macromedia

Macromedia announces Studio 8 (Flash 8, Dreamweaver 8, and Fireworks 8)

Macromedia today announced Macromedia Studio 8, an updated suite of software for web designers, developers, video professionals, and graphic artists to design, develop, and maintain interactive online experiences. Combining the latest releases of award-winning Macromedia Dreamweaver, Macromedia Flash Professional, and Macromedia Fireworks, and key productivity tools Macromedia Contribute and Macromedia FlashPaper, Studio 8 offers a new level of expressiveness, efficiency, and simplified workflow to create websites, interactive media, and mobile content. For more information about Studio 8, read on or visit Macromedia’s web site.

Macromedia Studio 8 is expected to ship in September. Localized versions in German, French, Japanese, Spanish, Italian, Korean, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese will be available shortly thereafter. Pricing is USD$999 for a full license and USD$399 for an upgrade. Education, government, and volume pricing is available.
Dreamweaver 8 is Macromedia’s latest release their tool for designing and developing websites and applications. New Dreamweaver 8 features include expanded Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) layout visualization for easier design, drag-and-drop integration of XML data feeds, improved code hinting support for XML and XSLT, enhanced usability features such as zoom and code collapse to streamline the development process, and easier ways to incorporate Flash Video content onto websites.

Flash Professional 8 marks a significant release for Flash, the industry’s most advanced authoring environment for creating interactive websites, digital experiences, and mobile content. Improved graphics performance, new graphic effects capabilities, new animation controls, script editor usability, Flash Video features, and workflow integration with leading video editing and encoding tools allow the creation of rich, immersive content for the web that was not possible before. Flash Professional 8 is the professional authoring environment for the Internet’s most widely distributed rich client runtime, Flash Player.

Fireworks 8 offers many new and improved features. Graphic designers and web application developers can now create interactive CSS-style pop-up menus, experiment with more than 25 new blend modes, import new file formats, and experience improved roundtrip editing with Dreamweaver 8 and Flash Professional 8.
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Macromedia announced new video kit

Macromedia today announced a new video kit for Dreamweaver MX 2004 wtih Flash Professional that allows Dreamweaver users to publish Flash video files with very little work. Flash video is a way to publish video that all users with the Flash player (basically everyone) can play. The software comes in the form of a extension for Dreamweaver.

Starting September 1st, previous owners of MX Studio with Flash Professional can purchase the Flash video kit for $49.99–new owners that register by September 30th can download the software for free.

Read on for some details on Flash video given to us in an exclusive chat with Macromedia.
The idea for the Dreamweaver extension came out of a survey of web professsionals–an astonishing 70% of Dreamweaver uses wanted to embed Flash video files.

Included in the kit are several player “skins” that control the look of the video player. The neat part about these skins is that they are saved as Flash files that can be edited, letting you customize the look of the player to your site.

You can deploy your video three ways:

  • Progressive download – no explanation needed
  • Streaming – needs Flash Communication Server
  • Flash Video Streaming Service Lite powered by VitalStream – An Akamai like service that hosts your video around the world. A 15-day trial is included, after that you must pay for this method.

A copy of Sorrensen Squeeze Lite is included so your video (in most formats) can be converted to Flash Video without the need of a video editor. If you use an editor, like Final Cut Pro, a plugin is included that lets you export directly to Flash video.

Samples of what can be done with Flash video are shown here.

When the video kit launches, a developer area will include many tutorials and examples, including the source of the above Flash video gallery site.
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Macromedia updates Flash MX 2004

Macromedia‘s free update for Flash MX 2004 and Flash MX Professional 2004 improves stability and provides more comprehensive documentation. The update increases developer productivity by reducing initial launch and compile times and making the application lighter and more efficient to use.

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