Flash CS5 Professional was launched on 12 April 2010 as part of the Adobe CS5 Suite. It is the industry standard for adding animation, interactive content, videos and games to webpages.
New text engine in Flash CS5 Professional
Its top feature would have been its Packager for iPhone, which enables developers to write applications within Flash and then convert them into iPhone apps.
However, four days before its launch, and as part of Apple’s beta release of iPhone OS 4 Software Development Kit (SDK), Apple amended its developer licence agreement for iPhone developers to prohibit the use of third-party cross-platform development tools, like Flash, to produce iPhone apps.
Adobe has since announced that while it will ship the Packager as part of Flash CS5, it has stopped all new investments in this area.
Even without the Packager for iPhone, there are enough goodies within Flash CS5 Professional to entice code writers and designers. I will be delving into some of the main features below in more detail over the next few weeks. I also did a review of Adobe Flash CS5 Professional in Digital Life on 2 Jun 2010.
For the Designer:
- New text engine – Print-quality typographic control like in desktop publication software, Global language support, Advanced inline text editing, Advanced rendering support.
- Spring for Bones – The Inverse kinematics feature is enhanced with a dynamic physics engine that simulates realistically the springy vibrational oscillations of a spring.
- New Deco drawing tools – Dynamic Deco brush tools are extended with new brushes with additional shapes and animation effects.
For the Coder:
- Code Snippets panel – Prebuilt codes that can be injected into projects for things like timeline navigation, actions, animation, audio and video, and event handlers. The snippets contain helpful comments and clear instructions for easy customisation for the inexperienced programmer.
- Enhanced ActionScript editor – Custom class code hinting and code completion, and reference your own code or external code libraries more efficiently.
- Flash Builder – Formerly Adobe Flex Builder, this coding tool is bundled with Flash CS5 Professional and both are tightly integrated with each other.
For all users:
- Distribute content virtually anywhere – Deliver consistently across screens of virtually any size and use Adobe Device Central for enhanced device testing.
- XML-based FLA source files – XFL offers improved cross-product integration and workflow productivity.
- Improved Creative Suite integration – Tight integration with Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash Catalyst, Flash Builder, InDesign, Fireworks, and After Effects.
- Video improvements – Streamline embedding and encoding processes with on-stage video scrubbing and the ability to define cue points directly in the Properties panel. Playback FLV video directly on the stage instead of testing the movie.
