I decided to take some time away from the sessions, and try to find a good wireless connection (the connection in the rooms is flaky -- I'd complain, but what did we do at conferences before wireless?)

Developing PDA-based applications with Flash

  • Flash can create apps for Pocket PC or Sony CLIEs
  • Pocket PC
    • Flash 6 is available as a ActiveX control for pIE
    • works with all PPC 2002/2003 devices
    • Standalone player is available, you can also bundle this with the swf (adds about 900k to file size)
  • Palm OS (5+)
    • Standalone player only
    • CLIE devices only
    • Flash files must be on a memory stick
  • other devices listed at: www.macromedia.com/software/devices/supported
  • there is also a Flash Lite on some devices (phones)
  • also 3rd party solution - www.antmobile.com
  • when building device swf - must remember to set version to publish as (5/6)
  • Flash Pro 2004 has a number of templates (really just a screenshot of the device + a sized version of the Flash stage)
  • performance issues
    • keep frame rate about 12-15 fps
    • avoid a lot of actionscript, alpha fills, full screen movements (like wipes)
  • 3rd party sites

Developing sites for Macromedia Contribute

  • Contribute is this interesting 'Content Manager' - not really CMS, but a static web page manager targetting non-technical users
  • “Cross between a word processor and a browser“
  • WYSIWYG view - no ability to get to source
  • can use DreamWeaver files (best), or any other HTML files (including hand bombed)
  • User is given a key to install their version
  • Administrator can limit edit functionality by user
    • role based
    • can assign group home page, which folders have editable content
    • can force new pages be a copy of an existing, or use specific templates
    • can protect server-side code in pages
  • works with external (Office) documents -- Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF
    • conserves formatting/styles (doesn't use Word's convertor - yea!)
    • can also import as Flash Paper
      • printer driver that produces Flash movie that looks like page
      • enables printing, zooming, paging
  • works with version control (built-in?)