Flash Catalyst - From what i can remember
Prior to this event, I had caught wind of Flash Catalyst two years prior when it was demoed under the codename “Thermo” at an Adobe MAX event over 2 and a half years ago in Chicago. At that point I had exuberance for the initiative that matched my slightly younger age, so attending this event put on by the Seattle Graphic Guild made sense as I enthusiastically registered once I caught wind of it.
In Adobe’s words
“Adobe® Flash® Catalyst™ is a new professional interaction design tool for rapidly creating expressive interfaces and interactive content without writing code. Create interactive portfolios, product guides, microsites, site navigation, interfaces for RIAs and more.”
View their preview video here:
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashcatalyst/
That is a fairly accurate description. And instead of giving you a long-winded article vacantly reminiscing about the event, i’ll give you some bullet points instead.
Who it will be good for?
- Designers who need to mock up basic Flash interfaces quickly while reducing upfront dev time.
- UX/UI designers and information architects who want to show their clients basic user flow live.
- Mobile interface developers can mock up basic mobile interfaces for their iPhone/Android and maybe Windows Mobile 7.
- Marketing departments that want to develop interactive catalogs that could be delivered online or via AIR app.
- Newspapers can create simple interactive content for their sites without needing Flash.
- Educators can create slideshows, basic interactive content for the classroom with the fairly intuitive HUD interface and possibly without Ps or Ai
- Museums who use Flash for interactive elements and museum navigation.
What can it do?
- It imports all Photoshop, Illustrator, Fireworks layers and most effects.
- Add basic interactions like fades, slides and adjust them on a simpler timeline.
- Make simple adjustments like sizing or color to vector elements.
- Convert your vector scrollbar into a real active component for scrolling.
- Import other SWF files into your project (movies, content, etc)
- Export to AIR
- Native blend options on imported elements
- Import XML data from an external file for slideshows for example (not available in current beta)
- Adds pages or states, which easily create sub pages with the same exact base content which can be changed or added to.
What can’t it do?
- Create exciting Flash-based racers with Coke as the sponsor/client
- Complex Flash animations with multiple elements
- Get you a job for knowing it.
- Edit imported text (that gets vectorized)
- It isn’t for HTML/CSS, but that’s kind of a given since that is what Dreamweaver is for.
Random bits
- Exports an excessive amount of files that are not needed. It just “helpfully” recreates an entire HTML page for beginners and embeds it via swfobject.js - In simple cases you can just keep the SWF file and delete the rest as it doesn’t rely on them to function.
- It will cause file bloat if because it’s still a SWF and can’t load certain objects dynamically as it doesn’t infringe on Flash’s territory.
- In some sentiments its probably what Flash should have been all along. A basic program you could import standards-based files into and create simple interactive applications. Oddly built after the fact, but still completely relevant given the growing nature of interactive interfaces in our daily lives.
This program has the potential to be a few things. A workflow device you can rely on to build basic things like banner ads, product guides and interactive illustrations and lessons, if your animation and transition needs are minimal.
It can produce a live, interactive version of a wireframe or UI mockup for a client. If you don’t have a Cocoa developer for iPhone or iPad, you could feasibly create UI for applications to be used on either device quickly.
But like with any device or software, the users will begin to dictate what can really be done with it, what should or could be added for their benefit, but not at the detriment of other core Adobe products. It seems functional enough to be relevant, I just hope it doesn’t launch a new wave of crappy Flash sites. All in all I look forward to seeing if it can do for me what I dream it can, even two and a half years on.
