Category Archives: adobe

adobe, apple, java, open source, silverlight, software development, web authoring

The RIA dilemma: open vs predictable

4 Comments

There’s recently been a bit of hype (RoughlyDrafted.com) for Charles Jolley’s Sproutcore, yet another JavaScript framework, mainly because Apple is using it as its “Cocoa for the Web”, according to AppleInsider.

I tried the sample controls demo in IE7 but it didn’t work quite right. For example, the Picker pane opened but would not close. Tried again in Firefox 3.0 and everything was fine.

I’ve got no idea what the problem is with IE7; it is probably because of weak standards support in IE. However, it illustrates the advantages of a plug-in like Flash, Silverlight or Java. With these platforms, the application is largely insulated from differences between browsers.

The snag with the proprietary plug-in approach is that the vendor may not support every platform equally. Microsoft is entrusting the bulk of Silverlight Linux support to a third party. There are also issues of control. Apple most likely does not want any runtimes on iPhone because they open up a route to application deployment that bypasses its App Store and 30% revenue share. Google seems wary of Flash; RoughlyDrafted says that is because of the risk of content being turned into “opaque binaries” that are beyond the reach of its contextual advertising analysis, but it may just be  reluctance to cede such an important part of its platform to a third party.

Still, as a developer in search of a predictable app platform I’d rather target a plug-in than trust the browser vendors to be sufficiently consistent, and the Javascript libraries sufficiently smart, to enable my code to run reliably everywhere. It is easier to get away with a requirement for, say, Flash 9, than to insist that users choose a particular browser or operating system.

There are other factors of course. On the Javascript + HTML side, there are advantages in that it extends rather than replaces the HTML model. Things like clipboard support just work. Plus, it runs on iPhone.

On the plug-in side, you get the fast execution of a JIT compiler, and easy use of graphical and multimedia effects that take effort to do in JavaScript, or can’t be done at all.

I would be interested in comments from developers about what RIA platform you are choosing, and why.

adobe, flash, microsoft, silverlight, software development, windows

Why developers don’t write apps for Vista

2 Comments

From Evans Data we get this statistic (email address required):

Only eight percent of North American software developers are currently writing applications to run on Microsoft’s Vista operating system, while half are still writing programs for XP, according to Evans Data’s Spring 2008, North American Development Survey. These same developers forecast a fragmented Windows market in 2009 with only 24 percent expecting to target Vista and 29% expecting to continue with XP.

Matt Asay picks this up, saying that 92 percent of developers are ignoring Vista.

Sorry, this is silly. Sane Windows developers are writing apps that work on both XP and Vista. Writing an app that only works on Vista is equally as short-sighted as writing an app that only works on XP. Even WPF apps work on XP. So what are these 8% of Vista-only developers doing? Targeting DirectX 10?

Or did they get a somewhat ambiguous questionnaire and were collectively inconsistent over which boxes they ticked?

I agree that Vista has some problems, but this is not a useful analysis.

Two more interesting questions would be:

1. What proportion of developers are starting new projects that are cross-platform rather than Windows-only?

2. What proportion of developers are starting new projects that run from the Internet with zero desktop install, or maybe just a plug-in dependency?

There is a reason why Microsoft is fighting to establish Silverlight, and why Flex and Flash are suddenly so interesting to developers.

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adobe, flash

Flash in PDF – breakthrough, disaster, or irrelevant?

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I’m interested in opinions on the integration of Flash and PDF in Adobe Acrobat 9 – an obvious move, I guess, but nevertheless one that moves PDF away from its original speciality of print fidelity, and more towards – what? Online alternative to XHTML? Application container? Or just what it always was, but with the ability to add Flash decoration?

If I wanted to send someone a video, after the release of Acrobat 9, I might well use a PDF with embedded Flash, because I’d bet that it would play OK irrespective of the recipient’s OS. Then again, I wouldn’t email a video; I’d email a link to an URL; far more sensible. Especially since restrictive size limits are still in place for many business email users.

There are some interesting comments to Joe Wilcox’s breathless blog post on the subject. Smart documents are all very well; but distributing things that you can execute has well-known risks.

Will you use Flash embedded in PDF?

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adobe, flash, google, microsoft

Adobe’s Acrobat.com connects with online storage, collaboration

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Adobe has launched Acrobat.com, a free collaboration service now in beta. On the site, you can store up to 5GB of files, create documents with the Buzzword online word processor, share documents either with the world or with specified email addresses (the recipient must sign in with an Adobe account), and convert documents to PDF online. The PDF conversion is a trial limited to 5 documents, unless you subscribe to an online service, or buy Acrobat 9 and convert on the desktop (of course, there are plenty of other ways to convert to PDF these days). There is also an online conferencing application called Connect Now, which you can use for meetings with up to two other participants.

Connect Now is brilliant; I’m now yet convinced by the other services. Don’t get me wrong; 5GB of free online space is a fantastic offer, though it happens to be the same as Microsoft offers in Skydrive. However, everything is implemented in Flash, and this can be annoying. I find myself trying to right-click items to get a context menu; this doesn’t work, and I just get the Flash player settings menu. Right-click works OK in Google Docs, which also lets you create spreadsheets and presentations online, not just word processor documents. What is the compelling reason to use Acrobat.com, as opposed to these other services? And what is the business model – will Adobe go full tilt at the online productivity market, and offer Acrobat.com subscriptions for the Enterprise? And finance the free consumer/small biz services with advertising? I guess that is likely; but it is not good enough for those kinds of moves yet.

Connect Now on the other hand is a great conferencing system; Flash makes sense here, because it removes much of the friction that I’ve seen with other systems. You get chat; whiteboard with elegant drawing tools; webcam; shared notes; and screen sharing. The application can run with within or outside the browser. I presume it a cut down version of Connect Pro, formerly Breeze. I can see wide take-up for this; useful in its own right, and a good taster for the full version.

Screen sharing is a powerful feature, though I had a few problems on my first attempt, pretty though:

 

My second attempt worked fine.

adobe, microsoft, security, vista

Microsoft’s Misunderstood Misunderstandings

Microsoft has revised its document describing Five Misunderstood features in Windows Vista.

I’m not going to analyse the revisions, as others have done that, though I will mention in passing that Adobe Acrobat’s Compare Documents feature does a nice job of showing the revisions:

 

However, I would like to highlight this comment to Steven Poole’s post, from Microsoft’s Brandon Paddock:

Those changes were made because the original article was written without the involvement of the engineering teams and so it contained a great deal of inaccuracy.

Quite a confession.

The trouble is, even fixing inaccuracies doesn’t rescue the document from its faulty presumption that Vista’s poor public image is all down to misunderstandings. That ain’t straight talking. That’s spin.

The irony is that some features of Vista are misunderstood – UAC especially. Here’s some real straight talking on the subject, from Marc Russinovitch:

The bottom line is that elevations were introduced as a convenience that encourages users who want to access administrative rights to run with standard user rights by default. Users wanting the guarantees of a security boundary can trade off convenience by using a standard user account for daily tasks and Fast User Switching (FUS) to a dedicated administrator account to perform administrative operations. On the other hand, users who want to forgo security in favor of convenience can disable UAC on a system in the User Accounts dialog in the Control Panel, but should be aware that this also disables Protected Mode for Internet Explorer.

Perfect.

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adobe, web authoring

Adobe Creative Suite 4 in public beta

Adobe has released a public beta of key applications from its popular Creative Suite 4, including Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and Soundbooth. The company says, “Neither the quality nor the features are complete yet,” which makes them alpha releases in the usual terminology, but they are called beta anyway. A few highlights:

Dreamweaver integrates WebKit for a new Live View, has better support for Ajax and Javascript, and integrates Subversion:

Once you’ve defined Subversion as your version control system, you can update your site to get the latest versions of its pages directly from within Dreamweaver; no third-party utility or command-line interface is required.

Fireworks has greater scope, supporting CSS, and allowing export to HTML with CSS, PDF or AIR. Now includes Adobe Type Engine.

Adobe has also been polishing its “universal user interface” across its product range.

The beta is for Mac and Windows, and is intended for existing CS3 users; others will find the beta timing out after 48 hours.

Downloading now…

adobe, internet, microsoft, silverlight, web authoring

Mac users refusing to install Silverlight

1 Comment

The New York Times has run into a hail of criticism from Mac users over its use of Microsoft’s Silverlight plug-in for its offline reader, Times Reader, in its new Mac version, now in beta.

I took a careful look at the comments. There are 122 at the time of writing, of which around half are complaints about the choice of Silverlight. Here’s a few:

Nope. Not going to use *anything* from Microsoft. If reading the NYT requires MS products then, for this reader, goodbye NYT.

Silverlight? Why? I’m using Mac to escape Microsft’s crappy technology.
No thanks

PLEASE listen to your readers. Macs have a long, successful history of superior page layout, design, and rendering of published content. There is absolutely no reason to require a Microsoft plugin to display text and graphics on a Mac.

Silverlight will not install on Firefox on an Intel Mac (all versions current.) Why, O, why did you choose to go with a proprietary Microsoft technology with all the predictable Microsoft flaws and prejudices?

I was really looking forward to this, but I cannot support Microsoft’s Silverlight platform. Not only is it proprietary, but it runs more slowly than any alternative (Java, Flash) and it does not support end-user choice of browsers (Firefox, Safari not supported).

By way of balance, there are some dissenting voices:

Sometimes I find it hard to admit I’m a mac user. What a community of loud close-minded drama queens. “I’m canceling my subscription because you built an app that requires silverlight.” Please.

I took a look. My Mac is running Leopard (OS 10.5) and Safari is the default browser. I downloaded the beta and ran the installer. It duly invited me to install Silverlight:

Clicking the button took me to Microsoft’s download page, where I clicked the big button:

Downloaded, opened the download, and Silverlight installed:

Installation was quick, and at the end invited me to restart the browser – though it seemed to do so automatically. Microsoft’s web page now informed me that Silverlight was installed and showed an animation.

At this point, I was able to continue the Times Reader installation, which said “A suitable version of Silverlight has been found”. A couple of clicks later, I was up and running:

The application worked well in my brief test. The most obvious difference from the Windows version is that there are four fixed window sizes, rather than on-the-fly reflowing of text. It will be interesting to see if the more advanced Silverlight 2.0 can come closer to the full WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) version; if it can, there would be a good case for implementing both versions in Silverlight. It is an interesting project, since it runs Silverlight within a desktop application, rather in the manner of Adobe’s AIR.

Maybe Flash would have been as good or better, though as I understand it the New York Times finds XAML, the layout language in Silverlight, an excellent fit for what it wants to achieve. Nevertheless, my experience suggests that blanket hostility to Silverlight on the Mac is hard to justify from a technical perspective. In fact, Microsoft has done a good job in respect of keeping the download size small and making installation smooth. Admin rights were requested, but no restart was needed.

Still, if Silverlight attracts so much bile from readers of the NY Times it suggests Microsoft has a considerable problem on its hands. I’d imagine it is off-putting to others who are considering the development of Silverlight apps, since Mac support is a critically important feature.

adobe, flash, internet, microsoft, silverlight, software development, web authoring

Who needs AIR? NY Times does desktop Silverlight app for Mac

The New York Times is porting its excellent Times Reader application to the Mac using Silverlight 1.0:

Times Reader for the Mac is a native Cocoa application, which uses the Safari toolkit and Silverlight to render the pages.

Follow the link for some screengrabs. Adobe’s AIR (which also uses the Safari toolkit) is the obvious choice for this kind of online app; it’s interesting to see the NY Times adapting Silverlight in a similar manner.

I spoke to developer Nick Thuesen about this at Mix07, so this is not news for readers of this blog; though I’d become sceptical about whether it would be delivered because of the delay. Now, I’m surprised that the NY Times is still using Silverlight 1.0 rather than waiting for 2.0.

The Silverlight version appears to have some compromises. In particular, it cannot flow text on the client:

We paginate the pages for the Mac version on our servers (the Windows version does this on the PC). When you sync, we send you pages for the four window and three font sizes described above.

Still, the screens look good and I look forward to trying it – especially as the public beta will be free, whereas you need a subscription for the full release.

There is a high level of hostility towards Silverlight in the comments to the post. Mostly these appear to be religious in nature – ie. Mac users hate all things Microsoft. It does illustrate the difficulty the company has in persuading the world to take its cross-platform ambitions seriously.

Thanks to Ryan Stewart for the link.

adobe, internet, microsoft, software development

Microsoft Live Mesh is AIR++

This post on the Microsoft Live Dev blog reminded me to view some of the Live Mesh videos Microsoft has put out for developers – this quick tour is a good place to start; this video with Ori Amiga has more details with examples.

A few comments. First, it seems to me that Live Mesh is at heart a feed aggregrator. It is interesting to me because I had high hopes for Microsoft’s plans to integrate RSS into the operating system, and wrote about it in 2005. Sadly, Microsoft messed up its common feed platform – though I am perhaps one of the few who uses it outside IE7 or Outlook, with a custom feed reader thrown together in VB.

Live Mesh takes the feed aggregation concept and adds a few things. These include a REST API for posts and updates; a synchronization engine; an identity system so that you can control access; and a local feed server that works entirely offline when needed. Hence MOE (Mesh Operating Environment), also known as the Service Composition Runtime.

By the way, Mesh can synch peer to peer as well as with the cloud hub. Interesting for Intranet usage.

So what’s an application? A feed of course, one that contains stuff you can execute. The local runtime could be just HTML and Javascript engine; but you can see how nicely Silverlight fits into this scheme of things. It’s a neat deployment model. Buying an application becomes similar to subscribing to a web site, except you get an executable that works offline as well as online. As Amiga explains in the video above, this is about performance as well as convenience. The speed of the Net cannot match a local store.

Another aspect of this is that you can use Mesh services in your non-Mesh application, essentially as a data source that is automatically synchronized across everywhere.

If I’m anywhere close to grasping this, then it is not inherently Windows-centric. It also strikes me that this is AIR++, where the ++ is services and synchronization; Adobe should worry – except that Adobe has AIR out already and is no doubt working on great things for version 2.0.

A question though: what’s the business model? Commercial MESHable services? Tools and hosting? Premium MESH? MESH with ads? Right now, I guess Microsoft will do anything to buy mind share and market share for cloud services; but that will not do long-term.

adobe, flash, microsoft, multimedia, web authoring

RIA means … not much

Ryan Stewart has a go at nailing what the term Rich Internet Application means.

I think he’s coming at this from the wrong end. It’s better to look at the history.

As far as I’m aware – and based partly on my own recollection, and partly on what Adobe’s Kevin Lynch told the press at last year’s MAX Europe – the story begins around 2001, when WebVertising Inc created an online booking application for the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs. It was an HTML application redone in Flash. A PDF describing what was done is still online, and discusses some of the differences between the HTML and Flash approach, though bear in mind this is Flash evangelism.

They created iHotelier, a fully interactive, data-driven reservation application that reduces the entire reservation process down to a single screen. Users looking for information on available rooms for specific dates highlight their preferred dates in a calendar. With one click of the mouse, the Flash application displays the available (and unavailable) rooms, and their cost. (Figure 10) As a result, users do not feel like they’ve wasted a lot of time and effort if their first room choice is not available.

This case study seemed to trigger a new awareness at Macromedia concerning the potential of Flash for complete applications. I don’t mean that it had never been thought of before; after all, it was Macromedia that put powerful scripting capabilities into Flash, and I’m sure there were Flash projects before this that were applications. Nevertheless, it was a landmark example; and it was around then that I started hearing the term Rich Internet Application from Macromedia. Wikipedia claims that this paper [PDF] is the first use; it’s by Jeremy Allaire and dated March 2002. I’m sure Allaire himself could provide more background.

The problem with the term, as you can see from Allaire’s paper, is that Macromedia (now Adobe) tends to define it pretty much as whatever their latest Flash technology happens to be. This shifts around; so if you are at an AIR event, it’s AIR; if you are at a Flash event, it’s Flash; if you are at a Live Cycle event, it’s apps that use Live Cycle.

Microsoft muddied the waters a little. Realising that RIAs were attracting attention, it started using the term to describe its own technology too, though in the spirit of “embrace and extend” it changed it to mean “rich interactive application”. As I recall, Microsoft used it mainly to describe internet-connected desktop client applications such as those built with Windows Forms. Something like iTunes is a great example (even though it is from Apple), since it runs on the client but gets much of its data from the Internet, especially when you are in the iTunes store.

Now it remains a buzzword but honestly has little meaning, other than “something a bit richer than plain HTML”. If you were doing the Broadmoor Hotel app today, you could do it with AJAX and get similar results.

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