I’ll be honest and say that with every new Adobe release I get slightly defensive because they (Photoshop, Flash, Flex, etc) seem to be getting easier and easier to use. That, of course, means that what was once a small, elite group of educated people theoretically has the potential to expand. Is that a bad thing? I’m still asking myself question…
By the same token, each new release is extremely exciting in it’s own right! This brings me to Flash Catalyst.
While the word catalyst has a definition, how is it applied within the Adobe Suite? Well, let’s talk about what Flash Catalyst does.
Adobe® Flash® Catalyst™ is a new professional interaction design tool for rapidly creating user interfaces without coding.
Seems simple enough, right? But is it really that simple? Actually, is really is.
Flash Catalyst allows any designer who knows even the slightest about any of the Creative Suite design tools – Photoshop, Fireworks, Illustrator, Flash – to create a visual design (keeping the end application in mind), save the file and open that exact same file up in Catalyst. Within Catalyst they now see their preserved file structure and begin assigning various component assignments, view states and even timeline transitions within mere minutes! Once the designer is satisfied, he or she saves their creation as an .fxp (Flex Project File) and can now be directly imported into Flex for further development. Oh, and if during your Catalyst glee you notice that you’d like to change something within the original design, don’t even sweat! Just use Catalyst to switch on back to Illustrator (for example) make your change, and move on back to Catalyst! Insane, I know.
The reason this article and any other tutorial or article couples both Flash Catalyst and Flash (Flex) Builder 4 together is because this was the missing link; a seamless fusion between Designers and Developers. This leads me to Flash Builder 4.
There aren’t many differences between Flex Builder 3 and Flash Builder 4 (other than the name change) but there are some new things. For those, I refer you to an official article.
If you would like to see these two new powerhouses together in action, I suggest you observe Lee Brimelow as he walks you through a simple Twitter Feed application.
