What a wonderfl World

Wonderfl is probably the one of the best-kept Flash secrets on the Web. It allows Flash developers to write and compile ActionScript3 online without the need for the Flash IDE or Flex. That’s right, you can write code in your browser and then watch it in action in realtime right before your very eyes!

Community & Learning

One of the attractions of wonderfl is the strong community aspect. Members can fork one another’s code to make improvements to someone else’s work or simply to kick-start brand new concepts and creations. Members are then ranked based on contributions such as the number of times a member’s code is forked, how many lines of code have been written and submitted, as well as how many times a contribution has been made a favorite.

Not only is wonderfl a collaborative environment for Flash developers, but it is also a great way to learn ActionScript 3. As you immerse yourself in each project, you can quickly copy and edit code and learn with a “hands-on” approach by writing and compiling code directly in the browser.

Creativity

It’s amazing to see the different effects that can be produced not only through AS3, but in such a short body of code. Greater than that, it’s also very interesting to see how collaborators take the code of someone else and improve upon it and completely remix the output. Here are some examples of wonderfl in action, click each thumbnail to preview the output:

Checkmate

If that wasn’t enough, there’s been a competition running this month called Checkmate.

I must admit that I can’t quite figure out the actual details as the competition appears to be written in Japanese, but what I do know is that it’s Adobe sponsored and there are some very famous Flash developers and designers participating such as Colin Moock and Takayuki Fukatsu. This is an entry by Flash designer alumican_net for example, developed entirely using wonderfl. It’s called Ramen! Beats!! Box!!! (click image to view):

If anyone can read Japanese or knows the full competition details, please do enlighten us in the blog comments! Even the English translation doesn’t make too much sense!

Inspiration

What you think of wonderfl? Have you found any cool examples of projects posted on wonderfl that particularly caught your eye? Let us know! Above all else, I hope wonderfl inspires you to work and learn differently in a collaborative environment, and who knows… Maybe a future FlashDen file you upload will be the result of something you learned from this blog post. Wouldn’t that be wonderfl?