Macromedia ® Flash™ MX Professional 2004 Reviewer's Guide

Macromedia® Flash™ MX Professional 2004 Reviewer’s Guide July 2003

Copyright © 2003 Macromedia, Inc. All rights reserved. The information contained in this document represents the current view of Macromedia on the issue discussed as of the date of publication. Because Macromedia must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Macromedia, and Macromedia cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented after the date of publication. This Reviewer’s Guide is for information purposes only. MACROMEDIA MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS DOCUMENT. Macromedia may have patents, patent applications, trademark, copyright or other intellectual property rights covering the subject matter of this document. Except as expressly provided in any written license agreement from Macromedia, the furnishing of this document does not give you any license to these patents, trademarks, copyrights or other intellectual property. Macromedia Flash MX, Dreamweaver MX, Fireworks MX, FreeHand MX, and ColdFusion MX and are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Macromedia, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners. Macromedia, Inc. 600 Townsend Street San Francisco, CA 94103 415–252–2000

Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Reviewer’s Guide CONTENTS The Evolution of Macromedia Flash .................................................................................................... 2 Introducing the Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Platform ................................................................... 3 Introducing Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 ................................................................... 4 Rich Internet Application Success Stories ......................................................................................... 6 Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Customer Profile ..........................................................7 Top 10 Reasons to Buy Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 ............................................. 9 Top 10 Reasons to Upgrade to Macromedia Flash Professional 2004........................................11 New Features and Benefits Overview ................................................................................................13 Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Product Line Feature Comparison................................................. 17 Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 and Other Technologies ...........................................18 Macromedia Training and Certification .............................................................................................23 Product and Company Facts...............................................................................................................24 July 2003 Page 1

Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Reviewer’s Guide The Evolution of Macromedia® Flash™ Macromedia Flash is one of the great Internet technology stories. It began in 1995 at a small tech startup called FutureSplash, which developed a remarkably efficient solution for delivering rich user experiences over narrowband Internet connections. Macromedia bought the company and established Macromedia Flash as the standard for creative and dynamic interactive web content. Macromedia Flash quickly became synonymous with creating compelling experiences that attract and retain customers on the web. Its immersive content, featuring motion graphics and responsive interfaces, brought the web to life in a way that HTML could not. Today Macromedia Flash is the most pervasive software platform on the planet with over 515 million installed clients running on desktops (PC, Mac, Unix) and devices such as handhelds (Pocket PC, Palm OS), mobile phones (Nokia, NTT DoCoMo), and a host of consumer electronic appliances (Sony PS2, Leapfrog toys, television set-top boxes). Two primary factors have driven the success of Macromedia Flash: Rapid expansion in authoring capabilities. Macromedia Flash has evolved from a simple web drawing and animation package to a complete web application development environment. Its major technology innovations include sophisticated drawing and animation tools; a timeline for sequencing elements and controlling their behavior over time; the powerful ActionScript programming language for adding programmatic control and logic; support for rich media, such as MP3 audio and full-motion video; database connectivity capabilities; and re-usable components and templates for application development. Broad penetration of the Macromedia Flash Player. Rapid and broad client adoption of Macromedia Flash Player can be attributed to many factors including its small file size (efficient for downloading quickly even over narrowband) and a series of strategic distribution agreements that delivered the Macromedia Flash Player as a built-in solution to numerous browsers and operating systems. The high-quality vector-based graphics and efficient file structure of Macromedia Flash enable users to create a consistent viewing experience for their content and applications everywhere on the web. More than 1 million customers now use Macromedia Flash to create content and applications for a broad global audience, including leading companies in diverse markets such as: Media — AOL, Disney, Yahoo, Sony, National Geographic Technology — IBM, Cisco Manufacturing — Volkswagen, Boeing, BMW Finance — eTrade, Schwab, NYSE Education — Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University Government — US Department of Defense Macromedia Flash has brought motion and responsiveness to an otherwise flat browser world. With the release of the Macromedia Flash MX 2004 product line, the story continues. July 2003 Page 2

Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Reviewer’s Guide Introducing the Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Platform Macromedia Flash is the industry standard for creating and delivering effective rich content and applications across desktops and devices. The Macromedia Flash MX 2004 product line includes: Macromedia Flash MX 2004 — The industry standard tool for creating effective rich content Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 — The top-of-the-line Macromedia Flash development environment for advanced content and applications Macromedia Flash Player 7— The universal client for delivering rich experiences across desktops and devices Macromedia Flash is the industry standard for creating and delivering effective rich content and applications across desktops and devices. Macromedia Flash applications integrate video, text, audio, and graphics into immersive, rich experiences that deliver superior results for interactive marketing and presentations, e-learning, and application user interfaces. Used by over one million professionals worldwide and with an audience of over 516 million users across a wide variety of platforms and devices, Macromedia Flash is the world’s most pervasive software platform. With robust support for standards such as web services, XML, ECMAScript, and accessibility, Macromedia Flash fully leverages existing skills and infrastructure. With the release of the Macromedia Flash MX 2004 platform is: Rich: Integrate video, text, audio, and graphics into rich experiences that provide superior results for interactive marketing and presentations, e-learning and application user interfaces. Pervasive: Deliver content on the world’s most pervasive software platform, used by more than one million professionals to reach an audience of over 516 million Macromedia Flash Players across a wide variety of platforms and devices. Standard: Build with important standards such as web services, XML, ECMAScript, and Section 508 accessibility to fully leverage existing skills and infrastructure. July 2003 Page 3

Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Reviewer’s Guide Introducing Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 is the top-of-the-line Macromedia Flash development environment for creating data-driven applications, interactive presentations, and high quality video experiences. With everything in Macromedia Flash MX 2004 and a lot more, Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 is the one version of Macromedia Flash with everything. Developers can quickly build effective data-driven applications with forms-based development, powerful data-binding, and Microsoft® Visual SourceSafe™ integration. Video professionals can add interactivity and customized interfaces to high quality video and deliver to the world’s most pervasive video client, the Macromedia Flash Player. Deploy content and applications on devices and mobile phones to reach the widest audience using device emulators, prebuilt templates, and sample content. ROBUST DEVELOPMENT environment provides what you need to rapidly build effective, data-driven applications. • Create sophisticated interactions with ActionScript 2.0, the powerful object-oriented programming language based on ECMAScript/JavaScript. • Organize and build applications using a familiar forms-based development environment as an alternative to the traditional Macromedia Flash timeline. Build interfaces quickly with a large library of advanced components. • Connect to data with robust, scriptable data-binding that supports Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), web services, XML, relational databases, and Macromedia Flash Remoting. Retrieve and update data in applications with an extensible architecture. • Coordinate teams from within the application using the Microsoft® Visual SourceSafe™ source control system to check in and check out assets. PROFESSIONAL VIDEO capabilities lets you deliver high-quality video with unique interactivity and custom interfaces to the widest target audience. • Maximize your video reach by publishing to the Macromedia Flash Player, the most pervasive video client for both desktops and devices. • Integrate video with text, graphics, and prebuilt video components to build custom interactive interfaces that convey brand image. • Streamline work flow with leading professional video editing and encoding tools such as Avid Xpress™/Media Composer™, Apple® Final Cut Pro™, Discreet Cleaner™, and Anystream Agility™. • Deliver superior quality using advanced variable bit rate encoding with configurable bandwidth settings. July 2003 Page 4

Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Reviewer’s Guide BROAD DEVICE DEPLOYMENT to mobile phones, PDAs and other devices gives you new opportunities without needing to learn specialized skills for each platform. • Deliver rich consumer experiences on devices leveraging the familiar Flash development environment. • Streamline development and testing using emulators to preview content and applications for targeted devices such as the NTT DoCoMo 505i Series mobile phones. • Accelerate development with convenient device-specific templates, text optimization capabilities, native device sounds, and sample content. Macromedia Flash has migrated beyond being “just an animation tool.” Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 demonstrates the Macromedia commitment to helping Macromedia Flash users produce professional quality applications and video experiences that run on the desktop, web, or devices. July 2003 Page 5

Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Reviewer’s Guide Rich Internet Application Success Stories Rich Internet Applications are as varied as the people who build them. Each was started as a business case of a way to do more on the Internet than traditional methods would allow. Rich Internet Applications push the boundaries of what is possible on the web by focusing only on optimizing the usability of the application. In this selection of example applications, these sites use Macromedia Flash for everything from the simple to the expressive to create the best Internet business possible. MINI USA The MINI USA car configurator application, which lets site viewers customize their own Mini Coopers, fueled a successful campaign that produced more than half of the company’s sales leads — an average of 60 qualified leads per dealer per month. The application also ignited powerful word of mouth: More than 73% of site visitors configured a car with the option of sending it to friends. MINI USA also exceeded both its goal for registered users by 52% and its overall sales goal by 25%. Cypress Semiconductor Corporation Cypress Semiconductor Corporation, a semiconductor supplier with a communications focus, wanted to rapidly develop a flexible, web-based content management portal that lets company executives manage sales and marketing materials for internal and external sales forces. The portal required unique applications, or sites, for each unique department within sales and marketing. By using Macromedia Flash components, such as the tree control component, developers reduced development time by 75%. School-Link Technologies School-Link Technologies used Macromedia Flash data-connectivity components to create a user- friendly, data-driven help application that reduced the time required to assist schools coming online with School-Link products by 50%. The Flash Rapid Application Development (RAD) environment saved hours of development time for faster delivery of their intuitive Rich Internet Application that empowers schools to do 75% of product install themselves versus hiring a complete professional services team, which was previously recommended. July 2003 Page 6

Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Reviewer’s Guide Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Customer Profile Macromedia Flash has evolved from a pure animation tool to a full-featured development and design environment. Early customers were largely animators and graphic designers drawn to Macromedia Flash by its sophisticated timeline and creative tools. Subsequently, developers with traditional software development skills became customers as the product incorporated features such as the ActionScript language, a complete object model, and component architecture. Today Macromedia Flash customers are both designers and developers. While some customer projects may be more design-oriented, others are more developer-focused. Although customer projects range from cartoon animation to Rich Internet Applications, most Macromedia Flash projects today fuse design and development capabilities. The best way to understand Macromedia Flash customers is to look at the diverse types of projects they create. Approximately two-thirds of customers develop content that can be characterized as applications: Rich Internet Applications for the web and devices, ranging from data-input interfaces to full- blown applications E-learning content such as help systems; instructional presentations; and testing, scoring, and reporting systems Product prototypes and demonstrations that simulate real-world hardware and software Presentations such as marketing/sales overviews and product demonstrations Entire websites based in Macromedia Flash that offer rich, immersive web experiences Narrative stories and games with compelling interactivity and rich visuals The remaining customers create elements that are the more traditional, design-oriented “wow elements” such as: Advertisements that distinguish themselves and offer greater interaction with the user Motion graphic and character animations that tell stories or emphasize content Text and brand treatments that incorporate motion and respond dynamically to user interactions To see examples of the rich experiences that Macromedia Flash customers create, go to the Macromedia.com Site of the Day (www.macromedia.com/software/flash/special/inspiration). Macromedia Flash Professional builds on that traditional set of Macromedia Flash users and is attractive to new groups of users as well. Top 20% of Today’s Macromedia Flash Users The additional features in Macromedia Flash Professional are attractive to the top 20% of Macromedia Flash users who develop sophisticated applications or interactive content. These users are the most demanding and do the most comprehensive projects. They require the most flexible authoring options, integration with data sources, and often work in teams. Macromedia Flash Professional not only provides the core Macromedia Flash authoring features to create rich Internet experiences, but also offers forms-based development, data access and update capabilities, professional video tools, and team development support. July 2003 Page 7

Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Reviewer’s Guide Desktop Application Developers Many desktop application developers new to Macromedia Flash MX had a hard time understanding the application’s timeline and stage metaphor. Macromedia Flash Professional adds a familiar forms- based development environment, much like those in common development tools such as Microsoft® Visual Studio®, Borland® Delphi™, and Sybase® PowerBuilder. This makes Macromedia Flash Professional more approachable to these developers, while still giving them the power to create a single application that runs across the web, Windows, Macintosh, Unix, PDAs, and cell phones. Video Professionals Users of professional video editing tools and batch encoding tools will use Macromedia Flash Professional because they can add interactivity and customized interfaces to high quality video and deliver to the world’s most pervasive video client, the Macromedia Flash Player. For the first time, Macromedia Flash Professional integrates with the workflow of video professionals to allow the highest quality video and stream lined workflow. Once in Macromedia Flash video format, the video can be viewed either stand alone or in context of any design and customized interface on the web, Windows, Macintosh, Unix, PDAs, and cell phones. July 2003 Page 8

Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Reviewer’s Guide Top 10 Reasons to Buy Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 1. Get everything in Macromedia Flash and a lot more. Macromedia Flash MX Professional has everything in Macromedia Flash MX 2004 and a lot more. If you want the one version of Macromedia Flash with everything, Macromedia Flash Professional is the product for you. 2. Build once, deliver anywhere. Unleash your applications to the web, Windows, Macintosh, Unix, PDAs and even cell phones. Fully 98% of all desktops run the Macromedia Flash Player so you know that what you build will reach the widest possible audience. The scalable vector-based display and consistent runtime engine in Macromedia Flash Player deliver your content with high fidelity, irrespective of operating system and client hardware specifications. What you build is what your customers will experience. 3. Use a familiar visual development metaphor. Build applications in a familiar forms-based development environment that is similar to other visual development tools. Design a form, add components, and build application navigation and logic with ActionScript. 4. Deploy data-driven applications on the web. Building data-driven applications is easy using Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004. Using data connection and update components for data sources such as web services, XML, and relational databases allows you to connect your application to data without writing a line of code. For complete power and control, you can also leverage these connections through ActionScript programming. 5. View, manage, and maintain large team projects. Work the way you want through integration with the Microsoft® Visual SourceSafe™ source control system or file system version control. Easily manage and publish all files to your site through a single view. 6. Take video where it has never been before. Take advantage of the widest video audience possible with the Macromedia Flash Player installed on nearly twice as many desktops and devices as any other video player. Quickly add video to your designs and custom interfaces using specialized Streaming Media Components. Integrate your workflow with leading video editing and encoding tools and render video directly to the Macromedia Flash Video (FLV) format. 7. Add specialized functions with third-party extensions. Take Macromedia Flash Professional farther with extensions that integrate directly into the application’s interface and workflow. Add vector-based 3D animations, raster-based effects, automated text animation, interactive high-resolution bitmaps, dynamic presentation graphics, and many other functions. 8. Rapidly develop sophisticated presentations. Go where other presentation tools never could with presentations that span all desktops and the web. Plus, take advantage of all the visual richness of the most dynamic content possible to tell your story with more impact and creative control. Include audio and video, overlay any content across your slides to mix presentation media such as adding a background music track or a video of the presenter walking through the slides. July 2003 Page 9

Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Reviewer’s Guide 9. Reach the rapidly evolving mobile phone, PDA, and device market. Macromedia Flash Professional is the simplest way to deliver your content and applications to 98% of all desktops and devices at the same time. You won’t have to learn specialized skills to deploy content and applications to a range of devices. With prebuilt support for MIDI ring tones, templates, and test device emulators, you can produce content for a growing number of desktops, devices, and cell phones. 10. Build and deliver globally localized, accessible content. Leverage full Unicode support to use, render, and save any font and encoding supported by the operating system, including double-byte character sets. Use the Strings panel to simplify and manage multilingual content localization and deployment. Meet education and government accessibility requirements to develop content and applications that everyone can use—including those with disabilities. July 2003 Page 10

Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Reviewer’s Guide Top 10 Reasons to Upgrade to Macromedia Flash Professional 2004 1. Get everything in Macromedia Flash and a lot more. Macromedia Flash MX Professional has everything in Macromedia Flash MX 2004 and a lot more. If you want the one version of Macromedia Flash with everything, Macromedia Flash Professional is the product for you. 2. Use a familiar visual development metaphor. Build applications in a familiar forms-based development environment that is similar to other visual development tools. Design a form, add components, and build application navigation and logic with ActionScript. 3. Deploy data-driven applications on the web. Building data-driven applications is easy using Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004. Using data connection and update components for data sources such as web services, XML, and relational databases allows you to connect your application to data without writing a line of code. For complete power and control, you can also leverage these connections through ActionScript programming. 4. Be more productive with additional advanced components. Build interactive interfaces quickly with a larger set of advanced components, including all the data integration components. Only Macromedia Flash Professional components are data bound, so you can wire components directly to your data sources, making it easy to display data in your application. 5. View, manage, and maintain large team projects. Work the way you want through integration with the Microsoft® Visual SourceSafe™ source control system or file system version control. Easily manage and publish all files to your site through a single view. 6. Work directly with professional video applications. Export video directly to Macromedia Flash FLV format from within leading professional video- editing and encoding tools such as Avid Xpress®/Media Composer, Apple® Final Cut Pro®, Discreet Cleaner™, and Anystream™ Agility™. 7. Create higher-quality video. Use an improved video encoder to produce targeted bandwidth video streams with enhanced image quality. Options include variable bit-rate (VBR), two-pass VBR, selectable motion estimation quality, de-interlacing, and high-quality scaling. 8. Quickly add video to your designs and custom interfaces using specialized Streaming Media Components. Quickly incorporate video into projects without learning advanced scripting by using Streaming Media Components and setting basic parameters such as file name and cue points to trigger interactivity. Build your own branding by adding a fully skinnable video playback interface. 9. Reach the rapidly evolving mobile phone, PDA, and device market. Reach the rapidly evolving mobile phone, PDA, and device marketplace. Macromedia Flash Professional is the simplest way to deliver your content and applications to 98% of all desktops and devices at the same time. With prebuilt support for MIDI ring tones, templates, and test device emulators, you can produce content for a growing number of desktops, devices, and cell phones. July 2003 Page 11

Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Reviewer’s Guide 10. Rapidly develop sophisticated presentations. Go where other presentation tools never could with presentations that span all desktops and the web. Plus, take advantage of all the visual richness of the most dynamic content possible to tell your story with more impact and creative control. Include audio and video, or overlay any content across your slides to mix presentation media—such as adding a background music track or a video of the presenter walking through the slides. July 2003 Page 12

Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Reviewer’s Guide New Features and Benefits Overview Robust Development Environment ActionScript 2.0 Take advantage of all the capabilities of a modern, sophisticated language with the new ActionScript 2.0, which is ECMAScript 3.0-compliant. ActionScript 2.0 extends the ActionScript power to make it more compliant with fully object- oriented development practices. Forms Develop applications in a forms-based authoring environment instead of, or in addition to, the traditional timeline. Using the forms-based environment is better for forms-based applications where the end user will navigate from one form to another. Visual developers used to languages like Microsoft® Visual Basic® will find the forms-based approach to programming very familiar. You can design a form, add components to it, and build your application navigation and logic. Forms in Macromedia Flash are often called screens, their more generic term. Simply begin a new Macromedia Flash document with the File New menu and select Flash Form Application. To turn on the Forms view, select the Window Screens menu item. Use the Insert menu item to add screens and nested screens to the hierarchy. Advanced Components Build interactive interfaces quickly with an extensive set of prebuilt components, including data integration and video playback components. The new components provided in this release have far more capabilities than ever. All components include built in tab, focus, and depth management, and better skinning capabilities. Macromedia Flash components are built on an object oriented framework that makes it easy to make your own component that inherits from the standard components, or in one change, affect all components. This lets you quickly create custom component sets for designs and applications. Only Macromedia Flash Professional components are data bound, so you can wire components directly to your data sources, making it easy to display data in your application. To display the Components Panel, select Window Development Panels Components. Connecting to Data Sources Create data-driven applications with minimal scripting using components that connect to data sources including web services and XML. Integrate with your application server or ColdFusion on the back end with Macromedia Flash Remoting. Components are located in the Components panel, and the data-binding features of every component on the Bindings tab in the Component inspector. July 2003 Page 13

Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Reviewer’s Guide Robust Development Environment Data-Bound Components To make it as easy as possible to display data once connected, all components in Macromedia Flash Professional are data- bound. You can connect many of the properties of components to the data received in a web service call, XML file, or record set. Simply open the Component inspector and click on the Bindings tab to connect the component to one of the Web Services Connectors, XML Connectors, or DataHolder component. Updating Data Sources New Shadowing technology helps ensure that data updates are as small and efficient as possible. Shadowing automatically monitors all changes to a dataset while the data is on the client through the Connector and Resolver components. When updating databases, send the least amount of information across the web and provide the best performance with Delta Packets, which update only those records or fields that have changed. ActionScript Support for Data Whether you are a visual developer or scripter, you can access Integration and work with all aspects of data connectivity. All data integration is implemented using visual components that can be dragged onto the application form. For those preferring to work only in code, all objects can be instantiated and controlled through ActionScript as well. Project Panel As teams create more complex content and applications, the file sets are bigger and more dispersed. Macromedia Flash Professional contains a project view, allowing you to collect all your files into one place to manage them easily. Source Code Control Macromedia Flash Professional is targeted at professional users building more complex projects. Those projects will almost always include a team of people building both front-end client-side content and back end logic. Macromedia Flash Professional includes integration to source control systems so you can integrate the whole team on the project under one source management system. You can use the prebuilt Microsoft® Visual SourceSafe™ integration, the API to connect to your source control system of choice, or file-level locking on either a local, network, or FTP file system. Slides Create sophisticated presentation content quickly with slides- based authoring. Simply begin a new Macromedia Flash document with the File New menu and select Flash Slide Presentation. To show a sequence of slides, add new slides to your presentation with the Insert Screen menu option. Easily control content sequencing in your presentation without writing ActionScript through slides properties, which you can access through the Inspector. July 2003 Page 14

Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Reviewer’s Guide Professional Video Capabilities Third-Party Application Export video directly to Macromedia Flash from within leading Integration professional video-editing and encoding tools, such as Avid Xpress®/Media Composer, Apple®®Final Cut Pro®, Discreet Cleaner™, and Anystream™ Agility™. The QuickTime to FLV Plug-In provides FLV video export capabilities to all applications on the desktop simultaneously. High-Quality Video Enhance video playback on desktop platforms by nearly 200% with the improved Macromedia Flash Player 7, which delivers full-resolution, full-frame-rate, high-color-fidelity video. Consistently display 30/25/24 frames per second at various frame resolutions. Improved Video Encoder Use an improved video encoder to produce targeted bandwidth video streams with enhanced image quality. Options include variable bit-rate (VBR), two-pass VBR, selectable motion estimation quality, de-interlacing, and high-quality scaling. Efficiently deliver software demonstrations and other non-full- motion video streams with a built-in screen recording codec. External FLV with Progressive Eliminate previous video limitations in file size, download Playback efficiency, and development complexity with the Macromedia Flash Player 7, which enables progressive download and FLV file playback. Control video file loading and interactive behavior with new ActionScript netStream controls for referencing external FLV files. Take advantage of the new progressive download capability, which lets you deploy video from an HTTP web server so it begins playing before the entire video file is downloaded. For even greater video and audio streaming capabilities, integrate FLV files with the Macromedia Flash Communication Server. Media Components Quickly incorporate video into projects without learning advanced scripting using the Streaming Media Components and setting basic parameters such as file name and cue points to trigger interactivity. Build your own branding by adding a fully skinnable video playback interfaces. Deliver video from an HTTP server or Macromedia Flash Communication Server using unified Streaming Media Components, which seamlessly establish connections and provide playback controls. July 2003 Page 15

Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Reviewer’s Guide Broad Device Deployment Device Player Simulation Preview content using Macromedia Flash player emulators that are identical to various mobile device versions of the Macromedia Flash Player. Identify compatibility issues and runtime conflicts prior to deploying to the device for full QA testing. New device profiles can be added to the application as they become available from wireless carriers, OEM device manufactures, and other licensees of Macromedia Flash Player. MIDI Ringtones Incorporate and publish MIDI ringtones and device sounds during authoring. Device Templates Develop faster with a comprehensive template library of common cell phone, Pocket PC, and Palm device interfaces. July 2003 Page 16

Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Reviewer’s Guide Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Product Line Feature Comparison Accelerate Macromedia Flash Macromedia Flash MX MX 2004 Professional 2004 Timeline Effects ✓ ✓ Behaviors ✓ ✓ PDF & EPS (Adobe Illustrator 10) support ✓ ✓ Compiler & Player Performance Gains ✓ ✓ New Components ✓ ✓ V2 Architecture ✓ ✓ Templates ✓ ✓ Start Page ✓ ✓ Help Panel ✓ ✓ Polystar Tool ✓ ✓ Control Action Script 2.0 ✓ ✓ CSS Style Sheets ✓ ✓ Unicode Support ✓ ✓ Strings Panel ✓ ✓ Alias Text ✓ ✓ Video Import Wizard ✓ ✓ Spell Checking & Search/Replace ✓ ✓ Extend Extensibility Architecture ✓ ✓ History Panel & Commands ✓ ✓ Accessibility ✓ ✓ Deployment Kit ✓ ✓ Publish Settings ✓ ✓ Robust Development Forms ✓ Advanced Components ✓ Connecting to Data Sources ✓ Data Bound Components ✓ Updating Data Sources with Delta Packets ✓ ActionScript Support for Data ✓ Project Panel ✓ Source Code Control ✓ Slides ✓ Professional Video 3rd Party Application Integration ✓ High Quality Video ✓ Improved Video Encoder ✓ External FLV with Progressive Playback ✓ Media Components ✓ Device Development External Players ✓ MIDI ring tone support ✓ Templates ✓ July 2003 Page 17

Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Reviewer’s Guide Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 and Other Technologies Third-Party Extensions Macromedia Flash MX 2004 has a new architecture, which permits third parties to develop applications to extend and modify core Macromedia Flash functionality — Timeline Effects, behaviors, and commands. The introduction of Macromedia Flash Extensions presents an exciting opportunity for the Macromedia Flash community and for third-party developers. Extensions will expand the capabilities of Macromedia Flash and extend the possibilities of the Macromedia Flash platform. Macromedia Flash users will be able to purchase extensions to add specific features or functions for many types of design or development projects. Whether to animate text effects, deploy high-resolution interactive bitmaps or generate charts and graphs from Microsoft® Excel—customers will be able to do more without leaving the Macromedia Flash interface. For more information about purchasing extensions or becoming an extension developer, please visit the third party section on www.macromedia.com July 2003 Page 18

Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Reviewer’s Guide Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 and Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 Macromedia Flash and Dreamweaver together provide a complete development solution for creating robust websites and Rich Internet Applications. Dreamweaver offers a robust development environment for integrating Macromedia Flash content with entire websites and application logic. Macromedia Flash developers can create a Macromedia Flash element and encapsulate it with a standard interface, which Dreamweaver users can then drop into a page and customize like any tag. This new integration lets Dreamweaver users add Macromedia Flash to sites and applications without leaving the Dreamweaver workspace. Top integration features include: Macromedia Flash Element Support in Dreamweaver Add interactivity to pages with Macromedia Flash elements in Dreamweaver. Drop a Macromedia Flash element onto a Dreamweaver page and customize it like any tag—just set the properties in the Tag Inspector and let Dreamweaver do the rest. Launch and Edit Seamlessly launch and create or edit content in either Macromedia Flash or Dreamweaver; changes are instantly saved and versions are synchronized. ActionScript 2.0 Support in Dreamweaver Dreamweaver provides a robust code editor for Macromedia Flash developers writing ActionScript within Dreamweaver, with ActionScript color-coding, code hints, and reference materials. Preview Macromedia Flash Files in Dreamweaver The Play/Stop button on the Macromedia Flash Property inspector enables previewing the Macromedia Flash movie in the Dreamweaver document window at authoring time. Delineate Macromedia Flash Parameters in Dreamweaver Delineate any set of parameters for Macromedia Flash files within Dreamweaver with the Property inspector. Create Macromedia Flash Objects within Dreamweaver Create Macromedia Flash buttons and anti-aliased Macromedia Flash text elements within Dreamweaver. The text will display properly in browsers even without the specified font installed on viewers’ computers. CSS Support Achieve consistent design and improved workflow by applying Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to Macromedia Flash and Dreamweaver content. July 2003 Page 19

Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Reviewer’s Guide Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 and Macromedia Fireworks MX 2004 Fireworks offers Macromedia Flash developers a roundtrip workflow between their bitmap production environments and Macromedia Flash. Although Fireworks exports custom HTML for many popular HTML editors, the tight integration between the two Macromedia tools makes Fireworks ideal for combining optimized bitmap graphics with vector-based Macromedia Flash websites. Top integration features include: Import Fireworks PNG Files to Macromedia Flash Directly import native Fireworks PNG files into Macromedia Flash. Vectors, shapes, lines, layers, and guides remain editable, and intuitive tools add sophisticated interactivity, effects, and animation. Import Photoshop® .PSD files into Fireworks and save them as layered PNG files for importing into Macromedia Flash. Export Macromedia Flash SWF Files from Fireworks Fireworks can export native Macromedia Flash movies. Create animated GIF ad banners and export them as compact SWFs. Copy and paste Fireworks vectors, and quickly repurpose graphics by copying and pasting their paths directly into Macromedia Flash. Launch and Edit in Fireworks Click the Edit button in the Property inspector to launch the original Fireworks file or bitmap image; changes will automatically update in Macromedia Flash. Shared Sites and Check-In/Check-Out Avoid overwriting shared files, and manage files the same way across applications. Fireworks now includes the same Check-In/Check-Out capabilities as Dreamweaver and Macromedia Flash. Upload and download files from a remote server with a single click through FTP or Secure FTP, and leverage Microsoft® Visual Source Safe® and WebDAV support. July 2003 Page 20

Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Reviewer’s Guide Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 and Macromedia FreeHand MX Macromedia Flash and FreeHand together offer an easy way to create beautiful printed materials and high-impact web experiences. Effectively convey any creative vision with the applications’ powerful, cross-media publishing tools. Storyboard a Macromedia Flash site in FreeHand using its broad range of creative tools and its tight integration with Macromedia Flash. Top integration features include: Macromedia Symbol Library In Freehand, store frequently used images, animations, and buttons in a symbol library similar to the Macromedia Flash Library. Modify a library symbol and it automatically updates all the instances in the file, just as in Macromedia Flash. Import or copy FreeHand files into Macromedia Flash and all the original symbols from the FreeHand symbol library are retained, expediting workflow while optimizing the Macromedia Flash file size. Action Tool Assign complex Macromedia Flash ActionScript navigation commands with the FreeHand Action tool. Drag and drop a link between objects, symbols, and pages to quickly produce click- throughs for client approval. Test Movie Preview how FreeHand illustrations and designs will look when exported to SWF, directly within FreeHand. SWF Import/Reexport Import complex Macromedia Flash movies into FreeHand documents and integrate them into designs before exporting them back out to SWF. Develop larger site interfaces and designs in FreeHand, while including more programming-intensive components and functions for e- commerce, video streaming, or Macromedia Flash Communications. Launch and Edit in Macromedia Flash Edit placed SWFs in a FreeHand document in Macromedia Flash with the Object panel. Updates made to the FLA file in Macromedia Flash are automatically applied to the SWF in FreeHand. Import FreeHand files into Macromedia Flash Import FreeHand files into Macromedia Flash while preserving vectors and text editability. Pages can be mapped to scenes or frames. Layers are maintained or can be mapped to frames. Named symbols and instances are maintained to keep files organized and small. Transparent lenses convert to alpha color transparencies in Macromedia Flash. July 2003 Page 21

Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Reviewer’s Guide Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 and Macromedia ColdFusion MX With native connectivity to the Macromedia Flash Player and integrated debugging within Macromedia Flash, ColdFusion offers the easiest way to develop and test Rich Internet Applications with Macromedia Flash. Macromedia Flash Remoting Service This native ColdFusion service provides a secure, high-performance connection between ColdFusion and the Macromedia Flash Player. It uses a high-performance message format called Action Message Format (AMF) that runs over HTTP to speed client-server data transfer. Encoding and decoding are handled automatically by ColdFusion and the Macromedia Flash client. Building Rich Internet Applications with CFML ColdFusion offers more than one approach to Macromedia Flash developers. Because any method on a ColdFusion component can be invoked by a Macromedia Flash client directly from ActionScript, developers can create applications that support both standard HTML clients and rich Macromedia Flash clients, without rewriting application logic. ColdFusion also offers a direct way to send and receive information from the Macromedia Flash client from within standard CFML pages. Two native server variables (flash.result and flash.params) provide a seamless data exchange between server-side CFML and client-side ActionScript, for easily building dynamic Macromedia Flash applications that rely on ColdFusion data. July 2003 Page 22

Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Reviewer’s Guide Macromedia Training and Certification Customers can get the skills they need to learn a new product, boost their skills or improve the sites and applications they develop with Macromedia Training and Certification. They can choose between instructor-led and online training, or combine them both to create a learning path that meets their needs. Macromedia Authorized Training Partners Anyone can host a training class. But only at a Macromedia Authorized Training Partner location will customers learn from instructors thoroughly trained and certified by Macromedia. These courses include hands-on tasks and real-world scenarios, providing customers with valuable practical experience they need to build dynamic applications. www.macromedia.com/go/curriculum_ww Macromedia University Convenient, interactive, and effective training that provides customers with the flexibility to learn on their own. Online training libraries include engaging course content, assessment features, and additional resources to maximize customers’ skills. www.macromedia.com/go/mmu Macromedia Certified Professional Program Stand out from the pack and become a Macromedia Certified Professional. As a Macromedia Certified Professional, customers will be recognized as industry experts and sought-after developers. www.macromedia.com/go/certification Macromedia Press Customers can get information they need fast with a Macromedia Press book written by such industry experts as Joe Lowery, Ben Forta, or Derek Franklin. www.macromedia.com/go/books July 2003 Page 23

Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Reviewer’s Guide Product and Company Facts Trademarks Macromedia® Flash™ MX 2004 Macromedia® Flash™ MX Professional 2004 PR Contacts Suzy Ramirez sramirez@macromedia.com 415.252.4053 Availability Macromedia Flash MX 2004 will be available online at the Macromedia store and in the U.S. and Canada in September 2003. Localized versions for French, Spanish, Italian, German, Japanese, Korean, and Traditional and Simplified Chinese will be available shortly thereafter. Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Full Pricing TBD Packaged product, including manuals and CD-ROM TBD Electronic Software Download (ESD) TBD Education Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Upgrade Pricing TBD Packaged product, including manuals and CD-ROM TBD ESD Macromedia Flash MX 2004 is also available through education, government, and commercial volume licensing programs. Macromedia Studio MX 2004 with Flash Professional $ TBD Commercial upgrade from any eligible version of Dreamweaver, Dreamweaver UltraDev, Macromedia Flash, Fireworks, FreeHand, ColdFusion Studio, or JRun Studio. Eligibility details available at www.macromedia.com/software/studio $ TBD Commercial upgrade from Macromedia Studio MX or Macromedia Studio MX Plus Macromedia DevNet Professional Subscription Macromedia Flash Professional MX 2004 is available in the Macromedia DevNet Professional subscription, a 12-month subscription service delivering the most current versions of Macromedia MX web development tools and fully-functional development-only server software. Over the year, subscribers receive four quarterly Macromedia DevNet Resource Kits and software upgrades and updates so they receive the latest functionality and time-saving resources as soon as they’re released. DevNet Professional is available in English only. July 2003 Page 24

Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Reviewer’s Guide System Requirements Minimum System Requirements Note: These are preliminary target requirements. Final requirements will be determined shortly before release and will be available at www.macromedia.com/software/flash Microsoft® Windows® Apple® Macintosh® 600 MHz Intel® Pentium® III processor or equivalent 500 MHz Apple® Power Mac® G3 processor Microsoft® Windows® 98, Windows 2000, or Apple® Mac® OS X 10.2.6 Windows XP 128 MB RAM (256 MB recommended) 128 MB RAM (256 MB recommended) 190 MB of available disk space 130 MB of available hard disk space to install applications Distribution Macromedia Flash MX 2004 will be available in the U.S., Canada, and on the web through standard software distribution channels, retail dealers, and mail order. Visit www.macromedia.com/buy to purchase from the Macromedia website. About Macromedia Experience matters. Macromedia is motivated by the belief that great experiences build great businesses. Macromedia provides the industry-leading software that empowers developers and designers to create and deliver those effective, compelling, and memorable experiences to customers, partners, and employees-on the Internet, on fixed media, on wireless, and on digital devices. With an installed base of millions of developers and designers, rich client software deployed to 98% of web users, and a broad network of industry partners, Macromedia is a strategic IT supplier to customers in the business, government, and education markets. The company has operations in more than 50 countries worldwide, and headquarters in San Francisco, California. Company Headquarters Macromedia Inc. 600 Townsend Street San Francisco, CA 94103 415.252.2000 Customer Service: 800.470.7211 July 2003 Page 25

Macromedia ® Flash™ MX Professional 2004 Reviewer's Guide

by JustinTimb on May 19, 2010

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