If you were not one of the many indivduals that joined the live broadcasting of Adobe CS4 announcements, check out Adobe Flash CS4 and its impressive enhancements.  While these new enhancements will not get a Flash developer all gittery, every Flash designer/animator should be the thanking Adobe for adding some really impressive features.  

This new featureset includes:

Motion Editor

Experience detailed control over keyframe parameters, including rotation, size, scale, position, filters, and more, using the new motion editor.

Object-based animation

Gain complete control over individual animation attributes with object-based animation, which applies tweens directly to objects instead of to keyframes

Inverse kinematics with the Bones tool

Create chain-like animation effects with a series of linked objects, or quickly distort a single shape using the new Bones tool.

Procedural modeling with Deco and Spray Brush

Turn symbols into instant design tools. Apply symbols in a variety of ways: Quickly create kaleidoscope-like effects and apply fills using the Deco tool.

Metadata (XMP) support

Add metadata to SWF files using the new XMP panel. Quickly assign tags for enhanced collaboration and better mobile experiences.

3D transformation

Animate 2D objects through 3D space with exciting new 3D translation and rotation tools, which allow you to animate along the x, y, and z axes.

Motion presets

Jump-start your project with prebuilt animations that can be applied to any object. 

Other Key Features:

• Authoring for Adobe AIR
• H.264 support
• XFL support

Say it ain’t so… It’s true, Adobe does not plan to provide any future feature updates to its existing FlashPaper 2 software.  FlashPaper has been the oddball out since the merging of Adobe and Macromedia.  With the dominance of the .pdf format, Flashpaper never really had a chance as its initial birth was to compete with the .pdf format.   Here’s a statement from Adobe themselves:

After careful consideration and analysis of both the marketplace and customer feedback, Adobe plans to discontinue new feature development for FlashPaper. The demand has continually declined to where it is no longer economically viable for Adobe to continue development support for FlashPaper.

On the bright side, FlashPaper 2 will still be available for purchase for those looking to invest in its technology.

Additional Resources:

• Adobe FlashPaper End of Life Faqs
• FlashPaper Overview
• FlashPaper 2 Examples

For all you FlashDevelop users out there, the time has come to download the long overdue release of FlashDevelop 3.0.0 Beta8.  While this release has been in and out of beta testing, the wait has been  worth it.  This release looks to dramatically improve stability along with the addition of some mighty features.

The feature set changes made to FlashDevelop are documented below.

User Interface:

• New “fullscreen” editor mode
• New common GUI for AS2Api and ASDoc
• SWF exploration shows the frame where definitions are imported

ActionScript:

• Fine tuned code completion
• Dynamic syntax highlighting: custom classes get colored like flash classes (MovieClip, Event, etc)
• Completion for package-level declarations and Flash 10’s Vector.<T> type
• New generator: Ctrl+Shift+1 on a non-imported type to generate the import
• Go To Declaration (F4) with SWC classes display a generated pseudo-class
• Improved generators

MXML:

• Tags with ID now appear in outline view and <script> code completion
• Updated completion (generated using a tool available in SVN)

Templates:

• Improved MXML projects templates
• New optimized AS3 project template with preloader (no Flex dependencies)
• Templates now include an index.html with swfobject.js

Additional Resources:

• Download FlashDevelop 3.0.0 Beta8
• Get Adobe Flex 3 SDK (Needed for standalone AS3 development)
  

FlashDevelop is a .NET open source script editor designed mostly for Actionscript 2/3 development. FlashDevelop can be used as an external editor for the Flash IDE or as a complete open source development environment.

FlashDevelop is a very nice option for those looking for a quality/free ActionScript editor.  Also, if you’re still writing in ActionScript 2.0 and looking to convert over to ActionScript 3.0, this is a great tool that’ll get you used to constructing and using classes.

Features to be expected of Flash Develop are:

FlashDevelop has a nice docking interface.

FlashDevelop has built-in support for many workflows.

The Outline panel gives you an overview of your code.

FlashDevelop's code completion works with your and others classes.

The Tasks panel help you track your project state.

Additional Resources:

• Download FlashDevelop
• Complete breakdown of FlashDevelop’s Features
• FlashDevelop’s Documentation
• Latest news relating to FlashDevelop

FDT 3 is a plug-in which boosts the already mighty open-source platform Eclipse and turns it into a powerful development environment for serious Flash and ActionScript coding.  This fantastic tool is built and maintained by the guys over at PowerFlasher.

Along with an impressive list of features, these features give you the opportunity of gaining a big boost in your programming efficiency as your work flow is improved.

If you are serious in working with ActionScript 3.0 or plan to work with a team of other programmers, then FDT is the one to get.  Unlike other ActionScript editors, this one is not free, but it is well worth it.

FDT comes in three versions: Basic, Professional, and Enterprise.  While all version pack a punch, check out the chart below to find out the key differences between the three.

Product Comparisons

The one major downfall of FDT 3 is how complicated the installation process is from other ActionScript editors.  The good news, however, is that the developers behind the project are currently working on a standalone version that will require minimal steps to install.

Download a trial version

For all you Flix Engine users, Flix Engine version 8.0.12.0 for Windows and Linux is now available.

If you are not familiar with the Flix Engine, Flix Engine is used by many of the leading UGC and social networking sites as the basis for their video functionality.  It is currently the engine behind Adobe Flash’s video codec.

This release enables progressive download of 3GPP, 3G2, MOV and MP4; it also introduces the AAC and AAC Plus audio to the FLV muxer.

See the changelog (linux|windows) for complete details on each release.

A couple of months back I posted on a potential free .PPT to Flash converter. At the time of the post it was still in the works, but as of March 4th an official free version of iSpring has been released and is available to be downloaded.

iSpring Free is a free PowerPoint to Flash converter that creates web friendly Flash movies from your PowerPoint content while keeping its visual parameters and animation effects. Your generated Flash slideshows will look as if they have always been a Flash movie.

This is by far the best free PowerPoint to Flash converter solution available in the market. It is easy to use, fast, and provides a high quality output. There also a professional version available that provides extra features, however, the free version is well worth trying.

Download
iSpring Free (6.2 Mb)

Get ready for a free .ppt to Flash converter. It is called iSpring Free!. It is being based on a professional iSpring conversion engine; it provides high quality PowerPoint to Flash conversion. It’s quite simple, but effective. A few features that will be included are:

• All in Flash file publishing
• Smart compression
• Quick publish button

Finally, a solution that will offer what many wanted out of a Microsoft PowerPoint to Adobe Flash converter, except that it is FREE!

With all of the hype surrounding Flash VoIP including Adobe’s formerly top-secret Flash VoIP project. The obvious question that came to mind is “What about Flash video conferencing applets that do both voice & video?”. My question has been answered and it is called SightSpeed Video Chat. SightSpeed Video Chat lets you connect with all your friends and family easily. Make video calls, phone calls, and send video mails and text messages to everyone in your network, anywhere in the world.

SightSpeed ’s free version is equipped with the following features:

• Unlimited Video chat
• Presence indicators: Available/busy/offline .
• Inbox: Video/voice calls and video mail
• Missed call voice/video mail and email notification
• Video export to blog and Websites
• One click, add-a-friend functionality
• Free PC to PC voice calling
• And many more!

For those of you looking for a great FLV Video Player for your desktop computer, Sothink’s free FLV Player has been updated with some new, cool features.

• Play FLV directly through its URL using command-line parameters.
• Double click to toggle full screen mode
• Show a preloader animation at buffered time until start playing Flash video
• Drag and drop any *.flv file from local hard disk into the FLV player window

Overall, if you are looking for a solid FLV player, I would definitely recommend this app.

via Sothink Media