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Pro JavaScript RIA Techniques
Book posted on Feb 05 by chuckboc

Rich Internet Applications are often the basis for Web 2.0 sites, where increased functionality comes at the price of more extensive development and coding efforts. Here’s an excellent overview from a JavaScript perspective that will help anyone and everyone who wants to master this, from beginners to seasoned professionals.

The author has distilled his expertise and experience in successfully delivering JavaScript-based Rich Internet Applications, in 402 pages plus index, organized as 12 chapters in three parts. While the focus is on JavaScript, the scope of the book also encompasses the other technologies required to make RIAs useful. The book has a good mix of background information with specific techniques the reader can put to immediate use.

The first part, chapters one and two, deals with best practices proper, to ease both initial development and subsequent maintenance. These deal with such things as naming conventions, folder structures, coding styles and documentation support, with specific recommendations on tools that aid these activities. The importance of this project organization is emphasized several times throughout the book. So, too are reminders the business side will certainly welcome, while the designers and developers all too often overlook: Build to accomplish the task at hand, as simply as possible, nothing more and nothing less.

This first part also outlines the importance of maintaining separation of the several elements that together make up RIAs: Content in html, presentation in Cascading Style Sheets, and functionality in JavaScript, which, not surprisingly, is the largest chapter in the book. The importance of JavaScript frameworks is also covered, and the necessity to review each of them for a given task as one size fits all really doesn’t.

The second part, chapters three through five, deals with performance or the functionality integrated with JavaScript. As the author points out, browsers each have their own interpretations of implementing standards, with no two browsers acting identically for the same source material. Each browser has its own development and debug tools, some more effective then others, which are reviewed in a concise manner. Very helpful is the overview of browser functionality, from both the design goals and actual operational viewpoints. There are some interesting tips and tricks that are described, with the ones for Microsoft’s IE particularly helpful in reducing the code required to detect the differences and respond specifically and intelligently, so much so that these by themselves may be well worth the price of the book.

The third and last part, chapters six through twelve, deal with presentation, multimedia, UI and accessibility issues, as well as interactivity and several third party components that extend RIA possibilities. It also looks at advanced subjects based on the next versions of the several open standards currently undergoing revision.

Finally, the book has a deep and well organized index that makes for a very good desk reference.

Like all Apress books, the source code used in each chapter can be downloaded for further study, or an implementation model. The source consists of JavaScript and html files, along with Cascading Style Sheets and Visual C#, that are needed to illustrate an example or demonstrate a technique or approach.

Flex 3 Component Solutions
Book posted on Feb 27 by chuckboc

Using encapsulated components instead of reinventing wheels in code have been around from some time, for both GUI elements and nonvisible functional blocks such as communications protocol handlers. Here is a brief sampler of some for Adobe’s Flex 3 development tool.

Library components have many advantages that have been exploited in desktop applications at least since Borland introduced the Visual Component Library in the early 1990s, although probably the oldest would be Seymour Cray’s development of tokened execution blocks in the early 1960s for the CDC 160A computer.

The web world, based on html and css scripts for presentation and javascript for interaction, has not been able to take advantage of encapsulated components for a variety of reasons, but the new rich internet applications are increasingly using them. They not only offer excellent user experiences  and desktop-like responsiveness, but simplify and accelerate software development, as well as increase reliability and code reuse at a modular level.

This book demonstrates a sample of Flex 3 UI components from a variety of vendors, generally organized into functional areas such as image manipulation, audio and video management, graphing techniques and data visualization.

The book’s first chapter starts with a general high level overview of the Flex development environment, with a tacit assumption that the reader is proficient with developing and managing compiled code. Those who may not be familiar with Flex itself can pick up the overall concepts quickly if they have any experience with XML, on which Flex’s mxml structure is based. The logical glue that Flex requires is done with ActionScript, a C-like compiled language based on the E4X programming language extension.

The book includes a chapter outlining how to setup Flex projects, as well as how to convert the several component packages into a form that can be used directly within Flex. The examples’ server side is based on Apache and PHP, but the DDL and datasets as CSV files are made available for those who use other backend technology stacks. All the example code, except for the vendor components, can be downloaded from the publisher’s website, which includes the Flex projects, example SWFs, images and datasets.

The following chapters highlight vendor components in broad functional areas. These components are not provided, but must be obtained separately from the respective vendor sites, with most of available on a trial basis.

There is a chapter that outlines how Flex components can be built, which is limited to how the project would be setup in the development tool.

This book, again, is a sampler of Flex components that extend the native set that comes with Flex Builder’s framework. The code examples show how these can be folded into a Flex project, but there is very little on how to extend them. Similarly, examination of Flex’s workings, such as mxml layout precedence and ActionScript code annotations or descriptions, is limited.

Flash on Devices
Book posted on Mar 27 by chuckboc

Flash’s ubiquity is in its presence on the vast majority of PC desktops, laptops and netbooks. It is also in a surprising, and growing, percentage of mobile devices. Software developers who want to tap this rapidly expanding market face many challenges that have not existed in the PC world for quite some time. This book is virtually encyclopedic in its review of the pitfalls and dangers for mobile development and how they can be avoided, even for the iPhone. It provides rich information detail on how to address mobile software development now, along with a preview of how it can be done easier when what is in the oven finishes baking.

Really four books in one, each dealing with various aspects and ways of applying Flash to mobile devices, which not surprisingly consists of more than just cell phones. The authors provide a good introduction by reviewing the mobile system landscape, which has one noticeable characteristic: It is highly fractured, with several unusual bottlenecks that constrain software development and wider adoption, as well as innovation.

There are two major reasons for this fracturing: The mobile device manufacturers themselves working to protect product differentiation, and the communications providers, primarily the telephone companies. The authors use the euphemism of ‘walled gardens’ to describe these limitations, but the reality is that they have been around for some time for all sorts of reasons, and are not likely to disappear soon.

Software developers for PCs benefit from a very large set of standards based practices and technical methodologies to develop products for markets that in aggregate make for a reasonably frictionless ecosystem. These do not (yet) exist or cannot be applied to the mobile marketplaces. Flash’s ubiquity can be exploited to help establish and expand a common design approach for specific mobile markets, and this book outlines specifically how this can be done. It is also perhaps the best integrating review of the mobile systems market from a software perspective generally, and exploiting Flash particularly.

As the authors clearly demonstrate, a unified code base cannot exist in this arena. Instead, Flash has to be adapted in various ways to accommodate the many device manufacturers. This book shows how that is done, either with overviews, sample code, or using third party tools that, in many cases, are described in some detail. This has resulted in several Flash ‘flavors’, collectively given the covering name of Flash Lite. All of these use varying subsets of ActionScript2; ActionScript3 is not yet available for mobile devices.

Developing a mobile software product is best done initially with an emulator, of which there are several. All of the major ones are reviewed with details that are most welcome, including screen shots and step by step procedures. Products are then moved to the actual target mobile devices after they work on the emulator, which is the only practical way to validate the design and code. Testing on a device is usually a demonstration of the Heisenberg Uncertainty principal, and the authors provide tips and techniques on how to prepare for and handle problems when in the device’s closed environment.

PC developers seldom have to concern themselves with performance or power issues: Memory is plentiful and cheap, disks are cheaper, processors have more than one core, and power is plentiful. None of these are the case in a mobile device, and careful attention has to be paid to resource management and processor demands. The authors outline ways to reduce draining batteries and exhausting memory, as well as tools to help profile performance to optimize resource utilization.

Testing mobile software is addressed in some detail. Mobile devices, particularly cell phones, can’t have their hoods opened as readily as can be done with regular PCs, resulting in some unusual testing constraints. Test driven development may be a catch phrase for some, but it is a necessity for mobile software development, and the authors outline specific methods to make sure this is done right.

One interesting aspect of mobile device usage is that they typically are upgraded (i.e., replaced), particularly cell phones, at a much smaller rate than PCs are. Thus, creating better user experiences and richer mobile applications will be applicable for small initial market segments, mainly the high end smart phones and their like. Still, increased horsepower for all mobile devices is inexorable. The authors move the Adobe curtain a bit to show what is being developed for Flash 10, particularly as these improvements relate to mobile devices of all kinds. There is a learning curve in learning how to develop mobile software, and some of this experience cannot be carried forward directly, such as trying to use ActionScript2 conventions in an ActionScript3 environment. Knowing about these will help the prepared to be ready when the parade catches up to them.

One last item is using Flash in the iPhone. Apple’s high Not Invented Here mentality officially bans Flash from the iPhone. But there is a way to project Flash content in the iPhone, and the book outlines how it is done. That alone is worth the price of this four in one book.

This book is highly recommended for anyone who wants to be successful in exploiting Flash in a mobile environment. It has specific and detailed here and now information that can be used and applied immediately, outlines development, testing, packaging and deployment processes and procedures, and points to a future, based on the proven Flash ecosystem, that will very likely happen sooner than later.

Example code, including complete projects that can be used as design templates, and additional reference material is available on the book’s website for download, organized in chapters. Additionally, the publisher maintains a forums section on their website for this and other related books.

This is a large technical book with many topics that are covered in varying levels of detail. It is not light reading, and in some places the writing is a bit rough.

Foundation Flash CS5 for Designers
Book posted on Sep 06 by chuckboc

The latest version of Flash, part of Adobe’s CS5, has many changes, new features and extended capabilities that increase productivity and improve workflow. This not only adds some complexity, and can cause confusion on where familiar tool settings and controls are now, but in some cases are not accurately described in the official Adobe documentation. This book, by authors with international experience and expertise with Flash, addresses these issues with well written explanations and detailed exercises and training aids.

The book starts with an introduction from the top of Flash in CS5 Pro, along the way pointing out productivity tips and techniques that were asked for by developers to make the workflow and tool use easier. Many of the changes in CS5 came about in aligning it to the current product portfolio, ease cross development and a bit more uniform tool usage.

Each of the 15 chapters provides background for following chapters in three broad areas, with a particular focus on graphics manipulation, animation and video development, traditionally Flash’s strong suit. A separate section on ActionScript3 is included, with following sections including samples of how they can be controlled and manipulated in code.

Each chapter concludes with a summary of the material covered, and has working example code that can be downloaded from the publisher’s web site. The introductory chapters have step by step instructions on how the a chosen tool aspect tool is used, along with screen shots to make it easier to follow.

The first six chapters are used to introduce the various features and use of Flash in CS5 as a tool, with concrete examples that demonstrate how aspects of the tool can be exploited to achieve various effects. Each of the tool’s panels and their collections of property editors are described, and in most cases their placements and different nomenclature from previous versions of Flash are pointed out.

There is also a small section on 3D and Flash CS5, adequate for basic 3D work, but which the authors point out can be impressively extended by several third party libraries, such as Papervision3D.

The book’s primary focus is on Flash in a desktop environment with the time line paradigm, a very large area to cover to say the least. Other environments, particularly mobile, are essentially ignored.

Flash is a really large subject, and one book cannot cover it all. It focuses almost exclusively on Flash CS5, and does not cover how Adobe’s complementary products, Flex and the Adobe Integrated Runtime, can be used to exploit the Flash beyond its graphics and video designer background. The user interface section is a bit small and light, and the backend data management is only lightly covered.

Recommended for both experienced Flash designers who are new to CS5, and newbies who are new to Flash with CS5 as their first tool. The wealth of detailed examples and practice exercises make for good reference book as well as a how to manual.

Foundation Flash CS5 for Designers by Tom Green and Tiago Dias, published by friendsofEd (an Apress company), ISBN 9781430229940, 816 pages in 15 chapters, including a 36 page index. Available online from Amazon and Barnes and Noble, and in eBook form from friendsofEd.

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