Flash CS5

Well it is upon us. Cs5 is in the air and I must say I have heard some great things. The one program I am very excited about is Flash CS5. It is loaded with many new features from text, video, and actionscript support. Here are a few of the features:

•) Text Engine: In CS5 text will be handled in better and effective way and some nice features like advance styling, columns, right to left options etc.

Also introducing user friendly font embedding option.

•) Code Snippets Panel: This will provides a very fast access for common ActionScript code. Great option for designers also now they can also deal with normal task very easily.

•) Document Property Inspector: Now it also displays the size of all SWF files generated during movie operations like Test Movie, Publish or Debug Movie.

•) Improved component: Some nice updates for Flash Components like

- FLVPlayback component equipped with new skins and an option for its live preview on Stage

- Cue Points in Video are now easy to add.

•) XFL file format Flash: By default now flash files will be saved in XFL format internally. As the format name denotes, its an XML format which will result in an improved exchange of data with the other Adobe applications.

•) Uncompressed XFL file and FXG file format: Uncompressed XFL structure will now make it possible to analyze the parts of the flash file and thus working with the source control systems like Visual source safe.

FXG file format allows CS5 to export and exchange graphics with the other Adobe applications with a complete compatibility.

• ) New Decorative Drawing tool: CS5 provides several new effects with the newly added Decorative Drawing tool which can be great

•) New Properties for IK bones: New properties like Spring properties have been added to IK bones to create realistic physics effects for bone animation.

•) Integration with Photoshop CS5: Graphics of Flash CS5 can be edited in Photoshop CS5 and so they can be exchanged between the both directly.

•) Coding and Formatting Improvements: These are some improvements for coding and formatting

- Code completion for custom and build-in Classes has been added for ActionScript 3.0.

- Custom classes are automatically added to the application using import tag.

- While you script, closing brackets { } are automatically added.

•) Better integration with Flash Builder: Improved workflow between flash CS5 and Flash Builder makes it easy for developers and designers to use both the products together.

•) Updated AIR Publish Settings: The user interface and Installer Settings Window for AIR Application have been changed to make it more user friendly.

•) New templates added for common type of project templates.

•) New JavaScript API’s are added for motion tweens.

•) Live Services are accessible from within the Flash authoring environment.