Why is Flash Pro not the preferred design tool for Flex ? Is/was there any point in Flash Catalyst?

[Gary McGhee <su...@buzzware.com.au>]

Considering how HTML websites and apps are prototyped and designed these days either in Photoshop/Fireworks or by hand-coding and refreshing the browser, 
why do/did we need a third kind of tool that lets you layout an app, but not really design or code it? Also I used to like the idea of a design view, but it quickly 
became useless for dynamically laid out or very complex screens, and once you really knew MXML it became superfluous.

So I don't see the point in reviving such a thing - I would prefer to see better support for vector assets in Flex, and better support in Flash Pro for
 mocking UIs and exporting meaningful symbols for Flex. Many designers already know Flash Pro too.

Lastly, with Falcon on the scene, would't it be possible to emulate the hand-coding/browser refreshing style of development in near realtime? It should be 
possible to build a live preview of your app that incrementally compiles changes and displays the latest version running. This does depend on how the app works, 
but if that was available it may well be worth decoupling screens such that they can be layed-out this way running in a preview shell app, before being included 
into the real app.

Gary McGhee
@gazmcghee
EmberJS/Flex/Ruby developer

Re: Why is Flash Pro not the preferred design tool for Flex ? Is/was there any point in Flash Catalyst?

[Alex Harui <ah...@adobe.com>]

On 10/3/12 8:47 AM, "Gary McGhee" <su...@buzzware.com.au> wrote:

> Considering how HTML websites and apps are prototyped and designed these days
> either in Photoshop/Fireworks or by hand-coding and refreshing the browser,
> why do/did we need a third kind of tool that lets you layout an app, but not
> really design or code it?
To act as the translation tool from PS/FW to Flex.

> Also I used to like the idea of a design view, but
> it quickly 
> became useless for dynamically laid out or very complex screens, and once you
> really knew MXML it became superfluous.
> 
> So I don't see the point in reviving such a thing - I would prefer to see
> better support for vector assets in Flex, and better support in Flash Pro for
>  mocking UIs and exporting meaningful symbols for Flex. Many designers already
> know Flash Pro too.
Flash Pro's timeline-first UI is a turn-off to many.  But it would be good
to have better support for Flash assets someday.

> 
> Lastly, with Falcon on the scene, would't it be possible to emulate the
> hand-coding/browser refreshing style of development in near realtime?
I don't think it will be that fast for big apps.  But maybe someday...

-- 
Alex Harui
Flex SDK Team
Adobe Systems, Inc.
http://blogs.adobe.com/aharui