[Xerte] Xerte 3.0 Beta

[Ron Mitchell]

Brilliant! Wish I had time to play. 

Congrats to all involved.

 

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Dave Burnett
Sent: 07 October 2010 13:50
To: Xerte list
Subject: RE: [Xerte] Xerte 3.0 Beta

 


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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