Macromedia Flash 8 gives designers a platform to create cartoons,
videos, and games that make Web sites dance and sing, and it does so
with ease.While Flash 8 is a great program that continues the tradition of
excellence begun by its previous incarnations, upgrading from Flash MX
isn't really essential to continue animating and developing effectively.
The only major change that really stands out is the addition to
Flash's video capabilities. If you're looking to try Flash for the
first time, then I would recommend Flash 8 Basic--but if you're
comfortable with MX, you may want to avoid the rather heavy upgrade
costs.
This Flash upgrade facilitates an evolution in the animated
Web experience, and it's a must-have for serious site developers. Flash
authors should warm to the numerous work-flow and design-tool
improvements, including new runtime blend modes, filters and effects,
support for alpha-channel video, and a rebuilt video codec to shrink
file size and playback time. Hobbyists wanting to put Flash content on
their personal Web pages should opt for Flash Basic, although it lacks
the more alluring new features offered by the more expensive Flash
Professional 8. You can also buy Flash Professional 8 packaged with the
Macromedia Studio 8 suite for about a thousand dollars or upgrade for
less from a previous version of Studio.
Although it has a 190MB footprint, installation of Flash 8 (including
the Flash Player) required only a few painless minutes in our tests.
Once installed, the Flash 8 interface retains the intuitive look and
feel of previous releases, including a timeline across the top, a
viewing stage in the middle, tool icons along the left side, with
various menus along the bottom and the right edge. New to Flash 8 are
separate Undo functions for objects and documents, as well as the
ability to customize the work space by rearranging and naming panels.
Flash 8 includes a better-organized preferences dialog, more storage
space on the desktop for objects not currently in use, and
better-organized libraries.File is in compressed form.
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