The application level

On a Mac, go to Applications, Flash Builder, then right click on Flash Builder then click on “show package contents”. Into Contents > Mac OS, open Flash Builder X.X.ini. After -vmargs, you will find a few options for memory. Here’s how mine looks like:

-Xmx1024m
-Xms1024m
-XX:MaxPermSize=1024m

Xms is the minimum amount of memory that FB can use. Xmx is the maximum memory. MaxPermSize is the maximum residual memory that will be allocated to FB. Most of the time, PermGen Space errors can be fixed by changing that parameter.

Those are the default values. In case nothing else is set at the JRE or project level, those will be applied.

The JRE level for ANT

In Flash Builder, go to Run > External Tools > External Tools Configuration. Then click on an ANT build and select the JRE tab. In VM arguments, you can define a specific setting for that build script. Here’s what I use most of the time: -Xms512m -Xmx2048m -XX:MaxPermSize=2048m.

MXMLC maxmemory

This allows to specify the max memory of one compilation inside an ANT script, for example: <java jar=”${mxmlc}” fork=”true” failonerror=”true” maxmemory=”256m”>. Sometimes it happens that the compiler has too much memory available and fails. Therefore, you will see a Java Heap Space error.

So in my case, I’m giving 1Gb of memory by default at the application level. Then 2Gb for some of my ANT scripts, as it makes compilation faster (but might cause heap space errors, so I keep it project-specific). And finally, maxmemory as a way to reduce memory on some parts of my build script.

It seems that the default JRE in FB don’t accept more than 2Gb in Xmx and MaxPermSize. Most projects won’t use that much memory most of the time anyway, but I would advise not to go higher than that (if you don’t change JRE for the latest ones, FB won’t start at all. You will then have to roll back the config, then restart FB).

Java Heap Space and PermGen Space don’t necessarily mean there’s not enough memory. This is especially true for Java Heap Space, I’ve noticed that reducing the memory (maxmemory) is the solution, most of the time.

Settings might vary a lot depending on your project. Usually, giving 1Gb of memory by default in the application and only changing script-level and mxmlc params to fine tune is the way to go.

Clients are going to ask for more HTML5, and too many things just can’t be done using that technique. This will create a gap in technology which is going to arm the evolution of the web.

More information on ZDnet: A Web Developer Speaks: Flash Player is Dead. HTML5 isn’t ready. Long live AIR!

Download the AIR application here. You will have to update AIR manually to the latest version (3.2) on the Adobe Labs website to make it work.

You can use OBJ, DAE and KMZ files. If you don’t have any models, I’ve added a few in a folder on GitHub (the models are from Oyonale, free for commercial and personal use!).

This project has been made using Flex 4.6 Prerelease, and is using AIR 3.1.

The source is on GitHub, feel free to use it!

You could expect a typical american show when you go to see a keynote in the theater which hosts the Grammys. It was actually way better than that, as the stage was covered with images projected on all walls. The total resolution is believed to be more than 300M px. The opening sequence was really impressive:

Adobe Max 2011 Keynote Opener from Christoffer Bjerre on Vimeo.

First thing first, services: Adobe is willing to sell all of its products as services, so it seems. The whole Creative Suite is already available as a subscription, so this is not new. The first part of the keynote is dedicated to the Creative Services, with the Creative Cloud, a service which will allow to share files created with the creative suite online. A complete suite of tablet apps, to view (Adobe Viewer), edit (Photoshop Touch and Proto, a UX tool, Ideas, for mockups) or share are going to be released, as well as the service, in early 2012.

Next, fonts. Adobe just acquired Typekit, which offers an html-compliant solution for fonts on websites. This service is due to be integrated deeply into the Creative Suite, to enable software like InDesign to be ready for online publishing in terms of fonts.

The Creative Community (creative.adobe.com) is a file sharing service with advanced functionalities to view Photoshop, Illutrator, InDesign files, such as layer per layer view, extracted color palette (in link with Kuler, a color theme sharing tool), fonts (linked to Typekit, an online service for webfonts) and more to come. To be released in early 2011.

Adobe Ideas:

Photoshop Touch:

Proto:

InDesign and online magazines: you can see who are the biggest customers for Adobe in that part of the session. I’m talking about publishing of course, which are more than willing to be able to publish directly from InDesign to the web. This is coming, and the output is definitivelly HTML, JS and CSS. That’s right, HTML5. This puts Flash out of the game for content. Combined with tools like Edge, which had been demo in Tuesday’s keynote, Adobe started something new for HTML5: interactive designer in agencies, or media in general are not going to do Flash anymore.