Flash® Catalyst™ CS5 Bible

Appendix B. Best Practices

IN THIS APPENDIX

• Best practices for designers

• Best practices for developers

• General Catalyst tips

While Catalyst can, at first glance, seem an easy program to learn and master, always remember that Catalyst is designed to be used in the middle of a designer-to-developer workflow. Following the best practices outlined in the following sections will help facilitate that workflow and minimize the potential conflicts between the designer and developer.

Designer Best Practices

From the very beginning of the design process, keep in mind that designing something that will eventually end up as a Flex application is a bit different from creating designs for print or even for traditional HTML-based Web sites.

The Web is not print

Many designers coming from a print background run into significant issues when moving to the Web by failing to grasp or acknowledge the differences between the media.

Even though Web sites may closely resemble print documents, particularly as both are made primarily of text and images, the Web is nonetheless as different a design medium from print as is video. Designing a television commercial would necessarily require a different design approach from designing a printed brochure. The same is true for Web sites.

For example, when a document is printed, it will always be precisely the same size. A designer of an 8½ × 11 newsletter knows that the document will always be those dimensions, and thus can plan exactly what size font to use and how big graphics ...