Last time I found interesting tool called Balsamiq Mockups. It is a Flash based mock-up toolset for rapid prototyping UI designs. I’ve been using many different applications for gui prototyping but this one is really cool and useful. It is simple, powerful and flexible, this is exactly what gui prototyping tools should be. Of course there are many more complex and “enterprise” (my favorite word) applications, like Axure - which I’m still using or very excting Adobe Thermo. But again, sometimes we need someting very simple and handy like Balsamiq Mochups. So go to their web site or try it now here. There are also demonstration sreencast.

Some time ago I wrote here about Tamarin and some tricks we can use with it. Like I said it’s amazing and gives us outstanding possibilities. You can read more about it here. But generally until now it was only theory without working examples. Today I found someting interesting called DigiMix. “Digimix is a Flex application that runs on an audio engine that allows you to mix multi-track CD quality audio (16 bit - 44.1 kHz) in the browser with many of the features that are found in modern day desktop digital audio workstations (DAW’s) including an effects engine, volume automation, clip editing, time stretching / syncing, and bouncing to disk.” You can find more description also on InsideRia article. Sounds normal but it isn’t, why ? Because application like this takes a lot of calculations (audio, audio converting) and in “normal way” (without AVM2/Tamarin) would have been impossibly slow and non-responsive. However, fortunately, new AVM2/Tamarin can makes this app workable, it works excellent. They said this is a next generation of RIA applications, and I agree completely with them. So now imagine what will be possible a few years from now with Flash Player 10, AVM2/Tamarin ! Here is a demonstration of DigiMix:

But there are also other interesting projects in scripting World. For example SquirrelFish - it’s new, fast JavaScript engine for WebKit. Another fancy thing is Processing.js it’s made by John Resig, he has ported the Processing visualization language to JavaScript, using the Canvas element. You can see basic demos here. If you want someting for creating interactive fiction, here it is: Parchment - Javascript based interpreter for the Z-Machine created by Atul Varma. Outside of Mozilla, there are such interesting projects as Objective-J and Sprout Core. And of course if you haven’t yet tried AS3Wrapper you have to do it now ! AS3Wrapper is a Javascript library, compatible with IE and Firefox, that can pull the contents of the Flash virtual machine into Javascript. Now you can see what power we have have fun.

FlashDevelop is an open source project, created for AS2, AS3 and HaXe developers to make their lives easier. It’s an IDE which can be a good alternative for a Flex Builder from adobe. The main advantage is that it’s free! It’s also a lot lighter and you can use it to builde ActionScript 2 projects, ActionScript 3 projects (Flex 2 and 3, AIR) and even HaXe projects! It has a code autocompleter, panels for presenting errors, warnings and tasks. It’s very like Flex Builder, but it doesn’t have visual editor - but I think it’s not a problem for more advantage users who uses only code editor. Also if you need to find a help, you will have to use adobe on-line livedocs. If you are thinking about buying FlexBuilder, you should try FlashDevelop in the first place. It’s a beta version and it’s still far far away behind FB, but in most cases it has everything you need!
For persons who are interested in PureMVC, here is a short tutorial how use it with FlashDevelop.

ROXIK temporaries.

In back to the RIA world, last time I found interesting AS3 3D Library called AS3 ROXIK Sharikura 3D Library. I was watching examples and the most interesting thing is performance. Watch this demo and observe that there is a many objects, everything works fluently but … you can add another objects and the animation is still not jerky. Unfortunately library now is not released yet but Sharikura said that his plan is to release it as an Open Source :)  - sounds great. He’s still working on it and what is more, this is his private project so it can takes a little time. Im waiting for it ! Generally there is a list of some examples, really cool enjoy !