Flash Catalyst must survive until the Flex Community has created an alternative interaction design tool, which can be used for rapid Flex app prototyping and Flex skinning techniques. It is not the fault of the Flex Community that Flash Catalyst “never got that high in popularity” … see video (3m:33s):

https://my.adobeconnect.com/_a295153/p89f97u8cph/?launcher=false&fcsContent=true&pbMode=normal

… instead it is the fault of Adobe, which was constantly delaying the release of a fully featured Designer/Developer workflow which was finally introduced with Flash Catalyst CS5.5 and Flash Builder 4.5 in 2011. And Flash Catalyst is still not the way it should be … for more information listen to this audio podcast (16m:30s):

http://blog.nerdradio.com/post/14180140595/after-the-first-day-of-the-flex-community-summit

Just to recap: Flash Catalyst (formally codenamed “Thermo”) was announced in early 2007 on Adobe Labs:

http://franto.com/thermo-on-adobe-labs/

Discontinuing Flash Catalyst and removing it from the Creative Suite of Adobe means:

  * This is bad news for all people who prefer to design and think visually: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_learning

  * This is bad news for all Flex developers which have to navigate and code large-scale Flex apps.

  * This is bad news for all Flex designers that need to interact with Flex developers.

  * This is bad news for all Flex beginners because it adds another barrier while learning Flex development … and this is bad again because we need more highly skilled Flex developers around.

Please:

1) Sign this petition.

2) Vote on these questions for the past Flex summit (Dec 12th – 13th, 2011) to show your affords:

  * http://openspoon.uservoice.com/forums/142644-future-of-flex-questions-for-adobe/suggestions/2447111-flash-catalyst-

  * http://openspoon.uservoice.com/forums/142644-future-of-flex-questions-for-adobe/suggestions/2450508-how-much-is-the-flashcatalyst-source-code-

  * http://openspoon.uservoice.com/forums/142644-future-of-flex-questions-for-adobe/suggestions/2449494-how-can-we-make-skin-components-of-flex-4-x-withou

  * http://openspoon.uservoice.com/forums/142644-future-of-flex-questions-for-adobe/suggestions/2450042-is-it-true-that-design-view-will-not-exist-in-new-

3) Buy Flash Catalyst CS5.5 to show respect to Adobe’s pioneering work in the last years.

4) Buy the Flash Catalyst source code or lets start building our own Open Source Flash Catalyst for Flex developers.