Yahoo! Flash(R) Blog

Building Flash Desktop Apps with Yahoo Widgets!

You may already know that you can develop cool desktop applications with the Yahoo Widgets SDK. With the 4.5 release of the SDK, these applications can now be built in Flash. To help you get started, I wrote an article (complete with examples) that demonstrates how you can leverage some of our Flash tools to rapidly develop Flash Desktop Applications with Yahoo! Widgets.

This article explains how you can use the Yahoo! Widget engine to turn your Flash program into a desktop application. Additionally, you will see examples built with The Badge Kit and the ASTRA Component Library. After reading, you should be fully prepared to build your own Widgets. Go give it a read and start building Flash Widgets today.

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AS3 Maps Update

A couple days ago, we pushed out an updated version of the AS3 Maps API. Here’s what Zach Graves, the lead developer of the component, has to say about it:

Nearly a month has passed since we launched the ActionScript 3 Maps API and since then we’ve received a ton of great feedback on the component, along with some awesome applications utilizing the API. Now we are rolling out an update with some important bug fixes and updates:

• New: YahooMap constructor syntax.
• New: Polyline overlay now has a geodesic flag.

• Update: Overlay.invalidate method renamed to Overlay.destroy
• Update: Improved event flow for mouse events on the map.

• Bug fix: Dynamic map insertion issue fixed.
• Bug fix: Marker maxZoom & minZoom properties fixed.
• Bug fix: Event.MOUSE_LEAVE event stops panning.
• Bug fix: aerial copyright duplication fixed.
• Bug fix: Fixed issue with the latlon property of YahooMap mouse events being incorrect in Flex apps.
• Bug fix: Updated LocalSearch dphone & phone properties.
• Bug fix: LocalSearch categories/rating filters arguments fixed.
• Bug fix: setZoomRange and getZoomRange methods returned incorrect values.
• Bug fix: TrafficSearch failure event incorrectly dispatched when there are zero incidents.

With this update, we’ve also added a few new examples to our developer center, including a demonstration of how to draw geodesic polylines, create custom markers and overlays, and a sample weather map application.

Also, if you missed the news last week, we have also updated our map tile data with over 12,000 new neighborhoods in 300 cities. With this new data, our expanding international coverage and some slick AS3 Maps—you’re guaranteed a great mapping experience in your applications. So head over to the Yahoo! Flash Developer Center and pick up the update.

We have more fun stuff coming, including a Flash component (for now, see Josh Tynjala’s post on how to use the current component in Flash). Stay tuned for more updates!

Thanks, Zach!

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AS3 Maps: Flick-able and Spinnable

The Yahoo! AS3 Maps API is barely a day old (well, alright, maybe some lucky folks got their hands on it a little earlier), and we are already seeing some seriously cool apps. An example of what can be done with this new API has been created by Jonathan New and Benjamin Halstead, our fellow Yahoos. They built a cool flick-able and rotable map interface which won the most fun hack award for our internal Q2/07 Hack Day. You can check out their application here. Give it spin—literally! Toss the map around and shift drag to rotate it around the center.

If you are reading this blog, you are probably a Flex or ActionScript developer, which means only one thing: Yahoo! AS3 Maps is a must have! We have prepared screencasts, examples and a complete documentation to get you started. Give it a test drive now. We look forward to your feedback.

(Special thanks to Ben and Jon for building an awesome map demo, and to Jeremy Johnstone for the photo)

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ActionScript 3 Maps API: Y3K Compliant

Good news, everyone! Although we are still not quite ready to unveil the “what-if machine” or teach the toaster to feel love (or stop putting Futurama references everywhere), today we are bringing you something just as cool and way more relevant. That’s right, folks: it’s the ActionScript 3 Maps API. Eagerly awaited and now available for immediate download on Yahoo! Flash Developer Center, the Maps API is an incredibly powerful map engine with multiple embeddable tools that make it truly universal. From local searches to custom markers, the API covers it all, and does that in a native AS3 component that’s less than 30 kilobytes in size (that’s smaller than about 4 map tiles.) You can use it in the Flex Builder, or with the standalone mxmlc compiler (which is nice and free) — a Flash version will follow shortly.

So don’t spend another minute without it: head on over to the Flash Developer Center and grab a copy (though make sure to read the license agreement before you do). We’ve prepared some screencasts, detailed documentation and a bunch of great examples to get you started. A whole world of rich map-enabled applications is waiting: and though it may not be the 31st century just yet, with Yahoo!’s AS3 Maps, you’ll definitely be ahead of your time.

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Hello, My Name Is Badge Kit

Have we seemed a bit quiet lately? Not without reason of course–we’ve been busy working on a great new piece of software for you folks. Have you heard of badges? They’re those little widgets all the cool kids have on their sites, used to display stuff in a compact and fun way. Yahoo! offers a number of badges you can easily grab and place on your site such as OMG and Answers…but what if those just aren’t good enough? Well, then it’s time to make your own!

That’s why we’ve been working to create the Badge Kit, the quick and easy tool for creating badges and widgets for deployment on the web and beyond. We want to make it easier to create badges. You don’t have to be an AJAX or Flash wizard to create a badge with our kit, all you need to do is write some simple XML. The result is a lightweight Flash badge that can be customized and placed on your site with minimal effort. That means you get all the benefits of a sleek, flashy interface without all the hard work.

With the Badge Kit, you instantly have access to the Flash CS3 components, you can integrate filters and transitions, and can even use the new ASTRA library. Yep, we mean those ASTRA components such as AutoComplete, Tree, and Charts can be used without a line of scripting. In fact, most any third-party Flash CS3 component can be used in the Badge Kit–all with simple, declarative markup similar to Flex.

Coupled with the newest version of the Yahoo! Widget Engine, you can also turn your badge into a Yahoo! Widget. Using the artist formerly known as Konfabulator, your fancy little badge can become a fun and informative widget on someone’s desktop.

This is a beta release, and we feel confident in sharing it with you all. Heck, we’re proud of it. We think this is a step in the right direction for the new Yahoo!. Being open-source, you get to see the inner workings, and you can even extend and optimize the kit for your own uses. We’ve got big plans for some great features, but why not get started now?

We want you to know that this is the the same kit we’re using here at home, so expect some innovative and fun badges from the various properties at Yahoo! very soon. Note that we’ve already got a plethora of open web service APIs, including Yahoo! Search and Flickr, which you’re free to use to create a badge. We hope you’ll use the Badge Kit to create a unique badge of your own, and share it with the community.

Try out the Badge Kit!

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Who is who on Flash Platform Team

It occurs to us that though we’ve spent nearly a month in the public eye, we haven’t yet gotten around to introducing ourselves. We figure we should let you know about our backgrounds and specific interests in the vast world of Flash, so here goes: the officially sanctioned bios of the Flash Platform team members. Pictures to come!

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New Flash(R) Developer Center launched

We are happy to announce the newly revamped Flash® Developer Center, an ever growing repository of tools, articles, tutorials, and information on all things Flash.

New to this revision is ASTRA (ActionScript Toolkit for Rich Applications) — our collection of Flash and Flex components, libraries and toolkits. In this inaugural release, ASTRA contains five UI components that complement the existing set provided with Flash CS3. The new UI components are: Tree, Menu, TabBar, AutoComplete, and Charts. All of these are built to match the existing Flash component standards and come fully equipped with examples, tutorials and documentation. Best of all, ASTRA is open-source under the BSD license, and follows an approach similar to the wonderful YUI Library.

If you are eager to get started right away, head right over to the ASTRA landing page, download the package and follow the installation instructions. And don’t forget to join the ydn-flash group and let us know how it goes !

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Introducing the Yahoo! Flash Platform Team

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.

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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