NEWS • AUGUST 24, 2000
Flash 5 Ships
New version integrates with Generator

by David Nagel
Executive Producer
dnagel@digitalmedianet.com

Macromedia today announced it's shipping Flash 5, the latest version of its Web multimedia authoring tool. Flash 5 offers an enhanced user interface and tighter integration with other Macromedia applications, such as Generator and Freehand. In fact, the new version of Flash supports native Freehand files. The new user interface is designed to provide a more familiar look across Macromedia products. It includes tabbed docking panels and customizable keyboard shortcuts. Other new features include:

• New Bezier pen tool.
• A Fill and Gradient palette.
• A Transform palette for rotating, scaling and skewing objects.
• An Alignment palette.
• A Character palette for inspecting and editing font, font size, color, kerning, leading and baseline shift, as well as set links for text.
• An Info palette to edit the size and location of objects.
• A Text Options palette for setting the parameters for dynamic or text form fields.
• A Paragraph palette for formatting alignment, indents and paragraph spacing.
• A Swatches palette to import, sort and save color sets.
• A Mixer palette for choosing colors in RGB, HSB and Hex and setting alpha transparency, as well as switching between Stroke and Fill colors.
• A Frame palette for setting motion and shape tweens.
• A Scene palette for navigating between scenes and managing scene names and scene order.
• A Sound palette to edit sounds and special effects, such as fades and pans, as well as set loops.
• An Instance palette for inspecting symbols and instances.
• An Effect Panel for creating vector graphic effects like color tints and transparencies.
• "Smart Clips" allow users to share and reuse components of interactive elements in a Flash project.
• Extended action scripting. The syntax and structure for writing ActionScript is now the same as JavaScript. It also includes a new ActionScript editing environment.
• Shared Symbol Libraries let teams of users on a project organize and reuse shared media assets across a project.
• The Movie Explorer enables users to see all the components in a project and their relationships in a hierarchical structure.
• Export to RealPlayer.

At press time, Macromedia was offering several deals on Flash 5 for Mac. These include Flash 5 Freehand 9 Studio (upgrade from Flash 4) for $249. The Flash 5 generator 2 Pro Developer Upgrade for $648. The full version of Flash 5 is available for $399. The full version of Flash 5 Freehand 9 Studio is $599. The upgrade price for Flash 5 alone is $149. For more information, visit http://www.macromedia.com.

[Editor's note: This story has been corrected. We previously reported that the full Flash 5 Generator 2 developer Edition would cost $999. We were wrong and apologize for the error.]

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