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Macromedia Flash 8 Professional

The best (and pretty much only) keeps getting better

In many ways, Flash is like Photoshop. Neither has any real competition, and when new versions are released, there are the inevitable gasps of amazement from users and reviewers alike, shocked that neither program has decided to roll over and wallow in its own bloat for lack of contemporaries. Flash 8 Professional continues this trend, delivering what is the most significant update in five years (if not ever) and adding a whole new category of potential users to already crowded and varied list of user types.

You didn't ask for it, but here's some perspective anyway

Flash has traveled a mighty distance from its humble beginnings as a primarily web-based vector animation tool. With Macromedia's latest update (likely the last under the Macromedia banner), Flash 8 returns to its roots in more ways than one, and the results are pretty spectacular. First, it's important to note that the MX moniker is now toast, as Macromedia has gone back to traditional number-based versioning for Flash 8. While this probably seems like a small point, and I may be reading too much into things, dropping MX signals to me that the engineers have kicked the marketers out of the driver's seat, a philosophy that is pretty evident throughout Flash 8 Professional (at least to me). It's not a flashy (pun intended) upgrade, with questionable features slickly packaged and polished (a trend which is all-too-common, especially in more mature applications, as sadly was the case with new features in Flash MX 2004). Flash 8 Pro, plain and simple, delivers the goods. The mantra of Flash MX 2004 was all about the RIA (Rich Internet Application), an acronym that reeked of base corporatespeak and seemingly geared towards the buzzword-spewing suits of the world alone. And while Macromedia still uses "rich internet application" liberally, they're really pushing the "Flash Platform" as their dog food du jour. Positioning Flash as an entire platform seems a little more in line with what today's Flash designers and developers want to do with Flash, and represents almost a top-down push to evangelize Flash by having actual Flash users talk it up rather than rely on a cute acronym or empty buzzword that doesn't really mean anything to customers. The Flash Platform isn't really even about the Flash authoring environment; it's about using the Flash Player as the portal to view content built with an ever-growing suite of products that produce Flash-based content (Flex, Breeze, RoboHelp, non-Macromedia products, and so on). And with Microsoft's Expression suite right around the corner (which may or may not be gunning for a piece of Flash, depending on who you talk to), the Flash Platform is probably the right way to position Flash for future growth and acceptance. But as far as actually making Flash content is concerned, the big gun in the Flash Platform arsenal is still the Flash authoring environment itself, so it better be able to offer something to all the different types of users Flash has become attractive to. Fortunately, Flash 8 Pro doesn't disappoint. Enough analysis, such as it is. Since I'm probably a couple hundred pounds of wrong anyway, let's just get to the goods.

First, a word about Flash 8 Basic

Don't. There, that's the word. Want a little more? Oh, alright. Whereas before Macromedia offered Flash MX 2004 in Standard and Pro flavors, Flash 8 also has a "crippled" version, dubbed Flash 8 Basic. Pretty much everything you'd want Flash 8 Professional for is missing in Flash 8 Basic. While we'll discuss many of these features in just a bit, for now just know that Basic offers no filters, no blends, no easing controls, no mobile authoring, no video, and no upgrade path to the Pro version. That's a steaming helping of "no," so unless you just need the absolute basics (hence the name), I'd find a way to come up with the extra green to go Pro.

New features

Since product upgrades in mature programs like Flash are all about the new, let's get to it. And lest this already long and rambling piece get any longer and, well, rambly-er, I direct your attention to the four-part series that ran in this space before Flash 8 was launched. Most of Flash 8 Professional's major new features are discussed in-depth throughout those articles, and if you're looking for a little more meat than I'm about to provide, feel free to peruse the following links:

Now, for those who want to take a slightly shorter route to the good stuff Flash 8 Professional has in store, here are just a few of the "big kahuna" features:

Filters and blends. Long a dream of designer-types who have begged for live effects, filters and blends have finally arrived. Filters add effects such as blurs, drop shadows, and bevels to movie clips, while blends allow clips to be composited on the fly (fig. 1). Flash also boasts extensive ActionScript control over both filters and blends, which opens up whole new applications for Flash content.


Figure 1: The addition of filters (top) and blends (bottom) to Flash give designers a whole new set of toys to play with.

Video, video, video. Video was pretty good in MX 2004, but it's great in 8. A new codec (On2's VP6) offers better quality at lower bit rates than the previous Sorenson Spark codec and (oh, by the way) includes alpha channel support. Batch compression is made simple through a new, standalone video compression utility (fig. 2), and a revamped set of video components and associated ActionScript routines round out the significant advances in Flash Video.


Figure 2: Mmmm...brains. Flash 8 Pro's new standalone video encoder is a lifesaver for those who frequently encode to FLV.

Easing controls. Traditional animation in Flash just got a whole lot more flexible with the addition of easing controls in the Timeline. Select a Tween, hit Edit on the Properties panel, and get your curvey goodness on (fig. 3).


Figure 3: The addition of easing controls means that complex animations no longer require splitting up tweens in weird ways.

Interface fixes. While mostly unchanged from MX 2004, Flash 8 adds little niceties like a multiple document-capable Library, tabbed palettes, and windows that actually remember where you put them. Plus, Mac users finally have a tabbed document window (fig. 4), bringing the Mac version up to speed with a feature Windows users have had for a couple of years.


Figure 4: Since the Mac version of Flash now has document tabs too, Mac users no longer have to suffer the embarrasing taunts of Windows-based Flash users. They'll find something else to mock you for soon enough, though. They always do.

Drawing improvements. Designers will be happy with the much-better-behaved drawing tools in Flash 8. New stroke options, a layer-based Object Drawing Model, and enhancements to the Gradient tool alleviate some long-standing frustrations.

Revamped text engine. Flash 8 sports new options in text rendering, from customizable antialiasing to basic stuff like proper wrapping around images and justification. All long overdue, but no less welcome.

Performance. Macromedia always manages to squeeze more and more speed out of the Flash Player, and the latest version is no exception. Not only is the Player itself capable of displaying pre-existing SWF files much faster than its predecessors, but Macromedia has added new tricks such as Bitmap Caching to the development environment to help you milk as much performance out of your movies as possible. And after years of playing catch-up and being "almost there," the Mac player is finally on par with its Windows counterpart in terms of speed. Beware, though: with all the new eye candy (like filters, blends, and video alphas), it's easier than ever to produce incredibly bloated movies that can quickly bring even the fastest processors and video cards to their respective knees. You know, if they actually had knees.

We'll probably mention a couple more features as we go here, but that's the 10,000 foot view of some of the biggies in Flash 8 Professional. Again, for a more exhaustive (but by no means complete) look, check out the "New Features in Flash 8 Professional" I shamelessly pimped earlier. Now that we've gotten the lay of the land, so to speak, it's time to answer the million dollar question, which is:

Is it right for you?

When I reviewed Flash MX 2004 a couple of years ago, I wasn't quite sure how to approach it. After all, Flash users can't really be boiled down into a single category. And while not exactly the motorheads, geeks, waistoids and bloods (and others not repeatable in this space) we were told all adore a certain Mr. Bueller all those years ago, the sheer number of Flash user types out there would make for a similarly long recitation. So I'm going to approach this section the way I did back in 2003—by trying to label Flash users and step into their respective shoes long enough to attempt to make a determination as to whether Flash 8 Pro is worth it. (Incidentally, Macromedia themselves have gotten in on the multiple user action in their marketing materials for Flash 8, saying, "Different people. Different needs. One suite solution." But remember, you heard it here first two years ago.) In most cases, the answer to the question of whether it's worth buying or upgrading is a resounding yes, but in some instances there are caveats.

User type: New to Flash
Rating: Strong Buy
As hard a time as I may have wrapping my pea-sized brain around it, there probably are some out there for whom Flash 8 is a brand spankin' new product. I pretty much figured that whoever needs Flash would already have it by now, but what do I know? After all, I sit alone up in the mountains 24/7, slowly going insane. Now, the only thing I can say to Flash newbies is that if you're looking for a dead-simple program, Flash isn't for you. Sure, it's relatively easy to make objects and have them move around the screen, but to work in Flash is a little like being married. You have to constantly labor at it, it's not always easy, and you have to be committed. But if you do all that, the kids turn out great. So don't go into it lightly, or you're apt to be disappointed. And, as I mentioned earlier, I can't in good conscience recommend Flash 8 Basic. There just isn't enough there to justify the price, and you may easily hit the wall with nowhere to go. In any case, I strongly advise you read the Flash 8 Pro New Features series (shameless plug #2) linked to earlier, and I hope to be enthusiastically welcoming you into the Flash flock in the near future.

User type: Designer/Animator
Rating: Must Buy
I mentioned way back at the beginning of this review that Flash 8 had returned to its roots in more ways than one. The first way Macromedia is kicking it old school is by dropping the silly MX name; the second being Flash 8's renewed focus on design and animation. From the filters and effects to the easing controls, Flash 8 has eliminated a lot of the kludgery that used to be the bane of many a Flasher's existence. Add in the better drawing tools and text features, and Flash is a much better tool for the right-brainers out there than previous versions. The one beef I have that pertains to design and animation, however, is the still-glaring lack of any true 3D in Flash. I realize that keeping the download size of the Flash player as small as possible is still gospel (and rightfully so), but that's the next logical step for Flash technology to take, player size ramifications be damned.

User type: "Switcher"
Rating: Strong Buy
I made up this user type for my review of Flash MX 2004 to cover the folks who may have been looking to migrate to Flash from another general-purpose multimedia authoring program. In the two years since, there isn't much out there that even qualifies anymore, what with Director's slow decline to official "beleaguered" status and other big players already dead or otherwise marginalized. However, in place of more "traditional" multimedia authoring has been a move towards web-based (or, at least web-enabled) applications. You know, stuff that can do stuff, to put it succinctly. Buzzwords like Web 2.0, AJAX and yes, even RIA have been thrown about like so much confetti, and while Google's Web apps like GMail and Google Maps have been getting all the love, there's no reason Flash can't play in this space as well. Indeed, it can (and already has), and this is where Macromedia's whole Flash Platform push is coming from. So, for the purposes of this review, "Switcher" means someone who may be looking to do a little more with their web-based multimedia than what something like AJAX allows. In a sense, Flash has always been about bringing multimedia to the Web, and with Flash 8, there's more "there" there than ever before. In addition to the traditional stronghold of compact, vector-based animation, video (the hallmark of any true multimedia technology) finally appears as a first-class Flash citizen (rather than being "tacked on," as it sometimes felt in MX and MX 2004). PNG and GIF files can now be dynamically loaded, allowing for applications like dynamic slideshows and product demonstrations (for example) to be much more flexible and integrated than before. The new External Interface commands that replace the ancient FSCommand structure make talking to browsers (and, potentially, other types of hosts) much cleaner and more straightforward. The revamped text renderer makes for much more readable and flexible copy. And finally, with Flash's interface components and data IO functionality, very capable multimedia applications (and general-purpose ones, for that matter) can be built entirely in Flash and deployed either online or offline. That includes authoring for mobile phones, as Flash 8 folds in Flash Lite authoring for handsets, so you really can't go wrong if you're looking for a flexible design and development environment.

User type: Programmer
Rating: Neutral
I referred to this type of user as a "geek" in the review of MX 2004, and while that term is much less derogatory today than it may have been when Lewis and Gilbert were roaming the halls of the Adams College chapter of Lambda Lambda Lambda, I still thought it might be better to use a nicer, if less interesting, label this time. Anyway, if all you're looking to do with Flash is write ActionScript, then you are about the only user type that can take or leave Flash 8 Pro. Hell, you're probably not even using Flash to program in anyway, as the last year or so has seen myriad compilers and programming environments and whatever else people who code way more than I do use to write ActionScript and make SWF movies with. Macromedia themselves have even jumped into the fray, offering Flex Builder 2 (AKA Zorn), which, according to Macromedia, "is a completely new Eclipse-based IDE for developing rich internet applications with the Macromedia Flex Framework 2." Whatever that means. And there's that damned RIA thing again. Anyway, I digress. You guys had already figured out how to create Flash 8 movies using Flash MX 2004 way before Flash 8 was even released, so I don't think you're at the mercy of the Flash IDE to get your groove on. And with public alphas of ActionScript 3 and Flash Player 8.5 already available, actually having Flash 8 Pro in front of you may not be a top priority. While there's plenty of new ActionScript goodness in Flash 8, including pixel-level control (allowing for full image manipulation), Flash 8 offers nothing in the authoring environment itself over MX 2004. Sure, there's the new Script Assist mode for writing ActionScript, but something tells me that particular nugget ain't exactly where you're at. The Actions panel and script-only modes remain unchanged, so the bottom line is that you can probably skip this version, either in favor of what you already have in hand or the more hard-core coding tools that are popping up all over the place.

User type: "Tweener"
Rating: Must Buy
This category is closest to where I'm at: the Flash user does everything. Or, at least, tries to do everything. For those of us who attempt to walk the fine line between designer and programmer, Flash has grown into something of a "one stop shop" for both. And as Flash has evolved over the years, it's gone from niche web animation tool to general purpose multimedia authoring environment, which is perfect for us "tweeners." Scripting was formerly bad (or even nonexistent); it's now fantastic (especially so with the return of Script Assist mode for those that need a little help). Video used to be a kludge at best; now it's a vital and featured part of the Flash experience. And with the improved features for design and animation, Flash 8 can do just about anything you want. Plus, there's always more power under the hood as you get your sea legs under you. It's also highly unlikely that you'll ever outgrow its capabilities, because there's always something new to explore and learn. There really isn't much more to say—for "tweeners" such as myself, Flash is darn near perfect.

User type: Videographer
Rating: Strong Buy
As you may have guessed from my incoherent raving up to this point, video has been improved enough in Flash 8 Professional to include video folk as a segment unto themselves. Regardless of whether you know doodley-squat about design, animation, or programming, Flash 8 Professional may be worth a look solely as a video platform. Since the Flash Player is so entrenched, and since said player is now capable of high-quality video playback, Flash Video has become something of a dark horse in a race that, until recently, was dominated by the Big Three (Windows Media, QuickTime, and Real Media). Seeing as how Flash allows you to publish video that can be played back across platforms while hitting 90 percent-plus of all browsers in existence, supporting Flash Video shouldn't be a hard decision for videographers to make. So why not a "Must Buy" rating here? There's one potentially big setback: creating Flash Video can be prohibitively difficult. While the media components included in Flash 8 Pro (which are highly streamlined and improved in Flash 8, but also available in various forms in earlier versions) help in the video creation process, those components sometimes require a little down-and-dirty grunt work to get going. And there's a whole 'nother layer of potential complexity thrown into the mix once you start talking about how to customize the look of the player. Flash 8 has made great strides in terms of "skinning" components, but it's still not a dead-simple process for beginners. So it's the learning curve that may keep videographers from truly embracing Flash, and as such misses out on the "Must Buy" rating for that particular segment. But if you're willing to learn, Flash Video is catching on very quickly (just ask Google), so it may be very worth it to take the plunge.

Drawbacks

For all the great things in Flash 8 Pro, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the couple of issues that are irksome. First off, activation. I harp on this all the time, but it's still in there, so if you're not a fan of activation, caveat emptor. Unfortunately, not only is Flash in a class by itself in general, but the new features in Flash 8 Pro really are spectacular, so activation is a fact of life if you want in on the action. Only something as messed up as activation would lead to a sentence that combines the words "unfortunately" and "spectacular."

Second, back to basics. Flash 8 Basic, to be exact. Now, if you're going Pro from the outset, this is a non-issue. I know I've already said this, but if you're on the fence as to which version you need, try to find a way to come up with the extra cash to get the Pro version. Basic is just too crippled to be worth it, and with no upgrade path, you're stuck with it in the event you need the advanced features. I suppose it would be OK if there's never any chance of needing anything more, but is that really a gamble you want to take when plunking down multiple Benjamins?

Third, despite the spit-shine Macromedia has given to the Flash interface, there are a couple of areas where it still feels a bit unpolished. This affects both platforms; for example, panel sets on the Mac still don't "remember" their size and position 100% of the time, but it's still better than the absolute chaos that plagued earlier versions. And on Windows, sometimes the panel sets reverse where they're supposed to be, requiring you to drag everything back into position (which kind of defeats the purpose of having panel sets to begin with). Plus, the Help panel on the Mac is still unforgivably slow to launch. 10 seconds to wait on a dual-G5 is excessive, especially when the Windows version's Help panel pops up in about a second, even on a ancient Windows box.

I also have a specific beef with the Flash Video Encoder. It's a great utility, and better than nothing, but is there any real reason why I can't save custom settings for later use? And while I'm at it, why is there no standalone FLV player for previewing clips without having to "wire them up" in Flash first? I was using VLC for this purpose, but it doesn't work on movies compressed with the new VP6 codec.

While not exactly an issue per se, the last thing I'll mention is that the learning curve for Flash is still steep. I do appreciate the reintroduction of Script Assist mode, which was bagged outright in MX 2004, but it's still a fundamentally non-trivial task to start fresh with Flash. Sure, the slide- and form-based methods of working in Flash are still around, and the ability to save movies as templates and the drag-and-drop simplicity of components make things easier for newcomers, but all that still doesn't make Flash any less daunting to get started with. But I suppose that goes with the territory when you're talking about a program with as much power under the hood as Flash packs. It would, however, be nice to find a way to extend the Script Assist paradigm to other areas of Flash, so an assisted mode is there for those who need it and not there for those who don't. Come to think of it, Flash Basic would be a very useful product with a program-wide Script Assist equivalent. That, coupled with a migration path to Pro, and we'd be in business.

The bottom line

As an upgrade product, I was quite underwhelmed by Flash MX 2004, as many of the features in that version seemed dubious at best (Timeline Effects, for example). Things couldn't be any different in Flash 8 Professional. New features have been very thoughtfully added, and any one taken alone could conceivably justify the upgrade. Put it all together, though, and you have the most significant Flash update in a long time, if not of all time. And while I do have nits, none fall into the "showstopper" category. Not even close. As a full product, Flash is still a fantastic value for everything you can do with it and as an upgrade, it's a no-brainer for just about every user type. I can't speak for the other products in the Studio suite, but for its (likely) last hurrah as a Macromedia product, Flash 8 Professional is a home run, and as an overall product earns our rare "Must Buy" rating.

Flash 8 Professional is available now for Mac OS X and Windows. Prices break down as follows: $399 for Flash 8 Basic, $699 for Flash 8 Professional; $299 for Flash 8 Professional upgrades; $999 as a part of Studio 8 (includes Fireworks, Dreamweaver, FlashPaper and Contribute), and $399 for Studio 8 upgrades.

Filed under: Review on October 28th, 2005

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