I've been using Flash for years (since version 2.0) and was thrilled by the latest release of Macromedia's mass-market web animation tool. They seemed to have gotten with the program and added some of the most-requested features into Flash 5 that people have been looking for. The upgrades, however, came at a serious price... usability. There's a fine line between a good product and a poor one, and they're balancing on the edge with this one.

I do not consider myself a graphic designer. Although I'm extremely comfortable in Photoshop, Freehand, 3DSMax and other drawing/graphics tools, my skills really lie in programming. To date, 75% of my Flash work has consisted of small, lightweight games and interactive presentations (usually involving some highly complex Flash programming). With Flash 5, Macromedia makes the switch from the pseudo-programming environment in Flash 4 to a full-featured, Javascript (ECMAScript) based language/object model. For the programmer, Flash 5 is a dream... you'll be able to easily apply your skills in other web-based scripting languages to Flash and be able to produce some impressive results. Games I'd written in JavaScript/DHTML ported relatively easily to Flash 5 (complete with functions). Given the vast differences in the DHTML implementations between IE/Netscape and their assorted 4.0+ version, you can be assured that developing similar content/applications in Flash 5 will work with minimal problems between platforms.

I have a love/hate relationship with the new interface. If it wasn't for the fact that I was familiar with using Macromedia's web-image program Fireworks, it probably would have taken much longer to get up to speed with the new Flash UI. Some things, like an improved code/scripting window, are a welcome change from older versions. Others seem to make previously simple tasks daunting - changing the colors on a gradient fill seems to involve entirely too many steps now. Even on a 19" monitor at 1600x1200 resolution, I find that all of the inspectors/panels for the new UI take up way too much screen space.

The inclusion of XML support is a nice feature. Although the documentation and samples are somewhat sparse for the XML objects within Flash 5, after some experimentation I got it working enough to see some real world results. It's a much more efficient way to transfer data between the Flash movie and the server (previously your only option was to "LoadVariables" and you encountered frequent caching issues). Given Macromedia's recent purchase of Allaire (the ColdFusion application server people), look for the entire Flash/Server communication area to get very robust in the next version or two.

The previously spartan documentation has been replaced by 3 well written manuals, covering the basics, the new language and the Generator 2 integration within Flash 5. If you opt to purchase the software as a download (ESD), the extra $10-$20 for hardcopy documentation is well worth the investment.

Some friends of mine have encountered problems running Flash 5 on the Mac platform - I believe it's an issue with Flash conflicting with the Adobe Type Manager software. Although I can't verify this, if you use a Mac be aware that you may encounter a similar problem.

Like any incredible new product that requires a player/plug in on the Web, there's going to be a slow deployment of new players among the masses. I'd personally estimate that Flash 5 only has about 50% penetration among the installed Flash player base; hopefully it will be widespread enough by the summer to begin rolling out out larger, higher-profile projects. On several occasions, I've had to still develop apps within Flash 4 to ensure support among the largest percentage of users.

No native 3D support is again depressing. I've got every available 3D product capable of exporting to Flash compatible output, but still wish I could do it all in one place. Maybe next time...

The verdict? Graphics people may find the upgrade worthless. Some of the drawing/inspector tools are improved, but when approaching it as a straight graphics/animation program it may not be worth the time and money to upgrade yet. For those more involved with the programming end of things, or the web programmer looking to expand their Flash skills, now's the time to do it. For the first-time user (graphics guru or code guru), Flash 5's documentation is a great way to get up to speed with it's improved documentation and feature-set.


Recommended: Yes