yourminis Development Options

A new gadget that lasts only five minutes is worth more than an immortal work that bores everyone - Francis Picabia

Introduction

Joel Tulloch and I have been discussing yourminis and Goowy in our past few blog postings. We will be continuing that discussion on Mondays for the next few weeks. Last week I introduced Goowy and yourmini development, showing you how to set up your Flash environment to develop your own gadgets with yourminis. This week I’d like to discuss your choice of yourminis development environments, Flex vs. Flash, and if you’re new to either Flash or Flex development how ActionScript compares with JavaScript development.

Using Flex vs Flash for Development

Flash technology has become a standard method for adding animation and interactivity to web pages, Flex technology provides the perfect framework for the cross platform development of Rich Internet Applications (RIAs), hosted on the Adobe Flash platform. If you’re an experienced Flash developer, Flex is readily accessible as both share the ActionScript 3.0 language. If you’re new to the Flash/Flex scence, Flex leverages the knowledgebase of tradition web developers, with an XML language that is similar to traditional web development techniques.

So which projects are best suited to a particular development environment? Linear projects with character or linear animation, is typically best suited for Flash. If your application has light interactivity, again Flash is your choice. As the interaction of your project increases, Flash with ActionScript can be leveraged. However, as the scope of your project and interactivity increases, Flex is a better choice.

As I discussed last week, the yourminis SDK can help you quickly turn existing Flash content into a gadget.

Differences Between ActionScript and JavaScript

If you’re new to the Flash/Flex development scene, and what to get started with yourminis, you may already be very familiar with JavaScript, but not ActionScript. If you already know JavaScript, alsomst 75% of your existing skills will transfer over to ActionScript, as they are both based on the same ECMAScript standard. The rules for creation of variables, arrays, functions, and objects are identical. Nearly identically the same syntax is used for operators, statements, logical expression and flow of control statements. Comments, scoping of variables, and the object model are the same. There are some omissions in ActionScript of syntax and scripting capabilities that JavaScript. Notablely, ActionScript does not support the the exception handling capabilities of JavaScript. ActionScript is more lenient than ECMAScript/JavaScript on case sensitivity - variable names and identifiers are case insensitive.

Your Choice

There are a number of resources available for both Flash and Flex. The yourminis documentation provides a number of tutorials that show how the same gadgets are developed for both the Flash and Flex environments. http://www.yourminis.com/developers/docs.aspx

Voting for YourMinis in C|Net's WebWare 100 Awards

yourminis has been selected by the editors of Webware, a CNET site, as a finalist in this year’s “Webware 100” Awards for "Browsing". The Webware 100 Awards recognize the best Web 2.0 sites, services, and applications that are leading the next wave of innovation. Finalists are selected by the editors of Webware, but the ultimate winners will be picked by the public. Winners will be announced on Monday, April 21, 2008.

Vote for yourminis with the link below!