The beta Flash 10 compiler and player from Adobe support some new 3D graphics APIs.

I tried downloading the new flex compiler, and adding support to the swf9 kernel for the three dimensional rotation attribtutes, rotationX, rotationY, and rotationZ.

After adding these attributes to LzView, an app can be written which, for example, animates the rotation of a view about the X axis:

this.animate('rotationX', 360, 2000, true);

Compiling to Flash 10 does not seem to require any special changes to the Laszlo compiler, just an update to the Flex SDK compiler. The support looks somewhat preliminary now, because I had to set the rotationX var of the sprite by saying "this['rotationX']", as the flex compiler did not recognize sprite.rotationX yet.

This is an example of a swf9 test case, with rotation about X and Y added:

Thanks to Raju Bitter for making a quicktime movie of this, so you don't need the Flash 10 player to see it!

A lot of swf9 features are working, including enough substrate to support many of the components.

One example is the examples/components/slider_example.lzx code, running unmodified, compiled for swf9.

See example at http://www.beartronics.com/swf9/slider.html

Important features running here are states, setters, constraints, mouse kernel, input text (still a bug there with default width of
the underlying Flash textfield object)

The Webtop team has been hard at work and has just released a preview of the new Laszlo Calendar on gowebtop.com. You can read more on their blog, but it is definitely worth checking out to see what is possible in OpenLaszlo.

I've opened a discussion on the project forums about how to improve how we distribute information about the project and updating the project blog. If you read this blog (live or via RSS), your opinion is solicited on how I can make this better for you. Please visit:

http://forum.openlaszlo.org/showthread.php?t=11842

and see what is being considered, and let us know what you think.

If you're trying to get the most out of OpenLaszlo, consider taking one of our training classes on OpenLaszlo. We've just scheduled sessions here in San Mateo for both OpenLaszlo Fundamentals and our Building OpenLaszlo Applications classes. Sessions in Toronto and Hyderabad are also being scheduled.

More information on the classes is available here

There is a new utility checked into trunk, which is a command line interface to build SOLO deployment zip archives.

You invoke it via the "lzdeploy" script, which is in

WEB-INF/lps/server/bin/lzdeploy

It take the following arguments, and produces an output file by default in the same directory as the app
resides. So for example if it is invoked on a relative path to an app in directory "test/foo/hello.lzx"


lzdeploy --runtime=dhtml test/foo/hello.lzx


it will produce a zip file, test/foo/hello.lzx.zip. This is basically the same routine that is run by the SOLO deploy 'wizard' jsp
script, but can be run from the command line, without needing to use the browser and LPS server.

You can get help with the --help argument:


badtzmaru:trunk3 hqm$ lzdeploy --help
Usage: lzdeploy [OPTION]... FILE...


Options:
-D<name>=<value>
Set the name/var property to value (See Compiler.getProperties).
-D<name>
Short for -Dname=true.
--wrapperonly
Only emit html wrapper page.
--runtime=[swf7|swf8|swf9|dhtml]
Compile to swf7, swf8, swf9, dhtml
--output pathname
The name of the output file to write.
--title titlestring
The title of the application to use in the wrapper.
-v
Write progress information to standard output.
--help
Prints this message.

Work is underway to to extend the compiler to know how to emit a singleton classes for views which declare methods or constraints. This is needed to support the unique feature of the LZX language which allows you to program an instance as if it were a full-fledged class.

There is also a simple debugger area, where you can type arbitrary javascript expressions, which are compiled at the LPS server and executed interactively, in a similar manner to the SWF8 debugger. The port of the full SWF8 debugger is planned.

Work remaining to be done includes porting the LFC data-handler classes, and supporting the media playback APIs in the swf9 LFC kernel.

Interview with David Temkin posted on a new Cinematic Interface weblog. (I've kicked off the blog with this interview, but the design team at Laszlo plans to chime in with more insights.)

David talks about the origins of the term and has a good definition of what we mean by the "cinematic user experience:"

An interface where two things are going on: one is that you have objects on the screen that are manipulable and respond to commands with motion; and the second piece is that motion actually tells a story about the role of those objects within the overall application and the role of those objects and those transitions within the task that you are trying to complete. Just as in a movie, a director seeks to cue the viewer from what was going on to what is happening next. In a movie, the camera might move, with a pan, or a zoom... (read more)

OpenLaszlo 4.0.10 is a is the latest version of OpenLaszlo and contains many bug fixes, enhancements, and other changes from previous versions. OpenLaszlo 4.0.10 is the first release of the code base that contains significant changes for DHTML support. In addition, the documentation effort, while not complete yet, has been significantly updated to include new features, such as explicit replication and data API.

If you are using an earlier version, we recommending upgrading to 4.0.10, which is the recommended release for swf development. Support for applications to DHTML remains at "beta" level; it will be fully supported with OL 4.1.

The list of changes is significant. To see the complete list, please refer to the Release Notes

For every release, we rely on the OpenLaszlo community to help ensure the quality of the platform release and to determine its future direction. To propose or participate in discussion of new features, see the wiki. We encourage you to report any problems, and to make suggestions for enhancements, through our JIRA bug tracking system.

Matt Asay of Alfresco announced in his CNet blog that the Thalia application framework built as an open source software by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Information Services & Technology won an InfoWorld award. Here's a description of Thalia from the InfoWorld website:

MIT's Information Services and Technology group developed Thalia, an application framework for the management of image and other digital media. To ensure the product's success, MIT partnered with Questcon Technologies, a QA and test specialty firm, to validate the application before releasing to MIT's departments. Thalia comprises a rich Web client and the Image Management Engine, which provides a framework of distinct, reusable components via its REST-style APIs. Thalia's Web client was built using OpenLaszlo and is compiled to create a Flash interface. Thalia's back end comprises Java servlets exposed as REST Web services, and it interfaces with the Alfresco open source ECM (enterprise content management) system. The framework allows MIT departments to upload, organize, tag, present, discuss, and search multimedia content.

OpenLaszlo can perfectly be used to improve the presentation layer of web applications, connecting to many of the existing open source CMS, webapplication development frameworks and digital content repositories. As long as the back-end system provides web services to connect to the integration of an OpenLaszlo rich Internet application client with the back-end doesn't pose any problems, providing a superb user experience across runtimes like DHTML/Ajax and Flash.

Congratulations to the whole Thalia team! It's always inspiring to see what you are building with our technology.