Interface
Once you start Flash CS3, the interface is more customizable than in the past; you can choose where to dock the timeline and other panels, letting them float outside the main Flash window, while you can drag features to the toolbar.
Once you start Flash CS3, the interface is more customizable than in the past; you can choose where to dock the timeline and other panels, letting them float outside the main Flash window, while you can drag features to the toolbar.
As with most of the other CS3 applications, unfortunately, we don't find the interface intuitive at all unless you have prior knowledge of Flash. Some of the functions to achieve the simplest effects are frustratingly complex. For instance, if you're using Flash to create a banner ad with a surface area that will link to a Web site, why can't you quickly add that link, as you can in Dreamweaver's Properties box? Instead, Flash requires that you invoke ActionScript.
Features
Flash CS3 introduces the time-saving capability of importing the layers of both Photoshop and Illustrator files. While importing a PSD file, you also can match the stage size and compression settings and turn layers into either movie clips or key frames. While you could bring in PSD and AI images in the past, now there's no more need to convert and name one layer at a time.
Flash CS3 introduces the time-saving capability of importing the layers of both Photoshop and Illustrator files. While importing a PSD file, you also can match the stage size and compression settings and turn layers into either movie clips or key frames. While you could bring in PSD and AI images in the past, now there's no more need to convert and name one layer at a time.
Rather than drawing from scratch, you can drag prebuilt components such as buttons directly onto the stage, and then customize them. If you are drawing from scratch, Flash adds tools that include a Pen like the one in Illustrator as well as Shape Primitives for rounding off the corners of rectangles and making other shape alterations on the stage. New filters and blends add more creative options. Plus, you can set up blend modes and shadows that render at runtime, making for a smaller file. Added integration with Adobe Bridge can help you manage assets shared by other CS3 programs.
In our tests, Flash CS3's compiler worked much faster than version CS2. And as Flash Player 9 is zippier than version 8 (100 times more so, says Adobe), your Flash videos and animation should load in less time than in the past. Video enhancements include improved import menus. You can embed cue points to a video that would enable, say, closed captioning in multiple languages. Adobe is pushing for its software to create work that can be repurposed in various media, so you don't have to start a project from scratch for video, the Web, or mobile gadgets. As with the other CS3 tools, Device Central previews how your work will appear on skins of the latest handhelds on the market.
Adobe attempted to close the gap between visually oriented designers and code-cobbling developers. The new Copy Motion as ActionScript 3 command lets you take animation and paste it into the Actions panel, where you can edit the code. This feature allows more flexibility for instance, when creating more natural-looking motion tweens or replicating parts of an animation. And you can save animation in XML for ActionScript or the Flex development environment.
In addition, there's a new, Java-based compiler and debugger. Rather than fishing through your work to find errors, clicking on a trouble spot in the Compile Errors panel takes you straight to the problematic code.
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