AdvancED Flex 4

CHAPTER 3

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The Flash Catalyst interface was built on top of Eclipse and created to primarily accommodate the

designer. The IDE is similar in look and feel to Flash Professional and Photoshop. To some extent, it

allows designers to quickly jump in and start using the tool in a familiar environment, without writing

ActionScript code. However, parts of Catalyst’s capability such as states, transitioning, Heads-Up Display

(HUD), and components are not as familiar to the designers as layers and artwork, and they require

training as well as experience and a different mind set.

There are different ways to work with Flash Catalyst, and we would like to cover one view on how Flash

Catalyst can be used to change the designer and developer workflow. We are aware of the fact that the

FC software is still young and is improving, and as new iterations comes out, it will allow better integration

between designers and developers; however, we believe that many of the challenges and points we are

raising will still be valid and applicable in the next couple of years.

Developers Are from Mars, Designers Are from Venus

You have probably heard about the theory of left-side versus right-side of the brain. The claim is that a

person who is “left-brained” is more logical, analytical, and objective while a person who is “right-brained”

is more intuitive, thoughtful, and subjective.

The theory was developed from the work Roger Sperry, a Nobel Prize winner, did in regard to medicine

back in 1981. Sperry discovered that the human brain has two different ways of thinking. One side, the

right brain, is visual and processes information in an intuitive and simultaneous way, looking first at the

whole picture then at the details. The other side, the left brain, is verbal and processes information in an

analytical and sequential way, looking first at the pieces and then putting them together to get the whole.

Although recent research has shown that things are not as black and white or as simple as once thought, it

is reasonable to assume that designers usually have a stronger right-brain and developers have a stronger

left-brain. This makes a difference in how they process information and in how they work.

In order to create a designer and developer workflow, we need to have the right side of the brain and the

left side of the brain working together, and the challenge begins with the current RIA development cycle.

Currently, the development is more developer centric, since the designer is only responsible for creating

the pixel (visual) discipline and the designer is usually not involved in any of the Flash experience. It

becomes challenging to create Flash applications, because the developers need to be able to juggle

between all the application disciplines such as converting .psd/.ai files into MXML, handling data, testing,

services, coding, transitions, states, and many others responsibilities.

Many developers find it hard to skin a Flex 2 or Flex 3 component, and the level of effort to control every

aspect of the component as well as interactivity is high, which leads to many applications using the “out of

the box” components making many applications look like “Flex”.

Adobe is aware of these challenges and has been working in the last few years to close this gap by

creating the Flash Catalyst tool. Flash Catalyst reflects Adobe’s continual commitment to the Flash

framework and the community, and can help achieve a new design centric workflow, but it will not happen

over night.

Utilizing Flash Catalyst As a Developer Tool

Before we start talking about the designer-developer workflow from a developer’s point of view, we want

you to change your mindset. We are not sure if we should think of Catalyst as a designer’s tool. If that is

the case, then all of the Flex developers are actually designers.