I finally got down to speccing out my Flex Taskboard app today.

On paper I wrote out the model as an outline and identified the main screens as boxes with attributes off to the side.  Then I set about transferring them to a wiki.  Instead of using Xwiki as planned, I used Confluence and built a project documentation hierarchy and outlined the model and listed the sketches.

I then fired up the copy of Balsamiq Mockups that I got for writing the tip on Adobeholic.  I have to say, it was a pleasure to use.  I understand why everyone is raving about it.

A couple critiques:  First, it’d be nicer to have a palette that was easier to access.  Having to scroll so much to find stuff was a bit awkward.  I’d suggest an “accordian” palette where things can be grouped.  It’d be nice to have more, and I think there is a way to get them, or possibly even make your own.

Update: I just noticed the tabs across the top.

The “sketchy” feel is nice, I liked it more than I thought, but a little bit inconsistent.  Things like splitters and alerts stand out as too “perfect.”

Grouping seemed natural, but I had 1 horizonal rule that I had to move everything to get to, even though it was on top.  Almost every program of this type has those sort of bugs though.  Grid alignment seemed just right, but also having a rough sketch mockup helped to avoid sweating pixel perfect alignment.

I just reopened it and tried to open a file, but got prompted again for the serial key I’d already entered.  Once again I had trouble pasting the key into the textarea.  Chalk it up to Flash.

Finally, the other issue is that it needed installed as Admin, and has to run as Admin, and files saved are only accessible to admin.  So that’s annoying.  But that’s an Adobe Air flaw, which I tweeted about last night.

That’s right, I joined Twitter.  I’m so ashamed.  Facebook will probably be next.

Anyway, without further ado, here’s the taskboard mockup: