As Mike Downey posted on the FlashTeam weblog, some of the Flash Team (as well as myself) are in Tokyo all week doing customer visits. The meetings kick off tomorrow. Today (Monday) we will be meeting with the Macromedia Japan office, touching base, and getting ready for the week.

So what exactly are we doing here? Well, basically, we meet with two customers a day for about 3 - 5 hours each. We find out what they have been working on, how they use Flash, what problems they have run into and what features they want in Flash. We then spend about an hour talking to them about 8Ball (next full version of Flash) and showing some early demos and mock-ups. Finally we then get their feedback on what we show them, and drill down on the details.

If you are running a non-English version of Flash MX 2004, do not install the English version of the recent update. If you do, something will probably act funny.

Localized versions of the updater will be out shortly.

As you probably know by now, we just released an update to Flash MX 2004. Code-named Ellipsis, this brings Flash up to version 7.2 and addresses a ton of issues.

Thus far, everyone seems to be pretty excited about the update and all its changes. Some users are still a little skeptical, or unhappy that a particular bug was not fixed, and we completely understand that. We know it will take time to win back everyone’s trust, and Ellipsis is just one step in that process.

Just a quick FYI. I will be hanging around in the hereDevChat today. So, if you want to chat, or if you have any questions about Ellipsis, drop on by.

You can install DevChat from here.

Flash Update (7.2 / Ellipsis) is Available

The second update to Flash MX 2004 is now avaliable from macromedia.com. This brings Flash up to version 7.2, and focuses on a number of areas:

• Performance / Stability / Resource Usage
• Usability / Annoying Bugs
• Components
• Documentations

In total, over 120 bugs were fixed.

I have written an article that discusses Ellipsis, some of the issues that caused us to need to do two updates to Flash, as well as changes at Macromedia to help ensure we don’t make the same mistakes again.

As if you didn’t already have enough to read today with all of the new Ellipsis docs and articles, here are 19 new technotes for your to peruse:

• Scroll Bar component in Macromedia Flash MX 2004 requires Snap to Objects
• RDBMSResolver ignores updates in the Result Pac
• Extensions lost after installing the 7.2 update
• Setting an Array Parameter in the Property inspector to 00 causes script error
• Progress Bar does not sync with Loader Component in a movie clip
• Assigning Variable to _highquality results in ActionScript error
• Sound Panning Effects do not alter the Flash sounds
• Creating properties in the intrinsic Object class returns error when compiled
• The DataSet.find() method is currently malfunctioning and is unable to return correct values
• removeMovieClip action fails when button component is on stage
• Transformation point does not match symbol registration point
• Content in DataGrid component columns is cut off
• ActionScript files saved without AS extension show generic icon
• DataSet component is not able to resolve data typed as Date from the XMLConnector component
• Class members/variables are outside of the scope of event functions
• Compiler error with static arrays using loops in static methods
• Components fail in multiple linked shared libraries
• DateField component cannot receive keyboard input
• Setting scaleX or scaleY does not scale the focus rectangle

Happy Reading

I have released a new version of my Flash Resource Manager for Windows. Among other things, this release adds support for Flash MX 7.2 (Ellipsis).

Here is a complete list of changes:

• Added support for Flash MX 2004 7.2.
• Added option to not view help files installed by extensions.
• You can now set files as start page. You must enter a valid URI.
• Added home page link to go menu.
• Latest News link in go menu now goes to latest news, and not home page.
• Added version support to application settings. The application will only load settings if the settings were created by the same version of the application.

You can download the new version, as well as find out more information here.

The Flash Updater (Ellipsis) includes a new File API for JSFL which I used to put together a couple of commands that make it easy to clear your ASO cache. This comes in handy if your class files and ASO files ever get out of sync.

There are two commands included:

• Clear ASO Cache - Clears ASO Cache
• Clear ASO Cache and Compile - Clears ASO Cache and Test Movie

The commands require Flash 7.2.

Eric Dolecki pointed me toward a new editor on OS X, weirdly named Smultron. Regardless of its name though, it is a pretty good editor, which has support for multiple documents within the same panel / window. It has all of the basics you would expect from an editor, and also appears to have built in support for ActionScript.

It is written in Cocoa and is open source, so if I can ever get it to compile, maybe I will add some more ActionScript support.

Last week during customer visits, one of the customers commented that he is always creating invisible buttons. While I don’t create them much myself anymore, I used to use them all of the time, and though how it can be a little bit of a hassle / pain.

So, I create a simple JSFL Command that will automatically create an invisible button from whatever is selected on the stage.

You can download the command from here.