Optimization
Image editing panel
Access commonly used image editing tools, filters, and menu commands in a central location.

More import file formats
Fireworks 8 now supports import of QuickTime Image, MacPaint, SGI, and JPEG 2000 file formats (QuickTime plug-in required for QuickTime support).

Batch processing workflow optimized
Streamlined file renaming, the ability to check file dimensions when scaling during a batch process, and the addition of a status bar and log file, are just a few of the workflow optimizations.

Integrated Workflows
CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) pop-up menus
Get clean and easily customizable code that integrates well into sites built in Dreamweaver. Fireworks 8 uses CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) format to create interactive pop-up menus.

Vector compatibility
Preserve vector attributes (fills, strokes, filters and blend modes) when moving objects between Flash and Fireworks.

More slicing options
Automatically insert polygon slices when a selected object is a polygon path.

Recognize ActionScript color values
Ensure color consistency. Fireworks recognizes ActionScript color values when copied from Flash and pasted into Fireworks color value fields.

Use the “Save as” command to save bitmaps into different file types
Choose single-file output formats such as gif, jpg, tiff, in the “Save As” dialog.

Evolved open, save, and export logic
The logic used to determine the default folders in the open, save, save as, save a copy, and export dialogs is enhanced by reducing the amount of navigation required.

Less intrusive grids
Like Flash, grids now use a dotted line and a lighter default grid color.

Create Without Complexity
New blend modes
More than 25 new choices to alter the look of your colors and objects.

Perspective shadow
Add a perspective shadow to open paths and text objects.

Solid shadow
A new live filter that stamps the object it is applied to several times.

Mobile interface components
Mock up mobile interfaces quickly with bitmap interface components.

Sample buttons, animations, themes, and bullets
Get started quickly with cool new assets like buttons, animations, themes, and bullets.

AutoShape properties panel
This new panel is used to modify AutoShape properties such as the star, arrow, or smart polygon AutoShape.

Live marquee and convert selections (marquee to path and path to marquee)
Turn active selections into editable vector paths and the reverse. Get instant feedback on filters and settings applied to selections.

Autoname text
Layers are automatically named by the text you type into them.

Special characters panel
Use this new panel to insert special characters directly into text blocks.

Reshape text on a path
Edit path points when text is attached.

Workflow Improvements
Recent fonts and optimization
Recently used fonts now appear at the top of font menus. Optimization now defaults to the last settings used.

Save multiple selections
Save, restore, name, and delete multiple marquee selections within PNG files.

Select objects that share an edge in the layers panel
Shift-click to select objects that share an edge or boundary in the layers panel.

Autosave preferences
Fireworks 8 preferences are automatically saved more frequently.

Group consecutive nudges
Consecutive nudges are treated as one move.

Improved tablet support
Tablet support is improved for path scrubber tools and stroke pressure sensitivity.

Lock objects
Lock on a per-object basis in the layers panel.

Posted by Dablu as Applications at 8:58 AM PDT

1 Comment »

Flash Basic 8 is a subset of Flash Professional 8 and includes all the core functionality needed to design simple motion graphics and interactivity for delivery to the Flash Player. It is the affordable authoring environment designed for the aspiring professional.

For developing more advanced, rich interactive content, interactive video experiences, or mobile content, Flash Professional 8 is the necessary tool.

With Flash Basic 8 you can:
Add life to content
Enjoy precise control over designs by combining animation capabilities with powerful vector and bitmap tools.

Share creativity with everyone
Reach a worldwide audience consistently by leveraging the Flash Player, the most widely distributed run-time client.

Engage the audience
Build interactive content that pulls the audience in. Encourage reaction using a powerful and advanced scripting language.

Posted by Dablu as Applications at 8:50 AM PDT

4 Comments »

ExpressivenessFilters *
Create more compelling designs with built-in filter effects like drop shadow, blur, glow, bevel, gradient bevel, and color adjust. Filters are visual effects applied to MovieClips and text fields and are natively supported and rendered in real time by Flash Player.

Blend modes *
Going well beyond what other design tools offer, Flash 8 Professional offers run-time control over blend modes, allowing graphical effects to be composited for fully dynamic user interactivity.

FlashType—high-quality font rendering engine
A revolutionary new font rendering engine that provides clear, highest-quality font rendering, FlashType makes small fonts look amazingly clear and greatly improves readability. Choose from several options for font rendering, each optimized for different use cases. Optimize font rendering with the new custom anti-aliasing feature in Flash Professional.

Bitmap caching
Supports unneeded re-rendering of vector objects by simply flagging an object as a bitmap. Even though the object gets cached as a bitmap, the vector data is still maintained so, at any point, the object can be converted back into a vector again.

Custom easing control *
Easily, intuitively, and precisely control the velocity of animated objects through an intuitive graph that provides independent control of position, rotation, scale, color, and filters.

Improved text tool
Resize a text field using new, improved text handles. Text fields can be resized by grabbing any of the four handles.

Enhanced stroke properties
Select from a variety of cap and join types. Apply a gradient to a stroke as well as a fill. Render stroke intersections better with stroke hinting.

Advanced gradient control
Tighter control over gradients such as changing the focal point of a radial gradient and selecting from different overflow modes.

Video
Higher-quality video codec
Flash Player 8 adds a new, far more advanced video codec, On2 VP6. This codec provides superior video quality that is competitive with today’s best video codecs at a much smaller file size.

Alpha channel support *
Support for a real alpha channel at run-time. This revolutionary new capability provides the unique ability to overlay video composited with a transparent (even semi-transparent) alpha channel over other Flash content. Create dynamic presentations such as splashing water, smoke and fire effects, as well as presenters shot in front of a blue screen.

Advanced video encoding options *
The advanced video encoder, available within the Flash authoring tool, as a plug-in to professional video editing tools, as well as a stand-alone tool, provides advanced encoding options that will allow developers to optimize quality and file size of video content.

Stand-alone video encoder *
Advanced encoding options for creating Flash Video files using either the new, high-quality On2 VP6 codec or the Sorenson Spark codec. This encoder also includes a batch-processing capability to encode multiple video files at once.

Video Encoder plug-in for professional video editing tools *
Export video directly to Flash from leading professional video-editing and encoding tools such as Avid Xpress/Media Composer, Apple Final Cut Pro, Discreet Cleaner, and Anystream Agility.

Embedded cue points *
Embed cue points directly into Flash Video (FLV) file so events can be triggered dynamically during playback. Used in conjunction with the new Flash Video component, easily coordinate the playback of accompanying graphics and animations when individual cue points are reached.

Video import workflow
Centralized video workflow in one dialog presents all available options for deploying Flash Video, whether it is via the Flash Communication Server for streaming video, via progressive download of external FLV files over HTTP, or a number of other options. The new video import dialog also jump-starts great video experiences by instantiating the new, light-weight, easily-skinnable video component and pre-populating it with all required parameters for deployment.
(Flash Basic supports embedded video only)

User Experience
Improved, easily-skinnable video component *
Easily customize and change the look and feel without adding a great deal of file size to video projects. This new component also works with multiple deployment options including streaming and progressive download.

Script assist (formerly called normal mode)
Normal mode is back, only it’s much better. Script assist provides a visual user interface for editing scripts that includes automatic syntax completion as well as descriptions for the parameters of any given action.

Advanced library
With multiple files open, the library for each open file will be consolidated into a single panel that acts like all other panels in Flash - it stays where it’s put. Navigate between open libraries more easily using the new drop-down list at the top of the library to access any other open library.

Object drawing model
Visualize shapes as objects by toggling a new object drawing mode to represent shapes as objects, along the lines of vector drawing tools such as way Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia FreeHand.

Improved panel management
Improved panel management optimizes workspace as the user sees fit. Group panels together in tabbed-panel sets, ala Dreamweaver and Fireworks. Reduce on-screen clutter by grouping most commonly-used panels together. Assign custom names to each panel group.

Stage pasteboard expansion
For projects that require large graphics that extend far beyond the size of the stage in Flash, view objects much further off-stage. To expand the size of the pasteboard, just drag an object close to the edge and the pasteboard will automatically grow to fit.

Undo/redo options
Switch between “object-level undo” and “document-level undo.”

SWF Metadata
A new metadata property for the SWF file format improves searchability of SWF files by Internet search engines. Now Flash authors can add a title and description to a SWF file, allowing search engines to more accurately reflect the content represented by the SWF file.

Mobile Authoring
Interactive mobile device emulator *
Build content once and test it on a wide variety of devices using preset profiles for every mobile device that supports Flash Lite. Configure the testing profile to include multiple devices. Filter the supported device list by target content type to easily determine which handsets support screen savers, wallpapers, in-browser content, stand-alone player, and so on. Reduce development time and simplify planning for delivery.

Improved actions panel *
By combining the new script assist feature with the new target language drop down in the actions panel, it is now far simpler to use different versions of the ActionScript language. For understanding the syntax used by Flash Lite 1.1 better, the new Script Assist feature will do most of the work for you. These improvements add up to a far better development experience for mobile content developers new to Flash Lite.

Posted by Dablu as Applications at 8:49 AM PDT

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Best Practices

Visual authoring with XML data
Integrate XML-based data, such as RSS feeds into web pages using a simple drag and drop workflow. Jump to code view to customize the transformation, using improved code hinting for XML and XSLT.

New, unified CSS panel
All the CSS functionality is consolidated into one panel set and enhanced to make working with CSS easier and more productive. The new interface makes it easier to see the cascade of styles applied to a specific element and easily identify where attributes are defined. A property grid allows for quick edits.

CSS layout visualization
Apply visual aides at design time to outline CSS layout borders or color CSS layouts to reveal complex nesting schemes and improve selection. Click on the CSS layout for valuable Tooltips, such as ID and padding and margin and border settings.

Style rendering toolbar
View content the same way end-users will see it, no matter what the delivery mechanism, with new support for CSS media types in Dreamweaver 8. Use the style rendering toolbar to toggle to design view and see how it will look in print, on a handheld, or on a screen.

CSS rendering improvements
Match how complex CSS layouts will render in most browsers, with substantial improvements in design view accuracy. Dreamweaver now fully supports advanced CSS techniques, such as overflow, pseudo-elements, and form elements.

Accessibility: Support for WCAG/W3C priority 2 checkpoints
In addition to the integrated accessibility evaluation tool for Section 508 and WCAG Priority 1 checkpoints, Dreamweaver now supports both CSS and accessibility with an updated evaluation tool that includes WCAG Priority 2 checkpoints.

Improved WebDAV
WebDAV in Dreamweaver 8 now supports digest authentication and SSL for secure file transfer and offers improved connectivity with a wider array of servers.

Get more done
Background file transfer
Stop waiting and keep working while Dreamweaver 8 uploads files to the server. New functionality enables users to work with files in their local machine while Dreamweaver communicates with the server.

Zoom
Get great control over design with zoom. Pan in and inspect an image or work with a complex nested table layout. Zoom out to review how a page will look overall.

Guides
Compare the page layout to comps with pixel perfect accuracy using guides to measure page layouts. Great visual feedback helps measure distances accurately and supports intelligent snapping.

Coding toolbar
The new code toolbar surfaces common coding operations in a gutter bar along the side of the coding surface. No more hunting through menus and panels to find code snippets. New coding features include comment/uncomment.

Code collapse
Focus only on the code in use. Hide and expand blocks of code by selection or by tag to stay organized.

Workspace layouts
Customize and save workspace configurations. Dreamweaver 8 ships with four different configurations that are tailored to the needs of designers and coders. Pick and choose, or easily build a custom workspace.

Tabbed documents for the Mac
New document tabs on Mac help simplify the user interface and make it easier to select documents.

New starter pages
Get started with web design in a snap. Beautiful new layouts and designs allow users to go from installation to full site in no time flat.

Improved site synchronize and check in / check out
Manage sites with increased reliability and confidence. Improved site synchronization features help ensure that the file in use is the latest version. Prevent accidental overwriting of others’ work with improved check-in/ check-out functionality to track who is working on which files.

Compare files
Quickly compare files to identify what has changed, whether it is two local files, a file on the local and remote, or two files on the remote server. Dreamweaver 8 now integrates with diff utilities on both the Mac and Windows platforms.

Paste special
Spend less time wrestling content from email and Microsoft Word into formats. With new pasting options in Dreamweaver, retain all the source formatting created in Microsoft Word, or just take the text and apply the CSS already attached to the page.

Site relative references
Work seamlessly with server-side includes at design time and run time by ensuring that references are relative to sites instead of local files.

Code editing improvements
Gain greater control over how the tool hints and completes tags to fit with your coding style.

Latest technologies and standards
Support for ColdFusion MX 7
Updated support for ColdFusion MX 7 includes new server behaviors and code hinting. To match the code hinting and debugging with the correct version of ColdFusion, Dreamweaver automatically detects the server version the first time the tool connects to the site. The tight integration between Dreamweaver and ColdFusion allows users to add and remove databases directly from the database and components panel in Dreamweaver to show only CFCs defined in the current site—making navigating CFCs a snap.

Support for PHP 5
Take advantage of updated support for PHP 5, including server behaviors and code hinting.

Flash Video
Adding Flash Video to sites is drop dead simple. Add and customize the presentation of video on sites using an easy, five-click, dialog driven process.

Macromedia Web Publishing System: notification and event logging
Keep track of everything that is going on within your site. Events in Dreamweaver will notify the Macromedia Web Publishing System server so that all changes to a website in the WPS ecosystem are recorded.

Updated reference material from O’Reilly
New reference content for XML, XSLT, and XPath and updated content for ASP and JSP complements the already robust reference set in Dreamweaver. Work with the languages required for sites and applications.

Posted by Dablu as Applications at 8:36 AM PDT

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