Announcing RIAForge

So - I've been dropping hints left and right over the past few weeks about a "secret project" that I've been working on, and today I finally get to announce it. Please say hello to RIAForge.org. What is RIAForge?

RIAForge is a place to host open source projects built with Adobe technologies - from ColdFusion applications to Photoshop plugins to Flash ActionScript libraries.

What I really like about the site is that you can use it as much or as little as you want. As an open source author, you can simply list your project and point to the resources you already have. But what if you don't already have a web site?

RIAForge offers:

You can pick and choose which, if any, services you need. The site is still going under a bit of development, so you will definitely see a rough edge or two. (Firefox users, see PS at bottom.) But check it out - and if you have code to share, PLEASE post your project.

This site is Adobe supported and was the brainchild of Ben Forta. I did the primary development work with a lot of help and support from others, including Brian Rinaldi and Rob Gonda (SVN support is all from Rob, and will be a hosted project shortly.)

p.s. Firefox users: You may see a "white screen" when saving edits to your project. This is a known issue and is being worked on.

Comments

Let me be the first to give 2 thumbs up and a standing ovation. Very nice, Ray! I cannot wait to dive into it!
# Posted By Kyle Hayes | 10/18/06 8:54 AM
Ray,

This looks neat!

Will you have a search feature or some way to facilitate finding projects when the site has several of them?

For CF projects, what is the major difference from cfopen.org (sorry if I am missing the obvious).

Thanks for all the hard work! It looks great!
# Posted By Steve Bryant | 10/18/06 8:57 AM
Nice NIce NICE! SO... Is RIAForge OS Software?
# Posted By Sid Wing | 10/18/06 8:58 AM
Ray, it looks really nice. Excellent design. Very clean looking.
# Posted By Ben Nadel | 10/18/06 8:59 AM
Sid: No - but it's really just a butt load of CMS. Technically I don't think it is all that cool. The SVN stuff is though and it will be it's own project.
# Posted By Raymond Camden | 10/18/06 9:01 AM
Yes this is nice. Will be blogging about this good work, glad you got it up in time for MAX!
# Posted By John Farrar | 10/18/06 9:01 AM
Steve: Search is coming, yes. CFOpen: This is just an alternative. Nothing wrong with having choices. :)
# Posted By Raymond Camden | 10/18/06 9:02 AM
Ray,
Awesome work. I see that you have integrated BlogCFC and Galleon. What other technologies of yours did you use? I find this a great example of reusing code and creating a project suite. Any thoughts to creating a unified open source collection?

I like the look and feel of RIA Forge. The site really inspires me to create a project to share with others.

Thanks for your work as usual, Ray.

Cheers,
Teddy
# Posted By Teddy R Payne | 10/18/06 9:10 AM
Hi Ray,

If i leave out the "www" (ie http://riaforge.org/) i get redirected to Flex.org...

just FYI.

/t
# Posted By tanguyr | 10/18/06 9:18 AM
It also uses LighthousePro (for bug tracking).
# Posted By Raymond Camden | 10/18/06 9:18 AM
very nice, can't wait to see all the cool projects hosted on it.
thanks to all the developers!
# Posted By Chris H | 10/18/06 9:25 AM
Ray, who did the design?
# Posted By raf | 10/18/06 9:59 AM
A contractor with Adobe. Rick Santos.
# Posted By Raymond Camden | 10/18/06 10:08 AM
Thanks for all the comments guys!

One thing we can really use your help with is finding more projects, especially non-CF ones. I fully expect the initial projects to be very CF focused, and that's great. But the site also needs stuff in the other categories (Flex, Flash, Dreamweaver, etc.). If you have any ideas, or know of projects that could be a fit, let us know.

Thanks!

--- Ben
# Posted By Ben Forta | 10/18/06 10:19 AM
What type of projects did you envision for Photoshop? Brushes and Actions, that type of thing?
# Posted By Dan Sorensen | 10/18/06 11:09 AM
Yep. And that right there compromises my ENTIRE knowledge of photoshop, so please add to that anything else that makes sense. :)
# Posted By Raymond Camden | 10/18/06 11:16 AM
Not to be the one to stir up problems here, but why no FireWorks projects? I personally subscribe to the idea that FireWorks is much better for US WEB DEVELOPERS (disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer, grumble grumble grumble).
# Posted By Ben Nadel | 10/18/06 11:22 AM
Absolutely no reason. I'm going to add a few more categories soon. I'll add this to the list.
# Posted By Raymond Camden | 10/18/06 11:25 AM
Also, there needs to be a seperate category for ActionScript. Cairngorm and the recent work by Peter Ferrel on AS stubs would be attracted to this.
# Posted By Teddy R Payne | 10/18/06 11:26 AM
Dan, gee, like I'd know. ;-) Photoshop supports plug-ins, take a look at http://www.adobe.com/products/plugins/photoshop/. That is definitley one place to start. There may be more.

Ben, agreed, we need to add Fireworks as well as InDesign and Illustrator and more. We'll get there.

--- Ben
# Posted By Ben Forta | 10/18/06 11:26 AM
Ben, BTW, if you love Fireworks (I do, too) then you absolutley need to be at MAX next week. ;-)

--- Ben
# Posted By Ben Forta | 10/18/06 11:27 AM
Ben, I WISH I could, but I have deadlines like you WOULDN'T believe :( (not to mention an unhealthy fear of flying). Luckily though, you guys come to NYC sometimes and I am always at those meetings.
# Posted By Ben Nadel | 10/18/06 11:30 AM
Ben, but I did get the v.9 Beta and have been playing with it. So far, liking it :)
# Posted By Ben Nadel | 10/18/06 11:31 AM
Any chance of some RSS feeds broken down by category? This sort of information would be useful on feed-squirrel.
# Posted By Neil Middleton | 10/18/06 12:08 PM
Neil: Absolutely. Added to my bug tracker.
# Posted By Raymond Camden | 10/18/06 12:11 PM
Hi Ray,

tanguyr is right. http://riaforge.org redirects to http://www.flex.org.

You need to chekc this out.
# Posted By William from Lagos | 10/18/06 12:21 PM
Nod - we know. :)
# Posted By Raymond Camden | 10/18/06 12:25 PM
interesting; ton of responses and no mention of osflash yet... **ducks**
# Posted By Emmanuel Okyere | 10/18/06 2:18 PM
Emm... there _are_ other sites out there like this. I don't think variety of choice is a bad thing. :)
# Posted By Raymond Camden | 10/18/06 2:26 PM
Ray... {pout} I've been working on building such a framework (about a month now)... Was just trying to keep from re-inventing a wheel... Would rather just chip square edges off a wheel to make it work for our needs...
# Posted By Sid Wing | 10/18/06 2:29 PM
Why stop? I'm a big fan of alternatives. :)
# Posted By Raymond Camden | 10/18/06 2:31 PM
Very good.
Now I just have to think of something worth doing a project for!

...I have to admit.... a bit confused on "RIAForge"....was only expecting "RIA" stuff (Flash platform and Ajax/dom) to be there...

How was RIAForge settled on?
# Posted By David Harris | 10/18/06 4:03 PM
Long story David. The name may change in the future.
# Posted By Raymond Camden | 10/18/06 4:18 PM
I already posted a long comment over on Ben's blog so I won't repeat myself here...

http://www.forta.com/blog/index.cfm/2006/10/18/RIA...
# Posted By Sean Corfield | 10/18/06 8:47 PM
I agree that the domain may be a little misleading, but the idea behind it is great. We may add aliases in the future. Great job Ray!
# Posted By Rob Gonda | 10/18/06 9:25 PM
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

BEST THING EVA!!!

Moving Transfer over in the next couple of days, NO DOUBT!

*does the happy dance*

You guys rock.
# Posted By Mark Mandel | 10/19/06 1:50 AM
# Posted By Tuyen | 10/19/06 10:58 AM
Tuyen, what link is broken?
# Posted By Raymond Camden | 10/19/06 12:24 PM
Ray's Interesting Art Forge....., yeah I think a better name is needed. ;-)
# Posted By Sam | 10/19/06 8:47 PM
on SQL Admin page: http://sqladmin.riaforge.org/, the demo URL is http://www.iflex.com.cn/?sqladmin which is broken.

I found the correct URL should be http://www.flexsqladmin.com/

Tuyen
# Posted By Tuyen | 10/19/06 9:44 PM
Ray,

Is that posdible that we could get read-only access to the riaforge.org svn repository? (I just want to learn more about model-glue framework). The petmarket MG application isn't enough example for MG because the search function is broken (the only feature has controller)..

Tuyen
# Posted By Tuyen | 10/19/06 10:09 PM
Tuyen - you want to contact the project admin. Not me. I'm not going to be able to fix stuff like tht. (Well I could, but it is not my responsibility.)

Yes - I will share the code. I just want to get it polished more.
# Posted By Raymond Camden | 10/19/06 10:17 PM
RSS feed is up. Right now it is just the latest projects - but soon there will be category specific items up.
# Posted By Raymond Camden | 10/20/06 1:58 PM
You've been Dugg!
# Posted By digg | 10/23/06 8:57 AM