Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Professional

On Wednesday I went to the UCLA Store and bought the latest version of Flash with an academic discount. I figured the extra $50 was worth it for the features that Flash Pro includes. I really need the ability to create forms with flash, and advanced video editing is always nice.

So far, I am very pleased with Flash MX 2004. The install worked perfectly and the program is much faster than Flash MX. I installed Flash Player 7 for Internet Explorer, Mozilla, and Opera on my machine and the player loads in under half the time and runs smoother. This is the case for every browser I’ve tested. The Flash Player is now very responsive. If only Sun would get their Java VM to load this well.

I haven’t had time to use the program extensively yet but I just wanted to let the web designers and creative types out there know that if you’ve been thinking about buying Flash, I recommend getting this version. It is very easy to use, especially with regard to animation. The Macromedia team has introduced a new panel that includes common animations that you can set up very easily — no more tweening on the timeline for a simple fly-in.

To the Macromedia team: Thanks for making such a great product. I’m very happy with the current release and look forward to spending some time over the next week really exploring its new features.

Also, Todd Dominey has recently written some excellent Flash commentary. Definitely check out what he has to say.