Kudos to Macromedia for already talking about Flash 9. I, like probably many out there, were somewhat concerned what might happen once Macromedia gets folded into Adobe. My biggest concern was that community relations might suffer. Well.. Mike Downey came out yesterday on his blog [LINK] and started talking about Flash 9, codename Blaze, and that it will be released as a public alpha in spring of 2006. Wow!! Very cool. I like this approach. Beta testers do a great job in shaping the products that we work with every day, but they are only a very limited bunch of people with limited time. There are a lot of things I wish could have been done better in the Flash 8 IDE and I would love to have given my input on (never got a yes to beta Flash .. but I keep trying). I think putting Flex2 Builder out there as public preview release and next spring with Flash 9 is a great way to get a large amount of people involved in shaping the product. I really look forward to the Oct 17 preview release of Flex2 Builder and next spring with Flash 9 alpha.

Be sure to stop by Mike Downeys page and submit suggestions for the next version of Flash.

My biggest feature request is a rebuilt timeline for animators like the timeline used in AfterEffects.

Thanks Macromedia!