The Phillip Newsletter (Summer 2000)
Semi-annual report to Clients, Colleagues, and Prospects of Phillip Kerman

www.teleport.com/~phillip/ phillip@teleport.com
Volume 4 Issue 1



Warning: The following newsletter contains material which may include: assumptions, hyperbole, baseless speculation, and bombastic self-gratification. Sensitive readers are advised to treat this newsletter as fictional entertainment and to seek professional advice before acting upon any recommendations found within.

Projects: …I may not be taking on more work but, like many others, I'm turning down more work-it's crazy out there!

In the last "Phillip Newsletter", when I predicted the M3 site (www.m-three.com) that I programmed for Paris France Inc. would be receiving recognition… I had no idea it would be this overwhelming. To date we've received the following awards: Macromedia "Site of the Day", Communication Arts's "Interactive Design Annual 2000", and the British Design & Art Direction's annual. No phone call from the president yet-but wow! Everyone involved is very proud and determined to out-do ourselves in the upcoming overhauled version.

Oswego Group's clients can't seem to get enough of the printable catalog & presentation makers we've been creating. These Director applications give sales people of shoes and clothing the ability to sit down with a buyer and layout a catalog, write up an order, and print out a catalog-or, via the web, have Oswego print a high resolution version. After about 5 such projects they're looking really great.

In the May 2000 issue of Macromedia User Journal I wrote what's likely the first review of an Adobe product. Although Adobe's Live Motion has been called "Flash Killer" it certainly isn't. However, it deserves a good look for its advanced animation interface.

With all due respect to such reputable publications as MUJ (above) and TPN (The Phillip Newsletter), I have to say there's a big difference writing for a targeted audience and writing for a wide audience-like MacWorld. Such was the case when I wrote the Director 8 review for MacWorld's July issue (http://macworld.zdnet.com/2000/07/reviews/shockwave.html). I felt so powerful declaring (by scientific approach) Director 8 shall receive 4˝ "mice" although the editors brought it down to 4 mice.

I'm writing a book: "SAMS Teach Yourself Flash X in 24 Hours" (I'm sure the title may change slightly-that's what it's called now). If you know the series you know the concept-24 1-hour lessons which are actually guaranteed to live up to the title. I'm happy with how it's coming along, though of course, it's a lot of work in a very condensed schedule. The funniest thing was the review it received on Amazon.com-"Horrid". I had barely started writing! Apparently there's an incentive for the first person to review a book. If it had only been a favorable review we wouldn't have had it removed. Anyway, I'll respect anyone's review, but let me finish writing first! Currently, I'm trying to figure a way to get the title on Oprah's book list (or mentioned on "Millionaire").

Those who can, do-and those who want to get out, teach. I don't know when I'll be saturated-but for now the training market is going nowhere but up. I did a one-week "Macromedia Bootcamp" for Symatrix Technology. Twice for PSU (Portland State University) I taught an 8-week Director series. PNCA (Pacific Northwest College of Art) is filling up all the Flash courses… plus adding a lot more-including a Flash programming course which promptly filled to capacity.

Flash Flash Flash-Is this the "Phillip Newsletter" or the "Flash Newsletter"? I'll be the first to exaggerate but with Flash there's no need. Take this story as an example of Flash's incredible momentum. Months ago I had arranged to present at "EuroTaac 2000" (see "Presentations" below). Once I knew the approximate dates I'd be in Europe, I made a few attempts to sell Flash courses around Europe. One lead fell through, one turned into a couple 2-day classes, and then-at the last minute and coincidentally- I was contacted by someone in Germany to whom I sold an advanced Flash "Action Scripting" class in Stuttgart!

Wieden & Kennedy's Amsterdam office arranged the Flash classes in this "New York of The Netherlands". What a cool city! Okay, it's not perfect, but it really reminded me of Manhattan-nice old buildings, lots of variety, lots of money... just a little bit smaller and apparently no scoop law. I didn't realize WK has about 150 employees there. It was an above average class-no doubt. Not to compare Oregonians to the Dutch, but I did a similar Flash class in WK's new (totally cool) Portland office.

Online In4mation (www.in4mation.de) is a training company in Stuttgart Germany who hired me for one day of "Advanced Action Scripting". It was a good location to draw a triangle from Amsterdam and to Berlin-plus the surrounds were interesting (like Heidelberg). Despite some of the great aspects of Stuttgart (like its art museum and public transportation) I felt a strong reminder of WWII though it was rather subtle. All the architecture is from the '50s and, personally, I found this to be a tangible reminder of a war with which I couldn't, previously, identify. What does this have to do with work? Nothing. In4mation was great-nice students, good business ethics, and ambition too. For example they just held a Flash 4 conference (www.flash4you.de) in April.

Did I say Flash training? Oaktree.com had me put together an advanced scripting class for some of their employees. I figured I must be teaching the Flash experts... but as I walked around the offices what do you think I saw? More Flash! I suspect that some people aren't using Flash-I just don't know who.

Elvis and Bonaparte had me do a couple days of Flash training... and Freightliner let teach a class where I told them almost everything I know about Dreamweaver (it took all day). Exact Interactive also had me do a day of Flash.

 

Presentations: …I'm talkin' and I can't shut up...

FlashForward2000 www.flashforward2000.com
Macromedia had to love this conference! Macromedia puts on their own 6000 person "UCON" every year, but the next one won't be until April 2001 (in New York). And although the last UCON (May '99) was practically overrun by "Flash heads" this conference was the brainchild of some people outside Macromedia. Thanks to Lynda Weinman (lynda.com) and United Digital Artists (www.uda.com) FlashForward2000 was the "Macromedia conference" this year (plus ones in NYC and Europe later this year). Interestingly my sense of the audience skill level was mostly novice. Plenty of pros there to mix with the common folk too-Darrel Plant (AKA Tall Pardner), for example, was approached by someone saying "Darrel Plant! You taught me Flash!" Star struck fans aside, my point about novices is that there's plenty of room for anyone wishing to get into Flash now. As far as my presentation-it was an updated version of the JavaScript/Flash presentation I did at the last UCON. It's surprising, though, how much is still valid (almost a whole year later). I think the audience for my presentation might have been the largest group I've ever addressed (about 500)... though I'm scheduled to present a different topic at the New York City version of FlashForward2000 in July, I suspect the crowd might be larger (as my topic is more general and the 20,000 sq.ft. Hammerstein Ballroom holds more than 3000).

EuroTaac 2000 www.ix-software.nl/eurotaac/
Although I thought the title for my presentation: "Every Pixel is Precious (or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Interface Design)" was funny-I think some of the humor was lost in the cultural translation. Never mind, the subject was what mattered and it was heard loud and clear. The conference was the first European version of America's "The Alternative Authorware Conference" TAAC (in its 4th year). My presentation was a great chance to show good and bad interfaces, explain theories from Don Norman and Edward Tufte, as well as some of my own. My presentation, though, was not the highlight of the conference. For me, I'd have to say, the highlight was when I practically got booed off the stage! There was a panel discussion one evening with the real Authorware gurus (Joe Ganci, Gary-Buddy API-Smith, Jamil, et al) plus me. I came out with the seemingly profound statement (which I know is true) that for an efficient project only 10% should be dedicated to "programming". That if you plan well then 10% is plenty. Just about caused a mini riot! I suppose if you call "content development", "functionality design", and many other tasks "programming" it could easily go over 10% of the total time-but I think many people simply start programming too early and end up spending too much time. Check out the URL (above) and see if you can find a picture of me with my European seltzer!

Editorial: …The "Flash Movement". Flash's influence on art and popular culture.

I've heard: "Do you think Flash has legs?" Or, "When's the bubble gonna burst?" I think the answer is simple-Flash's lock on its future is no greater than Microsoft's, VHS's and DVD's, or even any more than assisted suicide laws. Technology is fleeting and eventually Flash will pass. However, written and visual communication skills will stay in demand forever. I'm constantly amazed when I hear people suggest that students study math and science to prepare for future technological waves! What do you think the technology waves are about? Communication. The most important business tool today is, unquestionably, email. Written, verbal, and visual communication are the keys to the future. To discount the importance of English studies is short sighted.

Back to Flash's influence... design and fashion trends are cyclical-it's hard to say Flash created the current trend in bold color, sharp edges, geometric shapes, and semi-transparent effects. I think Flash inspired it though. Both Fox and ABC television, for example, have a series of promo spots using solid sharp-edged circles prominently. Countless car commercials contain semi-transparent curved-corner rectangles as main design elements. Even the character of motion in many commercials is "Flash-like" containing common animation tricks like anticipation and overkill. This may not prove Flash is responsible but perhaps the converse will.

What you don't see much of is: photographic morphing, "grungy" blurs and shakes, grainy scratchy simulated film, and slick 3D effects that look "futuristic" (dark shadows and highly reflective surfaces)-all things that Flash can't do well. I'm not saying Flash is the trendsetter... but it's more than coincidence how there is a "Flash trend" in commercial art. Due credit for semi-transparency should also be given to the iMac, but which came first? Flash had transparency before iMacs existed. It's also fair to say the whole "clear" trend of the late '80s died long before the current trend to which I'm referring. Maybe it was a clear case of clear cola, clear soap, and clear french fries being ahead of their time.

Errata: …Not the first error ever found in a "Phillip Newsletter" --probably not the last.
My nominations for new words in the last "Phillip Newsletter" have not made it into any dictionaries yet-but I think I actually spelled a made-up word wrong! Thanks to Patrick McClellan Director Online's Managing Editor (www.director-online.com) who made a great case why "Scirfuls" should be spelled "Scirfles". The term (still relatively unknown) is a noun-describing any digital artifact for which we have no better term already. Patrick pointed out that there really aren't any familiar nouns that end "u-l-s"... and besides, he argued, an "l-e-s" ending conveniently converts to an adjective: as in "that image looks scirfly". Surely "scirfully" would be inappropriate as an adjective. A free subscription goes out to Patrick for making such a good suggestion!

Reviews: Software, killerware, vaporware, it doesn't matter--it gets reviewed

Director 8: (www.macromedia.com/software/director/)
Not just an upgrade with a bunch of new features (and just as many bugs). Rather Director 8 is the most stable upgrade I've seen. Almost all the new features are usability enhancements. You can zoom the stage and move objects critically, plus zoom-out so you have more screen space in which to work. Guides, new smart-snapping (like Flash), new cast "list view" (not unlike Windows Explorer's list view). Also, a new property inspector which you'll probably keep open all the time because it gives you access to every property appropriate to your current selection (despite the annoying screen redraw bugs). The inspector also has a list view (like Visual Basic). New Lingo categories: imaging Lingo (for pixel level control) and what I call "super sound power" which takes Director to a new level of sound. Check out the "crazy" (like the kids say) new behaviors Darrel Plant wrote which are included in the Sprite Transitions Library. Oh, the behavior icon looks like a gear so it matches other Macromedia products (hey, didn't Director have behaviors before Dreamweaver or Fireworks even existed?-why didn't they change their icons to match Director?).

Flash X Everybody notice, I'm writing this based on Macromedia presentations... plus it's called "Flash X" to avoid being construed as predicting any specific software version which may or may not ever come out in the future. Anyway, wow! Lots of user interface improvements-"whole file" hierarchical view (with all the sub-clips and actions), a pen-tool and Bezier handles (not that artists will now drop Illustrator), color-coded and non-obtrusive selection indications (unlike now where you can't see any detail of the objects you select), "Widgets" which look similar to Director's Behaviors or Authorware's Knowledge Objects (allowing code to be modularized, reused, and distributed).

Authorware X At "EuroTaac" (above) Macromedia representatives showed some new stuff-which proves they are listening to the "wish lists". Lots-o-Windows-Widgets. Standard Window controls (like drop-down lists, selection boxes, etc.). Color coded, auto indenting calculation icon script window-did somebody say Director 7? (I couldn't resist.)

Live Motion 1.0 (www.adobe.com/products/livemotion/)This animation tool, which creates Flash ".swf" files using an interface almost identical to After Effects has been called the "Flash Killer". Considering the fact it only has the scripting capabilities of a porcupine Flash 3, it won't blow you away with interactivity. The animation interface lets you keyframe any property independently. That is, if you want a keyframe for just opacity then a little later one for scale you can do that. Where in Flash one keyframe locks every attribute. Live Motion is well suited to open Photoshop and Illustrator files. Nice little touches like a text break-apart feature which separates each character... and an artificial intelligent naming feature which logically names every shape you create-"dark blue-green circle" for example.

FAST! (swifftools.com/stools/)I always figure when a third-party creates an improved interface for a product it eventually gets incorporated (like Extensis and Adobe for example). Anyway, this Action Script tool simply lets you write code for Flash but it colors the code and indents-like Director or VB-plus, you're not stuck in the narrow window Flash provides for scripting. Also, you can write your own macros to create code on the fly with their JavaScript interface. Examples include one that spits out all the decimal equivalents to cosine, or one which writes the framework for a simple loop (based on how many loops you specify).

QuickTime X
Word on the street is the next version of QuickTime (out this summer) will support Flash 4 (currently you can just put Flash 3 movies in QuickTime). Then you'll be able to add some serious scripting inside videos by using Flash! Of course, if it were easier for separate companies to collaborate we would have had tools to really control QuickTime inside Flash a long time ago.

SVG (www.adobe.com/svg)Not a product of Adobe's, though they are doing a great job educating people about this new open file format. When computers catch up to the processor demands, this will be very hot! If every "Phillip Newsletter" contains only one prediction that comes true-this issue has to be SVG. Oh, it stands for Scalable Vector Graphics. Not unlike Flash-how you can zoom in... but what's cool is the file is just a bunch of code-looking text containing everything about the file including font outlines and any text displayed. SVGs can be spit out from a database (since it's just text). Some examples include a map which includes searchable text, anti-aliased live text which has effects like shadows, and JavaScript talking to the file to reveal or hide certain parts of the image. Check out the link above if you missed the Adobe presentation at the "Multimedia | Internet Developers Group" June meeting (www.oregon.org).

Tech Tips: Possibly the most valuable part of this newsletter... if these tips can help just one person--then it'll all be worth it!

Eight tips for Director 8 1) Modify>Movie Properties>Enable Edit Shortcuts means users can now cut/copy/paste etc. in fields and text. 2) Use text (sure fields are faster, but there are way more useful Lingo commands for text). 3) Publish Settings...> Compression> Include Cast Member Comments gives your movies access to member("name").comments at runtime (even if you only make a projector) 4) Guides and snapping are now worthy of usage-now that they've stolen the basic design from Flash. 5) Don't use "Loop Playback". 6) Avoid one-line "if...then" statements. Use a multi-line format with the body statements on separate lines between the "if...then" and "end if" statements. Find samples at: www.zeusprod.com/nutshell/downloads/ 7) Eliminate "set" from your Lingo vocabulary (it's not necessary and conflicts with dot syntax). 8) Save and Compact regularly (hey, I wanted 8 tips).

Flash 4 In addition to purchasing "SAMS Teach Yourself Flash X in 24 Hours"... 1) Label the first frame "remoteSavable" and ShockMachine users can save your movie as a cartridge (additional HTML is also required). 2) Latest favorite feature: Right-mouse click a symbol and choose "Edit in Place". 3) Latest kick: don't tween, learn how to animated with a few keyframes. 4) A lost timeline can be restored from the menu View>Timeline (not the Window menu)-don't laugh, this could save time! 5) Keep the Library window closed except while you're actively using it-I've seen it mess people up all the time!

The Phillip Newsletter: published twice a year by Phillip Kerman with editing by Diana L. Kerman. Phillip is this guy who does multimedia stuff: Director, Authorware, and Flash programming, teaching and consulting. Like all autobiography biographers, Phillip occasionally refers to himself in the third-person. Subscribe: Subscriptions are free for the asking! Also, if you prefer an email version just tell me.

phillip@teleport.com www.teleport.com/~phillip +1 503 236-7721