March 05th 2003 | Jens C Brynildsen

Macromedia.com redesigned

Over a year in development - this is the biggest re-working since the merger with Allaire. With this new look the mothership has made some bold design decisions.

Macromedia.com have been redesigned using Macromedias web application philosophy and it really looks good. Some weeks ago, Macromedia tested the new design, but only for a few hours. Now the rollout is complete. The site is called a Beta version, but as far as we can see, the new design is now implemented across all the pages. The new all Flash cover page will let you navigate much faster to the part of the site you wish to visit. The top navigation works well as both SWF and GIF.

The design is clean, functional and good looking, but this comes at a price. The overall filesize for the coverpage are now up to 255Kb. Click the main navigation arrow and you have to wait for another 30Kb to download. Not really scaring for broadband users, but dailup users will probably head for another website.

The Macromedia Exchange has also been heavily overhauled. They've introduced a lot of user requested features to help developers better manage extensions.
The Designer & Developer Center have been redesigned and renamed to DevNet. The new DevNet site is cleaner and faster to use and navigate. We couldn't find any of the 'Sample Flies' (!) mentioned in the dropdown in the Flash DevNet center, but that is maybe the idea of a web cleanup? ;-)
See the new Macromedia.com

Next story:
New Flash Player patching security hole

Previous story:
Asset Mover with Mac support