Attention to detail is the difference between a good product and a great product. That's why I love the new Flash Professional 8 release...
I'm sure by now you've heard about all of the new features in Flash Professional 8. One of my favorite changes that won't get a lot of publicity because it's a little detail is "Test Movie."'
In previous versions of Flash, whenever you tested your content a new internal window was created. If you had your windows maximized then you'd see the .swf appear as a new tab, taking up all the available space. The problem I had with this is that most of the time I'd want to test the .swf at its regular size. Always starting out maximized inhibited my workflow.
So, I either had to restore the internal window to get it to be its regular size (an extra step), or not work with .fla files maximized. The latter presented a problem because it's harder to work on multiple files at the same time due to window overlap. Sure, Ctrl+Tab would switch between then, but I really liked the tab interface that appeared when your .flas are maxmized.
This issue was addressed in Flash 8. Now, whenever you publish a movie a brand new window appears at the default width and height of the .swf. No longer does it open an internal window. I absolutely love this feature, it really streamlined the "Test Movie" process.
This may seem like a small change, but it makes a difference working with the program day in and day out. If the killer new features don't inspire you to upgrade, maybe the little details that tend to go unnoticed will.
What other little things have you noticed in Flash Professional 8 that are improvement over Flash MX 2004 Professional?
10 Comments
A couple little things:
1. Color picker bigger, easier to use
2. Text fields can now resize without doubleclicking, and have handles on all sides instead of just the corner
Posted by: David R | September 16, 2005 12:59 PM
1. You can change the alpha inside the color picker while before you had to go and change it in the color mixer panel
2.Group and rename panels as you like. Just right click in the title bar of the panel.
Posted by: Luis | September 16, 2005 1:12 PM
I completely agree about the Test Movie window. Only thing that kind of annoys me about it, is if you put focus on the Output window while in the tested movie, and hit Ctrl + W, it closes the FLA, not the SWF. Minor issue though, still a great feature.
Posted by: Josh Dura | September 16, 2005 1:15 PM
The docs! When I opened them up and found setInterval finally properly documented- I almost cried. Seriously. Also, the app I'm working on (Multiplayer Flash P*ker --> www.bodog.net if you're interested...) is pretty hefty and the Flash 7 debugger used to just wheeze and then explode, taking Flash down with it. The Flash 8 debugger just hums right along. Also, actionscript execution averages about 20-30% faster. This release rock- Macromedia has done one helluvah job.
Posted by: Ross Ladell | September 16, 2005 6:45 PM
There is another small feature in thew actionscript editor:
http://www.blog.lessrain.com/?p=201
Posted by: Luis | September 17, 2005 4:44 AM
Not having to resave a new or recently saved file just because you clicked the background, oh the joy, the time saved;)
Posted by: Joc | September 17, 2005 5:00 PM
They implemented setTimeout. It's not in the docs yet but its great when you only need that one callback.
Posted by: Brian Lesser | September 18, 2005 3:26 PM
Mainly the new property for MovieClip :
OpaqueBackgound, scale9grid and of course scrollRect
Also that the createTextField return the textField instance...
Posted by: Flapflap | September 19, 2005 6:55 AM
I am pleasantly surprised by the speed of the compiler. I have a FLA that loads close to 20 AS files and a shared library when compiling. In MX 2004 this took ages. Now it zips through and publishes in minimum time. Very, very nice…
Posted by: Valentin | September 19, 2005 1:34 PM
It's a cool request that I saw Eng Soft. forgotten on the Profe. version.
Posted by: Igor Costa | September 29, 2005 11:07 PM