Beside having Soma Protest to learn how Soma MVC is working, I will add in the future (to the Google code wiki) some tutorials and tips that will help you during your development.

I will also “centralized” any Video Tutorial I will make in this wiki.

First one today, how to control the page flow in Soma.

Romu

I finally release the version 2 of the framework Soma MVC and its source code generator SomaUI. It has been a long run since the last release, months of works and nights spent to make your life easier! But here we are.

Firstly, I’d like to thanks Less Rain. Not only they are amazing and skilled people, but they also have been very supportive to me. Thanks again!

Soma v2 have been already used for many projects and it has been a joy to work with it. I first built this framework for myself, as a tool. I wouldn’t release it if I didn’t think that Soma could help you with a minimum of learning and “framework fights”, and I hope… with a lot of fun!

If the concept, compare to the version 2, is similar, a lot have been improved and added.

First a SomaUI demo!

SomaUI is a tool that is generate source code, a Flash site based on Soma.

Soma, the AS3 MVC Framework

The framework is more consistent and is simpler to use, ease of use has always been my goal. And for this, the transitions proxies don’t exist anymore and the template system has been removed.

Paradoxically, the framework is a lot more powerful and stronger that the version 1, especially in terms of automation.

What’s new?

Some libraries have been added and they can also be used without the framework, such as a loader library SomaLoader (already released as a standalone) to manage loading processes, queue management and loading display.

I also built a video player “SomaVideoPlayer” (not released yet as a standalone), very easy to use and with a powerful skin system to alter built-in controls or create new ones.

I also built an assets system to dynamically create images, video, or anything, positioned them, describe layout behaviors, and a lot more… and just from an XML file, no code required! The process is amazingly quick. For example to create a video player on screen, it takes not more than a single XML node. This assets system can be used to dynamically create your own assets (custom display objects) at run-time from an XML.

There a new special “page mode movieclip” that works with the Flash IDE, that can make simple development of a whole site a matter of minutes (depending on what you want you want to reach). This will be my next tutorial.

I’ve never wanted Soma to impose rules to a developer, at least not too much. A big point in Soma (and SomaUI), it is never handling physical files or assets files. You can still embed images, fonts or anything the way you like (with SWC, in Flash IDE, metadata tags, or whatever). I did break some encapsulation rules though, and it was to reach a very high level of freedom and flexibility.

SomaUI, the source code generator

The first version has always been in beta and was more a kind of “concept”.

The version 2 is going a lot further and its purpose is:

- building an XML file required in order to make Soma working
- exporting deploy files (html, css, etc)
- exporting source (actinscript, Flash file, XML, etc)
- compile with the Flex SDK

If you know how to build the XML file that is required by Soma, you can avoid to use SomaUI. So the whole point of SomaUI is helping you building that XML and create files to spare time.

Through screens you can set up your project, configure it, create pages, create assets, backgrounds, and export!

Finally

I hope you will have nice time with those tools. To download the sources, get the documentation, samples, explanation or more help… everything is starting on the SomaUI Page.

Any feedback (good or bad) are always welcomed!

Happy development!

Romu

Hi,

Small update about my work on SomaUI v2 and Soma v2. I can say that:

- Soma v2 is done (the as3 framework)
- Soma Documentation is done (asdoc)
- Soma Protest is ready (site demo)
- SomaUI v2 is done (the source generator, AIR-java application)
- SomaUI Demo is done (a SomaUI project demo)

It has been a huge amount of work, especially with the generator, I can’t count the nights I passed on it. But we’re almost there. I’ve already used the framework and generator on many projects here at Less Rain.

So good news, the framework is (I think and hope) very enjoyable. I always had fun with it and it made my life far easier on common tasks.

The last step before I release the v2 is a screencast to get you started with the new generator. I should be able to do that this week.

Thanks for following me!

Romu

Hi everyone,

As I’m close to release Soma v2 (AS3 MVC Framework) and SomaUI v2 (application to generate actionscript source code and deploy files based on Soma), I’d like to share an earlier version with some beta-testers who are interested to help me debug both the framework and the generator.

Mac and Windows available, I didn’t have time to make the Linux one. The generator is in a beta state but the framework and code generated are pretty stable as it has been already used many times in real projects.

I will not send it to everyone, or I will not have time to manage this properly (depending of the feedback), sorry about that.

You can drop me an email from this blog to ask me. Please, participate only to give me a hand and by helping me with your feedback and bug reports. I can provide support, depending of my time if you wish to use it for real projects. For the curious, just be patient, the release will available very soon

Thanks and, happy development!

SomaLoader is a lightweight loading manager written in AS3. You can load many types such as images, swf, xml, text, xml, css, fonts in a swf, mp3, variables and binary data. Items can be added, removed and changed in position from the queue even while loading.

SomaLoader provides a simple and unique interface for massive loading, to listen to events and access to data.

SomaLoader has some specific features such as targeting before loading, easy loading progress display, caching system and binary loading for “silent loading”.

I’m working on the version 2 of Soma (AS3 MVC Flash Framework) and SomaLoader will be part of the framework, this is a pre-release as it can be used as a standalone.

More information on the SomaLoader page.