Components in Flash MX 2004 are greatly expanded from the previous version and are grouped into three categories: data components, for database access media components, for adding controls for media, such as video control buttons and user interface (UI) components, for building application UIs. They can also take advantage of components, or prewritten controls, that simplify aspects of the development process within Flash. Flash has also added a built-in spelling checker, and a new Strings panel lets you track where a particular chunk of text is used across a site, thus making it easier to localize content into different languages.įlash users can modify their authoring environment by using the Flash JavaScript application programming interface (JSAPI) to develop scripts, commands, and plug-ins third-party developers can use the JSAPI to create new authoring-environment behaviors as well. But the support for CSS is limited it manages only a small handful of properties, such as font family, color, margins, and text alignment. There’s also some support for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), so you can ensure consistency between any fonts used in Flash and other fonts across a Web site. However, the antialiased fonts can be a fuzzy mess. You can now specify whether text should display with an aliased font - this can be useful when working with small font sizes.
However, timeline effects are easy to use, and the architecture of the software allows programmers to create and add additional timeline effects.įlash sports some minor improvements for handling text. The number of timeline effects is a bit limited, and if you have prior Flash experience, you can achieve the same effects without resorting to the Timeline. Timeline effects are a quick way to add transitions and animation to objects onstage, such as fade-ins, blurs, and so on.
Behaviors offer drag-and-drop functionality for common actions such as loading a movie clip or going to a Web page they automatically create the required ActionScript code, thus allowing nonprogrammers to quickly add functionality and interactivity to movies. Simultaneously Simple and ComplexĪs Flash has become increasingly more complex and feature laden, Macromedia has tried to lessen the intimidation factor for new users by providing easy-to-use design templates, behaviors, and timeline effects.
With Flash MX 2004, Macromedia has extended the functionality of previous versions, and released a Professional edition with some exciting new features for power users, albeit at a cost: sluggish performance. Since Flash can now handle media types such as MP3s and incorporate flexible and in-demand Web technologies such as XML and database integration, it’s the development tool of choice for anyone wanting to create rich Internet content, including animation, games, Web sites, and Web applications. Flash may have started out as a vector-animation tool, but thanks to Macromedia’s steady improvement of its authoring program and its Flash Player, the application has moved closer to being an application-development tool.