Development tidbits, struggles, revelations, and still some Flash

I have watched both the Feature Tour and the “Whats New with Flash Professional 8″ video and so far I haven’t seen any presets or a way to save your favorite easing setups. I am hoping that its there and just hasn’t been shown or that it will be there at release. Otherwise, it will the tool will be a real pain in the a$$ to use. Imagine trying to multiple onscreen elements and have their custom easing match and you are trying to hand-tweak the graphs. Yikes!!!

Maybe someone has seen other demos or videos that show a way to save your custom easing?

As many have reported, Studio 8 is available for pre-order. [ LINK ]

I went ahead and ordered my copy tonight just to get it out of the way. Now I only have to wait until Septembe for it to ship.

I will be interested to start seeing some of the UI screenshots. In particular, I would like to see the new easing tool that is talked about in the specs for Flash8. I know a few designers who would love a better easing tool since they are more visually based. I am also hoping there are some improvments to the components, even as simple as bringing them up to par with the Flex components. Maybe Monday or throughout the week that info will be revealed.

Hardy Krüger emailed me to let me know his MacOSX app for converting v7 SWFs to v8 is available. If you are using OSX and want to test the new v8 features, check it out.

LINK: http://www.stromgehirn.de/swfTo8ConvX/

Lots of people are demo’ing the cool new features within the Flash8 player by using FlashMX2004 and modifying the headers. Here are the demos I have come across and really enjoy:

BlendMode and Filters
http://www.luminicbox.com/blog/default.aspx?page=post&id=49

Blur (Very cool demo — my favorite)
http://www.protozoo.com/?p=172

Filters
http://www.protozoo.com/?p=171

Blur and Glow filter Demo
http://theflashblog.com/?p=33

Proximity Blur
http://theflashblog.com/?p=34

A good collection of links to more F8 examples
http://www.franto.com/blog2/collected-links-to-maelstrom-examples

You’ll need the Flash8 player beta to view these demos. You can get it HERE.

v7 to v8 SWF Converter: http://www.quasimondo.com/qm_versionconverter_8.php

Windows Utility to Convert v7 to v8 SWF:
http://chall3ng3r.blogspot.com

OSFlash page on Flash8
LINK

Flash8 filter documentation
http://theflashblog.com/?p=39
Kudos to everyone for these great demos!

I’ll continue to add to this list as others post their demos.

—- UPDATE July 19th, 2005

Franky of http://www.develotec.com/ sent me this link : http://www.develotec.com/flash8api.txt. Its a text file filled with API info and examples.

I was chatting with a friend the other day about 3rd party Flash commands and he never even knew they existed. This led to a discussion of FireFox extensions that I can’t live without. I have quite a collection of favorites that I love to install, so I thought I would list them here for my benefit (for later retrieval), his benefit, and/or anyone elses.

Please feel free to add your own favorites (and links please).

FlashMX2004 Commands

Duplicate Layer (LINK)
Delete Empty Keyframes (LINK)
Symbol Swapper (LINK)
Pixel Tools (LINK)
Publish All (LINK)
Teknision Commands (LINK ) >> Includes: change case, clean up library, convert and distribute (!!), find in library, lock all masks, swap symbol across layer
JSAPI Snippets Panel (LINK)
SceneToMovie.jsfl ( LINK)
Invisible Button Tool (LINK)

Patrick Mineault has a good list to various other JSFL commands and tools on his site. I refer to his page a lot.
http://www.5etdemi.com/blog/

FireFox Extensions:

Web Developer (LINK)
Ad Block (LINK)
IE View (LINK)
OpenBook (LINK)
User Agent Switcher (LINK)
Disable Targets for Downloads (LINK)