Good, if this is what you really need
Written: Jun 01 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: stable; does job it's designed for
Cons: limited tutorials/help files; doesn't like eps and ai files
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| box543's Full Review: Macromedia Flash 4 |
I've been using Flash 4 for almost 7 months now. It's a pretty good program. I don't have much to compare it to though because I never used Flash 3. There is definitely a learning curve although the curve is not as steep as Director's.
My main complaint is that the help files and tutorials that are included aren't very in depth. Sure, they give you an overview of the basic functionality of Flash, but I got Flash 4 because my old boss wanted interactivity. There's aren't any tutorials included (at least in the Windows version) that help with things like dragging symbols and other complex actions.
There are extra Flash files included that exhibit some of the more advanced methods, but in order to learn how to do them, you have to deconstruct them first. There are no walk-throughs on them - at least none that I found.
The product itself is good though. I've made some gigantic files when I was just goofing around and it would open several at a time.
One thing that I find annoying - although the help files say the Windows version supports importing .eps and .ai files, I can't get it to recognize them. It reads .wmf files though... of course that doesn't help much when I'm working in Illustrator...
I'd like to see the different scenes listed as tabs along the top to make it easier to switch between them, but that's just getting nitpicky.
I would give reliability a "B" because, while it's never crashed, it doesn't seem to like reading flash files with LARGE sounds off of the network drive. This isn't really a big problem for me, since I'm a sound minimalist, but it annoyed my last assistant. (Of course, he didn't think a 6MB wav file is *that* big either.)
I like the option to save files as self-contained applications. I think this was a very smart move ont he part of Macromedia.
Personally, I find very few occasions to legitimately use flash. For the most part, standard HTML works just fine for my clients needs. However, I do see the necessity of Flash in certain cases. For the job it's designed for, it is a very good program and it gets the job done.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
box543
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Location: Frisco, TX
Reviews written: 70
Trusted by: 32 members
About Me:
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