It seems that Adobe is currently quite busy coming up with new useful technology and services. The first one is Share which is currently in Beta on Labs. Share is a service for publishing and sharing documents from anywhere and with whoever you choose. The intersteing thing I see for me is that you could create a repository of documents you would like to share with clients and set permissions so that each client can only get at what concerns them. I’ve only given Share a quick look but it seems very useful. You sign on with your existing Adobe ID and password.
The second one is even more intriguing for designers and Fireworks enthusiasts. It’s a new application that Adobe previewed at Max which will serve as an RIA building tool for designers. Make sure you read this blog entry from Narciso Jaramillo (nj) which answers many questions about Thermo and has links to 3 movies of the MAX presentation of Thermo on YouTube.
Thermo looks like a very promising application that will enable non-developers entry into the world of RIA design and development. Adobe touts it as a great tool for collaboration between designers and developers where both can work on the same project using both Flex Builder and Thermo and not “break” each other’s work. Really check out the blog post I linked to above and whatch the movies on YouTube. The Thermo presentation really is impresive.
What I can’t wait to see is how the interoperability between Thermo and Fireworks will work becaue, Fireworks still hasbetter design specific tools but Thermo goes a lot further into being a real RIA design tool than the similar embryonic features added to Fireworks CS3 (smart symbols in the Common Library and basic MXML export). What is also unclear to me with the arrival of Thermo is how that side of Fireworks will evolve if at all in future releases. Whatever happens, I would still like to see that side of Fireworks evolve if only to limit wasted effort and and I would also love to see great interoperability between the two apps. Time will tell…
