hello, my name is
nathan pitman.

Easy comments in Flash Aug 31. 048

My good friend Steven Grosvenor has written a new Command Panel for Flash which provides an interface to add comments to Flash files.

The Comment Adder Panel allows you to add comments at the click of a button, including the following types of comments:

Comment Block, To Do, Bug, Kludge, Tricky

It also has the option to include your signature and a date/timestamp. Very handy indeed.

yugop.com v4 Aug 27. 040

After what seems like an age, yugop.com has been updated by Yugo Nakamura.

In addition to the new flash experiments and newsfeed section Yugo has added a beatifully executed archive of previous work, so you can still view all of his previous experiments.

Flash Video Kit Announced Aug 17. 040

The Macromedia Flash Video Kit is a set of extensions and resources to add Flash Video quickly and easily to your website. The Flash Video Kit contains the following items:

1. Flash Video Extension for Dreamweaver MX 2004: An extension for Dreamweaver MX 2004 that enables customers to add Flash Video quickly and easily to their websites.
2. Sorenson Squeeze 3.5 Lite for Flash MX: A special version of Sorenson Squeeze produced by Sorenson Media especially for the Flash Video Kit that converts (encodes) common video file formats into Flash Video format (FLV).
3. Flash Video Learner’s Guide: An introductory guide to using and deploying Flash Video.
4. Flash Video Stream Service Lite Trial powered by VitalStream: Purchasers of the Flash Video Kit are entitled to a free 15-day trial of the Flash Video Streaming Service Lite powered by VitalStream. This service allows them to harness all the power of streaming Flash Video without the need to install and maintain their own Flash Communication Servers.

Ellipsis (Flash 7.2) updater out Jul 27. 040

Macromedia have gone public with the Ellipsis updater for Flash MX 2004. This update to Flash MX 2004 increases developer productivity by making the application lighter and more efficient to use. The updater offers substantial improvements in performance and stability and more comprehensive documentation, including:

• Faster initial launch time
• Compile times up to twice as fast
• More than 400 additional code examples
• Additional documentation on working with components
• Over 100 bug fixes. Read the details in the release notes.

The updater can be downloaded from the Flash Support Center.

Expression (Microsoft’s first product to export to SWF) Jun 08. 040

All via flex-mx.com

“Microsoft Expression”:http://www.microsoft.com/products/expression/ is a free vector-based illustration and graphics tool for the Mac or PC, and according to sources, is Microsoft’s first product that exports to Flash SWF.

This might be a “dead end” product (it was aquired when Microsoft acquired Creature House)… Forest Key (project manager at Microsoft) mentions in the Expression Forum: “For the time being we do not have any announcements regarding future plans for Expression.”

Deadend product or not, it’s been getting lots of attention… Haven’t had the chance to play around with this yet, but I’ve heard it’s on par with “CorelDRAW, Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia Freehand”.

Well, it certainly sounds interesting, I’m downloading a copy right now, so I’ll have a play when I get a chance and post some more on how it stacks up…