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Flash Release Notes

Macromedia® Flash® Professional 8 and Flash Basic 8 Release Notes

This document addresses issues that are not discussed in the Macromedia Flash Professional 8 and Flash Basic 8 software documentation. This document may be updated as more information becomes available.

About Flash Professional 8 and Flash Basic 8

Welcome to Macromedia® Flash® software, the industry’s choice for authoring rich interactive content. Flash Professional 8 and Flash Basic 8 offer web designers and developers a range of tools including graphic effects, animation, text, video and audio to create engaging user experiences delivered from desktops to mobile phones.  Use Flash to create great interactive marketing, presentations, rich media advertising, e-learning, entertainment, business applications, interactive video experiences, and more.   

Used by over 2 million creative professionals worldwide and with an audience of over 560 million users across the web, Flash is the world’s most pervasive software platform.  Macromedia Flash Player 8 is the highly expressive, ubiquitous runtime environment for interactive content and applications that look and run identically on all major platforms and web browsers. Flash Player 8 offers unprecedented performance in a light-weight, secure runtime, featuring a spotless security track record over 9 years and 8 major versions. Flash Player continues to be distributed with major partners including Microsoft®, Apple®, Netscape®, and AOL® to bring rich content and applications immediately to 98% of Internet-enabled desktops worldwide.

We have some great resources to help you discover more about Flash Basic 8 and Flash Professional 8, get support, and send feedback to the team. Please note that while this Readme file has information pertaining to both products, you will only receive the product for which you have purchased a license.

If you are interested in other Macromedia products, please visit www.macromedia.com for more information.

What's New in Flash 8

Get a quick overview of what's new in Flash 8. You can also check out the in-product tutorials and the many resources available for learning about Flash 8 at the Flash Developer Center. Find inspiration with tips, articles, tutorials, and resources, or steer your project to success with forums, code examples, exchanges, and reference materials.

About Flash Lite™ 2 Update for Flash Professional 8

The Flash Lite 2 Update for Flash Professional 8 allows developers to build content for devices that support Flash Lite 2, and draw on the new features available in the latest mobile player including XML support, device video, and ActionScript 2.0.

Flash Lite 2 includes the following:

  • Flash Player 7 support
  • ActionScript 2.0 support
  • Loading and parsing of XML data
  • Ability to store and retrieve persistent data
  • Dynamic loading of multimedia content and playback using device-based codecs
  • Improved display and handling of fonts
  • Shape drawing and animation through ActionScript

Note: This update works for Flash Professional 8 and is not recommended for use with Flash Basic 8.

System Requirements

Flash 8 supports Windows® 2000, Windows XP and Macintosh Mac OS® X 10.3 and 10.4. However, starting with this release Flash no longer supports Windows 98 or Macintosh OS 10.2.x or earlier.

For information, see the Flash Professional 8 and Flash Basic 8 system requirements.

Known Issues

General Issues
Windows Specific Issues

GENERAL ISSUES

Mobile Authoring

After updating your device profiles from the device profile update page please exit and relaunch Flash before continuing to author any more content. Failure to relaunch Flash 8 may cause memory issues.

Flash Lite 1.1 content cannot be tested on devices which only support Flash Lite 2 player. To test on these devices the Publish Settings have to be set to Flash Lite 2, Action Script 1.0.

Projects

Flash Professional 8 shares site and project information with other products in Studio 8. The Studio 8 format for this shared information has been upgraded for enhanced functionality and security. When using Flash Professional 8 alone or with other Studio 8 products, the site and project information will be upgraded to this new format. Dreamweaver ® 8 will seamlessly migrate your site information to the new format. To ensure that your site information remains in sync between the Studio 8 products, we recommend that you launch and exit Dreamweaver 8 once before working with sites in Flash Professional 8.

For users of Studio MX 2004 who upgrade to Flash Professional 8 without upgrading the other products, the site information will remain in the prior format for continued Studio MX 2004 compatibility.

WINDOWS SPECIFIC ISSUES

Installer

When installing Flash 8 to a custom folder in which the path contains multi-byte characters (such as Japanese, Chinese or Korean), the Flash 8 Video Encoder and the Extension Manager folders will be placed within a folder named "Fla." If you wish to avoid this, either install to the default location or install to a custom location that does not involve multi-byte characters.

Documentation

Viewing documentation using LiveDocs

In addition to accessing Flash documentation in the Flash Help panel, you can access the same documentation online in the LiveDocs format. One of the advantages of LiveDocs is the ability to see comments that clarify the documentation. Macromedia recommends reviewing LiveDocs to see if any errata or issues relating to the Flash features you are using have been reported.

To find the equivalent page on the LiveDocs website, click the View Comments on LiveDocs link at the bottom of any help page in the Flash Help panel. Your web browser will launch, and take you to the specified LiveDocs page.

The Flash LiveDocs are available at: http://livedocs.macromedia.com/go/livedocs_flash

Flash Lite 2 Update for Flash Professional 8 LiveDocs are available at:  http://livedocs.macromedia.com/flashlite/2/main/

Reporting a bug to the Macromedia Flash Team

Found a bug? Your first step should be to contact Macromedia Technical Support. They can help you resolve issues and they can also log bugs. If you are no longer eligible for support, please use the Macromedia Software Feature Request and Bug Report form.

Note: Due to the high volume of e-mail we receive, we are unable to respond to every request.

Thank you for using Macromedia Flash 8, and for taking the time to send us your feedback

Notices, Terms, Conditions, and Attribution

Copyright 2006 Adobe Macromedia Software LLC. All rights reserved. Adobe, the Adobe logo, Macromedia, Dreamweaver, Flash, Flash Lite, and Macromedia Flash are trademarks or registered trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. Other marks are the properties of their respective owners.

This computer program is protected by copyright law and international treaties. Unauthorized use, reproduction, or distribution of this program, or any portion of it, may result in severe civil and criminal penalties, and will be prosecuted to the maximum extent possible under the law.

Notices, terms and conditions pertaining to third party software are located at http://www.macromedia.com/go/thirdparty/ and incorporated by reference herein.

Product Versions

 

Product Resources