Adobe WorkflowLab – Introduction

As I said in my previous post, I share with you my experimentation with the Adobe WorkflowLab application. We will see the features included into the last beta version (v. o.9).
First of all, you need to install the AIR application and accept the license agreement :

Adobe WorkflowLab exploration

Before working with Adobe WorkflowLab, I recommend you to open the various examples supplied by Adobe.
You will have a better understanding of what for Adobe WorkflowLab has been done and – like me – you will discover interesting technologies…

¬ Getting started with WorkflowLab
¬ Flex 4 Rich Internet Application
¬ Video Delivery and Distribution
¬ Workflow Behind WorkflowLab
¬ Collaboration Service Components
¬ Contextual Applications
¬ InDesign to Kindle Store
¬ Multi-Screen Workflow Best Practices

In the ‘InDesign to Kindle Store’ example, I discovered the workflow to generate EPUB file format from Adobe InDesign project in order to convert it into MOBI format thanks to the Calibre software (to update your Amazon Kindle reader for example…). I like when samples are more than samples. And now let’s work with the application.

Workflow creation

Workflow properties

When you begin a new workflow by clicking ‘Create new basic workflow‘ in the by default displayed panel, the application opens the below panel.

After choosing a title and a description with the rich text editor, you may select either the ‘Freeform based’ or ‘Duration based’ workflow. The difference between both option is the graphical representation of the time line. For the ‘Duration based’ the timeline is present and you have to define a grid spacing size (narrow, normal, wide), a length and an unit (hours, days, weeks, months, quarters, years). In the ‘Freeform based’, the graphical representation is very basic. No reference to duration is done. For the project I share online I’ve choosen the ‘Duration based’ option.
Once you’ve defined your new workflow, you must achieve the following UI :

As you may observe, Adobe orient your work by focusing on the new task naming action. Anticipate what the user is going to do is a good point. But here it may be distabilizing not to see anymore the workflow description we just wrote before creating the project. To read it, you have to focus out the task, and click Ctrl+T to be able to rename workflow project name and modify the workflow project description.

Categories

If I may suggest a tip, I would recommend to list all categories you think you will need. In my case I listed the following items :

But there is a limitation of 10 items… After listing your categories, you can begin with your workflow by creating tasks. A task will be specified by a label, a description, a category, a status, a list of related tools and a set of interesting links.

Task annotation

This annotation may be very helpful to specify objectives, methodology used, technologies specifications and so on that it is required to achieve this task. As this workflow may be shared between different user, it’s very important to optimize this description to help to the common understanding.

For example, in the UI guideline I make a reference to the official UI guideline done by Apple to create iPhone application. I could develop this by summarizing the key notes from the Apple document.
Completed by useful links this both properties may be a powerful way to help Adobe WorkflowLab to share the same knowledge and the same vision of what for this task has been implemented.

Task status

For each task you have the possibility to assign a status. This attribute is important if you follow the workflow achievement state. For the moment this functionality is very basic. Adobe WorkflowLab is very far away of tool like MS-Project, BaseCamp or TaskFreak for example, which may define task dependency, related ressources, percent of realization and so on.

To add a status, you must select a status in the Status combobox in the tool bar. Why the combo is not included in the task itself, like category? As far I’m concerned I find that the delocalisation betwen the task and task properties modification :
- in the tool bar (status, category)
- on the left side panel (task resources, links, task annotation) and
- on the task itself (by double clicking on the task title)
is a little bit complex. Do you think so?

Task tools

By creating your task, you may customize the list of tools by selecting one or several Adobe pre-defined tools or

by creating and customizing your own tools in tool type pre-defined category (among ‘Application‘, ‘Web service‘, ‘Framework‘, ‘API‘, ‘Code library‘, ‘Class‘, ‘Resources‘, ‘Vendor‘, ‘Ressource‘, ‘Person‘, ‘Other‘). I find this feature quite funny! But not extensible for the moment. And you have to do this work each time you create a project…

As for the task categories, I recommend you to add all the customized tools you expect to use in order to save time.

iPhone 3D Game application creation workflow

I’ve just finished the project I would like to share with you and wanted to submit a recipe to Adobe Cookbook but… my file format is not accepted… Bad news… Otherwise you would have been able to click on ‘Open a Workflow Shared Online’ action in your task bar or from the lauching panel as illustrated below :

to obtain directly the project in your application. Note that the file extension for Adobe Workflow Lab is *.wfx – a xml based file format :

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<wfx name=”iPhone Application Development” creationDate=”Tue Jan 12 17:35:47 GMT+0100 2010″ version=”0.9″>
<description><![CDATA[<TextFlow columnCount="inherit" columnGap="inherit" columnWidth="inherit" lineBreak="inherit" paddingBottom="inherit" paddingLeft="inherit" paddingRight="inherit" paddingTop="inherit" verticalAlign="inherit" whiteSpaceCollapse="preserve" xmlns="http://ns.adobe.com/textLayout/2008">iPhone application workflow must be structured in order to integrate common UI guideline consideration, 3D game engine spike feedbacks and unit tests integration before QA acceptance.</TextFlow>]]></description>
<duration type=”durationBased” unit=”days” spacing=”narrow”/>
<categories>
<category id=”0″ label=”Miscellanous” color=”808080″/>
<category id=”1″ label=”Interaction Design” color=”4E7F”/>
<category id=”2″ label=”Development” color=”78C78″/>
<category id=”3″ label=”PoC” color=”8C2E07″/>
<category id=”4″ label=”QA acceptance” color=”990000″/>
<category id=”5″ label=”Unit Testing” color=”387F13″/>
<category id=”6″ label=”Story Board” color=”4C004C”/>
<category id=”7″ label=”Game engine spike” color=”C99F00″/>
<category id=”8″ label=”Illustration and animation” color=”564004″/>
<category id=”9″ label=”Feedbacks” color=”0″/>
</categories>
<customTools>
<tool id=”500″ name=”OmniGraffle” type=”custom” icon=”application.png” category=”1″/>
<tool id=”501″ name=”Papervision3D” type=”custom” icon=”api.png” category=”4″/>
<tool id=”502″ name=”Unity iPhone” type=”custom” icon=”application.png” category=”1″/>
<tool id=”503″ name=”iPhone” type=”custom” icon=”resource.png” category=”8″/>
<tool id=”504″ name=”Torque Engine SDK” type=”custom” icon=”framework.png” category=”3″/>
<tool id=”505″ name=”Unreal Engine SDK” type=”custom” icon=”framework.png” category=”3″/>
<tool id=”506″ name=”iPhone SDK” type=”custom” icon=”framework.png” category=”3″/>
<tool id=”507″ name=”Away3D” type=”custom” icon=”api.png” category=”4″/>
<tool id=”508″ name=”Sandy3D” type=”custom” icon=”api.png” category=”4″/>
<tool id=”509″ name=”WOW Engine” type=”custom” icon=”api.png” category=”4″/>
<tool id=”510″ name=”Unity3D SDK” type=”custom” icon=”framework.png” category=”3″/>
<tool id=”511″ name=”CSS” type=”custom” icon=”codeLibrary.png” category=”5″/>
<tool id=”512″ name=”3DS Max” type=”custom” icon=”application.png” category=”1″/>
<tool id=”513″ name=”Poser” type=”custom” icon=”application.png” category=”1″/>
<tool id=”514″ name=”Z-Brush” type=”custom” icon=”application.png” category=”1″/>
<tool id=”515″ name=”FXCOLLADA” type=”custom” icon=”application.png” category=”1″/>
<tool id=”516″ name=”Autodesk Sketchook Pro” type=”custom” icon=”application.png” category=”1″/>
<tool id=”517″ name=”e-on Vue” type=”custom” icon=”application.png” category=”1″/>
<tool id=”518″ name=”MAVEN” type=”custom” icon=”resource.png” category=”8″/>
</customTools>

[...]

<task name=”Create / update technical environment” width=”309″ start=”0″ category=”2″ status=”inProgress”>
<comments>
<comment><![CDATA[<TextFlow columnCount="inherit" columnGap="inherit" columnWidth="inherit" lineBreak="inherit" paddingBottom="inherit" paddingLeft="inherit" paddingRight="inherit" paddingTop="inherit" verticalAlign="inherit" whiteSpaceCollapse="preserve" xmlns="http://ns.adobe.com/textLayout/2008">Create technical environment for different phases of the game creation workflow- development,- test- pre-production- production phaseThe creation of a specific Maven plugin must be evaluate.The IDE used by developers must be evaluate between :- Flex Builder- Flash CS5- FlashDevelop</TextFlow>]]></comment>
</comments>
<links/>
<tools>
<tool id=”518″ name=”MAVEN” type=”custom” icon=”resource.png” category=”8″/>
</tools>
</task>
</wfx>

You should have obtained this :

If you want the project mail me to dkor at free dot fr. I don’t work in the game industry, so I’m not a specialist in this kind of project. If you are, don’t hesitate to contribute to this project, to comment it, and so on. It would be interesting to share experience about a game creation workflow based on iPhone technology. Don’t you think so?

Conclusion

Finally I find this tool very interesting but there are a lot features like :
- the possibility to have a global overview of the workflow (zoom feature)
- the capacity to snap task to the grid)
- remove the limitations (categories list, status list, customized tools types list)
- make categories, status, tools independant from the project this for any kind of project.
- add color to the row containing the task (to differenciate teams for example : designers, usability, development team, managers, etc.)
- add dependencies between tasks if necessary
- correct bugs (task renaming, enable customized tool update when tool type is modified…)

I flowly recommend Adobe WorkflowLab because it’s a young product and you may be an active contributor right now!

About these ads