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Tom Hale joined Macromedia in 1995 as
a product manager. Since then, he's worked on products,
communications, and strategy for the company. Today, he
is responsible for building community and content for the
DevNet on macromedia.com.
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Today, we announced Macromedia Flash MX.
Until you can get your hands on the software, the
animated
feature tour and the list
of features will give you a good idea of the scope
of the new functionality in the development tool and
the player.
This release dramatically expands the range of potential
uses for Flash. Soon after Flash MX ships, developing
user interfaces and rich applications will join the
list of common uses for Flash today, such as advertising,
demo and training content, navigation, and animation.
Our intent is to make Flash MX more relevant to business
and business application development. This means that
a new set of developers will be attracted to Flash
MX. We invite the Flash community to welcome them
(and application development) with open arms. If we
are successful, Flash MX designers and developers
will be in great demand—and highly valued.
But first, we've been working to make Flash MX more
valuable to all of you, no matter what you build with
it.
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I'd like to call your attention to a short list of
the features that I think will have a big impact on
how you use Flash MX.
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Property Inspector
If you use other Macromedia products, you'll
recognize the benefits of this panel. It lets
you inspect and edit the properties of any object
in your project. |
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Customizable Workspace
Creating an animation, building a user interface,
and scripting an application demand that you
work in different ways. In Flash MX, you can
optimize your workspace for different work styles.
Flash MX also provides you preset layouts for
common design and development tasks. |
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Answers Panel
If you're a Flash 5 user, you may be familiar
with the Macromedia Dashboard (look under
Help > Macromedia Dashboard). The Answers Panel
is the "son of Dashboard". The
Dashboard introduced the concept of updated
content, but
the Answers Panel lets you do more. You can
search TechNotes, view the most frequently
downloaded
extensions, and navigate to other resources
right inside Flash MX. |
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Flash Components
Building user interfaces in Flash MX will be
easier because it gives you prebuilt common
interactive elements (like a checkbox, list
box, and scrollbar) that you can drag and drop
into your workspace. Flash Components are the
reusable building blocks for creating rich Internet
applications. |
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In our announcement, we also previewed several new
server
technologies that work with Flash MX:
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ColdFusion MX (codenamed Neo) |
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A server gateway to connect
directly with leading application servers and
web services |
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A communications server for
two-way audio and video as well as real-time
data transfer. |
All of these server technologies will extend Flash
MX to let you develop rich Internet applications.
But what is a "rich Internet application?"
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Rich Internet applications combine content, communication,
and application functionality to deliver radically
better user experiences. Using a rich application
is a "flow" as opposed to a "click
and wait" experience. This is very different
from the experiences that users of most websites are
having today.
With rich applications, pages don't have to refresh
to display data. The action doesn't stop. You get
what you need without wondering if it will ever come.
You need to know more than I can provide here. Check
out what Jeremy Allaire, our Chief Technology Officer,
has to say in his in-depth whitepaper
on rich applications.
I am looking forward to seeing what rich Internet
applications developers like you are going to build.
(We want to help you get rich building them, too.
;-P)
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So what does the "MX" in Flash MX mean?
Is it short for something? Macromedia Experience?
Macromedia X-M-L? Matrix? Most Excellent? Motocross?
The top level domain for Mexico is ".mx"
and MMX is a multimedia acceleration technology from
Intel.
Is it a promotional tie in with Mazda sports cars?
Is it some kind of play on OS X? Or Windows XP? Is
it Roman numerals?
Does it really matter? FWIW, here's my take:
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All the products
that carry an MX moniker (okay, I do have a
marketing background) are part of an integrated
product family. So far, we've announced ColdFusion
MX and Flash MX. We believe that product integration
between tools and servers will help you build
complex projects faster. |
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The products
that are MX-branded are more significant
upgrades when compared to a normal whole number
upgrade.
Going from Flash 5 to Flash 6 (if there were
such a thing—Flash MX *is* the next version
of Flash) is great. But going from Flash 5 to
Flash MX—now that's an upgrade. You're
getting a whole new type of product. |
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MX signifies
that Macromedia is attempting something new
with these releases. IMHO, Macromedia Flash
MX is a not only a revolutionary release—it's
part of a bigger evolution of Macromedia.
I
can't say much more, as Macromedia Flash
MX is just the beginning, but the coming
months
will bear this out. |
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Oh, one more note for the design-focused out there.
Macromedia Flash MX marks the first appearance of
a new graphical look for Macromedia products. The
pinwheel Flash logo is gone—replaced by a stylized
techno "f" rune.
The rune looks like Klingon script to me—something
you might see glowing on the obsidian black control
panel for phasers or transporters! But when I consider
the power that Macromedia products put into the hands
of the designer or developer, this makes sense to
me. It is like magic.
If you like, tell us what you think MX means or what
you think about the "Flash rune" at wish-desdev@macromedia.com.
Here are some other Macromedia Flash MX links for
you to check out:
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