Re: [Flashcoders] Scribd CTO: “We Are Scrapping Fl ash And Betting The Company On HTML5″

2010-05-06 Thread Yousif Masoud
On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 9:51 PM, Steve Mathews happy...@gmail.com wrote:

 Right tool for the job? IMO Flash has never been that great at displaying
 documents.


I've been using Flash to display document for just over a year now, I must
admit, I didn't (and still don't) think it is inappropriate.  I'm currently
working on an AIR App and I must say, development so far has been really
enjoyable.

I use a [customized] version of swftool's pdf2swf to convert documents and
the iText Library to optimize PDF documents for online rendering.  So far so
good.  File sizes are relatively small and the experience is very fluid and
comfortable.  There are plenty of features you can add to a flash document
viewer to improve the document viewing experience.

I will agree with the statement that Flash was probably not envisioned to
display documents when it was first created, but can I ask you to
corroborate your statement above with specific issues you've encountered.

I'm more than happy to stand corrected.
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Re: [Flashcoders] Scribd CTO: “We Are Scrapping Fl ash And Betting The Company On HTML5″

2010-05-06 Thread Yousif Masoud
On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 8:45 PM, Matt S. mattsp...@gmail.com wrote:

 Warning: Typical TechCrunch hyberbole and schadenfreude ahead.


 Scribd CTO: “We Are Scrapping Flash And Betting The Company On HTML5″
 Read more:
 http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/05/scribd-html5/?qfds#ixzz0nBF5BxSv


I agree with your first statement.

Adobe’s much-beleaguered Flash is about to take another hit and online
documents are finally going to join the Web on a more equal footing.

...

Today, most documents (PDFs, Word docs, Powerpoint slides) can mostly be
viewed only as boxed off curiosities in a Flash player, not as full Web
pages.

They've clearly not seen the issuu Flash document viewer / haven't heard of
the full screen feature (not perfect, but their statement is inaccurate),
boxed off curiosities can be a very useful thing if the document is part
of content ( a supporting piece etc) and not the main spectacle.  I mean, it
will also be a boxed off curiosity in HTML5 if users simply want to embed
it within their blog.

Not only will these documents look great on the iPad’s no-Flash browser
(see screenshots), but it will bring the richness of fonts and graphics from
documents to native Web pages.

I really don't understand the relevance of the first part of this sentence,
looks like a paid advert to me.  The second part is the only [partially]
valid point in the entire article.  No one is perfect, there are always
trade-offs to be made when choosing a platform.

Documents will simply become very long Web pages. A new bookmark feature
will help you keep your place in especially long documents.

I am currently developing a similar feature in Flash.  I store the character
index of a selected location and enable the user to make a comment on it.
Users can easily jump between these points.  This isn't very hard to do.

Scribd’s documents will be especially iPad friendly. Instead of downloading
a book from Apple’s iBooks store or Amazon’s Kindle app, you can see if an
electronic version is on Scribd and read it in your browser.

Irrelevant.  These are not valid reasons for favoring HTML5 over Flash.

Pinch and zoom to make the text bigger. No download necessary.

I don't see the relevance of the first part. For the second part, in Flash,
there are two ways you can transfer the document, one is to store it in the
browser cache (downloading is clearly happening) or you can stream the
documents [in which case they're right].  If the documents are going to be
long Web pages, then surely, certain aspects of the documents are going to
end up in the cache, in that case, No Download necessary is misleading.  I
know the point they're trying to make, but, technically, the statement is
inaccurate.

Scribd’s currently uses a Flash player much like YouTube’s to allow people
to upload and view documents on the Web. But with HTML5 standards now making
their way through not browsers, there is little reason to do that. “Right
now the document is in a box,” says Friedman, “a Youtube-type of experience.
There is a bunch of content and a bunch of stuff around it. In the new
experience we are taking the content out of the box.”

Trying to compare Scribd document viewer to YouTube video player is beyond
me.  Enough said.

In the new experience, you're taking content out of one box and putting it
in another.

Friedman has ben [sic] working secretly on this project for the last six
months. You can tell he’s excited about it. He believes the Web is finally
ready to ditch Flash for documents. Unlike video players, the parts of the
HTML5 standard that impact documents have to do with support for fonts,
vector graphics, and rotating text.

The blatant spelling error in the first sentence demonstrates quite clearly
that this article was not reviewed properly.  Besides being a paid advert
for a completely useless device, this article offers no solid technical
reason to ditch Flash in document delivery systems.  Seriously, how many
business documents / books / articles in general have you seen that have
rotating text in them?  I have had to deal with such creatures (once in an
entire year), and it is possible to do so in Flash, however, this isn't a
compelling reason to abruptly switch platforms.

HTML5 documents will still be embeddable in other sites using an iFrame.

So if they're embeddable as Flash, they're a boxed off curiosity, but if
they're embeddable as an iFrame, they're not.  Need I say more?

I am looking forward to HTML5.  I am playing around with it and I must
admit, I love it.  I strongly believe that switching platforms should be a
decision I need to make for sound technical reasons or to cater for user
demand.  I certainly do not believe that we should ditch Flash just
because certain companies do not like it.  That doesn't make any sense.  As
long as the plugin is in widespread use, it should be supported.
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Re: [Flashcoders] Template w/ XML?

2010-05-01 Thread Yousif Masoud
On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 5:11 PM, John Singleton
johnsingleton...@yahoo.comwrote:

 Right. But that wasn't my question. What I'd like to know is if it's
 possible to alter how a swf is displayed dependent on variable information.
 For example:
 1) visitor surfs to xyz.php
 2) php script calls the template with the swf and feeds it the variable
 page='xyz'.
 3) the template swf renders data based on that.
 Is that possible? If it is, then I'm sure E4X is the way to go. And if it
 is possible, can one alter the guts of the page such that one can build
 tables, include pics, etc?
 TIA,
 John


Have you tried using FlashVars?

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/164/tn_16417.html

http://blogs.adobe.com/pdehaan/2006/07/using_flashvars_with_actionscr.html

For the second part of your question, have you looked into Flash Remoting?
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Re: [Flashcoders] letter from Steve Jobs on Flash

2010-04-30 Thread Yousif Masoud
On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 12:28 PM, Jer Brand thejhe...@gmail.com wrote:

 Okay, sorry once again, rambling done.

 Jer
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My turn to ramble, just spent three days convincing my Company that Flash is
not dead.

-- begin rant

I enjoy coding.  Period.

I don't care about what Mr. Jobs thinks, I couldn't care less about Adobe's
response to him.

The problems (in order of 'rolling eyesness' [to coin a phrase]):

1. Media
Reporters usually have nothing useful to say.  Those useless parrots are
easy to debunk.  CEO / Board taken care of.

2. Customer Apple Devotees
These are a pain.  The Apple is everything.  They keep our company in
business, we cater for them.  End of story.

3. Developer Apple Droids
These are the most intriguing creatures I have ever dealt with. What
difference does it make if you create a Flash application (or any other
application) using Linux, Mac or Windows.  Developers should use the best
tool for the Job.  If it's not Mac OS X then ditch it.  Apple will sell you
for pennies on the dollar for profit, so why worship a company that doesn't
care about you?  This baffles me.  You're not getting rewarded for your
blind loyalty.  [please excuse me for letting some steam off].

I own an iPhone 3G, if Apple doesn't support Flash by the time my contract
ends, the device is broken (doesn't work) as far as I'm concerned.  I'm
ditching and getting one that's not broken.

The failed netbook/iPod/iPhone hybrid thing is not even worth discussing.

Adobe, port CS7 or CS8 to Linux and rid me of having to worry about the
Operating System or the CEOs of the companies developing it.  Imagine that,
CS8 running on my 64-bit LFS Workstation ... I'll sell my Mac Pro and never
look back.

Flash is not dieing, it's going to live on and I look forward to developing
my media platform with it.

Good software doesn't need Mr. Jobs's approval.  If he doesn't like Flash,
that's his opinion and he's entitled to it.  I enjoy using Flash, and as
long as it's under active development, I'm going to use it.

-- end rant.
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