There are a few Flash conferences that I do my best to attend. Two have already past us by; FITC Toronto and FlashBelt. Both conferences, as usual, were great. Both had a fantastic lineup of speakers and the social events were a real treat.

Now, I am waiting for the next conference that I will be attending; FOTB (Flash on the Beach). If you have not been fortunate enough to attend FOTB then you should really consider doing it. First, like the other two conferences, FOTB always has a great lineup of speakers and sessions, this year is no exception. Second,  it is held in the wonderful city of Brighton, UK ... if you have not heard of Brighton then look it up, its a great place. Last, but not least, John always throws some great parties..

So, if you are looking to attend a Flash Conference I would suggest you block out Sept 20-23. I know, I know, it may look like there is plenty of time, but Sept. will come around faster than you think.

Hope to see you there!

Posted by Richard Galvan at 5:09 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 )

Ok, so I am once again going out to the community to get some feedback on some possible changes in a future version of Flash.

First I would like to know how you feel about removing screens from Flash; and no I don't mean SCENES. I am talking about the feature we added in Flash MX2004 to add two new type of documents -"Flash Slide Presentation" and "Flash Form Application". If you still don't know what I am talking about then I guess you don't have a problem with this.

Screens only work with AS2 and got very little traction when released. As many of you can tell we have not been making it easy to find them in the tool and we don't intend on updating them to AS3. We feel there are better solutions to solve the problem they originally intended to solve.

So, if the next version of Flash didn't have screens, how would that affect you?

the other change I am curious to get feedback on would be in dropping support for PowerPC. That could mean only Intel-based Mac's might be supported in the future? How would this affect you?

Please let us know.

Posted by Richard Galvan at 5:58 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 48 )

Several moths ago I posted a blog about some issues that were being reported with Flash CS4; some of you also posted your own comments and issues. I am happy to say that we have just posted an update to address a good number of the issues that were reported. I know some of you have been waiting for some time, but we wanted to fix as many problems as we could so we took a little more time with this one.

Adobe Flash® CS4 Professional (10.0.2) addresses a number of performance issues. Some key fixes are:

• Fixed a performance issues when dragging objects on stage, scrubbing the timeline, or entering symbol edit mode in large AS 2.0 and AS 3.0 files.
• Fixed a performance issues when opening large files or files with many nested symbols.
• Fixed a performance issues when working in the library such as scrolling, selecting items in the library, dragging item to stage, or editing symbol from library.

It also addresses several crashes involving creating a text fields on stage and opening specific files with corrupted fonts.  The font issue was causing many people to suffer crashes because Flash was not handling inappropriate or corrupted fonts very gracefully.

One fix that was very specific to a request by the community was to put back the JSAPI that allows users to publish FLA files without opening them. You can now use fl.publishDocument( flaURI [, publishProfile] ) to do this. Steven Sacks I hope this helps.

There are a more fixes than that and I have posted the list of them at the bottom of this blog.

I do want to thank everyone that contributed their issues and concerns in my blog, the forums and the email lists. The team worked hard to fix as many issues as we could. If you don't see your specific issue addressed in the update it doesn't mean we didn't pay attention. We just had to prioritize in order to get the update out in a reasonable time. The remaining list is logged and we will continue to try and fix as many more as we can for a future version of Flash.

We made many significant changes to the tool in this cycle and unfortunately this time we ran into a few issues. The changes were necessary to continue to have a framework to work on and make Flash a next gen tool, but you have my commitment that we will do better next time.

Bugs fixed in this release:

• AS2 Doc Crashes CS4 when buttons not rendered correctly
• Auto Format beaks the code if encounters ++ or -- with an array inside if statement
• Clicking through movie clip with large preview takes long to select in the Library in AS 3.0 file
• Scrubbing and pressing Enter to play timeline is not smooth, slower in AS3 documents
• W and H of instance incorrect after frame 2 if apply tween to instance with filter
• 3D tools appear incorrectly to a child movie clip when applying skew and rotation to the parent 2d movie clip.
• Changing W/H for nested 2d>3d movie clip from PI does not work. After scrubbing the hot text, it snaps back to the original size.
• Dragging from Library to Stage is slow in some files in CS4
• Selecting items in the library is slow in CS4
• Scrolling the library (vertical scroll bar) is slow compared to CS3
• In a FLA with lots of library items, double clicking a symbol "in the edit mode" hangs Flash on Mac.
• Library contents explode CS4 memory (CS3 sits at 75M)
• Performance issue with Stagecore (AS 3.0 fla) - scrubbing, moving, altering objects.
• Object visibility is compromised when created inside empty groups in AS 3.0 fla files.
• Double clicking symbol or symbol name in library hangs Flash; library contains a lot of items
• Text with device font disappears when it is selectable
• Component parameters don't work for scenes greater than scene 1
• Selecting frames with textfields is a lot slower if the Components Inspector panel is opened
• Empty maskee incorrectly renders mask invisible rather than visible
• Crash when opening a  fla that uses a font symbol whose name was identical to the Postscript name of the underlying font and the font is missing
• Optimize a section within a shape leaves gaps in the shape
• Optimize opening and closing FLA files, frame manipulation for FLAs with many frames
• Win only: Crash on exit when the text field is in edit mode and clicking X button to quit without save
• Compiler errors when opening "Air Settings" while adl still running.
• (screens) timeline playhead can’t scrub and jitters when playing anything that spans frames
• gotoAndPlay("framelabel") compiles differently in CS3 versus CS4
• Scrubbing the timeline and selecting frames is much slower in CS4 than in CS3
• Crash when creating a text object on stage when there are corrupted fonts
• Graphic symbol looping setting changes when apply color effect to instance in PI
• Files with lots of nested clips suffer from performance issue (file open) in Flash CS4
• Edit in Place of 2d objects which has 3d movieclips nested inside is not functioning correctly.
• Edit in place is slow for complex instances in FP10 documents
• Breaking apart a nested movie clip erases instance name of child movie clip
• Efficient calculation between keyframes so dragging is faster and generally makes people happier if spans are long and complex.
• AS3 Components not compiling correctly when using the Component Definition dialog
• Window Only: Flash crashes when double clicking a fla to open while a current fla is opened with text block selected
• Can’t interact with Flash because modal dialog is up, but hidden behind the workspace when switching between applications
• From crash reporter: crash on Mac when double click to enter symbol edit mode (when the black dotted rectangle is drawn)
• Mac IDE flashes when right-clicking on Library after doing Test Movie
• Performance is slow after double clicking movie clip to enter edit mode and exit
• Setting an instance's width and/or height to 1 makes W and H hot text unusable in the vertical PI.
• Hot text in the Vertical PI for X, Y, W, H displays only 1 decimal point while edit field displays 2
• Export image: Dimension values in Export dialog and Vertical PI do not match which is misleading to user.
• Crash when selecting text field on stage with many fonts on user’s system.
• Text PI is stuck and some controls on the PI are not drawn with certain fonts on user’s system
• The JSAPI that allows users to publish FLA files without opening them was inadvertently removed when the Project Panel was deprecated.  fl.publishDocument( flaURI [, publishProfile] ) is added. 
• "Export classes in frame" behavior is different in CS3 than in CS4
• Drag and drop large nested symbol from library to stage hangs Flash
• Dragging from Library to Stage slow on subsequent drag or after scrubbing the timeline
• Scrubbing and pressing Enter to play timeline is not smooth, slower in AS3 documents
• W and H of instance incorrect after frame 2 if apply tween to instance with filter
• Large amounts of text nested in a symbol causes performance problems in non-AS3 documents
• Playback in authoring is not smooth (playhead skips frames), cannot stop it when hitting enter, eventually hangs and takes long to respond (both AS 2.0 and AS 3.0)
• Performance Creating Exported Symbol when the classpath contains lots of files and folder
• Create ease, undo after first edit removes ease
• Selecting and deselecting raw shape after convert to symbol spikes memory and/or crashes
• FLA crash on open when fonts loaded
• Mac only: User input resets to previous setting when attempting to change any value in Vertical PI input area
• Accessing a Windows SWF after it has been moved or deleted crashes Flash
• Crashing when re-opening FLA after canceling publish
• Crash in test movie when running a file with video and filters

Posted by at 1:28 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 66 )

For anyone in the Bay Area there is going to be an event next week that you really want to look into.

pixelSessions is a San Francisco based event focused on bringing together designers of all types. They feature great speakers, cool contests and a chance to connect with like-minded individuals. I even hear there is an open bar and DJ's....Nice!.

Mike Kemper, one of the founders of pixelSessions, described it like this -
" Our event is a platform that encourages intelligent conversations, provides valuable networking opportunities and celebrates all things design. pixelSessions are open to all creative professionals including graphic designers, web designers, photographers, 3D artists, VJs, students, and on and on. If you work visually in anyway, you are welcome to join us and we are excited to have you! "

pixelSessions 1.0 will be hosted at MIGHTY in SOMA, (119 Utah St., San Francisco).
    * Tuesday, May 12th, 6:00pm-10:30pm

     6:00pm - Registration, Hosted Bar, and Snacks
     7:00pm - Speakers and Q&A (bar closed)
     8:30pm - Hosted bar, and networking

Tickets are $25 online, $35 at the door.

Panelists:

Jared Ficklin – Principal Technologist, Frog Design
Jenny Hansen – Creative Director, SuperSecret
Ulm - Director of Experience Design, Adobe
Ernst - Creative Director, Yelp

I hope to see you there!

Posted by at 5:49 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

1)  Its official, the Flash team has been working hard on an update to address a number of performance and stability issues. As soon as we are confident with a schedule I will update this blog with a potential release date. I would like to thank everyone that submitted their issues on this blog and through other forums. I know a number of you reported that you couldn't submit your entry on this blog. It seems that the blog wasn't rebuilding the page correctly, but I have received all the entries( in many cases mutilple copies). So consider them submitted. I am looking into a fix .

2)  Grant Skinner has release an update to the new Flash Project Panel. As many of you may know, the new project panel in Flash was originally Grant's G- Project. Check out his blog to get more details of this update. http://www.gskinner.com/blog/archives/2009/03/free_update_to.html

3)  FITC baby! That's right, its time for FITC Toronto again; April 25th-28th.. Adobe will be in attendance at FITC Toronto and during the Keynote I am looking forward to updating you on all the cool things we are up too. If you have never been to FITC you must definitely check it out. Its a great place to meet other talented Flash users and check out what the Flash Gurus are working on. I will also be delivering a session on the Ins and Outs of Flash CS4, so I hope to see some of you there.

4) Last but not least I just wanted to put out a link to a very cool site that uses Flash.

http://www.onemotion.com/flash/spider/.

If you don't like Spiders don't click on the link.

Posted by at 1:24 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 3 )