Exploring the New Features in the Flash Lite 2.0 Preview

At MAX 2005 we previewed the next version of Flash Lite—version 2.0. This new version is quite a step forward for Flash mobile development. In this article I go over the new features of the Flash Lite player in this preview release.

The major new features of the Flash Lite player are as follows:

• Flash 7 code base with support for ActionScript 2.0
• Video playback
• External XML parsing
• Local, persistent data on the device
• Loadable external images and sounds

Let me explain.

Flash 7 Code Base and ActionScript 2.0 Support

The Flash Lite 1.1 player is based on a subset of the Flash 4 code base, which means that the modern dot-syntax and object-oriented–like development model is not supported. But with the introduction of Flash Lite 2.0, we can now say goodbye forever to tellTarget() and the older slash-syntax of Flash 4. Flash Lite 2.0 fully supports ActionScript 2.0 based on the ECMA 262 standard.

Developers (like me) can also breathe a sigh of relief for ActionScript 2.0 conventions such as a modern event model (movie clip and object events), tab index control, shape drawing API, and better SWF compression.

Video Playback

Flash Lite 2.0 now supports video playback using the video rendering application on the device. This means that any video file that the device supports can also be rendered in Flash Lite 2.0. (Typically this includes 3GPP and MPEG-4 files.)

You can embed these video files directly into the SWF or load them externally, either from the device itself or a network address. Flash Lite then uses the device's video helper application to render the video inside the Flash content.

Parsing External XML

Working with external data in Flash Lite 1.1 is constrained by the data format that the player accepts. Because all data has to be in URL-encoded name-value pairs, it's time-consuming and difficult to pass data and structures in and out of the player. Thankfully Flash Lite 2.0 supports loading and parsing of external XML using the familiar XML objects from Flash 7.

Local Persistent Data

Along with the Flash 7 code base comes everybody's favorite feature—shared objects. Flash Lite 2.0 lets you save and load Flash data structures directly on the device. Local high-score lists, application preferences, and user input can now all be captured and stored on the device and then loaded the next time the SWF runs. This alone gives you a much more robust development environment than you ever experienced in Flash Lite 1.1.

External Images and Sound

Because Flash Lite 1.1 never supported loading external media, you had to cram everything into the SWF itself. Using the latest version, you can now load external images and sounds—like JPEGs and MP3s—from the device itself or a network address. This obviously makes it much easier for you to update images and sounds in the SWF, and keeps the SWF file size smaller than before.

Where to Go from Here

These are some of the big new features of Flash Lite 2.0. We are currently working on the authoring tool and documentation, so look for more details in the coming months. In the meantime, learn more about the current technology on the Flash Lite product page and in the Flash Lite Developer Center.

About the author