Imtiyaz Basha

CollapsibleAccordion – cool new flex component

imtiyaz — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 08:59:34 +0000

Jason Graham has developed a very cool component which is similar to accordian and very useful to save the space. check it out.

running example , right click to view source

from Jason’s blog

“So I started out with the need for an Accordion, but also to conserve real estate on the right side of my application. I then thought what if I could collapse the accordion, but still allow the user to see the accordion headers.

This is the component I ended up with.

I will give a quick run through of how I implemented the CollapsibleAccordion component. If you want more details you can look through the source code posted below.

I wanted this component to behave exactly like an Accordion, but instead of trying to hack and extend the Accordion class to get this functionality, I started from scratch and extended Container. The component is a composite of Buttons, that represent the accordion headers when in the closed state and during animation, that I rotate and resize and the Flex Accordion whose headers are styled the same as the buttons, so the effect is seamless.

In order for the container to behave like a real container I needed to define a DefaultPropery. The DefaultProperty basically tells the container that when content is added there is no variable defined to put it in to default what ever you set in the metadata for DefaultProperty.

The effect I wanted was to have the Accordion headers swinging from a closed state to an open state and then the content for each accordion pieces sliding in. To achieve this I take the buttons rotate and resize them to the appropriate spots, most of this logic is done in the updateDisplayList. Once the buttons have animated to their correct locations, the accordion then slides in, since the headers for the accordion and the buttons are styled the same the effect is seamless when the buttons are hidden. The addition of a collapse button on the first accordion header allows the user to close the accordion back to the close state. I basically have the component do everything in reverse to achieve the close.

Most of the work is done in the commitProperties and updateDisplayList methods.

Below is just a very simple sample along with the code below.”

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Blogging on the GO…!

imtiyaz — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 03:07:32 +0000

Wow, just found that WordPress already released its mobile version for Android 1.3, looks cool and very useful. this one is already crossed the 100,000 user mark from its release in Feb 2010.

User Stats :: Device Versions
A breakdown of Android versions that are running WordPress for Android:

2.1 (Eclair MR1)	39.90%
1.5 (Cupcake)	27.98%
1.6 (Donut)	23.57%
2.0 (Eclair)	8.13%
2.2 (Froyo)	0.19%

User Stats :: top 10 Languages

English	70.69%
Korean	4.86%
German	4.09%
French	3.20%
Spanish	3.08%
Dutch	2.46%
Japanese	2.01%
Swedish	1.65%
Italian	1.31%
Russian	1.23%

So hats off to everyone involved with making WordPress for Android. We are excited about reaching this milestone and are most excited about what’s to come for the app in the future!

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Think Broader – Cairngorm (kern-ˌgȯrm) 3 says

imtiyaz — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:48:44 +0000

Cairngorm began life in 2002 as an ActionScript library for building applications that apply a form of the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern. This continued for some time, with the project becoming open-source in 2004. In the meantime, many third-party frameworks were also developed and released, and a trend emerged towards Inversion-of-Control (IoC) frameworks. In 2009, the scope of Cairngorm was increased, transforming the MVC framework into a broader foundation of guidelines, tools and libraries that apply across frameworks.

Click here

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Each click counts…

imtiyaz — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 04:41:13 +0000

In the recent days I have seen many download providers and web sites adding a glossy look of download button which is actually take you to advertisement. Just like below (captured from http://www.ewallpapers.eu).

As a end user I am quietly against to this, the web site owner/ advertisement provider has the moral responsibility to let us know that this is an advertisement, if I am interested in that I will click otherwise won’t, but in the current case to earn a two penny these people gambling with us.

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IndoFolio – A Portfolio born from the Traditions…

imtiyaz — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 08:36:06 +0000

Gopal Raju has done a beautiful and inspiring work on his portfolio, I personally feel he has given a perfect blend of the design tradition… :).

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Thoughts on Flash by Steve Jobs

imtiyaz — Wed, 12 May 2010 04:28:00 +0000

Apple has a long relationship with Adobe. In fact, we met Adobe’s founders when they were in their proverbial garage. Apple was their first big customer, adopting their Postscript language for our new Laserwriter printer. Apple invested in Adobe and owned around 20% of the company for many years. The two companies worked closely together to pioneer desktop publishing and there were many good times. Since that golden era, the companies have grown apart. Apple went through its near death experience, and Adobe was drawn to the corporate market with their Acrobat products. Today the two companies still work together to serve their joint creative customers – Mac users buy around half of Adobe’s Creative Suite products – but beyond that there are few joint interests.

I wanted to jot down some of our thoughts on Adobe’s Flash products so that customers and critics may better understand why we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. Adobe has characterized our decision as being primarily business driven – they say we want to protect our App Store – but in reality it is based on technology issues. Adobe claims that we are a closed system, and that Flash is open, but in fact the opposite is true. Let me explain.

First, there’s “Open”.

Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary. They are only available from Adobe, and Adobe has sole authority as to their future enhancement, pricing, etc. While Adobe’s Flash products are widely available, this does not mean they are open, since they are controlled entirely by Adobe and available only from Adobe. By almost any definition, Flash is a closed system.

Apple has many proprietary products too. Though the operating system for the iPhone, iPod and iPad is proprietary, we strongly believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open. Rather than use Flash, Apple has adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript – all open standards. Apple’s mobile devices all ship with high performance, low power implementations of these open standards. HTML5, the new web standard that has been adopted by Apple, Google and many others, lets web developers create advanced graphics, typography, animations and transitions without relying on third party browser plug-ins (like Flash). HTML5 is completely open and controlled by a standards committee, of which Apple is a member.

Apple even creates open standards for the web. For example, Apple began with a small open source project and created WebKit, a complete open-source HTML5 rendering engine that is the heart of the Safari web browser used in all our products. WebKit has been widely adopted. Google uses it for Android’s browser, Palm uses it, Nokia uses it, and RIM (Blackberry) has announced they will use it too. Almost every smartphone web browser other than Microsoft’s uses WebKit. By making its WebKit technology open, Apple has set the standard for mobile web browsers.

Second, there’s the “full web”.

Adobe has repeatedly said that Apple mobile devices cannot access “the full web” because 75% of video on the web is in Flash. What they don’t say is that almost all this video is also available in a more modern format, H.264, and viewable on iPhones, iPods and iPads. YouTube, with an estimated 40% of the web’s video, shines in an app bundled on all Apple mobile devices, with the iPad offering perhaps the best YouTube discovery and viewing experience ever. Add to this video from Vimeo, Netflix, Facebook, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ESPN, NPR, Time, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, People, National Geographic, and many, many others. iPhone, iPod and iPad users aren’t missing much video.

Another Adobe claim is that Apple devices cannot play Flash games. This is true. Fortunately, there are over 50,000 games and entertainment titles on the App Store, and many of them are free. There are more games and entertainment titles available for iPhone, iPod and iPad than for any other platform in the world.

Third, there’s reliability, security and performance.

Symantec recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009. We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash. We have been working with Adobe to fix these problems, but they have persisted for several years now. We don’t want to reduce the reliability and security of our iPhones, iPods and iPads by adding Flash.

In addition, Flash has not performed well on mobile devices. We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it. Adobe publicly said that Flash would ship on a smartphone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010. We think it will eventually ship, but we’re glad we didn’t hold our breath. Who knows how it will perform?

Fourth, there’s battery life.

To achieve long battery life when playing video, mobile devices must decode the video in hardware; decoding it in software uses too much power. Many of the chips used in modern mobile devices contain a decoder called H.264 – an industry standard that is used in every Blu-ray DVD player and has been adopted by Apple, Google (YouTube), Vimeo, Netflix and many other companies.

Although Flash has recently added support for H.264, the video on almost all Flash websites currently requires an older generation decoder that is not implemented in mobile chips and must be run in software. The difference is striking: on an iPhone, for example, H.264 videos play for up to 10 hours, while videos decoded in software play for less than 5 hours before the battery is fully drained.

When websites re-encode their videos using H.264, they can offer them without using Flash at all. They play perfectly in browsers like Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome without any plugins whatsoever, and look great on iPhones, iPods and iPads.

Fifth, there’s Touch.

Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers. For example, many Flash websites rely on “rollovers”, which pop up menus or other elements when the mouse arrow hovers over a specific spot. Apple’s revolutionary multi-touch interface doesn’t use a mouse, and there is no concept of a rollover. Most Flash websites will need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices. If developers need to rewrite their Flash websites, why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript?

Even if iPhones, iPods and iPads ran Flash, it would not solve the problem that most Flash websites need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices.

Sixth, the most important reason.

Besides the fact that Flash is closed and proprietary, has major technical drawbacks, and doesn’t support touch based devices, there is an even more important reason we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. We have discussed the downsides of using Flash to play video and interactive content from websites, but Adobe also wants developers to adopt Flash to create apps that run on our mobile devices.

We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform. If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features. We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.

This becomes even worse if the third party is supplying a cross platform development tool. The third party may not adopt enhancements from one platform unless they are available on all of their supported platforms. Hence developers only have access to the lowest common denominator set of features. Again, we cannot accept an outcome where developers are blocked from using our innovations and enhancements because they are not available on our competitor’s platforms.

Flash is a cross platform development tool. It is not Adobe’s goal to help developers write the best iPhone, iPod and iPad apps. It is their goal to help developers write cross platform apps. And Adobe has been painfully slow to adopt enhancements to Apple’s platforms. For example, although Mac OS X has been shipping for almost 10 years now, Adobe just adopted it fully (Cocoa) two weeks ago when they shipped CS5. Adobe was the last major third party developer to fully adopt Mac OS X.

Our motivation is simple – we want to provide the most advanced and innovative platform to our developers, and we want them to stand directly on the shoulders of this platform and create the best apps the world has ever seen. We want to continually enhance the platform so developers can create even more amazing, powerful, fun and useful applications. Everyone wins – we sell more devices because we have the best apps, developers reach a wider and wider audience and customer base, and users are continually delighted by the best and broadest selection of apps on any platform.

Conclusions.

Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.

The avalanche of media outlets offering their content for Apple’s mobile devices demonstrates that Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content. And the 200,000 apps on Apple’s App Store proves that Flash isn’t necessary for tens of thousands of developers to create graphically rich applications, including games.

New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.

Steve Jobs
April, 2010

“the line which I am highly impressed was in bold state”

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The Gradual Disappearance Of Flash Websites

imtiyaz — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 18:56:43 +0000

This article is truly interesting click to read at Smashing Magazine

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Back to pitch !

imtiyaz — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 18:58:54 +0000

After a 3 months WFH, on April 6th I was back to pitch. Working at work station has its own charm, the bakkar ;) we do at office, the sharing cigars and debates in meeting, oh ah politics (how I forgot about this :) ) .. so many things all these I was missing few days back, but now all this is mine again.

The sad thing is not able to find some time to swim in Flex 4 !
Seriously considering to involve in communities again !

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Your password ‘must’ contain… !

imtiyaz — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 10:33:34 +0000

Why on the hell I should contain every kind of character in my password, man this is bullshit.

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Commited… ! to post one pic in my photoblog.

imtiyaz — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 07:48:41 +0000

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