If you use FDT, this looks to be a huge update. Here is the list with main new features from the FDT blog:

MXML Support
- Semantic Highlighting
- Templates
- Wizard for MXML Classes
- Flex-Builder Project Importer
- Attribute Auto Completion
- Quick Outline
- Type Hierarchy
- Hyperlinks (F3)

Further AS-Support
- Improved SWC-Parser
- Improved Auto Completion (constructor)
- CS4 Help Importer

You can find instructions for updating to the beta here.

The app includes class references for Adobe AIR 1.5, Adobe Flex 3.2 and Flash Player 10. I've been testing it this weekend and it has run great.

There is more information on Mike's website for the app, including a download link for the iTunes App Store. If you want to install the app directly on your phone, you'll need to search for "Mike Chambers" to find the app while it works its way into the App Store search.

Along with this release the public gateway has also been updated to use SWX PHP v2 beta and allow for AS3 support. You can find documentation here, which shows how to use the new AS3 API as well as provides an introduction to the new Simple Call and Custom Call methods of interacting with your SWX gateway.

Lastly, Folkert Hielema has contributed an updated Twitter service and a new Identi.ca service. Both of these services are live on the public gateway (you can test them in the Service Explorer) and also available in the SWX PHP download available on the Google Code page under "Featured Downloads".

I will continue to work on updating the SWX blog with new documentation, but until then please refer to this documentation - it should provide you with everything you need to get started with v2.

If you notice any issues, please log them here. For support or to discuss the new release, please use the project's mailing list.

This release has been a huge effort by the SWX development team, and has been in the works since September. I'm sure you'll enjoy using it as much as we've enjoyed coding it.

Can't wait to see what you build!

I was prompted to start looking at conference prices for 2009 when I heard that Flash On The Beach Miami's Super Early Bird pricing has been extended through Christmas. John Davey, the conference organizer, sent me a short email stating, "I think everyone is worried about the economy, and although it is worrying me too, I think a show of 'giving back' will be appreciated." I agree, John. And, thanks!

So, without further delay, here is a breakdown of pricing comparing some of the 'major' Flash/Flex conferences:

When looking at the table, you'll no doubt notice a few things right off. First, FlashForward continues to be the most expensive conference of the bunch at about a whopping 50% more expensive than FOTB or 306|Flex for the standard ticket price. I should mention that FlashForward has not posted their prices for 2009 and the table includes their 2008 pricing. Since the conference just changed hands last year (it was purchased by Beau Ambur of Metaliq) and they dropped the prices at that time, it is most likely safe to assume that they will keep the prices as-is this year.

Another item to consider is that with a new edition to be held in Miami, Flash on the Beach no longer requires international travel. My prior comparisons all had to take into account a flight to London and the very lopsided exchange rate for US Dollar to British Pound. With that no longer being necessary, FOTB is now even a better bargin for those of us in the States. Especially when you realize that all of the headlining speakers from the Brighton edition have also committed to speaking in Miami.

360|Flex has always had some of the lowest prices for a conference. They started out with all tickets priced at $360, but had since risen the price to $480. For their next conference they are taking a new approach of tiered pricing. As you can see above, the first 100 tickets are at the old $360 rate, the next 200 are at the standard $480 rate, and the last are at a premium rate of $550 (which is still about half of the cost of FlashForward).

Of course there is always the extra costs that go along with conferences like flight and hotel. Those certainly add to the cost, but for the most part are the same across the board (except in the case of international travel and/or exchange rates as mentioned previously), so I don't take those into consideration here.

What are your thoughts on the price of conferences in 2009? Am I missing any conferences that you would like to see added?

• Refactored JavaScript implementation
• New SWFAddress.swc AS3 component
• New CS4 based Splash screen sample
• New Digg API sample
• New up() method for easier deep linking path navigation
• New XSS protection that doesn't affect special characters
• Support for Internet Explorer 8
• Support for custom HTTP status messages in the SEO sample
• Improved title handling
• Improved unload event handling for IE
• Updated Rails sample
• Fixed getBaseURL() for AS3
• Fixed Safari 2.0-2.0.3 support
• Build-in fix for the Firefox 3/Mac OSX blinking effect
• Additional onLoad fix for application/xml content type
• Fixed optional options parameter for the popup method
• Cross platform build script
• Various optimizations

This looks to be a major release, and took over seven months of development. I remember speaking to Rostislav about this release back at FOTB 2008 Brighton, so he truly has put in a lot of effort. Here's hoping it gets wrapped into the expected new Gaia release.

The new version is available for download here.

Jason and I used our experiences in building the p.i.n.k. Spirits website as a platform for testing the concepts and they worked so well that we decided to write an article. The article covers using SWFAddress and SWFObject with PHP to provide your content in an alternate view (in this case HTML instead of Flash) for SEO purposes.

The article contends that when Adobe announced they were working with Google and Yahoo! to improve the searchability of Flash and Flex websites and applications, the Flash development community largely applauded the initiative. However, months after the announcement there has been minimal increase in the effective search engine rankings of Flash and Flex websites.

We discuss why the current method of Google and Yahoo!'s new 'headless player' isn't working quite yet, and how you can provide a mirror of the exact same content in your Flash and Flex projects as HTML using a single data source. This is a 'white hat' approach and doesn't break any of Google's rules.

There have recently been some articles on how Google has been updating the 'headless player', namely this article on InsideRIA, and I may do a blog post updating the article if necessary. Until then, be sure to check out the article in the January 2009 issue of Flash & Flex Developers Magazine.

I had previously posted about the offline help and language reference locations in Flash CS4 which allows you to access the local copy of the language reference from within a web browser. But did you know that you could also access these local files from within the Flash CS4 help panel?

Normally when you access the help panel in Flash CS4 it automatically tries to load the online version of the documentation and language reference. I assume Adobe chose to do this so they could keep it updated and you could benefit from other user's comments in the Live Docs.

To access the local copy of Flash CS4 help and the language reference, just tell Flash to “keep you offline”:

Go to Window > Extensions > Connections. In the panel that pops up, click the arrow at the top-right and select “Offline options”. From there you can check the box for “Keep me offline”. Flash will then always default to using the offline help.

I should note that doing this may also prevent you from using any other panels which call out to the internet, such as Kuler and the Flash startup/new file screen. As of now I'm not using any Internet-connected panels and I have the splash screen set to not show on startup, so this works quite well for me.

Yes, you could track events prior to this announcement by manually calling the JavaScript function embedded within the HTML page via ExternalInterface and passing it a unique identifier, but now you have two new options: either use the simple Flash or Flex component, or use the Flash or Flex AS3 tracking library. It should be noted that all four of these methods are being released as open source under the Apache 2 License.

Also, it looks like Rostislav will be looking at including this new GA library in his SWFAddress project (which already has support for tracking page views via the method I mentioned above).

The project is being hosted on Google Code where you can download the source and find documentation.

Richard Galvan - Keynote/Flash New and in the Future
Carlos Ulloa - The Best Way to Predict the Future is to Invent It
Branden Hall - Brilliant Ideas that I've Blatantly Stolen
Mark Anders - A Preview of Flex 4 and "Thermo"
Tink (Stephen Downs) - Flex Effects: Transitions as Design Elements
Erik Natzke - Beyond the Knowledge: The Art of Play
James Paterson - Modulating a Lot

- - -

Richard Galvan - Keynote/Flash New and in the Future

As with the previous FOTBs, Adobe kicked off the conference with their keynote. This year the keynote was titled "Flash New and in the Future" and as could have been guessed, focused mainly on the upcoming CS4 release.

Just before the keynote, John Davey (the conference organizer) kicked everything off with an opening video by Rob Chiu highlighting the city of Brighton and all of the amazing speakers we would see that week:

Richard started off the keynote by providing some context for the upcoming CS4 and Flash Player 10 releases.

Next, AIR was demoed by Serge Jespers, a European Platform Evangelist for Adobe. Serge got the crowd going early in the morning by showing off AIR demos such as Desktop Keeley from The Sun. He also noted that South Africans are using AIR to file their taxes - something that made me think about how far behind the US government can be when it comes to user-friendly technology.

Richard then came back up to give some walk-throughs of the new features in the upcoming Flash CS4 release. No new information was really divulged here, but it was nice to see some of the CS4 features such as IK, new GUI enhancements, the new spray brush and more demoed live.

You can watch a video of the entire keynote below, courtesy of Peter Elst:

- - -

Carlos Ulloa - The Best Way to Predict the Future is to Invent It

Haven seen Carlos' session last year, when Papervision3D was just gaining momentum, I was excited to see what was possible with the engine in its current state. Carlos has certainly pushed the boundaries of PV3D, and used his new (future) company's website as an example wherein they recreated the Monte Carlo racetrack and allow users to race the entire track using a Mini Cooper.

Most of Carlos' presentation was about process in innovating and working with PV3D, not PV3D itself. I found this refreshing - especially since I had been to PV3D training earlier this year and didn't care to sit through another presentation on how to use or optimize PV3D.

Following with the theme of inventing the future, Carlos spoke about how research leads to innovation:

1. Plan and Budget: Your designers should work with your development team to research together.
2. Define and Narrow: Define your objective and topic/area
3. Fine Tuning: Work across your teams to product mock-ups
4. Inspiration

Overall, a good session. Carlos has his thoughts about FOTB on his blog.

- - -

Branden Hall - Brilliant Ideas that I've Blatantly Stolen

Branden's presentations are always worth the time spent, so naturally I was excited to see him speak again. As one of the true developers on the speaking circuit who has been working with ActionScript since 1.0 his perspective is fairly unique.

The main takeaway of this presentation was to "be a selective thief" - use open source projects, look over the source code and learn from it, and pull out what you need to create your own masterpiece. I'm actually surprised, with the current large promotion of several open source Flash projects (think: PaperVision3D) that this even needs to be said anymore. But, it is always a good reminder and an even better lesson for those who are unaware of all the plug-and-play possibilities at their fingertips.

In addition, Branden made one really good point that I'd be remiss not to mention: no language exists in a vacuum. Going back to his prior point of "being a selective thief", Branden suggested that Flash and Flex developers start looking at other programming languages as sources of inspiration. Find out how they implemented a certain programming methodology and try to apply it to your daily coding where you can. It'll make you a more rounded, more aware and more experienced developer.

- - -

Mark Anders - A Preview of Flex 4 and "Thermo"

This is one session I was really looking forward to. Development on "Thermo" seems to be coming to a head, and they must be getting close to releasing a beta... or at least providing more details. I was really expecting to learn something new in this session, but unfortunately not much new was said about either Flex 4 or "Thermo" that hadn't previously been revealed.

Mark mentioned a few key points about the upcoming file format FXG, which enables the collaboration between Flex 4 and "Thermo", as well as between a good deal of the CS4 toolset. FXG is basically an XML file that defines Flash (and other) graphics in a Flash-indepent format. Mark showed off an FXG viewer app, written in AIR, that allowed you to edit the XML and preview the changes it made.

Next up was a discussion on states and how they are changing in Flex 4. Nothing new here as you can find information about this all over the web, so instead I'll just show you very blurry photo I took of the "new" Flex 4 application icon, in all its Gumbo-esque glory:

Lastly, Mark spoke a few minutes on "Thermo" noting that it is built as an Eclipe plugin just like Flex, and then he gave a brief demo of the application showing the process from static artwork to working scrollbar. I believe this is the same demo that Adobe has been giving of the application for months now, but the crowd seemed to be pleased anyways. I'd have to agree -- "Thermo" is a step in the right direction. Now cough it up already, Adobe!

- - -

Tink (Stephen Downs) - Flex Effects: Transitions as Design Elements

Tink has been a proponent of changing Flex from its standard skin or design since well... last year when I saw him speak at FOTB 07 about including Flash elements in Flex (which inheriently makes it looks 10x better).

This year Tink was showing off his work-in-progress transition library for Flex. The library does some of the heavy lifting for you and even includes some PaperVision3D effects. You can view more about the Efflex library on the project's website, or in this blog post about the FOTB presentation and recent developments with Efflex.

- - -

Erik Natzke - Beyond the Knowledge: The Art of Play

posters for sale

Every year since I have been attending Flash conferences I have seen Erik speak at least once, and every time I walk away inspired and wishing I owned some of his artwork (more on this in a second). Erik's session is always one where I can just sit back, relax, and enjoy the art show in front of me.

Erik always starts off talking about his process, which almost always starts with hand sketches:

Then he almost immediately jumps into a short reel of some of his amazing work:

After the talk, Erik laid out a few of his prints and immediately had over a hundred people hovering around the table trying to get a sneak peak. Unfortunately he wasn't selling any of his works at the conference, but here's a hint for you that I had to email Erik to get: the http://store.natzke.com URL Erik refers to in his slides wasn't working for over a week after his talk (it is now), so he sent me a link to the Flickr photo set he created showing all of the prints available for sale. Some great work there -- check it out, but be prepared to get lost in the artwork for an hour or so...

I also recorded a few videos during the talk. In this video Erik talks about his process and shows a short reel of his work:

In this video Natzke talks more process while showing another reel of work:

- - -

James Paterson - Modulating a Lot

I'll be honest, I hadn't heard of James Paterson by name before this conference. But I had certainly seen his work and website, http://www.presstube.com. If you don't know who James is, this photo pretty much sums up his uniquely irreverent style:

James got his start doing funky animations in Flash, but over the years has evolved to taking his style to different venues such as this live modern dance performance where his animations were projected really large onto the ground as a interactive backdrop to the performance:

James is a really funny, talented guy, and the only way to really get a feel for his work and the work as a result of his collaborations is through video. So, I took some during his presentation.

This first video is a clip where James talks about his "virtual zit popping" via Flash. This is a great example of James' fun style:

In this video James shows a 3D sound engine that was developed by his long-time collaborator Amit Pitaru. The video shows a song being created on the fly by Amit using the application:

- - -

You can follow/view my semi-consistent #fotb twittering throughout the conference by following this link to twitter search.

As one might have guessed, the blogosphere and twitterverse have both been overwhelmed with CS4 info about today's official feature announcements (note: NOT release!). I semi live twittered the event while watching it, and you can check out all those tweets at twitter search.

Despite the let down of non-US pricing being 1.6 times the US cost once again, and also some comments on the CS4 logo, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. I'd have to agree, but I also think that not too much new information was provided today other than pricing. At least for Flash CS4, I had seen and/or heard about all but one of the features discussed today at various conferences over the past year or more. The one new feature to me: Procedural modeling with Deco and Spray Brush. Nice small surprise feature addition.

While the enhancements across all of the CS4 apps are worth noting, I mainly work in Flex and Flash, so the rest of this post will focus on Flash CS4. There are some great posts out there already this morning, so I'll link to those instead of regurgitating the same content:

Keith Peters - I like Flash CS4
Keith does a great job going over some features as it applies to developers, and describes how some minor changes (aka the not-hyped ones) have really solved some of his pain points while working in the IDE. Keith has also posted some screenshots of the new interface.

Jen deHaan - Flash CS4: The photo tour of features
Jen has re-started her blog, now focusing it on Flash CS4 and the new motion model for animation. This post has the most thorough collection of Flash CS4 screenshots. I would also say the most official seeing as how Jen works for Adobe. If you can't wait until the release to check everything out, this is the blog post to read.

Jen deHaan - The new way of tweening in Flash CS4 (or: New motion in Flash CS4 makes your animations better, faster, stronger)
Winner of the longest blog post title, this post does a very good job of describing everything that has changed in the new animation model. If you are a designer and/or animator and work with the timeline much, you should read this post. Good for developers too, as we all end up working with the timeline a bit at some point in a project.

With that, let the waiting until the -actual- release begin!