A Flex/Apollo UI Focused Mailing List?
Recently several people have inquired about the need to create a mailing list (similar to the FlexCoders Group) dedicated to the customization of UIs for Flex and Apollo. While I think this is a good idea I need to evaluate how great this need is and whether there are enough people who would be willing to contribute. As it is right now it seems new community information pools are popping up more frequently (almost once a week it seems) and in some cases contain redundant information. In some cases it makes it hard to find the information you’re looking for.
Obviously I don’t want to overlap other resources that might be gathering this information, so before I put together a Yahoo Group dedicated to UI customization I also need to make sure there isn’t something out there already that people feel is adequate. The last thing I want to do is fragment the information sources already established.
The topics to be covered would include: app skinning, styling, extending components to get a visual look you want, UI design practices, patterns, etc. for Apollo and Flex. Essentially the goal would be to answer questions from “Why can’t I get a drop shadow to show up on my canvas?” to “How can I make the ComboBox drop down go up instead of down?” to “How do I implement this component I found to distort my application to work?.” Also, the group should be centered on advanced customization of applications either visual or in terms of behavior. What i mean, is that the topic of the group shouldn’t be only about skinning, but about everything related to creating richer interfaces. From very beginner levels to advanced.
Just in case this idea flies (and the name), I created a ScaleNine Yahoo Group. However, I’m looking for ideas for what the name of this group should be and whether or not people feel there is a need for this. If not, hey, it was just a thought 
Thoughts, questions, concerns?
UPDATE: I’ve changed the ScaleNine Group to FlexApolloUI Group.
March 19th, 2007 at 7:05 pm
Excellent initiative!
I think that currently there are lots of resources and communities centered on application-level development techniques and lack of support on advanced UI customization. To create Richer Applications we need to be able to create Richer UIs, and for that, more resources and better support on this subject is needed.
The name ScaleNine may lead to some confusion and people searching for UI customization may not understand it at first glance, but I do like the name. I think that keeping this name will be a natural evolution to the current scalenine project.
I’ve already subscribed to the current ML. When i wake up tomorrow (it’s 3 A.M. here in Portugal) i expect to see at least 20 new members on the group :P.
March 19th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
João,
I agree about the name. I was tossing around a few ideas like:
GUIdes
Advanced UI
March 19th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
I love the idea !!!
Also .. I agree the name needs to be something easy for beginners to grasp …. how about something as simple as “Apollo & Flex UI”
March 20th, 2007 at 12:58 am
2 ideas
1) I suggest name for the group: “flexui”. I’d like the name of this proposed group to stay as general as I it can be.
2) I suggest to establish this group at Google Groups. I know that historically flashcoders, flexcoders, apollocoders had all started at Yahoo, but Google Groups has better UI while reading group topics online, IMHO.
October 23rd, 2007 at 8:10 am
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