Flash 8 Review

The new Flash 8 is out and everyone is pretty excited. There are many new features (some large, some small) that make this program in a league of its own, if compared to its predecessor, Flash MX04.

One of the main features I have noticed (since I love to draw) is the way the vector drawing tools, that were great in Flash MX04, are even better in Flash 8. There is also a new feature that many of you might be excited about is the opportunity to select different modes in your drawing tools, either Flattened or Layered. Layered is a great addition to the Flash 8 drawing tool so that you can actually draw something that is either above or below other objects on your screen! This is great because, as you all probably know, when you drew anything in Flash MX04 and they overlapped, they became one object, which pretty much destroyed the image. This way you can draw all you want and it will not destroy anything that is below it.

Another amazing feature in Flash 8 is the Filter option. You can now add drop shadows, create blurs, and add more effects through the properties menu. This is a create way to mix up the way text and objects look without having to do anything really hardcore with the Flash 8 program.

Actionscript is now a bit easier for newbie's to flash and programming with the Flash 8 script assist program. Although actionscript should be studied before trying to create anything, Flash 8 makes it tad bit easier for the beginners to get a grasp for what they are doing. It also helps with even the expert programmer, who might have forgotten some more complicated functions.

Video is made a bit easier with the Flash 8 video wizard. You can now control your Flash 8 video appearance with no programming required. Flash 8 seems to be the step towards easier video importing, exporting and creation.

Many critics of Flash in general have had problems with the quality of text that is applied to your player. However, there are new features in Flash 8 that makes text look 10x better than before. Not only does the text look better, it is even a little easier to resize and reposition the text as well.

Some negative aspects of Flash 8 that I have heard (I love Flash 8) is that it is a little cluttered with useless features and there are still some issues with the Debugger, something they did not really focus on while upgrading to Flash 8.

There are also some problems with the steep price of Flash 8 Professional and even Flash 8 Basic, but there are always critics of these prices when new software is on the market.