Let's address the obvious up front: Macromedia wouldn't be nearly as successful without the diverse group of developers who build rich interactive experiences with our products and technologies.

During the development cycle of our previous products, developer and customer feedback on our "sneak-peek" releases helped shape and tune those products—ensuring that we built the right tools and products to help you create the experiences your clients and customers demand. In addition to giving us great product feedback, you told us that you want to get even earlier access to Macromedia technology. Your input and feedback has been very useful—so useful, in fact, that we decided to make some big changes to our development process so that we can involve developers earlier than ever before.

Welcome to the first step in this new direction. Welcome to Macromedia Labs.

In Macromedia Labs, you'll have the earliest access to new technology and the Macromedia development teams building it, alongside other developers in the industry doing the same. We are very excited about this new level of openness and collaboration between our development teams and the developers who use our products to create solutions for their customers.

At its core, Macromedia Labs will publish early information and releases of products in development and new technologies in progress. Some of the technologies released in the Labs environment may turn into new products, some may evolve into new features of current products, and some may not have a life beyond the Macromedia Labs site. But all of the technologies will be available for you to evaluate and discuss in a highly collaborative environment.

Working with early product releases is not for the faint of heart. Many of the Macromedia Labs projects are works in progress, and neither the quality nor the features are complete. If you're the type of person who loves to get your hands on the very latest technologies, and you have a strong desire to share your equally strong opinions with others, then we're looking forward to collaborating with you in the Labs!

Here is an overview of what you will find in Macromedia Labs:

Access to Early Technology

Get work-in-progress builds of upcoming software and technologies straight from the Macromedia engineering teams. These builds aren't complete yet, and the quality will not be perfect, but you will get a preview of where we're headed and the opportunity to give your feedback and help guide our direction. You'll also get ample opportunity to talk about best practices and solutions with other like-minded developers and Macromedians working on these technologies.

Prerelease Documentation

Strong products require clear documentation. In Macromedia Labs, you will have access to early versions of reference material. You will also be able to share your feedback to improve the documentation.

Technical Resources

Browse through a variety of code samples, tutorials, best-practice documents, and quick-start material to get you quickly up to speed. Don't see what you need? Contribute directly to the content yourself. Macromedia Labs hosts a wiki to facilitate collaboration and feedback.

Forums

Because software and documentation helps only so much, Macromedia Labs will also include forums to facilitate discussions and conversations with Macromedians and other like-minded developers.

Showcase Gallery

Have you done something interesting with Labs releases? Show it off in the Gallery and check out what others are doing as well. Software development may be 90% perspiration but that all-important 10% inspiration gets things started and really shows what's possible—and what should be possible.

Change Notifications

Subscribe to Macromedia Labs RSS feeds to stay up to date with all the activity in Labs.

Macromedia Labs Helping Developers

So how will Macromedia Labs help developers? First, Macromedia Labs will provide you with crucial resources so you can learn about new and evolving Macromedia technologies as early as possible.

Second, Macromedia Labs will give you access to other developers and engineers with like minds and similar interests, helping one another build the next generation of interactive web applications and content. Macromedia Labs will also, of course, give everyone involved a venue to share ideas, opinions, samples, and best practices—not to mention showcasing your work.

Your participation and feedback in Macromedia Labs will help us make our technologies more efficient, effective, and focused. Apply your creativity and critical eye, let us know what works and what doesn't work for you. We'll have the chance to consider your opinions earlier than ever before—ultimately resulting in stronger products for everyone.

Macromedia Labs will also help ensure that you know where Macromedia is headed with its technologies. Your participation helps us shape the product during the development cycle, helps us build technology, products, and documentation that will enable you to do your best work. The result is a shorter learning curve on new and emerging technology and even more useful products to help you be the most effective as possible.

Sound interesting? Visit the Macromedia Labs website. Download the alpha releases you see there. Walk through the samples and tutorials. Explore on your own and tell us what you think.

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