We have released the file format specification for Flash 6. This contains everything you need to know to create your own SWF file to play within the Flash player, including information on the FLV video format.
Note, this is a specification and not an SDK (which we offered in the past). This means that the documentation is much better, but there are no sample files. This allows us to update the specification a lot quicker once future versions of the player are released.
We have updated the Linux build of the current Flash Player Beta. You can download it here. The release notes describes some of the bug fixes in this build.
We really need developers to test their existing content with the the current Windows, Mac and Linux players. We are getting a lot of input on the Linux beta but not on the other versions of the player. This is your chance to make sure that we are aware of any issues.
There have a been a couple of questions about what parts of ActionScript have been optimized in the new player. I talked to the Flash Player team and they passed the following info to me:
Movies which make lots of function calls (something recursive, such as a QuickSort algorithm on an array of 10,000 items) will be faster (provided they don’t access the arguments array).
If anyone gets some benchmarks together, make sure to post a link to them in the comments.
Claus Wahlers has put up some performance benchmarks on string manipulation in the new Flash Player 6 beta.
The benchmarks show significant performance increases in string manipulations.
You can view the benchmarks here.
You can find more info on the Flash Player beta here.
FYI : there have been some reports on FlashCoders of overall ActionScript performance increases of 10%.
We have a new beta of the Flash Player 6 today, with versions available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
This is a very big release, with quite a few bug fixes, new features (wider WMODE support, custom request headers, etc…) and performance optimizations.
We are really trying to create as high a quality player as possible, and thus we need your helping in reporting any issues / problems that you run into (we are giving prizes away to the top bug submitters).
Just a quick FYI, if you are considering attending DevCon in two weeks in Orlando, then you might want to make your reservations very soon. The conference has just about sold out (as of Monday, we only had about 100 spaces left).
You can find more info on this here.
I meant to post this the other day, but got caught up in the DesDev release (sorry for the delay).
Lots of new Flash MX content and resources today at the Macromedia Designer and Developers Center:
Make sure to check out the Advanced Drawing Methods article written by Ric Ewing. It has some really useful ActionScript libraries for using the drawing API.
We have put up new Flash Player penetration stats on the website.
The main number? around 60% of users on the web can view Flash Player 6 content.
You can view all of the stats and information here.
Slashdot has just posted a book review of Constructing Accessible Web Sites (book excerpts at Amazon). The book includes a chapter on Flash on which the reviewer offers the following:
I was surprised that chapter 10 was devoted to Flash, as I expected that Flash coverage in an accessibility book would be limited to a few paragraphs lambasting Macromedia for creating such an inaccessible technology. Well, it turns out that the new version of Flash supports accessibility much better than previous ones. This chapter was a real eye-opener for me. Clearly there is more work to be done but well done to Macromedia for putting accessibility support in!
