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Web Design & Productivity
Review: Adobe Creative Suite 3 Web Premium
5/29/2007
Flash CS3 Professional
Flash was a big part of Adobe's acquisition of Macromedia, so it makes sense that of all the former Macromedia Studio products, Flash CS3 got the most noticeable "Adobification." New and useful features abound, and while Flash CS3 Professional doesn't represent the perfect storm of groundbreaking features the way the Flash 8 upgrade did, there is no shortage of nice stuff.
Long-time users will no doubt notice the addition of Adobe's new CS3 look into Flash's traditional interface, and the results are surprisingly smooth. The new CS3 docking scheme, as well as the addition of tear-off tabs (now that there are no patent issues to fight about), and the maximize window mode make the Flash interface more configurable than ever. However, even with the facelift, Flash CS3 doesn't feel radically different from its predecessors.
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Integration is a major player in Flash CS3, and nowhere is that fact more evident than in Flash's new Photoshop and Illustrator import features. Now that the file format specifications aren't a mystery to Flash, the process of bringing in content from either Photoshop or Illustrator has been radically simplified. Simply choose Import, select a native PSD or AI file, and Flash presents a dialog box that allows you to activate or deactivate specific layers, merge layers into Movie Clips, convert text layers to Flash text, and name instances, all from the Import dialog. Flash also converts effects and blending modes to its own internal equivalent, where possible. The bottom line is this: Flash now preserves and converts just about everything from Photoshop and Illustrator files, which is a marked improvement from when Flash was a Macromedia product. Just this feature by itself has the potential to more than pay for the upgrade price over time, as it effectively cuts what can sometimes be dozens of steps to prepare content for Flash down to a couple of clicks.
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Programming changes are evident in Flash CS3, most notably with the inclusion of ActionScript 3 as the default scripting language for new documents. For those who aren't heavy-duty scripters, the switch to AS3 may be a daunting one, as there are all manner of syntax changes and new rules and limitations that have the potential to make simple functions much more difficult than their ActionScript 2 counterparts. Fortunately, AS2 is still available as a scripting option, so you can shift to AS3 at your leisure.
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