My Take on the MX 2004 Products

Posted on Wednesday, September 10, 2003 in the Flash category.

Well, the MX 2004 line of products is now available to the general public. Check out Macromedia for more info…

Flash MX 2004 Professional—————————————————What do I like? First of all, let me say that I am really impressed with this entire release. I love the direction Flash is taking, and think it is for the best. One of the new features that I can see myself enjoying in the future, is the image tag for textfields! I can now include images in my Text Editor (which will have a new update soon). Another new feature I like, is JSFL… You will learn to love this. Basically, you will be able to create new tools for yourself to use inside the authoring environment. For example, you could create drawing tools that will make stars, polygons, 3d objects (not true 3d, fake 3d), etc… This feature alone will improve workflow ten fold. The final feature I will mention here is a general opinion of many improvements. The extensibility that MM is providing us in this release is great. They are providing us with not only Flash Remoting, but Web Services, we get a shit load of great components, and much more…

What don’t I like? I dont like that I cant minimize the Script Navigator :) I know, very minimal, but my screen real estate is precious. Which brings me to my next point, real estate… Lotsa windows goin on here, but truthfully, I think this is more of my own problem, as I REALLY need a second monitor… And another thing, Flash seems to load a lot slower, but when I think about it, it takes about as long as PS and Illustrator, so nothing too bad. I am sure I will come up with more things that bug me, but overall this is a great release.

Dreamweaver MX 2004—————————————————What do I like? I love the CSS/XHTML support. I cannot tell you how great this feature alone is. I cant count the number of designs I have done, that I cant preview in DW! This feature isnt perfect yet, as MMs own site doesnt look perfect in it, but it is a thousand times better than what we had before. Also, the new image editing features freakin ROCK! I dont know when I will ever need to crop an image in DW, but I know of many uses for the other options. Also, the Flash Elements feature will definately be one I use on a regular basis. Basically, you can include a Flash Component and set the attributes for it inside Dreamweaver. GENIOUS!

What don’t I like? I cant connect to my FTP! For some reason it keeps rejecting my connection. I will try this again tomorrow at work, and update if it is just my connection acting up at home. That is all I could find so far about this release that I dont like, but like I said above, I am sure I will find more…

Fireworks MX 2004—————————————————I havent even tried it yet. Check back later :)
—————————————————So overall the MX 2004 release has REALLY impressed me. I think the features that MM has provided us, has truely taken Adobe out of the Web Development sector, and they show no sign of holding back… The next couple DRKs should be interesting to say the least…