What do you think of Flash 2004?
Flash 2004 / Flash 2004 Pro have been available for a couple of weeks now. I have seen the full range of responses from raves to rage. So, now that you have had a couple of weeks to play with it, what do you think?
What do you love? What do you hate? What problems have you run into? What features have you found that you could not live without now? What is your general impression?
Post you comments in the comments section. If you post about a problem that you have run into, please include your OS and system specs.
Don’t hold anything back.
Pro: ActionScript 2.0. New Components. JSFL API.
Con: Unstable and conflict with other apps.
Overall: 8 out of 10.
Dave Yang
24 Sep 03 at 10:44 pm
Dave,
Can you give some more info on what you mean by unstable? Anything you can consitently reproduce?
mike chambers
mesh@macromedia.com
Mike Chambers
24 Sep 03 at 10:52 pm
Great new features (the font aliasing, streaming test, others).
JSFL macro language is great.
A *big* letdown with the fact that several features where simply dropped from the IDE. When I update, I expect to get more, not less.
The changes in policy in the new player are somehow depressing but the policy XML file is a godsend.
AS2 is nice. Strict typing is great. I’ll still have to grasp the rest but seems nice.
Underdocumentation really makes me cry. Seriously.
The new “novice” stuff impresses me: too cluncky, too bad, too naughty, complete trash. I’d kill anyone at my job if they used any one of those effects/wizards/whatever. Behaviours might be ok to teach people and they don’t create 129786 symbols at least.
IDE seem to get worst on each version. Seriously. The new tabbed stuff helps a lot, but we need reliability too. It’s breaking.
The device emulation players kick ass. I just wish Flash for devices wasn’t so… bad (Flash 4). But oh well.
My conclusion: It needs an update… *bad*. I know it’s not MM’s policy, but the situation is getting pretty bad.
I’m not using it (didn’t buy yet). Probably will do in one year or so.
zeh
24 Sep 03 at 10:59 pm
Like
1. AS2
2. Component Architecture
3. General Direction Flash seems to be taking
4. You can compile AS2 to AS1
5. JSFL
Don’t like
1. The source editor
2. No Remoting Connector
3. Panels just not consistant and efficient
4. Perfromance and stability
With all that, in general I really like this upgrade.
Overall: 8 out of 10
Chafic Kazoun
24 Sep 03 at 11:04 pm
im digging AS2.
flash remoting? Ive started using this heaps and am concerned that it appears to have been left out….
my panel layouts seem to freakout regularly and have had several .flas corrupt.
vinnie
24 Sep 03 at 11:17 pm
Mike,
I just finished up a project with Flash MX 2004. For the most part things were good. I did have an issue when exporting to Flash 6. I had to make sure the optimization was off else people were finding my app would not work properly.
There are some very nice improvements to the interface and some that seem sort of painful. I really like the tabs across the top showing my documents that I have open. I don’t like it at ALL when any click on the timeline or in the actionscript window will flag that the document has been changed and requires a save. I only want that save/change flag tripped if I actually change something in the document. Another annoying thing is that each new library window opens in the panels area, even if I drag the Library window to be a free-floating window. It seems that if you specify one Library to be in a floating window, all the libraries should match its behavior. Another thing that changed is that when toggling out of Flash and into another app (say dreamweaver) Flash will remove focus from the actionscript window. Thus, I have to click in that window again. Really a pain when copy/pasting, a waste of time.
My biggest disappointment with Flash MX 2004 and the Flash 7 player is the lack in advancement to keyframing. I know that most of the power of Flash is in ActionScript, but some things are just easier to animate than to code. I have a rich background in 3D animation and high end film compositing, so I speak from experience. When keyframing any object on the stage, every value get a keyframe. What would be way superior is to have the ability to keyframe each channel separately (x, y, width, height, tint, shape, etc…) Even better would be to copy a page out of the compositing world and change the whole stage thought process. I imagine that there are some code issues with the player that make this difficult. Basically, timelines are great. Graph/Tree views are even better when compositing. The two together is what we need along with a keyframe curve editor and a channel manager. Good examples of software to borrow from would be Maya, Shake, and Flame.
All in all, I will upgrade here after I collect from my clients. I might even drop the dime and invest into the DevNet subscription as I am placing more and more of my personal stock in Macromedia products. But this is mostly because I wish to remain on the forefront of Macromedia’s tools. I am not convinced that MX 2004 is really worth the cost in the short run, but then we will have to see what happens with all the extensible features. That could tip the scale to making it an awesome IDE.
Thanks for asking,
Brian!
Brian McBride
24 Sep 03 at 11:19 pm
Pros:
1. I know, the wizards/behaviors/etc are not the way “real” Flash people work, but I like ‘em. As a server side person with little time to learn Flash (fitting in time here and there to try to learn it), I never got anywhere. The beginner functionality is great for people like me…I was able to actually build something in Flash…a first. Perhaps if my knowledge increases I’ll start screaming “this is not Swish, it’s Flash, so take out all the beginner stuff”, but for now, I like it.
2. The interface. Like the fact that all MX products now share a similar interface. This just makes sense.
3. Video. We’re actually starting to use Flash to deliver video, and the new features are very sweet.
4. Data connection components are built in. While we bought Firefly, they should be part of Flash.
Dislikes
1. Performance. While not nearly as bad as DW, Flash (and Fireworks) do slow down to a crawl after a few hours of working with them.
2. Documentation. It’s obvious to almost everyone that management had a day in mind for the release of MX 2004, and even though they weren’t ready, they were released. The fact that the documentation wasn’t ready simply undercores this point, and makes MM look real bad.
3. Remoting. Would have liekd to seen this ship with the product from the get-go for the same reason as #2. Also would have liked to have seen more done with it. Just worried that MM will switch directions and slow/stop support for it. As a CF developer, Remoting was something that I’m interested in.
4. The editor. Not much new has been added (i.e., it’s still doesn’t seem to be as robust as a true development tool should be). Perhaps Royale will change this, but we’ll see.
5. The new security model. while probably necessary, it does make things a bit frustrating now.
Michael Hazard
24 Sep 03 at 11:24 pm
IMO, although the hard-core developers in the industry love OOP and AS2, I think F7 is a couple years ahead of its time, and driven by the DESIRES of this level of developers and not the NEEDS of main-stream developers. FMX with F5 and a touch of F6 is perfectly suited with ONLY a few of the newer F7 abilities; yet still plenty of room for improvement without all the ECMA junk that only hinders the point of developing webcontent efficiently. Even MX pushed this a little over the top.
-FMX2 = Slow A.S. editor in the IDE.. The editor performance makes it unuseable on anything but a 2Ghz PC+.. (even with word wrap/line# options set for better performance)
-No native HTML support? why not?? 7 major versions later and FLASH STILL can’t render a “real” HTML page without all kinds of parsing and reworking in advance?? If I have an “html” page and “want to use it in the development of a flash page, in the IDE, good luck!!”… the IDE should have supported filters etc or another way to clean up HTML and preserve its RTF “look” without having to use external methods.
-FMX2 can’t export [or work with] F5 format??? Kind of like how I *STILL* need to load up F5 to work with generator templates. So… now I NEED *3* versions of flash installed to maintain client sites.
-IMO the “tabbing” is freaking annoying. Simple tidbit.. but it is a visual nuisance to me.. rouded edges near an “X”??. MX handled windows just fine. (yes I know DM and FW etc do it now too.. )
-Help being integrated as a panel was a dumb idea (without the recent work-arounds made available by others noting same)
-Too much effort was put into making flash programming like programming C or Java.. again, IMO.. what a waste of time for MM to invest so much into this.. who does it REALLY help? The Elite.. oh joy.. so they get what they want.. totally unnecessary; I’m glad they have time to play with it and enjoy a learning curve. I believe the mainstream (user base) wanted things fixed, features added thus improving the TOOL without throwing a curve ball to the majority.
-Unstable as in.. *poof* bye-bye flashMX2004 on my screen.. no errors. Oh? you forgot to save? heh.. thanks Burak! At least I can get my code back. (but that was another, what $50?).. this seems to be more prevalent for me when pasting images from the clipboard (when copied from FW to the clipboard)
-No autosave/auto-rename options for fla filenames? Sheesh.. even Word did it back in version 2.0 (even a last file as *.bak would be a life saver!!)
-The effort put forth and I’m sure the expense to MM has been huge for F7.. the product concept is huge too.. I still think it was a little rushed to market, and the evolution rushed as well.
Yes. Eventually, I’ll learn AS2.0. Eventually I’ll publish my 1st F7 only swf to the web. But.. for $ from a client?.. I give it 2 years. Its just a toy for now, to explore new things: I will not be upgrading when my trial expires — for awhile.
Jayson K. Hanes
24 Sep 03 at 11:25 pm
It’s a great upgrade. I hate to point out the profound limitations because it might sound like I don’t like it.
pro:
–as2
–snap align (and other subtle improvements)
–
neutral:
–screens/forms
–timeline effects, though I did see a nice product by Red Giant Software.
–SOAP… I mean, if I had faith it was stable and if it wasn’t way slower/bigger than Remoting, then I’d be excited. There was a benchmark test here that’s interesting: http://www.flashorb.com/articles/soap_vs_flash_remoting_benchmark.shtml
cons:
–the dang thing crashes ALL THE TIME. I’m sorry, no easy way to put this: it’s a lemon. I mean, when it works it’s fast enough etc. But it quits with no warning… it causes my other apps to become non-functioning. It’s very very sad because I get to the point I just want to go do something else (like work in MX or go take a walk).
–ignoring new animators picking up Flash. I can’t think of one reason why a new animator would prefer MX2004 over MX or even 5. The lack of samples (other than geeky new tech features) is very telling.
Anyway, I could go on, but if you just gave me a patch that made MX2004 do what it was supposed to do then I’d stop complaining.
Remember, you said “don’t hold back”. I see this thread has remained constructive which is good.
Thanks,
Phillip
P.S. this release has made me SERIOUSLY consider how the government might step in to regulate the software industry… like putting ratings for stability.
Phillip Kerman
24 Sep 03 at 11:55 pm
Flash MX 2004 is lousy and not worth the upgrade. At least not right now. Aside from the loss of usability and self mutilation the program does have one positive aspect; the posibility for the users themselves to extent the features of the software.JSFL and jSAPI extensibility definately hold a lot of promise for the future of Flash. (At least in theory.)
I’m pissed off at Macromedia and the fact that they have not released the documentation for this feature. But of course, Im pretty sure they expect me, to blindly give them my money.
I mean, sure it’s available to companies like Swift 3D who are willing to create plugins that will sell through Macromedia.com but it’s not really avaliable to anyone else.
I think the program in and of itself right now is crap. And I do not recomend anyone to buy it. BUT I also believe that once the documentation is available and people actually start creating their own plugins and extensions, that these extensions in and of themselves will be worth the upgrade. Right now Flash 7 is basically like a game console with no games to play. Perhaps once the ‘games’ start rolling out and depending on how usefull they are perhaps it will become a feasable expense.
By the the way, no thanks to MM I have managed to figure out much of the JSAPI and the MMExec … Set Fill Color method is buggy as hell.
Ibis Fernandez
25 Sep 03 at 12:01 am
Pros
- Panels aren’t as buggy as FMX 6
- AS2.0 allows fore more of a stricter OOP approach and less bloation (ie no longer have to double up on logic / assets)
- SWC are a nice way to deploy components (not great, but nice).
- Dig some of the new AS 2.0 classes (eventDispatcher, depthManager) — although at first i was sceptical
- Forms / Screens are a nice way to re-frame your thinking when it comes to RIA development
- Metadata in components rock.
- Help is now searchable and easier to use
- Code Pinning rox (great for MC development)
Cons
- Seems prety memory hungyr and takes too long to load (flash IDE that is)
- Compiled clips need more work (LivePreview issues, Shared Library issues and well they ignore features like _targetInstance)
- Export MovieClip isn’t as useful as I hoped (ie for Live Previews, it would be great to export a copy of the clip, and it utilises the method onUpdate within the movieclip instead of relying on it to be in the main time line)
- V2 Framework seems overally complicated and too inner-mixed for my liking. Extending / playing with the components leaves you with allot of confusion (that or i’m just dumb).
- Output window could do with more of a tune up, things like color coding and if you minimize it, it should stay minimized instead of auto-opening when data is traced
- Project, never really got this in that why go to the trouble of laying out your project / package folders etc when the project folder system doesn’t physically do this also on your HDD?
- Forms / Screens can get heavy on the CPU if you use allot of them.
- Not enough info on JSFL
- Context Menu addition isn’t that great, It would be better if we could actuall take control of this with our own GUI.
Thats pretty much it so far, I’d still recommend anyone to upgrade as the improvements are well worth it, and well people expectations for a next release imho where a little high / un-realistic.
Scott Barnes
25 Sep 03 at 12:19 am
well - this is the first Flash upgrade i didn’t pre-order and have actually just used the trial so far… after reading all the other posts about stability and quirks, i’ve been taking this one slow.
pros:
- AS2, AS2, AS2 (strict typing, classes, et al)!
- better component architecture (at least in theory so far - still working with it in code)
- minor UI things (yeah, the snap hints are cool)
cons:
- AS2 in that all my pre-existing component work breaks now (which is probably just my old code being off in places - but still, unless you were on beta, this is a sudden, radical change and it throws wrenches into timelines). i mean, i know there’d be too much speculation and misinformation if at beta1 or beta2 you released some info saying “hey folks - we’re going to be changing ActionScript in a pretty major way. It may effect what you’re working on if you want to have it work with the new version of Flash…” instead of just silence until release day.
- changes in UI that aren’t documented and are annoying (can’t click line numbers any more to highlight a line of code in action editor - must ctrl+click… uh… why? and you don’t have the option of using MX keyboard shortcuts - only F5… i know this annoyed many people)
- auto-update player a possible security issue
- right-click ‘About…’ still a security issue
- minor, but the whole lack of being able to install on WinME is weird. i mean, in all other ways my WinME machine is way past system requirements, i don’t have BSODs ever (i’m good at keeping it running), while Win98SE _is_ supported. WTF? so i’m stuck with my XP laptop and 15″ LCD instead of 19″ flat panel…
overall, so far so good. i’m still going to use up my 30 days of trial time before deciding if i’ll upgrade. we already got the Studio MX2k4 upgrade at work, but i’m having them hold off until i can test all my mission critical stuff here at home.
we’ll see… though with the past track record of no Flash IDE minor updates, i’m worried we’re stuck with this until fMX2k6ProEnterpriseEdition. :-)
g.
g.wygonik
25 Sep 03 at 12:20 am
I’ve been using FMX2004 for a couple weeks on both a Mac TiBook 550 MHz G4 or a dual 1 GHz G4.
LIKES:
- Almost all new IDE features - timeline effects, behaviours, even new components and screen-based metaphor(!) - can be exported to Flash 6.
- AS 2.0 (for Jayson:) because it makes my code clearer, my debugging easier, removes the hassle of class initialization and linking, and requires fewer keystrokes…all while letting me to continue developing for Flash 6 Player.
- data binding!!!
- pre-compiled components
- extensibility (features like timeline effects and behaviors are going to allow me to help out my less-code-saavy team mates more easily)
- all of those nifty new classes to springboard from
- “Project” feature is a welcome addition (now if you could just make CVS integration easy)
FRUSTRATIONS:
- missing documentation
- lack of sample files (and information) illustrating form-based development.
- agonizingly slow AS editor scrolling (about 3 fps on my 500MHz G4, 6 fps on my dual 1 GHz G4)
- many of my favorite coding fonts - Andale Mono, Bitstream Vera Sans Mono - no longer display properly. In fact, many AS editor font selections suffer from character clipping.
- Why do only Windows users get tabbed document switching!? After all, MM did give us Mac people tabbed pins in the AS editor.
- Stage Window, Test Movie Window, and (aparently) others still don’t remember where their supposed to open. VERY FRUSTRATING.
- If you have a window or panel covering a significant portion of your stage, the “Do you want to save?” dialog opens up behind it (Mac OS X only, I’m assuming)
I am very excited about the new product and how much more productive it is going to make me - especially on complex projects. I do plan on upgrading immediately. However, I’m discovering that the learning curve is much steeper than with past upgrades. This of course is amplified by the missing documentation and lack of sample files mentioned above. I’ve been trying to build a simple multi-page form in FMX2 for 2 weeks using data binding and the form-based metaphor. But because there’s so little guidance available I’m getting very frustrated. I thought extending the mx.screens.Form class would be a piece of cake, but I get nothing but compile errors when my code includes references to movie clips within a slide! Turning to a recent example on the MM Tech Sales blog didn’t help - it has the same compile errors!
Krxtopher
25 Sep 03 at 12:32 am
Honestly, I haven’t tried FMX2004 much, but my first impressions have not been great.
I would like to know whether there’s any point to these posts. Would you really provide a patch like Phillip is asking for? Or would we just have to pay for the next upgrade?
sunny
25 Sep 03 at 12:50 am
A couple of people have posted that they have had problems with “performance and stability”.
Please post more details, such as:
-what is performing poorly.
-what you mean by stability issues.
if you have a crash, please list what you were doing when the crash occured, and your system specs.
thanks…
mike chambers
mesh@macromedia.com
Mike Chambers
25 Sep 03 at 12:55 am
I welcome this call.
Yes, I have been playing with FMX2004 for two weeks like many others but I have to say that it’s to early (for me at least) to make any judgments because I believe that I would be able to discover the product only through his intensive use in hardcore production. That’s my experience.
I’m pretty sure that FlashMX2004 like other softwares can be really discovered in hardcore production. Until then, I’ll be partial, focused only in some things. Mising the whole picture.
Saying that, I welcome this call for initial impressions.
Just my thoughts. But thanks for ask.
aSH
25 Sep 03 at 1:14 am
Mike,
I will gladly document the various crashes I’ve had… but do please tell me whether you’ve experienced any stability issues?
I’m sure you’re not trying to imply that we’re all imagining things, but sometimes I infer this. I know you probably just want to narrow these things down–but some issues are so accute I’d have a hard time understanding that these bugs only occur outside your company.
Maybe you can clarify this a bit. Like say “we understand there are some issues in x, y, and z and we just want to know what the most pressing crashes are”. You know what I’m saying?
Thanks,
Phillip
Phillip Kerman
25 Sep 03 at 1:53 am
unfortunately i didn’t spend too much time with 2004 yet, but the things i noticed so far are:
- documentation need some updates. is there any official documentation available for the new xml properties and methods in fp7 that handle xml namespaces? seems they are not documented in the help (sent you this on icq the other day)
- the css implementation is less than basic. it’s merely another layer on top of the old textformat object. actually it’s a small subset of css1, spiced up with some very few css2 features. i apprechiate it a lot that there IS some sort of css support in fp7 (not to mention floating objects and hover, both highly requested, great features), but had hoped that it’s at least a bit more complete. actually it’s quite clever marketing to call that “css”.
- i’m still very uncomfortable with the ui component framework. it looks like it was done in a rush. it has some good concepts (event model) but still lacks many things and feels very clumsy.
all in all i like quite some features, but the overall impression so far is that 2004 was developed in a hurry.
Claus Wahlers
25 Sep 03 at 1:54 am
I can’t believe they released it with so many bugs, and very little documentation and support. It’s clearly a beta release the corporate heads pushed out the door way too early. There’s no real explaination or direction on the way the technology is going. Just take a look at DataGrid component. The IDE completely changed, and it’s nothing like any other DataGrid I’ve seen (i.e. ADO.NET).
My advice to Macromedia is to stick with what they do well and that’s interfaces. If you need to do real work, use ASP.NET or JSP.
Max
25 Sep 03 at 2:12 am
Hi,
I was eagerly waiting for full support of HTML tags like , , etc. in FLASH mx 2004. But i was disappointed to see that this features are not included.
I think so many users like me are struggling to convert our existing content and application into flash based application due to this.
I am expecting this feature atleast in next version…
Thanks
Manoj
Manoj
25 Sep 03 at 2:17 am
Working on an eMac 700 10.2.6/8 absolutely no stability issues. 384MB RAM is possibly a bit small though.
I really like the new IDE, I always hated the output panel that didn’t want to play with the other panels.
The help system seems to be great functionally, although it wouldn’t update for me, had to use the extension package. It is however a bit sparse.
I’ve only tried one real project, some database management stuff. I really hate the lack of remoting support, remoting is the best thing from MM in the last 3 years. So anyway I looked carefully at the soap and xml options instead, decided to go XML because real men don’t use soap. But the shared server I’m using suffers from the ToString(XML) bug that is another (macromedia) problem. So how about soap? Well according to flashOrb that has even bigger issues.
I haven’t seen anyone from MM comment on the flash remoting situation, but the lack of progress and silence seem to speak for themselves. What do you say Mike?
I really appreciate everything MM has done with these products and we all know that bugs do crop up. Peoples frustration comes from the fact that we expect great stuff from MM so judge you very harshly.
What really worries me from past experience, is having to wait for Flash 8 to sort all this out.
Nick C
25 Sep 03 at 2:29 am
>I’m sure you’re not trying to imply that we’re all imagining things
Nope. I am just trying to get as much information as possible so our engineers can reproduce and isolate issues users are running into.
mike chambers
mesh@macromedia.com
mike chambers
25 Sep 03 at 2:36 am
pro: AS2,flash on pocket pc,SOAP,XPATH,scripting the IDE,forms,etc
con: s.l.o.w IDE script editor , i’ve taken to using SciTe|Flash for 100% of my coding needs. the internal editor is just too clunky.
tor kristensen
25 Sep 03 at 3:19 am
Another software company once wrote “Why write a piece of software that works like a Swiss Army Knife when you can write a piece of software that cuts like a machette?”
I try to keep that philosophy in mind whenever I test out a new piece of software. “Wow, great feature set, does it work?” Well the answer is clear, this release took a once great piece of software that did a few things REALLY well and turned it into a piece of software that does TONS of things, sometimes, sorta “OK”.
I’m 31 years old and I can honestly say that I’ve spent more time in front of a screen working in Flash3, Flash4, Flash5 and FlashMX than I have spent driving my car(sad life?). This release has so many TOTALLY bloated features that I have a hard time finding the steering wheel. Of course with any new software release there is a learning curve, but this…..man, this is just OVERKILL.
AS2.0 looks pretty nifty, might even be easier for people coming from stricter typed languages such as C/C++ to learn, but I can guarantee it will miserably fail at getting new users interested in learning it. Me personally, I’ve been working in OOP for quite awhile now so it wont be so bad, but for people coming from standard scripting languages that run more or less top to bottom it might be a stretch.
The new IDE, don’t even get me started. Before being a webdeveloper I was an airline mechanic. One of my tasks was running up big Boeing 767’s, driving them around the airport, test systems, check engine parameters, etc…. And well, I have to say that it was MUCH easier getting the hang of those controls than it is to actually WORK in MX2k4. It’s nice to just click a button and have a new project started, but clicking buttons gets old after awhile and eventually we have to WORK. Much easier to work in shorts and a Tshirt than it is to work all layered up with 4 shirts, a windbreaker, jacket, raincoat, thermal underwear, pants, rainboots…I think you can see where this is going:) CUMBERSOME!
Other than that I would love to complete a new project using all of these new features, but, oh, crap, it crashed again, corrupted my files and ruined my whole days work, assuming I saved last night before it crashed the last time…DOH!
Timeline effects, nice, very “swishlike”…but, ahem, I WOULD HAVE BOUGHT SWISH IF I WANTED CANNED TIMELINE EFFECTS!
I was soooo excited when I heard about it, but now it’s like Christmas is here and my bike came without pedals,….oh, but did I mention it DID come with GPS, turn signals, mudflaps, a toaster AND the kitchen sink. Wish I could actually ride it, bet it’d be reeeally cool.
Dan Nelson
25 Sep 03 at 3:47 am
Like:
- Improved interface: besides some quirks already mentioned it is a lot better to work with and more beautiful to look at.
- AS2 and V2 components. Great!
- CSS support: a good start, but it should have been CSS2 support instead of CSS1 (Flash 8)
Dislike:
- Unstable
- Lack of documentation
Unforgivable:
- Most of the DRK components have disappeared. We all understand that the architecture of the DRK components differ from the V2 components and that they are incompatible with Flash MX 2004. However, it is unacceptable not to replace them with Flash MX 2004 compatible ones. The Tabview, colorpicker and charting components are must haves for application developers. Furthermore it is a bad signal to DevNet Essentials subscribers. If you use these components as part of your application, you are on your own as soon as Macromedia releases a new version of its tools. Think twice before you start using the stuff included in the DRK’s or before you even subscribe to DevNet Essentials.
- Deteriorated support for Flash Remoting and Coldfusion integration. The Flash Remoting connector, that was part of the Firefly components has been removed. This is not only a step backwards in development time and application speed, but it also signals a confusing message. The end of Flash Remoting? With the introduction of Royale in sight, the end of Coldfusion as Macromedia’s premier application server?
- Lack of filesystem support: no filebrowsing or file upload component and no filesystem class in AS2. File handling is crucial in developing business applications. When Macromedia positions Flash as a business application development tool, filesystem support should have been included. No filesystem support, not a serious tool for developing business applications. Period. I know it will increase the size of the Flash Player but NOBODY cares waiting an extra minute twice a year when they download a new version of the Flash Player.
- lack of good code examples. When DRK 3 was released, it was mentioned that all new components would be accompanied by fla-examples for each and every method of the component. This was true, and a great improvement compared to DRK1 and 2. With DRK 4 and Flash MX 2004 all examples are gone. (eg there was a nice Peter Hall example on this blog using the advanced charting components that should have been included in the DRK!). Put the action where the mouth was and reintroduce a very good habit. By the way this will dramatically reduce the Flashcoders list when it comes to Flash MX 2004.
There may be very good reasons for all “unforgivables” mentioned here. In that case Macromedia should better communicate with their developers community. Experience Matters!!!
vinny timmermans
25 Sep 03 at 4:06 am
mike, can you say IF an update fixing issues raised above will be released
if yes, can right click access to actions be returned
david doull
25 Sep 03 at 5:08 am
I TOTALLY agree, just forgot to mention it.
Right click>actions.
I miss it, please, just a tiny itsy bitsy update?
Dan Nelson
25 Sep 03 at 5:21 am
I’ve just started tinkering with the new version of Flash and my thoughts are;
User Interface - Frustrating. I thought Flash MX had a few quirks, but 2004 is ridiculous. I hate all these docked panels - I always have a bug where the property window refuses to display at all, when I disable docking. The only way around is for me to click default layout, which buggers up my workflow. The other ‘docked/connected’ windows are also ridiculously bloated now. I was most comfortable with Flash 5’s layout and window management.
IDE;
Flash MX had a brilliant actionscript editor, fast, clear and almost fun.
Flash MX has a brilliant actionscript editor - expect it run’s at a snails pace on my Pentium 4 on a clean boot!!!
AS2;
Fantastic - now this is worth the upgrade. Some great new features. Sure it may be difficult for beginners, but there are plenty of new features for them, and AS1 is still available. I like the direction Flash is taking.
Components and extras:
Eventually, I decided that the oringal MX UI components where a good idea - and have in the past saved me some development time. It was also quite easy to edit and tweak them.
In 2004 it seems that we behaviours, components, effects, etc, etc. I think a lot of these are a waste of time, for a developer - but one must remember Flash is also aimed at designers. Perhaps some will prove useful in the future. My general feeling is to avoid them like the plague though.
Overall (despite my rantings) I am impressed with Flash MX 2004, and will convince my company to upgrade to it.
I do sincerely hope however, that a patch will be made available to speed up the IDE
Finally;
I have also always wanted to see module playback support (ie amiga .mod, .st3, etc) and inbuilt midi support.
Or at the very least, some control over the pitch of sample playback, which would allow to write my own basic mod player.
You could create some killer games with the above addition. I suppose filesize is one constraint, but the player code can’t add that much to the Flash Player, and a mod song can be just a few K in size.
Am I alone in this?
Anyway
Flash Mx 2004 9/10
Flash MX 2004 interface 4/10
Matthew McGuire
25 Sep 03 at 5:45 am
A few of the bugs that I have found so far in Flash MX 2004 on WinXP Pro:
1. Position the cursor on the intersection between stage and timeline and then click and drag to make the timeline area larger. If you have rulers switched on, half the time this will actually drag a new guide onto the stage despite the fact that the cursor had changed to indicate resizing.
2. Random crashes.
3. Some movieclips seem to cause crashes and freezes if they have a lot of ungrouped shapes in them.
4. Remove Library panel from that annoying right hand panel strip, save panel layout, close Flash. Open Flash, open Library, it’s back in the annoying right hand panel strip. Select your saved layout from the menu and it goes back to where you want it, until you close and re-open Flash. In which case it goes where Macromedia want it. I have two large monitors, I like to be able to see the linkage of my library items. I want the Library on the other screen.
5. Scrolling the library with the mousewheel doesn’t move the library scrollbar.
Useful things that have been removed from Flash:
1. The Tab key no longer hides all the panels, this is now done by some F key or other.
2. The scale and rotate dialogue box. Christ that thing was useful, but sadly it has been replaced by some not useful stuff.
andy beaumont
25 Sep 03 at 5:58 am
1. Most Existing v.5 & MX6 workspace bugs still there.
2. Terrible screen redraw/update issues making it hard work to know if you’ve actually moved or deleted something on the stage or timeline without minimising and maximising Flash. (and no, it’s not my graphics drivers, it’s Flash)
3. Wasted valuable screen real-estate on pointless interface shadows, highlights and curves which cause…
4. Application to be slower to use then v.5/MX6
5. Removal of fundamental keyboard short cuts (CTLR+ALT+S Scale and Rotate anyone? not even replaced with something else useful so why touch it?) Setting keyboard shortcut preference to Flash5. I could really bang on about this one as it drives me crazy having to resize and rotate small things with the Transform palette - and not being able to reapply identical transformations with ease without using the…
6. History Palette. How much more slower, clunkier, more flickery and unintuitive could Macromedia make this? Not much I’m sure.
7. FLAs not properly backwards compatible with Flash MX6. Saving as MX6 and then opening in MX6 (which I have to do to get any real work done as MX2004 is too slow) creates corrupt Library items - dragging an object from the library palette to the stage just gives you a small black rectangle.
The worst things I just know I’m going to find even more diabolical things. I know our technical chap here is having is own set of issues, but I can only comment on the design ones.
I could go on, but these days I have to allow an extra hour each day for unnecessary FlashMX2004 related time wasting nonsense, so I’ll end it here with this…
Recommend the upgrade to others? No.
Want a patch? You bet. Or the money back.
r.
Rob
25 Sep 03 at 6:12 am
The GUI is much better, good looking, faster to work with. But sometimes the scroll bars disappear or half of it disappears.
Sometimes it crashes while importing bitmap, swapping bitmap and sometimes it crashes when using the project panel (especially if the files are on another computer on the network), and a few times it crashed when testing fla’s bigger than 10 MB.
(p4 2 ,512 RAM)
I think the documantation needs a lot of updates, there are alot of topics without a content.
overall, i must say it is a great product but it must be updated, bug fixed, improved to be perfect.
Tolga Tatari
25 Sep 03 at 6:19 am
Thanks for asking Mike - not much fun reading I imagine.
There is a lot I like with 2004 and once fixed it will be great. I love the tabbed views and the way the help is organized, the V2 components and data binding in the component inspector.
One thing I hate is why my AS panel loses focus and disappears when I test a swf, either in the IDE or browser.
But my real problem is with the documentation. MM has always had problems in this area but this is ridiculous - I can’t imagine a release of such expensive software to actually omit large chunks of documentation. I come from a C++ coding background, and imho if you can’t document your code you can’t code. So that thought carries over. Not only is the doc missing but what is there, has many errors.
I also think perhaps Philip and others are a little incredulous that you even need to ask about specifics over crashes and such. They are so widespread, together with the AS editor slowdown, that surely you guys can replicate on your own and have plenty to do for now. You will get every system config and all kinds of situations. I will start to write down when all my freezes occur to help you though.
Finally, it will be a very cool product but I think MM definitely sent the message that next time - wait a good long while to uprade.
Mark Mulhollam
25 Sep 03 at 6:42 am
Crashes:
I’ve reported a couple of crashes on the MM bug-form (hurrah! the bug form isn’t buggy anymore!), but really the stability is SO poor that documenting crashes is almost impossible - i’ve even had crashes after importing a single image and then using the magnifier to zoom-in on one section…
Really Mike, MX2004 pretty much does nothing else than crash.
Speed:
1. takes MUCH longer to start-up than MX
2. moving just a few symbols around on the stage soon brings up the spinning beach-ball (yup - i’m using OS X - on a 1Ghz Powerbook)
Officially SLOW SLOW SLOW.
Bugs:
As someone else mentioned, most of the old bugs are still there (some of them are old friends from Flash 4 days), and the additional ‘quirks’ of the last couple releases haven’t been addressed or re-thought.
Documentation:
??? Should we really always have to wait half a year for O’Reilly and Moock to publish any decent documentation for ActionScript?
I’m glad that the hardcore coders are pleased with AS2. I guess that the tech guys at MM don’t need to be embarrassed about Flash anymore and that must be a BIG relief.
As for me, i’m back to working in MX… and wondering where i go to get my $300 back…
Don’t worry, i’m not holding my breath…
Phil Stevens
25 Sep 03 at 8:22 am
REMOTING. After spending a whole lot of time getting comfortable with CF and remoting, I think myself and many others are holding their breath about the future of it. I think MM has/had a real opportunity to make this a bit of an industry standard. Its fast and lightweight, Flash developer friendly…it would only stand to MM to let it out free or at a low cost, and get it on as many servers as they could…SOAP support is great, but for any serious RIA work its pretty bulky and slow
AS2. Fantastic….I can see a future when Java, MM server technologies and Flash all get along really nicely.
COMPONENTS: Great…hurts a bit that they are so different from Ver.1, but I think its a great direction….just don’t change it again so quickly….some of us need to make some money in the midst of all this new learning
IDE. Don’t like it at all…not as clean as MX, although the extensibility is great, I’m not sure that the majority of your average Flash developers will have any use for it for quite some time. Great in concept…probably take a long time to gain any momentum. The IDE is bloddy slow and I have a lightning fast machine.
Not going to upgrade any time soon…just don’t have the time to learn so many things from scratch or the need…MX does everything fine and there has been no improvments in remoting. MM should build an MX upgrade to handle AS2 or a command line AS2 compiler and they would make a lot of people happy to consider upgrading….
If I was MM, I wouild consider who is driving such upgrade thinking…they may be forgetting that the vast majority of Flash developers are just that, not Java developers, not full time RIA developers. MM may have lost sight (just a bit!) of what made Flash so popular with developers in the first place…I think the saying is ‘throwing the baby out with the bath water’ or something like it
daren
25 Sep 03 at 8:46 am
Here are my impressions of Flash MX 2004, when I tried a new project (I am using the windows version):
Good:
New components are just great;
Binding helps a lot;
Working with forms is a way to go on some projects;
The interface is very good to look at.
Bad:
Sorry about that Mike, but it is unstable period. The software justs gives up on working on random basis (it is not a specific issue that is crashing). It use to crash more often when I use Test Movie;
Performance is reaaaally slow when it publishes the files, specially when you start adding the great new memory hungry components;
*** In the name of the Good Old Lord, is it too dificult to make a database connection like the one from Dreamweaver???? Where I can put a SELECT phrase and then create the recordsets and just drag the database components to the project??? Is this sooo dificult? Why I have to dig on web services, crazy XML servlets and so? It is so easy on DW…
Overall, the upgrade is ok. I’m not sure if I will use the new one or keep on the old Flash MX. I think I will wait for version 7.1, or 8.0.
Hope that helps.
David
David Widman
25 Sep 03 at 9:12 am
KUDOS:
1. Slick interface - the IDE is really nice.
2. New features (too many to list - you know what they are).
3. Extensibility will be great!
NEUTRAL:
1. Timeline effects - nothing good enough to use, will probably be used by a lot of new people to make bad-looking Flash. One or two things may be useful. Though this feature has a lot of potential if its expanded on. The current available options are kinda sparse.
2. AS 2.0 - good for application developers and heavy coders I guess. Not of concern to me right now.
FRUSTRATIONS/COMPLAINTS:
1. The learning interactions are very nice, but do not seem to be compatible with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act!!!! I cannot tab-select the buttons required to navigate, and adding my own buttons to overrride this “bug” does not seem to work either. This is a BIG deal for us since all our clients now are asking for section 508 compliant learning applications. Also, have had sporadic results getting screenreaders to speak Flash content. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.
2. The Library for each document STILL does not appear by default when the file is opened. I thought enough complaints had been made last go around. Still have to hit F11 everytime I open a file application.
3. Transform panel does not seem to work sometimes when scaling an drawn object - I have to scale things up manually instead of changing values. Very frustrating.
4. It crashes. Just yesterday it crashed during launch! I wasn’t even in a document yet. Today, I had to launch the IDE twice before it came up. Seems sporadic.
5. When changing a gradient color fill, say a radial fill, sometimes it won’t let you.
6. DOCUMENTATION. PDFs? How the heck do you work with CSS in Flash? I guess I have to sort through some PDF somewhere. We have to print all those out or try and read them onscreen? I loved when Flash came with an Actionscript dictionary! I would pay more for a product that shipped with printed materials, other than a little “getting started”. This will only make Moock’s books sell more copies, but we have to wait for the next version of the book to come out!
Jason Merrill
25 Sep 03 at 9:31 am
It seems that Flash MX 2004 will not receive a very warm welcome under Flash designers and developers. I believe the main reasons are:
1. Major discrepancy between what the Flash development team thinks what Flash users want and what we really want. This explains the removing of lots of features Flashers depend on in their daily work and adding stuff nobody cares about (e.g. behaviors panel). Furthermore, stability and good documentation are the most important elements of a professional tool. A new version should contribute to the efficiency of our workflow instead of being a source of frustration and stress. In short, there is a big gap between the expectations of the community and the realizations of the Flash development team, despite the input of a bunch of Team Macromedia members.
2. The current Flash community has two distinct audiences developers and designers that should be targeted by separate products. The current distinction between Flash MX 2004 Standard and Flash MX 2004 Professional is superficial. Although the professional version is aimed at developers it lacks lots of developer features (besides all the things already mentioned, a snippets panel like the one in Dreamweaver) and has lots of features not one developer will ever need. The standard version, targeted at designers, lacks the feature to design Flash presentations. Slides are only included in the Professional version. Who are the people that design corporate presentations? designers or developers? Conclusion, the decision to make Flash MX 2004 a unified tool everybody is pleased with, has lead to a product that looks like a hammer you can write with. A tool developers as well as designers do not feel comfortable with.
vinny timmermans
25 Sep 03 at 9:57 am
i’ll keep this short:
pros:
as2 : welcome to real world oop
ide : (getting) more consistent with other software/app development environs.
tabs : finally!
cons:
as2 : as2 is a mutt lang (java, pascal..). granted, a strongly typed language.
ide : kinda cramped feeling
help files : seemed like they were rushed. helpful but not a very large scope of help.
all in all, i think i have griped about every version that has come out for a couple weeks. then i get into it.
brandon ellis
25 Sep 03 at 10:42 am
Like:
1. ActionScript 2.0
2. The direction flash is going
3. Web Services support
4. The “beautified” Workspace GUI
5. New component architecture
Don’t Like:
1. The fact documentation was not complete
2. Why do my dialogs keep moving about?
3. I do not like the new skinning at all. I don’t like the fact I cannot easily override Halo. Why is it so hard to change the background color of a button? In VB I could do this in the properties.
Mark Haliday
25 Sep 03 at 10:44 am
I’d like to add a few more comments.
Pros:
Extensibility. A major plus…that will be evident as time passes.
HTML and CSS support. It’s a start, although better support will make it useful. Just happy to see this first step.
Cons:
I’d like to second David Widman’s suggestion that Flash have a similar database/recordset feature to DW’s. A combination simple/advanced dialog box that can create recordsets and then drag/drop the fields into Flash would make me 100% more productive.
I’d also like to second other opinions that the distinction between MX 2004 and MX 2004 Pro is slight. There really should be a true developer’s version and a designer’s version.
As for stability. I’m running it on both XP and 2000. The XP machine is a dual processor 1 Ghz PIII with 1 GB RAM and the 2000 machine is a 1.8 Ghz P4 with 512MB. Both should handle the new MX software with no problems, and yet the slowdowns and crashes are non-stop…and there isn’t a “everytime I do this it crashes” list of steps I can give you.
I hope that the problems with all MX 2004 products has nothing to do with activation. I had positive comments for activation with Contribute 2 because, well, I didn’t run into problems, and because I respect MM’s need/desire to product their products from thieves, but if activation is causing any performance problems with 2004, then please remove it.
Thanks for listening. It’s great to have folks like yourself willing to sift through a long list of gripes.
Mike
Michael Hazard
25 Sep 03 at 10:57 am
Pros: AS2 and tabbed windows
Cons: The IDE is slow and cluttered. The panels do not operate properly. Coming from VB background, it’s very frustrating working with this latest Flash. I’m still trying to figure out how to navigate the code window. Flash MX was slightly easier in this regard. We have too many panels crammed together all at once. It would make more sense to have a Timeline tab, a Code tab, and a Design tab for each open document. Each one should occupy almost the full screen. These sliding panels are hard to use. Why does the property inspector disappear all the time?
I don’t want an integrated Help panel that does not operate properly. HTML pages were designed for hyperlinked documents, and the web browser is the perfect light-weight help system. Help systems are the single most important part of the IDE, and the Macromedia product line as a whole has the absolute worst in the industry.
The fact that Flash Remoting support was not enhanced is a huge mistake. The SOAP and other connectors in Flash Pro are not very impressive or even usable. From the company that markets ColdFusion I expect more support for native ColdFusion functionality. This does not mean support for SOAP. If I build a CFC with methods that can be called by Flash Remoting, why would I ever use SOAP from within Flash? FR could be the industry standard, and should be pushed hard by MM by getting it onto every server out there the same way that the player is on every browser.
It really sucks that consistency cannot be maintained between product releases. I appreciate the new component structure, but we really need to have something that will carry on into the next version and be enhanced, not replaced. Pick a standard and go with it. . .don’t abandon it.
Tom Muck
25 Sep 03 at 11:45 am
Wasted money on the last three (3) DRKs. I can’t use these components in Flash MX 2004. At least not with out taking a chance.
If I publish to Flash Player 6 to use these components, I can’t use Flash Player 7 features like the nice “img” tag.
Macromedia should at least extend our subscriptions to cover the DRKs that are now wasted.
Matt
25 Sep 03 at 11:47 am
Keep the feedback coming folks. This is excellent stuff. Very focused. We’re tallying what we see and discussing.
That said, I’m sure our experienced developers know that we cannot comment on whether or not there will be a dot release. Not only is it against policy to do so, but it’s dangerous to make forward looking statements (which are then subject to unexpected changes.. then nobody’s happy).
So the best thing you all can do is just keep the feedback coming and give us lots of objective information to work with.
–
Regards,
Bentley Wolfe
Senior Support Engineer, Macromedia
Flash Senior Escalation Engineer
Announcing MX 2004. New versions of Dreamweaver,
Flash, Fireworks, Studio and the new Flash Pro. http://www.MX2004.com
Bentley Wolfe
25 Sep 03 at 12:31 pm
I have been using Flash 2004 for a couple of weeks now. Overall, it is not a bad product. I am a developer, so the additions to Actionscript were great.
Pros:
- AS2 is getting close to a real language - nice
- JSFL is an excellent addition
Cons:
- the debugger is still worthless!!!!!!!
- the documentation is not available
- MM removed the Reference panel from the IDE
brent lang
25 Sep 03 at 12:33 pm
Flash MX 2004 is cool. Actionscript 2 is cool, JSFL is cool, a lot of stuff is cool. However:
(a) The price tag is a bit heavy, there should be an ultra light version with perhaps actionscript IDE only; I’d like to buy Flash 7, but the price is too high for casual/educational use
(b) The swf format is the same, actionscript 2 brings zero performance improvements; I really love to use it, but without inlining its frustrating; using classes improves reuse, however if you can’t reuse functions for performance critical work, that’s a big issue, I have had to manually inline some functions
(c) The drawing API should definitely be improved, along with AS2 its the most exciting thing about flash to me and a lot of other people I’d suspect, not for most but still for many; interactive 3d is not possible in flash beyond simplistic cubes and tori, I’d be very cool if one could use real-time 3d in flash - I mean Flash is so much more interesting than Director, so why does it lag behind in this very important area; I thought Flash 6 would catch up and here in Flash 7 the situation is essentially the same and compared to Flash 6 the drawing API appears to have undergone zero change
But I must say, again, that coding in AS2 is much more productive than coding in AS1.
Bent Rasmussen
25 Sep 03 at 1:40 pm
Hi Mike,
Regarding stability and conflict with other apps:
Flash sometimes exits with no warning. It seems there is no exact reproducible way. I’m running it on a Dell D800 (Pentium M 1.6GHz laptop with 512MB RAM, XP Pro - engineers have my system specs and collection of (UTR) bugs).
As I posted somewhere else yesterday, Flash (and Dreamweaver MX 2004) sometimes prevents other apps from launching. In fact, I’ve seen them preventing each other from launching. I wonder if it is the common new interface code, or the background licensing tasks. Seems like there are memory issues because I’ve seen corrupted IE and even the Task Manager was affected (only two tabs instead of five).
The conflicts go away immediately when I quit Flash. Everything is back to normal, every time when Flash is no longer running. I find myself rebooting more frequently because Flash has been making the system quite unstable.
Launch time varies. Sometimes it takes close to 50 seconds, sometimes around 8.
One other thing I forgot to mention: Flash Remoting works great before, and it should continue to do so. The new web services should not affect Flash Remoting - both should be supported because they’re both useful in different situations.
Thanks,
Dave
Dave Yang
25 Sep 03 at 2:13 pm
I do mostly coding thus spend my time in the Script & Actions Editors (most other panels I close):
Likes:
- AS2: Strong Type checking and catching of undeclared (i.e. misspelled) properties.
Dislikes:
- Script Editor is a Window, while Actions Editor is a Panel, which makes switching between them a pain as the Panel is always over the Window. The Steps are something like: Edit Actions, Select Script Tab, Close Actions Panel (so I can see the Script Editor), Select Script Editor (to give it focus), Edit Script, Select Actions Tab, Open Actions Editor, … Sheesh! Grudgingly went back to using external editor.
Comments:
- Have to second the comments about Form/Slides being part of the Pro (i.e Programmer) version. Seems to me, those tools would benifit people who wish to do as LITTLE programming as possible, and also would seem much more useful in the hands of designers.
- Thankfully stabilty has not been a problem, but as I spend most of my time doing just three things (i.e. Editing in the Action Panel, Editing in an External Editor and Publishing/Testing.) I’m putting very little “stress” on the product.
Upgrading:
- Even though I’m a long time programmer (18+ years) I’m still up in the air as to if/when I’ll upgrade and what version (non-pro/ pro) I’ll upgrade to. Still weighing the pro/cons/cost …
David
DGuy
25 Sep 03 at 2:49 pm
Remoting — Don’t drop this macromedia, enhance it. Listen to your users.
noah
25 Sep 03 at 2:51 pm
I just received the following message from Macromedia concerning one of the complaints some others and I mentioned before:
“We are currently in the process of updating the Flash components from DRK Volumes 1-4 to work with Flash MX 2004. When they are released in the coming weeks, you will get them as part of your DevNet Essentials subscription”.
Good news!
vinny timmermans
25 Sep 03 at 3:55 pm
PROS:
- improved video playback
- standardized UI elements
- smarter “simulate download” that streams other SWFs
- Find/Replace
- spell checker
CONS:
- TERRIBLE stability. Yikes! MM is shooting themselves in the foot with this release.
- I can’t believe how poor the documentation is. HUGE disappointment.
- Upgrades are too expensive considering the relatively small number of improvements.
SUGGESTIONS:
- PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE give us a maintenance release to fix this thing ASAP!
- I’m sick of hitting Ctrl-L every time I open a file. Why can’t I set a preference to have the library open all the time?
- Let a mask affect opacity
- Player still needs serious help displaying animations that affect large areas of the screen. Some of my movies slow to a crawl on sub-2gz machines even at 12-15fps rates.
While there are some really nice improvements in Flash MX 2004, the stability problems, bugs, and poor documentation make it quite unattractive. MM needs to get their priorities straight. They’re alienating a lot of us professional developers to whom they owe much of their success.
Jack
25 Sep 03 at 4:27 pm
I feel the same as all of the other posts, I would like to add one thing, no matter how very small it may seem it still ircks me.
In the library I want to be able to click on any object, tap a key on my keyboard and it will bring me to the next item beginning with that letter. It was there in flash 5, but taken out in MX.
Please.. please add this to the next flash or in a future “update” of MC 2004.
-Mike
-Mike
Mike Coutermarsh
25 Sep 03 at 4:28 pm
Liking ActionScript 2.0 - finally, “OOP-ish”. Improved timeline as well… looking like a keeper thus far.
Still dislike the convuluted treatement/integration of XML though.
gerbick
25 Sep 03 at 6:09 pm
Like so many others, I’m excited by the potential of the new features and by AS2, and I’m really annoyed about the lack of documentation.
I’ve only used the trial version, so I can’t comment on what is in the packaged release, but I am greatly disturbed by the fact that I just purchased the boxed DreamWeaver MX04 upgrade and there is NO printed manual. This is simply not good enough and I hope that it won’t be the case with Flash MX 04 (although I suspect that it is).
Honestly, I love working with Flash and I’m excited about the new version. So why is Macromedia making it so damn hard to get into? I don’t have the time to go exploring all the arcane sites on the web to see in bits and pieces what other people have discovered — that’s what the manual is supposed to be for.
To me, it indicates a remarkably low amount of regard from Macromedia towards their customers — especially to the dedicated enthusiastic customers who get in early and buy the latest versions of Flash (etc) to start using, learning and developing, which in turn promotes macromedia’s products to others.
Okay, rant over!
Gil
Gil
25 Sep 03 at 9:01 pm
While I like the overall look of 04, I’m dissapointed by the problems with it.
I’m running an Alienware Area 51 P3 2.1GHZ 512mb ram, XP Pro. Basically, it’s a sweet box!
04 takes 30 -50 seconds to launch which is 20 - 40 seconds longer than MX. This release seems to be heavy for some reason.
04 has crashed 3 times on me for no apparent reason. I was dragging a MC from the library the last time it pooped itself. Unfortunately, I haven’t even begun to really develop in it yet.
I don’t like the help panel in the IDE. I agree that it is more useful and useable coming up in a browser window. I also don’t like the fact that there is so much info missing.
There’s no reference panel!
The panels are quirky! I like to put my actions panel at the top above the timeline. Currently, my actions panel is either fully expanded, or hidden.( the only thing visible is the little arrow in the lighter grey rectangle on the dividing line) I cant see the tab like I can properties and help even though actions is open.
One good thing about the panels is that you can now save the library in a panel set and it actually is there when you open Flash the next day.
Two things that really bother me:
First, I know of most of the Beta testers and Team Macromedia. I respect them. But I can’t figure out why these issues did not come up in beta testing. I’m your customer. I don’t really care if you personally like me or not. But if you listen to me, I can make your product better and make you money! Why the pussyfooting that is so apparent in everything the inner circle has to say about MM and 04?
Second, People have stated that they like JSFL. I have mixed feelings about it. I don’t really get it from what I’ve read. So I haven’t realized it’s full usefullness. But I realized that you can take Actionscript Viewer (thanks Burak!) Save a swf that you want to know more about ;) And in 5 clicks, recreate the FLA!!! WTF?!?!? I mean, sure it’s useful, I like having the ability, but doesn’t it go against what MM is trying to do? I’m trying to understand why you have a new security model for the Flash 7 player. Of course, the security model needs to be beefed up if we are really going to develop RIA’s. But if everything is open, why even have security? I can’t look at the connection strings in a CF app. Why should I be able to in a 04 app? It doesn’t make sense! So even though I don’t fully understand the full usefulness of .jsfl, I realized I can hack with it!
All that said, Thank god for Macromedia! I have a career thanks to you! I mean I got lifestyle!
Mike Miller (Mm)
25 Sep 03 at 10:25 pm
One more thing:
I’m opening .fla’s I created on the same machine in MX and 04 is telling me the fonts aren’t available. I need to choose a different font or use the default. I found that the fonts it is not recognising are ATM fonts like Adobe Garamond and Helvetica. Does Flash only support True Type fonts?
Mike Miller (Mm)
26 Sep 03 at 12:14 am
PROS:
* AS2
CONS:
* Highly unstable (but not still not nearly as bad as Dreamweaver MX 2004)
* Unable to use the V1 components from the DRKs I paid a lot of money for.
* Clunky AS editor
UNFORGIVABLE:
* Lack of documentation
* Failure to incorporate Flash Remoting and refusal to tell the Developer Community where MM are going with this.
DUMBEST CHANGE EVER SEEN IN 20 YEARS OF USING PC SOFTWARE:
* Changing the select-line command in the AS editor from click to control-click. What were MM smoking when they came up with that one?
OVERALL:
* I’m sure it will be a nice product when it’s finished…
Paul Lang
26 Sep 03 at 5:11 am
where is the select line with mouse click? I can’t use the IDE without that!
Quite unstable and unusable fro the as point of view. Panels freaks out while testing flash movies.
I love the new performance of the player! It is a great release! thanks
I like very much SOAP, even if I would like to continue work in remoting.. where is remoting? something on the horizon?
Alessandro
26 Sep 03 at 1:48 pm
ATT Michael Hazard
I’m looking for you to discuss some of these issues.
Please private mail me contact info to bwolfe@macromedia.com.
Thanks.
Bentley Wolfe
26 Sep 03 at 6:13 pm
I took an intensive look for a couple of days but found that the significant advances in actionscript were horribly offset by constant crashing that ate away at my patience and productivity.
I’m sticking with Flash MX for a while because while there are loads of new useful and good things, there’s nothing so good that would pursuade me to put up with the instability.
The whole industry seems to have been totally unprepared for this release. For example, one would have thought that book publishers would have been ‘let in’ in good time to have something on the shelves to coincide with the release. Even some of the major third party Flash sites seem to have ignored it except for a couple of news items.
I hate the panels of Flash MX and MX 2004. (They seem to be less unbearable in Dreamweaver though for some reason). Someone in a previous post mentioned that tabs would be better and I wholeheartedly agree. Fighting with multiple tiny spaces all day long really frays my nerves badly. Having ‘Help’ in a panel is just a huge failure and I would prefer the help to be in a separate browser (but only as long as the annoying, tempramental popup dialog box from the Flash MX help browser is nowhere to be seen).
The FTP capabilities are next to useless for my purposes and they don’t work properly for me. Dreamweaver’s FTP is fast beyond belief. Flash MX 2004’s FTP is slow beyond belief and the project management features are too basic to be useful. I use Dreamweaver for managing my Flash projects (and another reason not to pay the extra money for the Flash Pro version).
I absolutely DESPISE the split to two versions. A huge mistake and a really stupid, poor decision that will (and has) cost Macromedia a ton of good-will.
The name - aaagggggh. I think people are already pulling their hair out distinguishing this version from the previous one and having to type the full thing all the time. At least before we could just say “MX”, but now we can’t use that short name for either version and still know which one we mean.
This has all the makings of a really great upgrade (and still could be), but the shortcomings are too much for the moment.
Julian
26 Sep 03 at 8:06 pm
pros:
AS2 + editor
component architecture
multiple pinning
font aliasing
video
accessibility
cons:
None. This is a solid upgrade that I will shell out for.
Mike Britton
26 Sep 03 at 8:32 pm
Likes:
AS2
Dislikes:
AS2 lack of real strict error checking.
Can still assign a string to a number for example. Put in some real error checking please.
Can’t use Ctrl+Enter to test a movie from
an .as window.
Disable/Enable is real annoying while switching tabs
Changes to an .as file aren’t seen until
saved and nothing reminds you to save.
Would prefer it compile just like scripts
inside the fla. Having to save the .as,
click the fla tab, then hit Ctril+Enter to
test everytime got old inside of 3 minutes.
Absolutely HATE the new undo system.
MX’s non-linear undo was FAR superior when
animating several movieclips when needing
to go ‘in and out’ of each editing several
clips in a larger animation.
We don’t need a PhotoShop clone.
Timeline effects. Slow and unimportant.
Slides editor. Do pros needs this?
Summary:
Even though I’m not jumping for joy over this
version. I may have bought it if the undo
wasn’t completely destroyed. There was
no need to change such a heavily used
feature that has been a core functionality
for so long.
I’ll let other people stand up for Normal Mode.
I didn’t use it but ALOT of people did.
In the future please give more thought before
altering, removing or changing existing features.
Chris
Chris Flowers
26 Sep 03 at 11:14 pm
I have to say I’ve been working for a couple of weeks with mx 2004 and haven’t had a single crash, lucky me, I like a lot of stuff like as2, forms, align hinting, BUT I think this release is useless to great part of the flash community, I am a programmer, and the people I work with are mostly designers so I can’t hope that they get happy about strict typing when they have so much troublr working with the flexible mx6 script, I mean I can’t think of a single usefull thig for a designer in this release(other than align hinting) the behaviors and the timeline affects are really basic.
I like it, already done a complete project on it and am working on another one and other than banging my head against the wall countless tiems for the lack of documentation and sometimes deleting a mc and it wouldn’t go away unless I changed frames I had no major problem. If you plan to develop RIAs then upgrade if not stay away from it.
On another topic I think it’s good that you open up a place where we can say what we think, but will this get something done? I mean, there’s really a LOT of negative comments about this release, and I just hope Macromedia doesn’t ignore them and release a patch.
Pablo Alonso
27 Sep 03 at 2:29 am
I just received my copy of FMX2004 today.. I haven’t had time to test it much and see if I suffer from the instabilities others have reported. .
2 big things I noticed right off the bat:
1) on my 19″ screen, the IDE is very cluttered. I run two monitors on my mac and I may have to run two of my pc just so I can see all the panels.
MM — you should look at Modo (3d applcation by Luxology) and see how they are handle collapsing panels.
2) documentation sucks. it was hard to find and the IDE help is insane. I can barely read it. Bring back the html help system, at least I could resize it. While I love reading Moock’s books, I don’t like having to wait until he releases one so I can understand the basics of the new features. Where are the samples and example code?
More to come once I have free time… until then I am still working in MX, and playing in MX2004 on my breaks/lunches.
- John
John
27 Sep 03 at 3:43 am
I’m very happy in general.
cons:
- I found very frustrating when you have a bunch of windows open inside mx 2004 , then open up a different application and when you go back to flash all the windows that where minimized are maximized.
- Documentation is not very well documented.
-Using the AS editor with MX 2004 is extremely processor intensive.
-Bytecode limit to 32 k.
Luis
27 Sep 03 at 5:19 am
I’m in a big RIA with mx.screens.Forms all the way. I guess I have the nerve to do it without any serious help documentation. That’s hard work, yeah !
Macromedia should *not* assume that colin moock will fill the task of proper documentation : it’s the job of Macromedia ! Having Flash MX 2004 (pro or not) means that complete help files are already included so that the tool is profitable right away.
In fact, Macromedia should propose a job for Colin Moock along the development process of a new Flash version so that proper -paper- documentation be available with Flash and not as a separate book from another company.
Docs, docs, samples & samples would be my main request.
Fortunately, Flash MX 2004 Pro is quite stable on my system.
gilles
27 Sep 03 at 1:21 pm
Ive bought every new version of flash the moment it was released since v4, except this one.
My PC is only just within the minimum specs. for mx 2004, and so I wasnt suprised to have crashes and slow performance with the trial, but the comments here make me wonder if things will be any better once I upgrade my pc.
my initial opinion;
pro;
loading and printing objects
history
find and replace
cons;
stability
performance
removed features
no new drawing api methods
loss of vision of users
what I mean by the last point is that MM seems to not have thought about its user base
as I see it there are four types of users, all of which MM has stuffed around with this release
1. newbies - people who have never used flash
behaviours are a good idea, but the normal mode in actionscript has gone!
and why are screens only in pro version, which are great for people moving up from PowerPoint
and offcourse the help is hopeless
2. designers/animators - use flash a lot but dont do hasrd core coding
few new features and lots of things lost eg; normal mode, transform pannel etc
3. flash developers - people like me who work fulltime doing flash design/coding
as2 is nice but hardly essential if it doesnt improve performance
the stability and workflow are the critical bits and these are worse
also there are no features that actually change what you can do with flash via code eg: no new sound control such as pitch, image control such as transform/quads or drawing features.
MM says ‘we cant wait to see what you do with it’ , well there aint much new we can do
4. java/enterprise developers - people who dont use flash, the people MM seems to really want at the expense of their core users
as2 may attract these types but stability and documentation issues will lose them
I really hope MM pays attention to the comments here. Ive been working for almost 4 years fulltime as a flash developer and I feel shafted by this release, I cant imagine that was MM’s intension
david doull
28 Sep 03 at 3:39 am
Pro…its another version…
Con…MM will NEVER fix it..MX2005
Kevin Smith
28 Sep 03 at 12:13 pm
I am particularly alarmed by the “policy against updates”. Where’s the reasoning there? I’m very curious - no rant here - but why would there ever be a policy against updating software you develop if it has legit bugs?
chris
28 Sep 03 at 5:21 pm
There are many good things in the new release, but they’re heavily outweighed by the cons (mentioned extensively above), of which below are some that are a few particulary picky to me:
Split versions - MX2004/MX2004Pro.
Removal of Non-linear Undo. Why can’t I have the option to change it back? Why change something so drastically?
AS Panel and general stabililty.
Why take out the Scale and Rotate (CTRL+ALT+S) dialogue? How may bytes did that save from the exe?
Documentation. Heads should roll for the failure to provide complete documentation..
I have to expend a lot of political capital to get authorization to buy software at my company (tight budgets require extreme rationalization), and I can’t afford to blow it on this release. I’ll have to wait for the patch, or the next version. Too bad Macromedia.
BJ
29 Sep 03 at 10:42 am
AND AS Editor -> click on line number inserts a breakpoint instead of selecting the line!!!! Dammit!
BJ
29 Sep 03 at 11:03 am
I wish I could undo the Undo changes.
Compatibility with MX files sketchy at best. I have a gig of MX files for work. Not gonna get paid to make them work in MX04!
CRASH city….BLINK..its gone. I am on OS X havnt tried it on my Windows machine yet
Library is slow. VERY SLOW. This was a small problem in MX now a BIG one.
Documentation: No tech writers at Macromedia?
I create online training for Autodesk using FlashMX it works great. Some bugs that never got fixed but overall MX is stellar. I abandoned MX04 10 days into the trial. It slowed me to a crawl.
Curtis Wiens
29 Sep 03 at 12:12 pm
Great opportunity, so i can rant at the right place !
Ok I just tried to finish a project with my EMEXTWOTHOUSENDFOUR Demo…
The Pros:
the new compiler really seems to speed up things a tiny itsy bitsy teeny weeny bit.
Actually just the new great flash player 7 seems to speed up things.
AS 2: didn’t have the time yet to dig deeper into it, but it holds a lot of promises for the furure.
Though i think that it takes a lot of rock n’ roll out of Flash development.
Programwide Find and replace including colors is great !
Cons:
anything else ! especially the history and undo changes !!!!!!!
No seriously I mean the Undo features up to this release were the bomb. Actually I always hoped other applications would incorporate that feature…
Why oh why did they take this out ???
As so many other people mentioned: Why is the Scale and Rotate feature gone ???
It was so useful ! don’t get it at all…
The program (especially the AS editor)is so slow it’s almost unworkable…
conclusion.
I guess normally i would not be so negative but the fact that MM charges a pretty hefty amount of dough for this uncomplete and unpolished version is making me very very angry.
Ernst Blofeld
29 Sep 03 at 1:34 pm
Hi!
I#ve been playing with FMX2004 for a few days now but i already noticed several things that should be said:
Good:
- Components: as a Developer i always wanted flash to be more like VB or other programming languages.
- Speed improvement: I didn’t really test it, but if there really is a speed improvement as said, i would appreciate it. But a first test on my cpu-Killer fla didn’t really show any improvements (several hundred small MCs moving around)
Bad:
- Speed: FMX 2004 is just slowly. This is a development tool and not “Fancy Postcard Maker 2.0″. So please stop fillin everything in the IDE with fancy shadows, gradients, rounded edges etc. noone needs them and they make everything sooo slow.
Very bad:
- Developer Layout: in FMX there was a developer LAyout with the timeline on the left and the “drawing window” (how is it called??) on the right. it was a great idea cause i don’t really need a long timeline, nor do i need a huge drawing window. why did macromedia remove that ??
- Documentation: you can never have enough documentation
-help: the help panel is a real pain. please move it back to a seperate window!!!
Mickey
29 Sep 03 at 1:55 pm
Mike ???
are you still reading this ?
Just wanted to be sure, before i post my suggestions about the help files …
1stpixel
1stpixel
30 Sep 03 at 4:43 am
It has been said before, but the help system is truly dreadful - badly organised and incomplete. My other gripe regards the well publicised “buy one windows license, install it on two of your pcs” vs “have two computers, one a mac, one a pc, get stung for two copies” issue.
Andrew
30 Sep 03 at 6:32 am
Please can MM me an the other people answer following question:
How do i use WebServices with the SebServiceConnector outside the FM2004 IDE or projector?
(yes, i know the usage of crossdomain.xml and i try your technote of proxy a webservice on my own CFMX Server)
Nothing works, and i ask me how i can tell people: …woooow, now you can use free WebServices…
….but not on your homepage. ;/
It’s so easy…
Send an email to google and they will host your crossdomain.xml in the root of there servers *g*
Regards,
Sven
Sven
30 Sep 03 at 7:13 am
1.
As so many others mentioned before, the main disappointing point in 04pro is definitely the missing Remoting Connector!
Sure, you can use a cfc as a WebService and use the WebServiceConnector. But that can just be a workaround.
I’m sure the kick-ass remoting connector component is just in development progress :-)
2.
It must be possible to import pictures via loadMovie with TRANSPARENT BACKGROUNDS, such as an eps or a png can do it.
This is so important!
So far,
MX2004pro is definitely a must-upgrade
Sascha
30 Sep 03 at 9:11 am
>are you stil