ScaleNine

As Adobe continues to move forward in the RIA space they’ve clearly outlined what the focuses are behind Flex 4 and Thermo. One of those focuses is on design/developer collaboration. I’ve been following the progress across blogs, interviews and conversations and I started to think, “What would a Creative Suite for RIAs look like to me?” I think some of what would be included is pretty obvious, but there are other things I haven’t heard anything about.

After being involved with different types of projects and playing different roles on those projects I have definitely started seeing patterns in the way applications are used to create RIAs and what seems to work best. Different projects have different expectations at the design stages. Sometimes the deliverable is a series of “wireframes”, refined views or a full prototype. For a successful series of applications, these use-cases need to be supported. Based on my experiences I’ve assembled a list of what I’d want in an “RIA Suite”.

Fireworks

For me, Fireworks is my go-to application for UI design. I can rapidly iterate on designs that maintain vector qualities, make rich symbols for quickly laying out views and keep everything pretty well organized. Fireworks CS4 makes it even easier to do the day-to-day tasks with features that seemed to be lacking in CS3. The downside is that I usually have to bring Fireworks artwork into Flash to add animation and maintain vector quality before bringing it into Flex. Filters also have to be removed and reapplied in Flex because they don’t translate the way I’d like. From what I’ve seen, Thermo will help solve some of these issues.

Flash

When creating a UI for a Flex/AIR application it’s usually inevitable I’ll be using Flash. I’ll use it to group assets into a single SWF, package up a font, create a complex UI, or add animations. However, it seems I’m beginning to use Flash less and just doing everything right in Flex Builder. Using Tweener and Degrafa I can achieve the results I’m looking for most of the time, but I can’t give Flash up completely yet.

Thermo

We’ve all heard about Thermo and I think it’s going to address a lot of the issues I have with current workflows. It seems Thermo will be the middle application that bridges the gap between CS applications and Flex. Mockups are transformed into working MXML with the help of a designer-friendly environment. This includes converting graphics to working components, adding animations, creating dummy-data sources, and more. The one thing I have yet to see is how the designer/developer collaboration actually works. What happens when a developer makes a change and how does that get reflected on the designer’s side, and vice-versa?

Flex Builder

Every day that I am working I fire up Flex Builder and start plugging away, so of course it’s gonna make it onto my list. From a design-perspective I use Flex to add transitions, bitmap filters, do layout, etc. I’ll jump into Design View or CSS Design View to make sure everything looks the way I want it instead of compiling the application.

Bridge/Version Cue (RIA Edition)

Okay, this is not a real product, but it’s something I see lacking in the current collaboration between designers and developers. Developers are familiar with version control systems like CVS, SVN and the like, but what about designers? How will designers be able to tap into those same repositories to maintain the fluid collaboration? Use a command line, Flex Builder, FTP? Probably not.

I’m thinking it would be great if a familiar application that designers already use, like Bridge or Version Cue, would make it really easy for designers to interact with a repository. Developer’s might cringe at the idea of a designer having that kind of access, but maybe it isn’t direct. If Thermo allows for designers and developers to directly interact with the same code base I think this would be a nice feature. There’d also need to be a way to cycle back and forth with files and probably need to be able to check them in and out.

Degrafa (Not Adobe)

Degrafa is not Adobe, but every project I work on gets Degrafa added to it. Why? Because bitmaps and static vector artwork can only go so far. I make 80-90% of my skins in Degrafa. This allows me to open up any properties of the graphics to CSS, which means one Degrafa Button skin to create an infinite number of variations versus making separate graphics for each variation. There’s things I can do with Degrafa that I can’t with bitmap or static vector graphics and with the the things planned for Degrafa Beta 3, it’s a no brainer.

So, there’s the rundown. It’s a mix of a little present and future, and I’m sure there’s some tool out there that I just don’t know I want yet I’m looking forward to smoother work flows and tighter collaborations between designers and developers. When that happens there’s more time for innovation.

With all the hype going around about the “leaked” iPhone firmware 1.1.3, I couldn’t help thinking about that one elusive feature, Flash on the iPhone. It goes beyond just looking at Flash content on the iPhone into running Flex apps on the iPhone. There have been discussions about an iPhone SDK on the horizon, but I’d love to be able to run applications like Photoshop Express, Adobe Media Player, Buzzword and connect to my Adobe Share account (maybe to share files via wifi).

I know there may be limited screen real estate on the iPhone, but it just means reworking the UI to make the user experience enjoyable on a smaller device. Of course there’s always room for “Mobile” or “Lite” versions of software, although in some cases it may be overkill to add applications that almost require that larger screen size.

With that said, I couldn’t help but mockup a version of the iPhone home screen with a slew of Adobe apps. Granted some of the apps probably have no business being on the iPhone.

UPDATE: Someone asked about getting the file for these icons. Here’s the Photoshop file.

I was getting tired of using some of the images I had on my iPhone as wallpapers, so I thought, “I wonder if anyone’s made some iPhone wallpapers based on the CS3 background artwork?” All I could really find were wallpapers for the desktop, but nothing for the iPhone. Granted I didn’t look that long, but I decided to make some.

Initially I was going to only make some based on those CS3 backgrounds you see on Adobe software boxes, but one thing led to another. Before I knew it I got Doug McCune to throw some Adobe icons into TileUI and send me some screencaps. I also threw in a Photoshop Runner wallpaper (for the EffectiveUI guys), a Kuler wallpaper and an Adobe icon arrangement reminiscent of the mugs they had for sale at MAX.

You can get them all from here, or click on the image below.

In my search I also came across these cool iPhone wallpapers.

I never really thought about getting credits on a piece of Adobe software, but it’s definitely cool to see (middle, right). Yes, I realize my name is a common one, but I swear it’s me. In case your wondering what I did, you can check out NJ’s post for some insight.

I came across some iPhone Dev Camp App favorites that were pretty cool. And useful. One app I’d like to see for the iPhone is one that used the built in camera to read bar codes and then pull up information. If that was possible, you could do things like:

- Scan a bar code on a food item and get nutritional information, definitions of what those 26 letter ingredients are, etc.

- Scan a product and get reviews, price comparisons, place to purchase, etc.

Then, if they could get some text recognition you could take a picture of a business card and have the iPhone recognize the text and add the info to your contacts list. Possible? Probably not. Would be super cool though.

Ok… One last thing. Cover flow for contacts.

That’s all.