AIR 2.0 brings a lot of new features. Among them is the new ServerSocket class. The Socket class exists since Flash 9 and enabled a lot of new client/server applications. But it has always been limited to client side sockets as long as AIR (and the Flash Platform as a whole for that matter) is concerned. Therefor, this new server socket feature makes it possible to build actual server software using AIR!
The following video demonstrates a new “voice gesture” library targeting the Flash Platform. As you might have guessed, those “voice gestures” are pretty much like “mouse gestures” but they are activated by voice only. I guess it uses some kind of voice learning/recognition algorithm. I can’t stress enough how trhilled I am to see this kind of new and powerful software coming to Flash. This enables a whole new kind of usages and applications…
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.
— here are two awesome tools to create and export UI mockups.