Macromedia Flash 5 has come as a boon to designers and animators. I have used Flash 4. It did provided a great help. When Flash 5 was introduced, I downloaded the trial version immediately to check it out. At first, when I started the program, I found that too much stuff has crowded the work area. It took time for me to get adjusted to the layout of this program. Then I started finding it comfortable and felt the awesome power of this software.
Macromedia Flash 5 is a great designing as well as animating tool. I have designed complete websites using just Flash 5. Also animation has become easier.
The ActionScripts are updated and more functions are included. But I may suggest some features that I would like to see in newer versions of Flash. These are my recommendations:
1) 3-D Tools : How great it would be when we will be creating 3-D objects using Flash. I saw a software called Swift 3D that allows us to make 3-D flash movies. But it has limited tools. I think Macromedia can do better and include a good 3-D tool, just like they did for Director.
2) Readymade effects: I think Flash should include some readymade effects which we can directly apply to text and objects. Doing even a fade-out and fade-in effects take take up lots of time. Swish can do this, but I want it in Flash as well.
3) Library of readymade scripts : Those who have used Director will see that there is a library of readymade scripts and actions, which we have to just drag-n-drop to an object. For example, if we wanted an analog clock in Director, the only think we have to do is create a text field and then drag-n-drop the Analog Clock action from the Library to the text field. The Text field automatically becomes a clock when we run the movie. In Flash, if we could have library of such basic actions, our time would be further saved. For example, when we want to have a button, we first create an object, convert it to symbol, then to a button, then give it an actionscript. Wouldn’t it be nice that we create a box, select ’’Convert to button’’ option from a library and drag and drop it on the object, and then it automatically gets converted in to a button and then a dialog box is displayed asking for further actions, while actionscripts are created in the background. Wouldn’t it save our time? It surely will.
Well, I don’t know in this IT slump era, softwares like Flash will manage to keep up their importance. Designers are getting jobless. Flash may lose its market. It may diversify to animation industry, but Internet may not be its hub anymore.