My Flash CS4 experience

Posted on:February 12 2009

Just to be up to date, I wanted to try out Adobe Flash CS4 today, to see how the IDE works and looks like in this 'new' version, and if I find it useful, maybe think about buying it. (BTW: Adobe says on its front page Flash costs US$699, but if you buy it from Austria, it's 838€. WTF. That's $1075. But I guess we here in Europe are used to be treated like that...)
So I

Clicked the download link
Had to download and install an ActiveX control - a download application - which of course didn't work in Opera. Strange, suspicious and unnecessary, in my opinion. Anyway, I switched to IE, downloaded and intalled it.
Downloaded the about 1 GB big installer file with the ActiveX control. Woha. 1 GB!
Started the installer: There are about 12 colorful icons representing different applications to select. I have no idea what they do and there is no description. I only want Flash, so I select the flash icon. At least now I know why the download package was that big.
Started Flash. Great user interface. Colorful and transparent. If I hadn't used a previous version of Flash before, I would have no idea where to click what.
Typed a few lines in Actionscript 3, clicked 'Test Movie'. Movie starts, Flash player crashed. Flash IDE crashed as well.

Ok, nice. I think I like Flex better.

Comments:

about the prices in EU compared to US: as a hobby musician I know that, if you check guitar stores in the US and compare the prices to european stores ... not nice. But with guitars and amps they can at least argue that they have to send these big and heavy things to europe, whereas shipping is cheaper when sold in "their" country. But I have the option to get german equipment, way cheaper than the american versions ... in software you don't have that option ... at least when you want Flash.

Brainsaw

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2009-02-13 07:33:00

Hehe!
If you care you can send them a mail saying that, so they would fix what needed..

MasterGod

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2009-02-13 08:14:00

"(BTW: Adobe says on its front page Flash costs US$699, but if you buy it from Austria, it's 838€. WTF. That's $1075. But I guess we here in Europe are used to be treated like that...)"

1$ -> 1,20€

Current economy situation? Current exchange? Who cares, lets make money!

Tazo

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2009-02-13 10:00:00

I know that you are allergic to Steam (and his DRM or internet based activation), but check recent news about their way to convert dollars to euros and you'll get scared. It's sad that in pro of usa economy, dollars are superior to euros when all we know these ideas have changed some time ago.(Some international enterprises now use euros because they know which currency is stronger)

ASpanishGuy

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2009-02-13 10:02:00

1$ -> 1,20€

What? Economy situation? Current exchange prices? Who cares!

-.-

Tazo

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2009-02-13 10:09:00

I give up... sorry, niko, this blog software sucks the big one.

Tazo

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2009-02-13 10:09:00

Tazo what happened?

Virion

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2009-02-13 10:31:00

I'm trying to make a post, but for some reason, the blog software keeps eating it, resulting in an empty post. Some bug concerning special characters, I believe...

Tazo

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2009-02-13 10:35:00

sorry tazo, sometimes this happens with the comments. But they are a bit more visible now. :)

niko

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2009-02-13 10:45:00

Thank you, you can delete one of them however, they are identical.

Tazo

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2009-02-13 10:55:00

There really isn't much for programmers in Flash CS IDE. It's better to stick with Flex Builder or FlashDevelop for pure coders.

Parallax

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2009-02-13 17:02:00