Creating Visual Experiences with Flex 3.0 [Paperback]

Juan Sanchez (Author), Andy McIntosh (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0321545370 | ISBN-13: 978-0321545374 | Publication Date: November 27, 2008 | Edition: 1

Don’t settle for Flex’s boring, standard user interface. Set your Flex applications apart with the breakthrough skinning and programming techniques found in Creating Visual Experiences with Flex 3.0. Leading Flex developers Juan Sanchez and Andy McIntosh show how to build stunning Flex and AIR applications. You’ll learn how to take a design and translate that design into Flex or AIR without sacrificing fidelity, and how to apply state-of-the-art branding that adds value to all your Flex applications, no matter what they do or who you’re building them for.

 

Sanchez and McIntosh illuminate every aspect of creating superior visual experiences with Flex 3.0 and AIR and discuss planning, design, architecture, and proven user-interface principles, with an emphasis on technical implementation. You’ll learn how to alter the standard Flex interface using all the tools available to you: skins, styling, transitions, effects, filters, graphics built with Adobe creative tools, CSS, and ActionScript 3.0 programming.

 

The authors reveal the trade-offs associated with each approach to Flex visual experience design and help you choose the right techniques for your applications. They explain each concept and technique in detail, using real-world examples and exercises that solve specific problems and provide samples throughout each chapter.

 

If you want your Flex and AIR applications to be a cut above the rest, this is the book that shows you how.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Adobe Flex is changing the face of the Web by enabling developers to create rich Internet applications quickly. This book provides developers a way to get a jump on the competition by enabling them to quickly learn how easily they can set their application apart from the rest.”

—Gary Mangum, Principal Engineer, The Generations Network

 

“Juan and Andy do a great job breaking ground on a vast and exciting topic. This book moves beyond learning the syntax of the language and gets to the heart of what Flex was really made for—building immersive user experiences.”

—R.J. Owen, Senior Developer, EffectiveUI

 

“This is a fantastic source to get you started on your way to prettying up your Flex Applications.”

—Jeffry Houser, Producer of The Flex Show

 

“Creating Visual Experiences with Flex 3.0 takes a thorough look into the design side of Flex application development and is a must-have book for any Flex developer.”

—Sean Moore, Flex and AIR Developer, Kannopy, Inc.

 

“Creating Visual Experiences with Flex 3.0 is an outstanding book written by two of the most well-known industry experts. The book is highly accessible, concise, and understandable even for non-designer types such as myself. It is a much needed breath of fresh air in a market chock full of developer-centric Flex books. ”

—Jun Heider, Sr. Developer and Technical Trainer, RealEyes Media

 

“I first saw Juan and Andy give a visual effects presentation at 360/Flex Conference. It was clear they were experts on the subject, so I was excited when I heard they were writing a book. And they delivered; I wish I had this book in my hands a long time ago.”

—Leonard Souza, Interactive Creative Director

 

“The detailed explanations and relevant examples in Creating Visual Experiences with Flex 3.0 make it a perfect resource for developers at any level.”

—Garth D. Braithwaite, Designer/Developer

 

“Creating Visual Experiences with Flex 3.0 is organized and written in such a way that designers receive a gentle introduction to key RIA concepts and Adobe Flex terminology, then quickly build their knowledge and skills with each successive chapter. Creating Visual Experiences with Flex 3.0 speaks the language of a visual designer, a welcome change from most programmer-oriented Flex books.”

—Geof Harries, Subvert Marketing, Inc.

 

“With its fantastic visual examples and clear explanations of advanced interface design techniques in Flex, this book is a valuable addition to your RIA library. I recommend this to anyone looking to make fantastic-looking user interfaces with Adobe Flex.”

—Chad Udell

 

About the Author

Juan Sanchez is an Experience Architect for EffectiveUI, a leading provider of Rich Internet Applications based in Denver, Colorado. He created and manages ScaleNine.com, a site that provides skinning resources and UI inspiration for Flex and AIR. His work at ScaleNine has earned him widespread recognition as a community expert and he has presented at the LA Flex User Group, 360Flex, and WebManiacs. Sanchez also cofounded Degrafa, the open source declarative graphics framework for Flex.

 

Andy McIntosh specializes in interaction design, custom component development, programmatic skinning, and migrating enterprise applications to Flex/AIR-based solutions at EffectiveUI. He has played a key role in successful projects for clients such as Adobe, Workday, Scion, and United Airlines; he serves as an advisor for the Degrafa project.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1 edition (November 27, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321545370
• ISBN-13: 978-0321545374
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,263,176 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Creating Visual Experiences hits the mark, December 4, 2008

By 

Adrian Pomilio "www.uiandtherest.com" (Raleigh, NC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Creating Visual Experiences with Flex 3.0 (Paperback)

This review is from my blog entry at [...]

The book is broken into key sections: Introduction (actually worth reading), The Flex Framework, Beyond Flex (discusses the component kit), and Exercises. The reader can quickly begin to understand that the authors are experienced in actually doing this type of work, and they show it with very useful tips and notes that supplement the content. The content itself is written in an easy to digest format that builds upon itself and allows the reader to begin thinking about what they have read as well as what is coming next.

What I personally enjoyed about this book is how the authors did not interrupt the flow of the Framework section by inserting the exercise code. This approach gave the reader a feeling of being able to actually read the book without having to sit at a computer. This approach gave me ample time to delve into the topic and digest the contents without having to jump into an exercise. This approach should be a road map that other technical books follow.

The exercise section was well written and if you follow the exercises you will find success. The exercises were well thought out and help the reader understand the process/work flow to complete a task. They were not a lesson in regurgitation of code from book to screen.

I could not recommend any other book over `Creating Visual Experiences with Flex 3.0' for understanding the styling and visual approach to Flex. This is book is absolutely top dog in the category. If you are a Flex developer then this is one book you must have on your shelf.

Kudos to Juan Sanchez and Andy McIntosh for putting out an instant staple for Flex developers.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic and Unique in the Flex Compendium, December 22, 2008

By 

John Blanco (Littleton CO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Creating Visual Experiences with Flex 3.0 (Paperback)

I just finished reading through this book last night. I didn't intend to read it so quickly after I finally got my hands on it, but I found I couldn't put it down. Perhaps I'm biased, because the two authors are co-workers of mine and, indeed, two designer/developers I much admire.

They've written something I've never seen written elsewhere. Where most Flex book talk about the bare language and basic screen construction, *this* book gives a broad treatment of styling and skinning. There were several handfuls of tips in there that have even helped me out in just the last week (minHeight="0", line thickness tricks, and OMG I never realized there was a reverse() method in effects, etc.)

The book reads very smoothly, and while at first I felt an absence of in-depth code, I think shuffling the exercises to the second half was a good idea. It let me read it during my commute without feeling like I had to skip material for then I had the focus to play with FB. Afterwards, I could focus on the exercises that I was particularly interested in and skip some that I was already familiar with.

I look forward to the sequel. :-)

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars About Flex, December 23, 2008

By 

John Wolf "author and musician" (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Creating Visual Experiences with Flex 3.0 (Paperback)

The book talks about Flex, but limits the depth to a lot of rhetoric and somewhat weak examples. The problem I had with the book is I read Alaric Cole's book "Learning Flex 3" first, which is a much more readable and fun book that is full of indepth, full featured example projects and has a great many reference tips and places to visit on the Internet for help. Juan and Andy's book has some different details that Alaric's book, but I felt I was reading "about" Flex and not getting into the framework. It really helps to show a completed examples at the end of each chapter and not leave the clippets hanging. All the real examples were left to a set of exercises in the middle of the book that I didn't feel were very interesting, especially after reading Alaric's book. I would skip this book and buy "Learning Flex 3" by Alaric Cole.