FlexBook, meet Apollo. Apollo, meet FlexBook (come and get it!)
March 19th, 2007
Rob Adams is the User Research Specialist on the Flex team. I like Rob. I like Rob a lot. I really wouldn’t want to see Rob in pain. So for Rob’s sake, bofore I go any further, I feel the need to point out that there are lots, and lots, and lots of places where using a Page-Flip metaphor is really, really, really the wrong decision. Honestly, probably most of the time.
But it’s cool, right?
So…FlexBook, meet Apollo. Apollo, meet FlexBook. download it here.
(Breathe deep Rob. Breathe deep.)
March 19th, 2007 at 11:03 am
[...] Quietly Scheming Flex Book example [...]
March 19th, 2007 at 11:43 am
That’s really cool - a very painful way to browse the Internet - but very cool.
March 19th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Ummm can I just say WOW!!! Forget Microsoft. This is the wow factor!!!!
March 19th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
I appreciate the thought, Ely. I promise I’ll stop giving you grief about it (at least for the rest of the week…).
March 19th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
Hey Ely, you’ve been making some great stuff with flex and Apollo! Thanks for making everything open source as well. I was writing to you because I am trying to make some of my own custom components and I was looking for a really easy example to start off with… any ideas? I was thinking maybe just an image with a bitmap reflection and border…
March 20th, 2007 at 11:29 am
I just noticed that the HTML pages that are being loaded (if they contain any SWF content) it gets removed. Is this in a Apollo thing? Example - I tried going to youtube on your app.
Any info would be useful. Thanks.
March 21st, 2007 at 1:18 pm
It is really hot program I want to know how to close tabs.
March 21st, 2007 at 3:42 pm
Hi, my names is Micah and I went to grad school with Rob. Please allow me to say, on his behalf, “Ah, my eyes! They burn!”.
:)
Keep having fun and playing with new interface ideas.
Micah
March 22nd, 2007 at 4:21 pm
Really Nice! It would be neat the favIcon from each site loaded at the bottom instead of the grey arrow icons.
March 22nd, 2007 at 10:39 pm
[...] The greatest thing about Apollo Camp was the slew of new apps we’re starting to see. Leslie at jinsync.com has Gmail running on Apollo. Lee Brimlow has created a cool Apollo Twitter app. And Ely Greenfield from the Flex team has an awesome app called FlexBook that you have to see to believe. [...]
March 25th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
Hi Ely,
Avi and I are organizing a little mashup-enabler meetup to be held three weeks from now inside of Web2Open:
http://upcoming.org/event/168803/
Would you like to join us?
Write me for more details.
March 29th, 2007 at 6:31 am
Hello! We are a certified Adobe training center, teaching ColdFusion, Flex, Photoshop, Flash and more. Our Flex instructor doesn’t have the time now to do the development work we are looking for, so we are hoping to find another source.
We are currently looking for Flex development to emulate what this company has achieved in their registration form: http://www.trainingconnection.com/
We want to emulate the regisgtration form, and the calendar concepts. We would like a quote on this from start to finish. Our current site is in ColdFusion, so hopefully that will make the transition smoother.
Thank you!
March 31st, 2007 at 2:25 pm
[...] - HTTPControl Sprite: This is one of the most exciting pieces in many ways in my opinion. The HTTPControl enables you to integrate instances of a the same browser engine that is used in saffari for your Apollo apps. You can do anything to them you would normally be able to do to a sprite including animate, distort, and all the whle still maintain generally full interactive control with the page contents. There is an excellent bridge of communication between the contents of the HTTPControl and the Apollo application. Cross scripting and even the ability to easily modify the html content loaded in from any source on the fly before its rendered through the player is supported and very impressive. MANY cool opportunities and capabilities here. Unfortunately at the early state of the current public alpha many features are still missing or in-progressm and I can only hope that they are all appropriately covered. Html content Flash support and appropriate system cursor display is an immediate must or the feature will be near useless as far as I am concerned. The performance is pretty close to good but not the same as a browser. Check out a cool sample here - as always Ely is the man!I was fortunate to have a chance to speak with the developer of this functionality at Apollo Camp a few weeks back and gained some excellent knowledge on the under workings and limitations. One of the most important items that I feel I should share is knowing that the Flash Player itself is acting as the renderer. WHat this means for instance is if there is animated content for instance in the HTML content the Flash player has to try and render all of the content into a bitmap data fast enough. Early indications provided by the Adobe engineer indicated that likely only 15fps would ever look smooth, and I wonder if even that may be a stretch. What this means? Be careful what pages you try and render, because performance can likely be a factor. Another note - one of the features Adobe was plugging at Apollo Camp is the ability to make a HTML only application. Meaning you create your spiffy powerful html site (AJAX whatever), then deliver the whole experience through an Apollo application. Just note that it is very similiar if not exact to delivering it through the HTTPControl component via Flex or AS3. It still runs through the Flash Player renderer and applies the same limitations and performance concerns. [...]
April 11th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Wow! I just stumbled across your blog and am speechless. You really have some impressive work on this site. Thanks for taking the time to post the code and build tutorials. I can’t wait to see what you do next!
Timothy Huertas
April 16th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
Very cool Eli, but a question for you … Deciding for a little pageflip recursion fun, I navigated back to quietly scheming to see if I could get the Pageflip demos to work: http://demo.quietlyscheming.com/book/Anatomy.html … When I did I got an ‘Alt content for Flash’ warning. Is this because the Flash detection failed, or is it not possible to view Flash within Apollo HTML browser controls?
April 23rd, 2007 at 7:48 am
This Flexbook component is great. I am working on integrating it into an experimental project. I have a question, however. How would I go about creating a “curled corner” function in order to curl the corner of a page. Would this involved a modified version of the setupForFlip() function?
April 30th, 2007 at 8:04 am
Ely, have you used any PDF->SWF tools before?
I tried using http://www.swftools.org/ to convert but I think something with their generated content causes severe performance issues with the FlexBook.
July 5th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
[...] Create simple book looking applications with this full-on Flex component. The source is now available! Check out The FlexBook component and the source. Also with Adobe Air as ApolloBook. [...]
July 9th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
Hey Ely,
Awesome work! This flexbook component is excellent. Thanks again for keeping it open source.
Cheers,
John
July 14th, 2007 at 9:37 pm
Absolutely astonishing application. I wonder if you’ve talked to any librarians or publishers about the opportunities it offers? As an English professor, I’m always hyper-aware of how current technologies are affecting the future of the book. I feel, for instance, that the advent of the iPod has helped to push music and video to the forefront of public consciousness (certainly in the generation that is coming up now), while book technologies have been left behind. No ebook reader has ever really caught on with the public, and though people like to browse the internet, few are interested in reading a work of any significant length while sitting in front of their PC screens. While I’m not sure page-turning technology would make that process necessarily more appealing, I do think it might help to give an ebook-reader a major leg up in attracting actual “readers.”
July 17th, 2007 at 1:25 am
Hi,~ I just download this air, but can’t installed sucessfully, noted like this: This application could not be installed or launched (AIR file I:\Td_down\Flex\ApolloBook.air is invalid: This application requires a version of the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) which is no longer supported. Please contact the application author for an updated version.). But I just download and installed the air_b1_win_061107.exe in the morning, does anyone have idea about it?~ 3Qu~ very ~Much!
July 27th, 2007 at 5:34 am
I am trying to use your Flexbook to render a book in an unusual layout - original spread is 17in x 5.5in (2 - 8.5in x 5.5in pages). I converted all the pages to swf spreads and have trouble with the scaling - how can I can render the spreads to fill the view area?
My spread appears (reduced) in the upper left corner.
Awesome work and thanks for sharing
July 29th, 2007 at 7:42 am
Ely,
I would like to inform you that Apollo FlexBook doesn’t working with AIR air_b1_win_061107 version. It seems to me there is version conflict. Could you recompile with related version? Thanks…
July 30th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Hey Ely… haven’t seen any amazing things out of here lately… are you heads down with Flex 3 right now? I’m suffering withdrawal… ;-)
July 31st, 2007 at 3:04 am
[...] 31st, 2007 · No Comments The FlexBook of Quitly Scheming has a new AIR version. I can tell you that the Flex version wasawesome, now check and download the AIR version. [...]
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:55 am
high,
I’m trying to install the ApolloBook.air on latest AIR runtime and Flex 3 - but I got the message below.
IThis application could not be installed or launched (AIR file C:\Users\wovo42\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Low\Content.IE5\D49623O1\ApolloBook[1].air is invalid: This application requires a version of the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) which is no longer supported. Please contact the application author for an updated version.).
August 13th, 2007 at 10:02 am
I keep getting the following error when trying to install. Other AIR apps install fine. What’s up?
This application could not be installed or launched (AIR file C:\Data Drive\Downloads\Adobe AIR Apps\ApolloBook.air is invalid: This application requires a version of the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) which is no longer supported. Please contact the application author for an updated version.).
August 15th, 2007 at 4:15 am
can flexbook load PDF file? so, we can read the pdf just like book. really hope to see this.
August 23rd, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Hi,
I would LOVE to try out the apollo version BUTTTT I get this…
Installation Error:
This application could not be installed or launched (AIR file C:\Documents and Settings\alfa\Desktop\ApolloBook.air is invalid: This application requires a version of the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) which is no longer supported. Please contact the application author for an updated version.).
Maybe someone can update the apollo version to the most current and re-post it.
Thanks!
October 16th, 2007 at 6:57 am
Ely,
What a wonderful component you made here. I am using it, and it is nice. One issue I am having is trying to find a effective way to dynamically load pages when list item is selected and clicked. I want to set the book.content based on a array of pages I get from a zip file. I am able to get the pages and retrieve them. But after the book loads them and I try to turn a page it crashes ADL with no traceback.
Maybe there is a better way to do this, Any help would be greatly appreciated.
William
October 20th, 2007 at 11:13 pm
That’s really cool but i also got the error message.
This application requires a version of the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) which is no longer supported. Please contact the application author for an updated version.).
October 29th, 2007 at 3:20 am
That’s really cool - a very painful way to browse the Internet - but very cool.