[Xerte] Xerte 3.0 Beta

[Dave Burnett]

Kudos to all involved.
A major undertaking.

Dave


From: Julian.Tenney at nottingham.ac.uk
To: xerte at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2010 13:41:42 +0100
Subject: [Xerte] Xerte 3.0 Beta
















Hi,

 

There is a new beta of Xerte 3.0 to play with that you can
download here: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/xerte/xerte3.htm.
Xerte 3.0 is a complete rewrite of Xerte 2.x, using the Flex framework. There is
a major difference between this latest version and previous versions which I
wanted to say something about. Anyone following Xerte 3.0 developments, or
starting to use Xerte 3.0 to develop content needs to be aware of these
changes.



Xerte 3.0 now compiles .swf files. It creates, from your code, the actual .swf
file. There is no engine.swf unlike previous versions of Xerte 3.0 and Xerte
2.x. There are a number of good reasons why this was a good step to take. 

 

Xerte 3.0 is really an .mxml editor and compiler using the
Flex SDK to compile.swfs. You will need to download and install the Flex SDK to
use Xerte 3.0 (see instructions on the web site). This means that Xerte 3.0 is
quite clearly a tool for developers. It also means that you are interacting
with the Flex SDK directly, rather than having our code parse and play your
code. There are major performance benefits to doing this, as well as getting
access to all the benefits of the Flex SDK, and it means that you can directly
draw on all the Flex community’s knowledge to create content with Xerte
3.0. Xerte 3.0 can compile many of the examples on Adobe’s website and in
the help system, as well as dozens of samples already available from the Flex community.
It also means you are developing marketable skills in an established software
development environment.

 

Flex is a very powerful, flexible (pardon the pun) and
extensible suite of tools. Xerte 3.0 aims to fill a gap in the market of tools
that sits somewhere between the hardcode coder’s IDEs such as
FlashDevelop or FlashBuilder, and something like Xerte 2.x or Authorware, and
as time goes on Xerte 3.0 will contain more and more elearning specific
features.

 

Xerte 3.0 can build ‘normal’  flash
applications. It can also build Air applications, and package them into
installers, and when the Flex 4.5 SDK is complete, Xerte 3.0 will be able to
build Mobile Applications. Being able to target all these platforms is exciting,
particularly the mobile Air applications. Xerte 3.0 development is now closely
following the development of the Flex 4.5 SDK – when that is complete I’ll
be able to finish Xerte 3.0 and draw on all the new features in Flex 4.5.

 

There’s loads more to say about Flex, but not enough
time or space here. I’m going to start a series of short tutorials to
introduce you to the new environment and features, and walk you through all the
new components, and other stuff you’ll want to know about: components,
styles, skinning, states, effects, transitions, data binding, using your own
custom classes…

 

In the meantime, download and install the beta, and let me
know any comments,

 

Thanks to Peter Huppertz - who has made a major
contribution,

 

Have fun.

 

J






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