Rich User Interface design with Balsamiq Mockups and Napkee
Creating a rich and efficient User Interface (UI) is the Saint Graal of every Rich Internet Application (RIA) developer. As Michael Chaize said it in his RIA introduction conference he made this year at EPITA, we call it "Rich" Internet Application because the software takes advantage of a rich User Interface and offers a rich user experience.
Flex developers can use the "Design" view of Flash Builder to design their UI. But this method requires to already have the components you want to work with and make sure they are full MXML. Because the WYSIWYG editor of Flash Builder does not interpret ActionScript components, it is more of a "What You See Is ore Or Less What You Get". If you need more than the Flash Builder WYSIMOLWYG editor -- and I certainly hope you do 
-- here are two awesome tools to create and export UI mockups.
More details right after the jump...
The first one is called Balsamiq Mockups and enables you to create the rich UI mockups per say.
The second one is called Napkee, and import Balsamiq mockups to export them targeting an HTML/AJAX web application or a Flex project :
Those two applications use Adobe AIR. It is actually very neat to design AIR/Flex applications using an AIR Application. In my mind, this is quite a good proof that Flex and AIR are both relevant and efficient technologies.
August 21st, 2009 - 03:45
I LOVE NAPKEE!
Although I wish you could move elements around within Napkee to get the placement / spacing right.
Also, have you used these yet:
http://www.MockupMagnets.com
I use them with client meetings, it helps clients understand whitespace, etc. Great tool to speed up meetings but also make them fun.
After completing some Magnetic Mockups, I go right into Balsamiq.
-E