REVIEW
David Shapshak
Flash MX, R7 799
The invite to our wedding was done in Flash by my wife, who was then a Web designer. Watching her, and other Flash designers, work over the years has not been too different from watching programmers crush out code in a very user-unfriendly way.
While many features of Flash MX have changed the user experience, so too have the upgrades altered the designers’ experience.
Flash MX is not just an upgrade of an old program, but almost a new one with new functionality and features. It has added template features with clear instructions, making it much easier for beginners to interact with it.
Macromedia clearly wants designers to use its products for everything from video to advertising, slide presentations, even photographic slide shows.
The interface is clearly superior. Previous versions of Flash had additional features and menus in small windows that “floated” above the main central window, for things like colour or actions commands. These now can be neatly “collapsed” into a Windows XP-like taskbar on the right of the screen, or expanded if you want to use them.
The interface is much more sophisticated than Flash 5, with much more extensive setting under each drop down menu. One such series of settings, for either developers or designers, automatically customises the kinds of features, known as panel sets, each of these two very different groups of users usually require. You can also create multiple, customised panel layouts and save them too.
Macromedia also appears to be cocking its snout at Microsoft’s PowerPoint, the default presentation package, with templates that let you create pretty impressive slides, all obviously media rich.
The photo slide show option is quite something, and reminds me of the super-sophisticated iPhoto software recently launched by Apple. You can create a self-executing file with a series of photos and perhaps the most sophisticated little navigation buttons inside it, that can be dragged around the screen.
Several designers have raved about it, including Marcelle Rossouw from Point Blank. “You can build the whole site with it,” he says.
Mentioning the hype about animation, he adds: “It’s not about that anymore. It’s about delivering content in an intelligent and enjoyable way. You can keep it subtle, not just the bells and whistles. The fact that you can do e-commerce applications and gaming applications, real time, online, that’s the challenge.”
Flash MX was supplied by The Core Group, Tel: (011) 719 9999