Introducing the Yahoo! Flash Platform Team

Posted in "General" at 7:00 pm on August 14, 2007 by Michael Hoch |

These are exciting times since we — the Flash Platform Team — just launched this brand new Yahoo! Flash Blog and are thrilled to have you with us. We are getting ready to fill this blog with articles, in parallel to releasing libraries on the Yahoo! Developer Network. In fact, our first release is just around the corner… no, really! So please stay tuned, and let us start this blog by introducing the team and what we do at Yahoo!.

Flash Road: Flash Platform Team Taking a Stroll Outside

“Flash Road”: Flash Platform Team taking a stroll outside.

The Flash Platform team is developing the technical strategy and policy for Adobe technologies as it applies to Yahoo!. As such, we are focusing on developing libraries and platform solutions, methodologies and practices, as well as looking into emerging Adobe technologies.

Libraries and Platform Solutions
We are thinking of and designing a library that complements the set of components that was released with Flash CS3. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a Tree component? And what about a Menu, AutoComplete, or a simple TabBar? Advanced components like Charts do exist in Flex, but it would probably be helpful to have a lightweight solution in Flash as well. And yes, there are also the Web APIs that we have released some time ago on the Yahoo! Developer Network.

In terms of Platform Solutions, we can foresee releasing a kit that will make badging really easy, yet extensible. Sounds nice? Then stay tuned and come back often, since we are working on things like that.

Methodologies and Practices
We aim to be a central source for best Flash and Flex coding practices, articles, as well as links to valuable information on the Web. We will also create detailed documents that show how to deal with security under Flash, provide pointers for performance optimizations, and enable correct implementations of accessibility.

Emerging Technologies
Air (formerly Apollo) is definitely on our radar and we are staying on top of current developments. We work with Adobe and provide feedback from Yahoo’s point of view. We often evaluate technologies and create novel implementations to validate ideas and inform product.

All of our libraries are planned to be released as open source, under a BSD license on the Yahoo! Developer Network and will be free for all uses. We would like to encourage you and the community to participate in active discussions and sharing code and solutions, because we believe it will help us to create better products — and do it faster. Throughout the year, we also teach classes and conduct workshops around the above mentioned charter (look out for the videos on the Developer Network !), as well as speak at conferences (like the upcoming Adobe MAX conference in October.)

We are a team of talented Flash engineers that have a passion for good implementations and innovative solutions. Most importantly, we are looking forward to reaching out to you and the community to create dialogue around Flash, Flex, and Air. We encourage you to subscribe and participate on the ydn-flash group and mailing list. We are stoked to get this effort off the ground and are eager to move it forward together with you.

The Flash Platform Team:
Alaric Cole, Michael Hoch, Scott Morgan, Allen Rabinovich, Josh Tynjala

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19 Comments »

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  1. Cool! Good to see you guys…

    -abdul

    Comment by Abdul Qabiz — August 15, 2007 #

  2. Jeez, no comments yet!?

    Welcome to the deal guys… :)

    A little blurb about each of you and where each comes from would be great - oh, and how each landed the job would be interesting.

    Remember, publish early and often, even if it’s less than perfect. With a spot like this each of you could become some of the ‘gods of Flash’…

    Comment by Dave_Matthews — August 15, 2007 #

  3. I’m curious, does your team prefer flex or flash for development (sounds like flash from your first blog entry)? And why do you prefer one over the other?

    Comment by phil swenson — August 15, 2007 #

  4. Hi
    Is nice to see this new blog, hope it will have lots of new things, I’m starting do develop an application using your yahoo maps API and i find it very good although it has a lack of examples such as , how do i limit my search to only one country?

    Comment by Elias — August 17, 2007 #

  5. […] More info here. […]

    Pingback by coderkind.com » Blog Archive » Yahoo! begin Flash blogging — August 17, 2007 #

  6. So starting from this moment Yahoo Maps API and other parts of Yahoo Free Libraries will be even better.

    It would be even possible to manipulate Yahoo Map as BitmapData in online apps to create something like the Google 3D Map AIR Application, but in Flex and online :)

    Forget about maps, its really a great news - Yahoo goes forward in its Flash Platform Support!

    Comment by Rostislav Siryk — August 17, 2007 #

  7. Don’t worry, Dave. We’ll have an introduction to each of the team members up soon. That should include our areas of ActionScript expertise and a history of our experiences.

    We’ve got a nice beta release coming up next week too. We’ve got great articles that we’re polishing up, and others that are just waiting to be written. Stay tuned! It’s going to be a fun ride.

    Josh Tynjala
    Yahoo! Flash Platform

    Comment by Josh Tynjala — August 17, 2007 #

  8. Looking forward to it! Yeah, good idea regarding a a bit of background info on each of you.

    Good luck.

    Comment by Phillip Kerman — August 17, 2007 #

  9. Yahoo! Flash Platform Team, thank you a lot for a plenty of free tools and libraries you’ve already created and committed to the Flash community.

    Wish you a great projects, easy debugging and love from all over the world.

    This moment can become turning point in history, who knows!

    P.S. Nice photo, Abbey Road? ;-)

    Comment by Rostislav Siryk — August 18, 2007 #

  10. Phil, as a whole, our team doesn’t have a preference. It’s part of our core values to have an interest in the entire Flash platform. Some of us, such as myself and Alaric (that I know of for sure), have a bias toward Flex, but I feel right at home developing ActionScript in any environment. I developed Flash components for about two years before I got my hands dirty with Flex. I know my way around the Flex UIComponent architecture as well as I know my way around MovieClips and timelines.

    Rostislav, you’re right. That’s a reference to Abbey Road. It was Allen’s idea.

    Josh Tynjala
    Yahoo! Flash Platform

    Comment by Josh Tynjala — August 18, 2007 #

  11. P.S.

    Regarding Abbey Road… yeah, not to nitpick your photography, but it’s interesting that you might get a better photo if you’re all actually walking. Not as easy to pull off–but I suspect in this photo you’re all just standing there faking it.

    What’s even more interesting is that if you take a staged photo of someone… you’ll get the best results if they’re voicing words that coincide with the intended message. For example, if you’re photographing someone pretending to wake up… having them say things like “ah, morning… I’m still tired” and so on will yield better results than if they’re silent or saying something like “this is so dumb”.

    Try it out sometime–it’s quite interesting actually.

    Comment by Phillip Kerman — August 20, 2007 #

  12. Thanks Phillip,

    Great suggestions. I guess that is why we’re Flash Developers and not photographers :)

    Scott Morgan
    Yahoo! Flash Platform

    Comment by Scott Morgan — August 20, 2007 #

  13. Why is it that the Yahoo AS3 API web pages no longer exist?

    i.e. a 404 is returned when going to:
    http://developer.yahoo.com/flash/as3_api_libraries.html

    Comment by Justin — August 21, 2007 #

  14. > Why is it that the Yahoo AS3 API web pages no longer exist?

    Sorry about the confusion, Justin. The APIs have been moved to a new location: http://developer.yahoo.com/flash/astra-webapis/

    We’ll update the old links with redirects in the next few days :).

    Comment by Allen Rabinovich — August 22, 2007 #

  15. Hi guys,

    great work and nice components!
    Waiting for more cool stuff :-)

    Sascha

    Comment by Sascha — August 24, 2007 #

  16. Hello Guys,

    Nice to see you over here and waiting for your introduction and more grwoth in # of components :)

    Ashvin

    Comment by Ashvin Savani - arckid — August 26, 2007 #

  17. In a Flex2/AS3 route mapping application I need to draw lines as I click and
    place markers. The polylineOverlay example draws lines using an .xml file. Is
    there a different function I should use to draw lines on-the-fly? Or is there an
    undocumented way to send an array of points to the polylineOverlay?

    Comment by Rob Oates — August 31, 2007 #

  18. Hi,

    I wonder if and when will there be a Flex version?
    I know that Flash components should work in Flex applications, but I really don´t know how I could make Flash CS3-components work in Flex. Any suggestions?

    Comment by ArneO — September 6, 2007 #

  19. ArneO,

    We’re currently looking into some ideas for Flex components. It’s certainly on our radar, and we’re definitely hoping to provide useful solutions in all areas of Flash development, including Flex and AIR.

    We have not yet announced release dates for any future libraries or updates to the existing libraries.

    Josh Tynjala
    Yahoo! Flash Platform

    Comment by Josh Tynjala — September 6, 2007 #

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