, already have plans to make a version 5.x.

Fear itself

The real issue now is the way the public will preceive this news. This announcement has sapped the confidence of a lot of people, customers and developers alike. In my opinion, it’s not the time for us to decry Adobe as evil jerks. It is a time for us as experts to try to help our clients, companies and the public to make sense of the news. It’s time to remember that Flash is just a tool in the arsenal of an interactive developer. In fact, Flash’s popularity, due to largely political reasons, has already been on the decline for a while now. But, it will certainly be dead if the Flash users themselves don’t believe in it.

The next time a client wants an awesome, interactive video, 3D puzzle game, website thing I will still recommend Flash. I don’t want to have him tell me “it has to be HTML5″ because he read online that “Flash is dead.” In fact, I think it’s our job to talk about its strengths and its weaknesses in a totally objective way. We should all dwell in the middle ground between Adobe zealotry and jumping on the next bandwagon.

Your next job

I feel hopeful that the shit will not hit the fan, at least not immediately. That being said, I am always an advocate of looking at other technologies and keeping those abstract coding skills honed. Good developers are in a prime position to port our skills to whatever platform comes next, and those skills are almost always in demand. Even HTML5 (JavaScript) apps share a very similar language with AS3 (really AS1). I was able to pick up JQuery and build my first HTML5 project in a matter of a day or two.

As Mike Chamber’s writes:
“I think it is a HUGE opportunity for the Flash community. As browser support for richer content and motion graphics improves, so will demand for designers and developers who have experience working with motion graphics on the web. The Flash community has been doing this type of work on the web for over a decade and is uniquely qualified to fill demand for similar work in the browser. I don’t think it is a coincidence that some of the most cutting edge motion graphics work being done in HTML5 today is being done by developers and agencies with extensive experience in Flash (such as Grant Skinner, Branden Hall, Big Spaceship, etc…).”

Joel Hooks adds some great notes on this in his blog post. I’d like to also add HAXE, Java, C# and Dart to the list of languages that you should be able to pick up with little effort.

The Community

In LA, our local Flex group shut down abruptly after this news was released. I personally feel this was very hasty indeed and wrote a letter about it upon which this blog post was based. I see that a lot of people are really pissed and their identities are in question. If you’re in this position, I would suggest instead of jumping ship, why not continue to talk about how this will impact our jobs and what skills we can port to other platforms. If there really are people out there who are going to lose their jobs over this, and I think it’s too soon to say, we should still be able to support each other as a community.

Even with all this positivity, I still have to agree with @neurofuzzy “Anyone who has ‘Flash’ in your job title, scratch it out and write ‘Interactive.’” It’s something we should have all done a long time ago because I believe we are more than just Flash dudes.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on all of this. Please leave comments. It will be very interesting to look back on this post in 6 months and see whether I was right to keep a cool head or being terribly naïve.

The problem:

You’re positive that you just upgraded to the Debug version of the Flash Player, when you go to test it in Chrome it says that you don’t have the debug version even though it works fine in Firefox, Safari, Opera, and who cares if it’s working in IE because you would never use IE right?

The solution:

You can reinstall the player until you’re blue in the face but it won’t help. Why? Chrome manages it’s own version copy of the player so it can provide automatic updates. You’ll want to disable this version and use your default one.

Open up your Preferences in Chrome. Go to Preferences > Under the Hood > Privacy > Content Settings… > Plug-ins > Disable Individual Plugins (Or just paste chrome://plugins/ into the address bar).

You should see a plug in called Flash. If you click the Details+ button in the top right, you’ll see more info about the plug-in files themselves. You’ll probably see two versions here; one will point to the plug-in installed by Chrome

e.g. /Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/Versions/15.0.874.92/Google Chrome Framework.framework/Internet Plug-Ins/Flash Player Plugin for Chrome.plugin

The other points to the system folder

e.g. /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/Flash Player.plugin if you’re on a Mac

Disable the one in the Google Chrome folder and you should be good to go!

This information was originally provided to me via Arron West’s blog which has more pictures than this post if you still need help.

First, let’s get one thing clear… Flash is NOT coming to iOS per se. To quote the press release from Adobe:

“With Flash Media Server 4.5, media publishers can extend their already broad mobile reach via Flash-enabled devices, with the new ability to deliver video content to Apple’s iPad and iPhone devices, enabling them to reach the widest audience possible.”

Unless I’m misreading this, it seems that this is only going to allow Flash Video to be viewed on iOS and only when streamed from the new Flash Media Server. This will be achieved by serving the video in an iOS compatible format so there’s no new player or plugin involved at all. Flash content in general (games, interactive sites, &c) will still bring up that familiar
.

This is only a little bit exciting (unless you host a lot of Flash Video). What the end user will experience is potentially more video content available on their iOS device, perhaps from sites that they couldn’t get it from before, and they may notice a performance improvement. It’s a far cry from the headlines stating things like “Adobe releases Flash player for Apple products” or “Adobe Flash coming to iOS”. Still, it’s a (small) step in the right direction.

Frustratingly, most of the articles I’ve seen are tinged with insinuations that this is some sort of surrender, for example, “Apple did not fold, Adobe did.” Really? Are we still acting like these two companies are having a little schoolyard rivalry? Nobody folded or cried “Uncle”. A company just found a solution to a technology problem. As I said in my last post, this sort of talk creates an artificial sense of certain technologies being inherently “good” or “bad”. It misinforms the general public and turns the choice of platform for a project into an emotional or political battle.

On the other hand, as much as I want people to get the story straight, this is more good news for Flash developers. If the general consensus is that Flash will run on iOS then our clients will perceive it as less “bad” and more “good”. So I guess this is bad reporting of so-so news that will make very good PR for Adobe.

Why?

I have always felt that it is our duty as technology experts to help our clients chose the best platforms for their products. And sometimes the best platform is the one that lets the developers do their work the fastest. Flash has always been great at adding a lot of character, subtlety, and interactive flair much faster than other platforms.

Unfortunately, due to recent high-profile skirmishes between Apple and Adobe, most clients currently think that “Flash is Bad.” They don’t understand that Job’s argument is full of half-truths and non-truths and most probably don’t realize that Flash code can now be run on an iDevice and more importantly sold for $$$. While Flash certainly ins’t the best in every situation, it’s actually a fantastic choice for a lot of applications and the programmers who have been using it for a long time who have honed their skills as interactive developers can add a lot intrinsically to their work. To say that it is “Bad” is to ignore much of the bigger picture.

Having a solid example to point to makes the case for using Air for iOS so much easier. And despite our cries, clients don’t really care about technical reasons… they DO care about top-selling apps that look beautiful! So next time you’re faced with a client who’s using some overhyped article from 2010 about Flash not performing well on mobile, you now have one more weapon in your arsenal. The more tools we have to deliver great experiences for our clients, the more everyone wins.

Also, I’ve heard this is a pretty good game!

PS. I’m hoping with the next version release of KitchenSync to move it from google code to github (UPDATE: This is done! KS on Github) to encourage more collaboration.

Here is a really great article by Senocular about the different versions of the Flash Player, authoring tool, ActionScript, Flex, SDK, compiler, etc. The whole thing has gotten so complex that we really need something like this to keep track.
http://www.senocular.com/flash/tutorials/versions/

MIMS’s UPDATE: I’ll be at Flash and the City in May as well! You’ll be able to tell it’s me cuz I look like the picture below and I’ll probably be standing next to Roger.

I’ve oh-so-hastily put up a rather revolting home for the book right here at http://www.actionscriptbible.com/. There are a few small parts missing right now, and it’s ugly, so bear with me.

In any case, whether you loved or hated the last edition of the Bible, I really urge you to at least give this edition a try. I’ve completely overhauled it, rewriting hundreds of pages, and adding onto it so that it’s bleeding-edge fresh for Flash Player 10.1. How fresh is this ish? This fresh, BOOM:

• Vectors: COVERED
• 3d: YES
• Pixel Bender: YOU BET
• Flash Text Engine: FER SURE
• Text Layout Framework: IN THERE
• Multitouch: SO MANY TOUCHES
• Globalization: MAIS OUI!
• Accelerometer: HELL YAH
• Color Correction: SURE!

What else? I’ve toiled to give you the best way to play with example code ever! And by toiled I mean “stood on MASH’s back!” Because every example in the book (save a few that need HTML features or looser security) uses the amazing Wonderfl service! First off, it’s never been easier to run example code. This is what an example looks like:

See, every example has a URL right next to it. This, Example 36-5, links right to http://actionscriptbible.com/ch36/ex5. So if you have the book open, just type in the URL and boom! You’re looking at the code, the example, you can download it, edit it, and best of all participate with the whole world in forking the code! No FTP to hit, no ZIP to download (though that’s still provided if you want), no software to setup… I’m really happy about this part of the book.

Get this; I’ve even put in a UMLesque table of contents, so you can find the chapter for the right class in a glance.

I know most of you readers are advanced AS3 developers and don’t need an introductory text. But if you need to get up to date with the latest Flash Player 10.1 features, or you want a good reference; if you’re coming from JavaScript or PHP or C# or Java; I shamelessly and unsurprisingly recommend my own book. Get it now at Amazon.

I’m very pleased to announce that one of my latest projects has just gone live. The Deepening – Select Your Own Adventure Edition has just gone up on Atom Films. Go give it a look, it’s hilarious.

The video is a Good Cop / Bad Cop action show where you get to choose what happens next. It was created by the brilliant Duncan Brothers who asked me to help build the Flash portion of it. Enjoy!

deepening.atom.com

…

You didn’t read it, did you. Well, it’s basically a very well-formed rant lamenting the sad state of the Flash program (not the platform). There are so many things that needed to be said here. I have been aware of the sorry state of the Flash IDE ever since CS3 came out but never took the time to construct such a compelling article as Kevin has.

ActionScript has matured from a simple frame-based script to a full-fledged language but the Flash IDE remains a glorified animation program (I am reluctant to even call it an ‘IDE’). Most of us who are serious developers are happy to switch to more powerful programming environment such as FlexBuilder, however there are thousands of users who learned programming on Flash who shouldn’t have to switch just because Adobe decided that we’re all either designers or developers. There should be a sense of responsibility to the huge workforce of artisans and engineers who rely on this product to make a living.

On that note, I am very pleased that they decided to change the name from FlexBuilder to FlashBuilder. I can’t tell you how often I’ve been in a scenario like this…

Flash Guy: “Import statements are a pain in the ass.”

Me: “I know. But using FlexBuilder makes it a lot easier because the imports are automated.”

Flash Guy: “But I’m not working on a Flex project.”

Me: *Hand to forehead*

The name FlashBuilder helps to support the idea of the Flash Platform which encompasses many technologies. Danny Patterson has makes some good points on the subject on his blog as well. Most interestingly, the suggestion to change the name of Flash Professional CS4 to Flash Designer CS4.

I think Adobe opened the flood gates to these types of discussions wheen they decided to treat designers and developers as separate camps but I’m glad they’re rethinking their approach.

According to All the latest news the attack takes control of your browser and attempts to download a trojan. Luckily, I clicked that link from firefox on my Mac which, for the time being, is largely unaffected by viruses. After clicking on the link, when i went into facebook, the site seemed to be disabled in many areas specifically, in the help and change password areas. At one point my password was changed and I couldn’t cancel my account or change the password.
I went on with another computer and reported the issue then requested a password change which was sent to my email. I also tried to take any personal info off of my account.
Next, I went through my files for firefox on the affected computer. I went into /Users/mims/Library/Application Support/Firefox. I backed up the contents then threw them away. I also trashed the firefox preferences in /Users/mims/Library/Preferences and the application itself. I downloaded a new version of the browser and installed it and the facebook corruption seems to be gone.
I haven’t heard anything from facebook yet and trying to contact them was a pain in the ass.
Good luck!

The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) has recently formed a new special interest group for Flash games and Flash in the gaming industry. This promises to be a great resource for aspiring Flash game creators. Check out their Wiki and user groups if you’re interested in the subject.