Despite my previous post, there is some activity around Open Source and Flash. For one, there is an Open Source Flash IDE, Flashdevelop. Right now it is tied to Windows, and it requires you to download the free debug Flash player and the Flex 3 SDK.
So Adobe is opening up their Flash platform via the Open Screen Project. Opening up in this case doesn't mean "Open Source," more like Open Spec. The spec for SWF has been published since 1998, but it came with onerous licensing restrictions. Adobe has now removed those licensing restrictions and promised to publish more API and protocol details.
Why is Adobe doing this? From their FAQ:
The Open Screen Project is working to enable a consistent runtime environment – taking advantage of Adobe® Flash® Player and, in the future, Adobe AIR™ – that will remove barriers for developers and designers as they publish content and applications across desktops and consumer devices, including phones, mobile Internet devices (MIDs), and set top boxes. The Open Screen Project will address potential technology fragmentation by enabling the runtime technology to be updated seamlessly over the air on mobile devices. The consistent runtime environment will provide optimal performance across a variety of operating systems and devices, and ultimately provide the best experience to consumers.
Some bloggers have speculated that this initiative is aimed at creating a Flash/AIR runtime on the iPhone. Maybe. But right now this thing looks more like an industry cooperative (not necessarily a bad thing) rather than a dynamic open source project.
My earlier post about the Adobe MAX developer conference left out one of the most interesting sessions: the keynote, which was presented with no small amount of sound and fury. The segment devoted to ColdFusion 8 proved particularly fascinating. Scott Fegette and Ben Forta appeared on stage to talk about their week-long effort to modernize the United Way's volunteer website. Adobe offered their services in this regard as a way to give back to the community and, coincidentally, highlight the power of ColdFusion 8. I applaud this act of volunteerism on behalf of volunteerism, but I can't say I'm in love with the results.
The old site included a fairly long, scrolling demographic survey that was used to collect information about volunteers. It contained a mixture of required and optional fields. The form itself could definitely have used some interface improvements; I'd love to see what somebody like Luke Wroblewski could have done with it. But I was a little shocked at what Fegette and Forta did: They simply wrapped it in an accordion widget and called it a day. You can see the results here.
Sure, there's now some cool behind-the-scenes code that compiles a custom PDF of volunteer resources based on your answers to the survey. But the form itself has gone from an interface that's low-tech but usable - everyone knows how to scroll down a page till they find a submit button - to one that's both up-to-the-minute and confusing. By wrapping all of the optional questions in a separate section of the accordion, the designers have pretty much guaranteed that nobody's going to fill them out. They interface concedes as much when it implores users with this instructional text: "Please continue to section 2 of the survey below." If you have to explain how your interface works, you've probably under- or over-designed.
To make matters worse, there's practically no validation on the client or server side. Here's the code to validate the presence of a ZIP Code:
<script language="javascript">
function checkForm(){
var zip = document.more.zip.value;
if (zip ==''){
alert("Please enter your Zip Code.");
//after alert popup, send focus back to firstname field
document.more.zip.focus();
return false;
}
return true
}
</script>
Of course, considering the ZIP field inexplicably defaults to "0," checking for a blank field doesn't really help much. You can provide a ZIP Code of "0" and an answer to exactly one of the questions on the survey and still receive your customized set of PDFs. That left me to wonder just how much customization is actually provided.
I applaud Adobe, Fegette and Forta for their charity, so I won't detail any more bugs, design flaws or lapses in standards. (Other folks have already taken up that cause.) I will, however, pose this question: Why would one of the leading software companies in the world, known for its stunning visual tools and eager to gain market share as a platform for serious software development, choose to demo something in front of 4,000 conference attendees without ensuring that it adheres to rigorous technical, aesthetic and usability standards?
