The main event of this week was the Adobe Max 2008 conference in San Francisco. Adobe made clear at this conference that the RIA landscape is an essential part of their plan for the future. This week saw the release of a tool to run C code in the Flash Player, Thermo gets an official name, ColdFusion 9 details are revealed, Flex Builder 4 details are released, and Adobe offering interactiviy in the cloud with Cocomo. All this and more on the special Adobe Max Weekly RIA RoundUp from InsideRIA.

FEATURED: Adobe Max 2008

The Adobe Max conference brought several big announcements. One of the announcements that I was most pleased to hear, was that Adobe recorded over 290 hours of session video at Max. They will be releasing this content for free (it will be a staggered release on AdobeTV beginning in early December).

In addition, one of the big strategic announcements was the return of the 'Flash Platform' label (see diagram). This move is designed to try and eliminate some of the confusion between the Flash and Flex names, and also to highlight the many different technologies that can be used to create or power rich experiences on the Flash Player.

In addition, there were several updates and new technologies announced. We will spend the rest of the RoundUp examining these announcements.

Ted Patrick (Adobe): Max 2008 NA Session Recording
Adobe: Adobe Flash Platform

Alchemy

One of the most intriguing tools that has been in development at Adobe is the tool formerly known as FlaCC (which allows C/C++ code to be executed in the Flash Player). Developers became familiar with this project at last year's Max conference when Scott Petersen demoed Quake running in the Flash Player. The development of the Alchemy tool has progressed since last year, and a preview version is now available on Adobe Labs.

This opens up new doors for Flash / Flex developers - as they can now use many of the existing C/C++ libraries. Adobe has included a few libraries in the Adobe Labs site (currently a cryptology library and a library for working with OggVorbis media).

Adobe Labs: Alchemy
Sean Corfield: Adobe Alchemy

Next Generation ColdFusion

More details on the upcoming version of ColdFusion emerged at Max as well. First, Adobe released information on ColdFusion 9 (which is currently codenamed Centaur). This version will include some great new functionality including ORM integration with Hibernate, exposed services for Flex applications (mail, PDF, etc...), and implicit getters and setters in CFC's.

The other big piece of news is that Adobe will be releasing an official ColdFusion IDE (currently codenamed Bolt). This IDE will be based in Eclipse (just like Flex Builder) and will include features like ORM auto-configuration, code generation, and line-level debugging.

Both of these tools have prerelease programs, and you can sign-up for them on Adobe Labs.

Adobe Labs: Centaur (ColdFusion 9)
Adobe Labs: Bolt (ColdFusion IDE)
InsideRIA: Adobe ColdFusion 9 and a New CF IDE

Flash Catalyst (formerly Thermo)

Flash Catalyst, the Flex RIA design tool, made its debut at Max this year. The Mac-only preview version was made available to Max attendees. In addition to a few sessions at Max, Adobe also made additional information on Flash Catalyst available on Adobe Labs. This includes a set of videos that illustrate the designer / developer workflow with Flash Catalyst and Flex Builder.

Adobe Labs: Flash Catalyst
Ryan Stewart (Adobe): Roundup of Flash Catalyst News

Flex 4 (Gumbo) and Flex Builder 4

In addition to the announcements surrounding Flash Catalyst, there were also several announcements around the next version of Flex Builder. The new features for Flex Builder include: templates for files, FlexUnit integrated unit testing support, improved refactoring, and conditional breakpoints (just to name a few).

The initial preview was made available to Max attendees. It is not yet available on Adobe Labs, but you can sign-up to be notified when it is released.

Opensource Adobe: Gumbo
Adobe Labs: Gumbo and Flex Builder 4
Brian Rinaldi: Introduction to Flash Catalyst and Flex Builder 4
Marco Casario: Top 10 Flex Builder 4 features

Cocomo

In addition to software announcements, Adobe also made another announcement related to its online services. Cocomo is a service that allows you to integrate the interactive components from Adobe Connect into your Flex applications. The backend of these components is managed on Adobe's servers.

Cocomo is currently in beta, and you can download the SDK on Adobe Labs.

Adobe Labs: Cocomo

Text Layout Framework

The new Text Layout Framework beta allows you to easily take advantage of the new text engine in Flash Player 10 and AIR 1.5. This framework supports new features including: bi-directional text, multiple column linked text, advanced typographic controls, and a development API to manipulate text. The beta is available to download on Adobe Labs today.

Adobe Labs: Text Layout Framework

Wave

Adobe Wave is combination of an AIR application and an online service. Its goal is to enable notifications from multiple social sites in a single application. The current partners include Digg, MySpace, Revision3, Seesmic, evite, Pownce, and many more. Sites wishing to integrate with Adobe Wave can signup for the prerelease on Adobe Labs.

Adobe Labs: Wave

Cairngorm Plugin for Eclipse

Adobe Consulting released an Eclipse plug-in for the Cairngorm micro-architecture this week at Max. This open-source project is hosted on the Opensource Adobe site, where you can see usage and installation instructions (as well as the source code). The plugin is in beta, and it can be downloaded today.

Opensource Adobe: Cairngorm Plugin

Additional Items

In addition to all of these great items, there were other announcements at Max including a 64-Bit Flash Player for Linux Alpha, Flash Media Server 3.5, the Tour De Flex application (covered here on InsideRIA), a Pixel Bender refresh, Configurator, Patch Panel, Durango, and InContext Editing. Also this week, Major League Baseball announced that they would be abandoning Silverlight and moving to the Flash Player for their online video next season.

Read more from David Tucker.