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Flash MX - The BIG new features

As always with a new release of Flash, there are some things that are simply BIG news. Here's Flashmagazine's top 10 new features in Flash MX.

4th MARCH 2002, by Jens C. Brynildsen 1. Video
When we discovered this setting in the Flash 6 Beta Player, we jumped with joy! Finally we get video within Flash. Then our reviewers edition (Flash 6 Beta) arrived and we were really, really disappointed. OK. there is the possibility to import any kind of video into Flash, but the streaming features hinted at in the players 'settings' menu are not in anywhere in sight.

What you get
If you import MPG, AVI or QuickTime files, they will be compressed with Sorenson's Spark technology, which is a H.263 compliant MPEG4 codec. H.263 is a standard codec used for video-conferencing and it is supplied with almost every webcam out there. So what you get is actually a new object inside Flash that will play back video. In order to play the file, the user must either load the file together with the rest of the site, or you can stream it in, much like you would do with streaming sounds inside Flash 5 today. We've done some tests and the codec produces some really nice results.

As always, the better the initial file looks - the better results when compressing it into Flash 6 format. As an effect of this, you also get a new compression setting for audio called 'speech'. This is also a standard videoconference codec made especially for compressing speech in a nice way.

What you don't get (yet)
Just imagine shopping on a website. You have a question about something and usually you would have to leave the site looking for more information. In the new and coming Flash 6-world you would just press the support button on the site and a video window would pop up with a real, live, customer representative from the shop. From a small chat window you could ask questions (If you had a mic connected, you could just chat away...) and you could actually see the person you're talking to live on the screen in front of you!

Just imagine making art installations with anyone visiting the exhibition, becoming a part of it if they had a webcam connected. In the version of Flash MX that will be available the 15th of March, there will be no support for this. Macromedia has decided to wait a bit with these things and release it as part of Coldfusion Server MX (formerly named NEO). The system will use the Real Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) and the communication server.

Here's Macromedia's official word: 'Macromedia Flash Server Solutions will consist of an application server gateway and a breakthrough communications server. The application server gateway offers a framework designed to make it easier to exchange data between Flash Player and today's leading web application servers. The new communications server will make it possible for developers to create real-time messaging, audio and video applications with Flash MX. With the tools for application server integration and new communications capabilities, Flash MX will allow developers to deliver applications that go well beyond traditional Internet applications. Flash MX developers leveraging these new solutions will be able to create next-generation applications such as a calendar application that automatically synchs data when users are connected, a shared whiteboard application that allows a group of users to contribute ideas from across the world, an employee directory that allows you to see an interactive map of employee locations, and an eLearning application which allows instructors to train across multiple participants simultaneously. These server-side solutions will be closely integrated with Macromedia ColdFusion MX and will also be available for .NET and J2EE solutions. Macromedia is committed to maintaining an open rich application development model with Flash MX and will ensure compatibility with a broad application server base.'

These other MX flavoured boxes will arrive in mid 2002: Macromedia ColdFusion MX, Application Server Gateway, Communication Server, Macromedia Dreamweaver MX.

2. New nice UI
In August 2000, Adobe sued Macromedia for infringing U.S. Patent No. 5,546,528 registered August 13th 1996 by Adobe. The patent covers 'Adobe's method of displaying and working with multiple sets of information in the same area of the computer screen'. Said in plain words: how Adobe is organizing the palettes in the program to use less space on the screen, using 'tabs' and 'dockable' palettes. This was one of the features pushed forward by Macromedia as 'the new unified UI' of all Macromedia applications to come. Our guess is that this forced macromedia to rethink it's UI, giving Flash MX a brand new way of organising palettes.

The new UI is great in the way it saves space, and it still can be easily stored in 'sets'. In Flash MX there are no popup dialogues. Absolutely all parts of the UI can be docked, expanded and minimized. The biggest single feature is the property inspector (more on this under New Stuff for Designers). This feature alone should save you a lot of 'screen estate'. Even with these savings, you still need a big monitor. The requirements for MX have raised from 800x600 resolution on the monitor to 1024x768. There are loads of other new UI features. Too many to be described here, but browse through the pictures and you'll catch quite a few of them.

3. Shared libraries / symbols
One of the big new features in Flash 5 was the shared (or linked) libraries. There was just one problem: The whole library had to be downloaded, even if just one symbol was used within it. Due to this, the feature was hardly ever used. Flash MX lets you 'subscribe' to a symbol in another file and you simply click 'update' in your library to get the latest version. There's no need to include the library. Choosing update will simply replace the current version.

4. Layer folders
Working on big Flash projects, you get tired of scrolling up and down the layers window. Flash MX introduces a new 'folder' layer that will allow you to collapse several layers into one. Using just drag and drop, you quickly rearrange your file. Folders within folders aren't a problem and this feature is simply brilliant! There's also a new 'distribute to layers' feature, as in Freehand.

5. International support
Flash now supports 11 international languages, including chinese and korean. As a sub-feature of this Flash MX supports vertical text, letting chinese-language users work in their native text direction and giving designers an easier job.

6. Components = smarter smartclips
We already told you about this feature some months ago in our report from FlashForward in Amsterdam, but this is just what can make advanced Flash Authoring even easier. GlobFX is now marketing a new SmartClip that makes it easy to create visually stunning 3D versions of box-like objects. With Flash 6, such clips will become even better. Some standard clips come with Flash MX. If you need a scrollbar for a text-field you simply drop it onto the text-field. It will instantly attach itself and start working on the textfield.

7. Loading of JPG's and MP3's
An often requested feature. Why do you have to set up a system to convert JPEG's or MP3's to the SWF format, just to be able to display images in your Flash file? After all, the Flash player are capable of using these things so why not load it directly? With flash MX, you can. JPEG's are loaded with the ordinary loadMovie command, and MP3's are loaded with the new object.loadSound command.

8. Compressed Flash 6 SWF's
Even though Flash is a 'compressed' format, you might have discovered that if you ZIP or STUFF a SWF-file, it will become even smaller? This is now built in as a standard feature for files exported as Flash 6 and decompressed at playback time by the Flash 6 player. Even faster downloads of Flash content is the result...

9. Save as Flash 5 file
This is an obvious feature, but it has never been implemented until now. Excellent! When saving, you can save the file back as a Flash 5 FLA file.

10. Accessible content
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act has made it illegal for 'the federal government or any company or industry working with or selling to the government to have electronic information, including information on Web sites and intranets, that isn't readable by everyone. Sites must be checked and fixed [...] so that those using screenreaders or lacking a mouse can read them.' The EU have discussed this, but figured the companies themselves would enforce this volenteerly. In the EU there are 37 million people with disabilities alone. Due to that fact, Flash was expected to include some features for accessible content. Flash MX allows you to set special text on objects that will make then accessible when a screen reader is used. Screenreaders are used by people with many kinds of handicaps, not only visually impaired. Using these features, you as a developer of content can make this content accessible to a lot of people.

Written by Jens C Brynildsen (July 04th 2002)