Man, that was fast! It’s barely over a year from the release of Flash CS3 back in April 2007, and already Adobe has blessed us with a brand-spanking new edition. My first thought, as well as a thought probably shared by many others, was: Are there enough features in the CS4 collective to warrant this most unexpectedly early new version? I cannot speak to all of the different products that have been upgraded in the CS4 package, but most assuredly, Adobe Flash CS4 has enough merits to make you consider the upgrade. And for those of you that were unfortunately unable to purchase CS3, count yourself fortunate and really consider adding Adobe Flash CS4 to your toolset.
Despite the fact that Flash CS4 has a lot of really cool new features, the basic core workflow has remained largely intact. None of the old operations have been depreciated, allowing experienced Flash practitioners to continue creating as they normally would, yet giving them the option to branch out into new territories at their leisure. For anyone that is new to Flash, its workflow, and its uses, I will refer you to the previous article that goes over the program’s most important features and overall uses for the would-be filmmaker. (Though, I will also add that the video people who work at MFM, especially our Editor-in-Chief Jeremy Hanke, have found the new layout options and animation behavior of Flash CS4 to be much easier for video people, especially After Effects users, to get into. Jeremy goes into more depth on this in his review of CS4: Production Premium in this issue.)
For this article, I’ll focus on the newest characteristics of Adobe Flash CS4, and, for some features, how it compares with the previous way of carrying out the same jobs.
Flash CS4 default layout.
Ease of Use
The first thing that you will notice on entering Flash CS4 is the newly sorted interface. Whatever PC or Mac operating system you use, the Adobe CS4 collection sports the same OS-appropriate skin. As for the placement of the tools, panels, and palettes, Adobe went to great pains to now have all the products visually relate to each other. It gives you that much less confusion to contend with when bouncing back and forth between applications as you move your project through its processes. The standard Stage, Timeline, Property inspector, and other panels are all present and accounted for, but the default arrangement is a little different from the versions that preceded it.
The toolbar is on the right-hand side, the Property inspector has a vertical orientation, and the Timeline and Stage have exchanged spots, with the former resting below the latter. Considering that Flash CS4 has some new operations, this rearrangement seems designed to accommodate some of those changes, like the Motion Editor (which I’ll explain later). The only problematic element of this set-up is that it seems like it would fit better on a large widescreen rather than your standard 19” CRT. A minor thing, but you have to do a bit more scrolling to access all the information. With that said, it is really great news that if you are not comfortable with the set-up, you can finally change the style to fit your needs using the new-to-Flash Workspace bar located near the top right region of the application. The layout can be easily changed to suit your needs, be it for animation, designing, debugging, etc. And for those of you that are slow to change, classic mode retains the arrangement of Flash’s past default layout.
All the tools on the toolbar still retain the same function and workflow, which is good to see, because they work so well. Pen tool works the same as all the Adobe line’s other pen tools do, maintaining the consistency and efficiency that we’ve come to depend on. The only related area that has changed, and I would say for the better, is the orientation of the Property inspector. Originally being placed horizontally at the bottom, the space allotment given over to the Property inspector grew smaller and smaller as more features were added. In Flash CS4, the amount of modifications available for any given object has increased even further, making adequate room and readability a necessity for developers as they work. Now with the Property inspector vertical and wider, any time you select an object, symbol, or keyframe, its properties are legibly aligned down the side of the panel making it easier for you to modify features on the fly.
The new motion editor allows you to tweak parameters in order to better craft your animation.
Man, that was fast! It’s barely over a year from the release of Flash CS3 back in April 2007, and already Adobe has blessed us with a brand-spanking new edition. My first thought, as well as a thought probably shared by many others, was: Are there enough features in the CS4 collective to warrant this most unexpectedly early new version? I cannot speak to all of the different products that have been upgraded in the CS4 package, but most assuredly, Adobe Flash CS4 has enough merits to make you consider the upgrade. And for those of you that were unfortunately unable to purchase CS3, count yourself fortunate and really consider adding Adobe Flash CS4 to your toolset.
