Under Macromedia’s development, Flash came to dominate the Macromedia Studio authoring suite, with each release pushing the boundaries of end-user web experience. Naturally then, we were anxious to see what new power the first Adobe version would unleash.

First impressions are encouraging, as Flash CS3 is the only one of the former Macromedia programs that’s been updated to share the new CS3 interface. By combining the absolute flexibility of floatable palettes and palette groups with the streamlined efficiency of collapsible docker windows and customisable workspaces, this provides an excellent, productive working environment. For existing Adobe users new to Flash, it makes life much easier but, for existing Macromedia users, the change clearly comes at the loss of some familiarity.

Drawing comparison
It isn’t just the interface that’s been reworked along new Adobe lines – the entire approach to drawing has been transformed. This is immediately apparent with the introduction of the familiar Bézier-based Pen tool that’s common to just about all Adobe design programs. In addition, two core new tools have been introduced for creating the most basic of shapes – rectangles and ovals – the difference being that the fill and outline of these new “primitives” are now inherently linked, so you can’t inadvertently select one without the other. The primitives also offer more editing options from the Properties panel, so you can quickly create and later fine-tune rounded rectangles, arcs and rings.

Again, such core changes might take some getting used to for existing users of Flash, although the old tools are still there as options (if this is confusing, you can quickly remove them from the current workspace). This time, however, the advantages aren’t in doubt. Flash’s old drawing system – where fills and outlines had a life of their own, and overlaps of the same colour automatically merged into a new shape – was wilfully idiosyncratic and a major obstacle to productivity. In fact, the main criticism must be that Adobe, with all its graphical expertise, hasn’t done more to update Flash’s drawing capabilities.

This criticism is partially answered by the new integration between Flash CS3 Professional and Illustrator CS3 (both of which are included in the Premium editions of the Web and Design bundles). You can now open AI files directly and, when you do so, you can see the full layer hierarchy and specify how individual layers should be handled. Symbols created in Illustrator CS3 are also fully supported, including instance names and intelligent nine-slice scaling, and the latter is now reflected directly on the stage. More powerfully, Flash Professional CS3 now shares Illustrator’s more accurate vector graphics engine, so that importing artwork is smoother. Even better, this means you can simply copy and paste objects directly from Illustrator, so you can quickly and conveniently take advantage of all its advanced features, such as DTP-style typography, brush strokes and transparency handling. Long-standing Macromedia users will miss FreeHand, which offered greater animation capabilities, but, once you’re used to it, Illustrator certainly offers greater creative power.

Vectors are key to Flash’s rich and efficient web delivery, but support for bitmaps is crucial too. Here the bundling of Bridge CS3 for image management is a major boon, as is the associated Device Central CS3 (see opposite). If you’re buying Flash via one of the CS3 bundles, the enhanced integration with Photoshop CS3 Extended and Fireworks CS3 is also very welcome. However, while importing Photoshop PSD files now offers advanced control over how each layer should be imported, the import control for Fireworks’ PNG is sadly more basic. This is especially disappointing, as the new support for Fireworks CS3’s multiple pages and nine-slice scaling would otherwise make it a natural design partner – maybe next time.

Alongside its vector and bitmap handling, video support has recently become another must-have Flash capability thanks to its pervasive playback. After the major advances in version 8, the changes here are relatively minor, with a redesigned interface for both the internal Import Video dialog and for the standalone Adobe Flash Video Encoder used for batch conversion. You can also now export your Flash movie to QuickTime MOV format with nested symbols and ActionScript fully supported. As such, you’ll see everything just as you would in the Flash player, which might occasionally be handy for non-web-based delivery.

Rewritten script
The changes to video handling are relatively minor, but that isn’t the case when it comes to adding interactivity to your projects. By default, all new files are now targeted at ActionScript 3. This is a complete rewrite of ActionScript 2, designed to bring it into line with current object-orientated programming practice and the ECMAScript standard. A number of benefits ensue, starting with far more robust and helpful debugging and the ability to cope with larger projects with intensive data handling. Most importantly, end performance is more efficient, with Adobe claiming some (no doubt carefully chosen) cases of ActionScript 3 code execution are up to ten times faster.

Clearly, a stronger programming platform offers general long-term benefits, but there are also some immediate gains. The first sign of these are the updated range of user interface components such as buttons, datagrids and video-playback controls. Thanks to their ActionScript 3 underpinning, these UI components are more streamlined with less of a download overhead than their predecessors, as well as being easier to customise. Double-click on a Button component, for example, and a screen with all available states is shown – double-click on one and it opens for editing. It’s certainly an advance, but the range of components is still limited and skinning could be a lot easier.

Another new capability is the option to convert an existing animation to ActionScript 3. Select a tween-based animation track and the Copy Motion As ActionScript 3 command and a programmatic description of the animation is copied to the Clipboard ready for pasting into the Actions panel. The resulting programmatic animation is more lightweight and flexible than the tween-based version, but neither approach is really satisfactory. Flash is desperately in need of a modern property-based timeline such as that found in AfterEffects (the CS3 review of which we’ll bring you next month).

The problem is that, aside from potential performance gains, the new ActionScript 3 architecture doesn’t bring any must-have features in its wake, while it does have some immediate downsides. Most obviously, there’s a new learning curve for authors to get to grips with, although at least the Actions panel’s ScriptAssist mode has been updated to help ease the transition. In addition, there are some important issues of interoperability with existing ActionScript 2 SWFs. Any project based on ActionScript 3 will only be viewable by users of Flash Player 9 and above, which seriously limits your current audience. The bottom line is that, if your project can live without the performance gains, you’re probably better off doing without ActionScript 3 – and without Flash CS3 Professional come to that.

Conclusion
The Flash platform remains a key part of Adobe’s vision for the future of the web, and imminent developments, such as the current Apollo project to enable offline as well as online handling, will shortly usher in some exciting new capabilities. In the meantime, after Flash’s long history of breakneck development, Flash CS3 Professional is best seen as a consolidation – and a bit of a disappointment.