Hi, my name is Timo Ernst and I am a web expert.

Posts Tagged ‘Webdevelopment’

Flash-to-HTML5: A must-have!

Posted on: April 12th, 2010 by Timo

There has a lot of discussion going around in the past days about the big Adobe vs. Apple issues. All because of Flash.

Steve doesn’t like Flash. He says, it’s buggy, slow and unstable, which I, as a Flash developer, must agree to partially.

But this is only one side of the medal. While the Flash player itself isn’t that great, the development tools provided by Adobe, like Catalyst, Flash Builder or Flash Professional, are really awesome. For me, as a traditional software engineer coming from Java programming, all these tools are absolutely professional, easy to use and really enhance the development workflow.

Thus, there can be only one consequence:

The Flash Player must be eliminated from the web and Adobe should continue building their great developer tools, but target HTML5.

On the Adobe MAX 2009, it was demonstrated, that it is possible to export Flash applications into HTML5. I know that this is just an early prototype, but if Adobe wants to survive, I think this is probably the best way to go, since all sides would benefit from this:

  • The web gets rid of the Flash Player
  • Steve is happy
  • Flash Developers can continue using Adobe products to create web applications
  • Adobe will survive

This strategy totally makes sense. Adobe doesn’t make money by selling the Flash Player. They sell development tools which target the Flash Player. If these tools would instead target HTML5, no-one would get hurt.

I know, this is technically not very easy. There are Flash-features which do not exist in HTML5 (yet), like web-cam support for example. But time will fix this. As far as I know, web-cam support was already suggested as a new feature for the next HTML versions.

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Tagxedo: Crazy tagcloud generator

Posted on: April 9th, 2010 by Timo

To be honest, I don’t really like Silverlight apps, but Tagxedo is truly great.

Just enter a website’s url (or just plain words) of your choice and it will generate a cloud for you, based on its content, as shown in the image below.

Variable parameters include font size, color, alignment and shape.

The app itself feels a bit buggy and the export-to-png didn’t work quite properly for me, so I had to take a screenshot instead, but still, the idea itself it brilliant.

Tagxedo Tagcloud

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Flash – The new Java?

Posted on: April 4th, 2010 by Timo

Update: After hearing about some misunderstandings regarding this post, I want to make sure, that the title “Flash – The new Java?” is of course targeted at front-ent software engineering, not backend. Although it’s obvious that noone would ever try to build a web application backend using Flash, I just wanted to make sure that you understand what I am talking about :-)

Flash/AIR seems to really become a serious alternative development environment if it comes up to multi-platform requirements for desktop- and mobile applications.

With one codebase (in ActionScript3), it’s possible to target:

  • Windows
  • Mac OS
  • Linux
  • iPhone, iPad
  • Android
  • Web OS
  • …

Don’t missunderstand me. If I say “desktop application”, I am not talking about ones which run inside a browser. Instead, they are being installed on the local file system and run inside a runtime environment. Think of them like Java applications running inside the Java Virtual Machine.

Check out this youtube video where Flash’s multi-platform capabilities are being demonstrated.

Note: Since both, the iPhone as well as iPad, don’t support the Flash runtime environment, it is possible to compile Flash into native iPhone applications, which behave 100% as their originals (I, personally find this unbelievable!).
On all other platforms, there is a runtime environment, called AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime), available. On Android phones, there is even a Flash Player installed which makes it possible to run Flash apps inside the browser. – Just one of the reasons why I am gonna buy the new HTC Legend in the next days. Sorry Apple :-P

For me, Flash is the new Java, which always claimed to be the platform-independent runtime environment for front-end applications. As good as Java is for backend-development on the web, the more it failed on the desktop and mobile phones.

Flash is not an animation-tool for designers anymore. It’s a serious SDK for writing great front-end applications in half of the time one would need using Java. ActionScript3 is a great programming language based on the object-oriented principles of java with some syntax similarities with JavaScript. In AS3, the developer has everything to code robust applications in OO-style: Classes, interfaces, polymorphism, events and more. Using Eclipse as the IDE of choice, one gets all the benefits of it like great debugging tools, for example.
Check this link out for a comparison between Java and AS3 syntax. You won’t see that much of a difference.

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Flash is dead

Posted on: March 30th, 2010 by Timo

Click here to read more.

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Rumor: Google bundles Chrome with Flash?

Posted on: March 30th, 2010 by Timo

It’s just a rumor, but it’s being said that there are plans out there that Google will release future versions of Chrome with Flash bundled.

If it’s true, this fact would be really astonishing for me, since Google usually tries to push open-source technologies, which Flash definately isn’t. Further, GWT is a direct rival of the Adobe Flex platform, so it really doesn’t marke sense why Google should increase its support in Flash.

Thus, I can’t believe that this rumor is true, but if it is, it would make me a really happy man :-)

My vision: Get Flash preinstalled on ChromeOS and Android! yay! :-)

Update: It’s true! An official statement confirms the partnership between Adobe and Google by integrating the Flash Player into Chrome:

Paul Betlem (Adobe): Today, Google is releasing the initial integration of Flash Player with Chrome in their developer channel (behind a command line flag). Moving forward, Google will be including Flash Player in Chrome so users will always have the most current release and a safer and more seamless experience. The robust integration between Chrome and Flash Player will serve as a showcase for more consistent, seamless, and efficient Web browsing experiences. We feel that this significant effort by both Google and Adobe will directly improve the speed of innovation and move the Web forward, benefiting the entire community of developers and end-users.

The Chromium authors blogged about the benefits, which are:

  • When users download Chrome, they will also receive the latest version of Adobe Flash Player. There will be no need to install Flash Player separately.
  • Users will automatically receive updates related to Flash Player using Google Chrome’s auto-update mechanism. This eliminates the need to manually download separate updates and reduces the security risk of using outdated versions.
  • With Adobe’s help, we plan to further protect users by extending Chrome’s “sandbox” to web pages with Flash content.
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©2012 TIMO ERNST
iPhone icon by Jack Cai. Android icon by wpzoom.com