Next Flex Builder product renamed to Flash Builder? What do you think?

As an Adobe evangelist, I explain many of our products. One of the products is called "Flex Builder" which sort of insinuates that it builds "Flex". The truth is that Flex Builder actually builds Flash or Adobe AIR applications. For people building browser-based applications, they are, for all means, Shockwave Flash (swf) files. Given this confusion, there has been discussion about the next version of Flex Builder being named Flash Builder 4. It would be the same Eclipse-based IDE with a new name and lots of great new features. This theoretically would be a name change to the commercial product only, and does not affect the Flex framework or Flex SDK.

Some points to consider being sending me flames or applause ;-)

- It's still the Flex framework, and you are still a Flex developer.

- People searching for developers to build Flash would probably get connected with Flex developers much earlier in the development cycle.

- Flash Builder is the development tool for the Flash platform,
supporting the use of the Flex framework or pure ActionScript.

- Flex is the open source framework at the core of the Flash Platform,
including Flash Builder and Flash Catalyst.

- The name of the current product, Flex Builder 3, would remain the same, and would not be renamed Flash Builder 3.

It sort of just makes sense and would probably result in a lot of new revenue when people realize all these "Flex Developers" can actually build them Flash applications rather than smaller development shops having to educate the public about Flash vs. Flex.

These are ideas. What do you think? After all - it's your community.

City of Vancouver to be "Open Source/Open Standards" based!

I got a great email today from David Eaves. Vancouver City Council has put forth a motion on "Open Data, Open Standards and Open Source" as written by Councillor Andrea Reimer (I met her at some functions during current mayor Gregor Robertson's campaign). According to the motion, the City of Vancouver endorses the principles of:

• Open and Accessible Data - the City of Vancouver will freely share with
citizens, businesses and other jurisdictions the greatest amount of data
possible while respecting privacy and security concerns;

• Open Standards - the City of Vancouver will move as quickly as possible to
adopt prevailing open standards for data, documents, maps, and other formats
of media;

• Open Source Software - the City of Vancouver, when replacing existing
software or considering new applications, will place open source software on
an equal footing with commercial systems during procurement cycles;

Read the rest here! Vancouver council: Welcome to the future!!! Thank you!!

New Video Tutorial - Full Screen AIR Video

This is just a quick tutorial for AIR developers to build an application that plays video in the full screen interactive mode. You can substitute the video for images or other digital assets. There are a couple of other tricks to this you can find in the AIR API docs such as how to remove the bars at the bottom.

Enjoy!