Flash :: Is It Worth Getting A CIW?

Is It Worth It?
Hey people...

I'm currently using Flash 5 but I'm considering upgrading to MX... I have a few questions if you wouldn't mind answering?

The first is about the minimal requirements... I have currently a Pentium II 500 MHz with 128 MB of SDRAM. Windows 98 is my operating system, would Flash MX work on this?

The second is, is it worth upgrading? I'd like to hear some opinions on the program (in comparison to Flash 5). What's the difference? What's new? Is it easier to use? More effects? New tweens? I'd appreciate any feedback! Thanks everyone.

Best regards,

KD.

AS 3.0 Worth It?
I use AS 2.0 and I'm happy with it, but AS 3.0 is the next version, but is it really worth the hassle of learning the new language? What does 3.0 have that 2.0 doesn't? You can't put code on movie clips? Whats going on here?

Worth It?
i just recently got a new computer and have not had any problems until i tried to install adobe flash. after going through all the suggested fixes, including the microsoft registry download, and reading all the problems everyone else is having, i'm wondering if it's worth it! you would think if there is that many problems with this pgm, they would go out of their way to provide proper fixes! i'm just a novice (48 yrs old) but this is way too frustrating for me!

Is Flash 5 Worth It?
Hi,
I'm still using flash 4 mainly because of the statistics macromedia recently put out that over 90% of users have the flash 4 player while only 75% have the flash 5 player. What has been any of your experiences regarding this? Do you think that flash 5 is worth the money?

Flash MX Really Worth It?
Is Flash MX really worth it when it comes to ActionScript? I find it annoying :... I learn Flash 5.0 ActionScript then a new flash comes out... how diffrent is MX ActionScript from 5.0 and if I am familur with 5.0 Script, will it be easy for me to learn MX....

Is Dreamweaver Mx Worth It?
i heard you guys don't think that you should upgrade to mx 2004 because it isn't worth it, and i know this is a flash site, but do any of you think that dreamweaver mx 2004 is worth it?

Worth Upgrading?
Hi All,

I use Flash MX (version 6.0) and I was wondering if it was worth upgrading to Flash MX 2004 (or 2004 pro)?

Was there that much change since the first MX? I like the UI (finally) but wondering if I am missing some big functionality.

Also I see flash player 7 plugin is out but where can I find stats on % of people that actually have it?

Thanks!

Worth Preloading?
Hey guys,
Is it worth preloading a file that's 22K even if I want to target computers working on a 56k modem?
Thanks for the input

Still Worth Learning.....
Im just getting into scripting, I see that AS 3 is coming out, is it worth it to learn AS 2? Are they very different from eachother?

Is It Worth It To Upgrade To AS3?
Hi Everyone,

I hope this is an appropriate question for this forum.

I've been working as a freelance Flash developer for the past 4 years, and have done well for myself building sites and applications in AS2. Most of the projects I've worked on have seen me as the sole developer, so necessity has never encouraged me to make the jump to AS3.

I'm going to be getting out of freelancing and seeking full-time employment in the next few months. I've already ordered Colin Moock's Essential Actionscript 3.0, but my question is this:

How prevalent is AS3 in the professional development community as a whole? Is everything new that is being built in AS3? Would I be better served to ditch AS2 all together and focus exclusively on AS3?

I know that there are huge performance, organizational and OOP enhancements in AS3, which I'm sure are a lot more important when working on a development team then when developing alone. Because of that, I'm assuming it's already become the standard at most Flash development companies, but I guess I was hoping to get some feedback from people who are currently working for companies in the field so that I can gauge how important my proficiency in AS3 be before I begin interviewing.

Thanks for any feedback!

Luke

Is Flash 8 Worth It?
Ahoy,

Just curious. Is upgrading to Flash 8 really worth it?

I'm tempted to shell out the $399 for the upgrade offer, but part of me just wants to wait for Flash 9 to come out, since I heard that they might upgrade to AS 3.0.

Thanks,

cpa

Is Still Worth To Learn AS2?
Hi to everyone!

I'm a video editor that is trying to switch careers, and a complete newbie in Web disciplines...

Currently I'm getting trained in Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Flash CS3, my focus will be in application development and interface design. I'm already proficient in Photoshop, Illustrator and After Effects.

Also I'm certified in Oracle 10g and recently I also finished a PHP course.

In the Training Center I currently attend, they are offering an Action Script Diploma based totally in AS2. I was very interested in taking it, but my Flash CS3 Instructor tells me it's not worth it, that I should wait for or seek training based on AS3, because AS3 and AS2 are completely different animals that are not compatible and the future is AS3.

Many friends that are Web Designers and Application Developers tell me that it's not true that AS2 is out, and that it's fundamental to master Flash CS3 and AS3.

I've been reading around and researching, but I can't reach a conclusion... Could anyone offer some advice?

Thanks,

Jj

Are Templates Worth The $$
i purchased some flash templates from "230+ Pro Flash Templates downloads" the template are cool, but how in the world fo you edit these things, I hv Macromedia flash 6 but these templates are very complicated to edit. Any questions or suggestrions?

Worth It To Buy A AS3 Book
I am a designer, not a programmer, but I can get my way around actionscript if I need to. I would like to know more about actionscript for my own personal knowledge. What book do you think is the best. I have looked on some different forums and it seems that learning Actionscript 3.0 by Rich Shupe is what most people recommend. What does everyone think.

Flash Mx Pro Worth It?
hey all ^^

im using flash mx pro 2k4. i am relatively new to flash. created my first site the other week and i know little AS.

do u think i should stick to flash mx... and leave mx pro 2k4 until i am more comfortable with flash?

Is It Worth The Switch?
guys,

I have downloaded the trial version of Flash MX 2004. It utilizes the new Flash Player 7. How many users do you think will have this player running?

My graphics guy says he wont switch to the mx 2004. What do you think? Im in the brink here coz i think there is better coding manipulation in mx 2004 and im the script guy! and the interface looks better than mx.

biggie

The Man of Tomorrow is forged by his battles today.

What Is This Site Worth? $$$
Hi,
this site is almost done. I havn't done many before..
It's for an Australian footwear company.
What do you think it is worth out of interest?
Aussie dollars would be helpful.
Thanks.

http://www.pgd.com.au/human/

Is Flash MX Worth The Upgrade?
I am currently using Flash 5, and I'm wondering if Flash MX is really worth the cost of upgrading. Can anybody give me an honest opinion here?

Flash Mx...is It Worth Buying?
basically i want to buy flash mx, but i really wanna know what the differences are, the main advantages of it are, over flash 5???

if anyone out there uses it, and has used flash 5 before, please let me kow which you prefer, as i want to know what mx is like before i go out and buy the damn thing...

cheers...

Some Basic 3D Question Not Worth To Be..
Some basic 3D question not worth or big enough to be posted in 3D forums...
I am new to 3D field. I saw this wepage
http://alkos.3dvf.net/pages/francais/galerie.html
Each image here looks 3dimensional. Is there a software which will take a flat 2D image and convert it to 3D or the 3D softwares like Swift 3D and 3D StudioMax does this type of work. It may sound stupid to ask like this but these images are so natural that I feel they cannot be drawn and done something to appear like 3dimensional. I may be wrong. Would like to know how it is done. What I know about 3D is to draw a perspective drawing and with the help of the 3D softwares give them some actions and import into flash and design a webpage.
Can somebody show me a link to toys kind of icons which I can try to animate using flash.
Thanks in advance for the reply I am going to get.

Flash MX 2004 Worth It ?
I currently own Flash MX is it worth upgrading to MX 2004 ? and even 2004 Professional ? what are the benefits ? thanks !

Is It Worth Getting The Actionscript Bible?
i'm just wondering if its worth getting it to learn actionscript, because i might get the flash mx 2004 actionscript bible when it comes out later this month

Flash Certification (ACE) Worth It?
Hi, I am brand new to this forum and am considering going into Flash development. I have been a helpdesk analyst for the past 2 years and have always been interested in development/programming.

I was wondering whether or not anyone feels it is worth to get the adobe flash developer certification and or flash designer certifications (ACE) to help get my foot through the door in this field. I have middle knowledge of Flash; however I want my career to go in this direction and pursue it. I have no previous design/development experience since I have been doing helpdesk...any help or advise would be greatly appreciated...

Thanks!

[F5] Is Flash 5.0 Worth My Time?
A number of years ago I had a desire to learn Flash and obtained Flash 5.0 along with some books, but never really did anything with them. As of now, would it be worth the time to use what I have to get started learning Flash development, or has the application changed too much, and everything I'd learn would be useless/wrong? Thanks for the help.

Is AS3 Actaully Worth The Effort?
Hi guys

Hope I don't get everyone angry by posting this, but is ActionScript 3.0 really worth the effort? I recently embarked on a project to make a new game using AS3 but to be honest I fell at the first hurdle trying to do tasks that were very simple in AS2.

What are the actual advantages of using AS3, other than the greater power and efficiency? It just seems to me coming up from AS2 that its much more difficult for a developer to do things in AS3 (e.g. access variables in movie clips) than it was in AS2. I know that particular example has been covered before, but all this stuff about declaring this and that I really can't be bothered with. I want to access a variable, and i want to do it now.

Or have I missed the point?

regards,
j

[CS3] Is It Worth Paying For Learnflash.com
I was thinking of buying the complete flash cs3 tutorial cd, but I already know quite a lot about flash and I have already designed a couple of full flash websites, but I what I know was learnt from many different websites and I was hoping to find a complete comprehensive tutorial in flash, is www.learnflash.com a good one? Does any one know better ones for free, or ones that I have to pay for? I am only 15 so please don't get too technical.

Kind Regards,

Gabriel S.

Is Mx 2004 Worth Upgrading 2?
if u r a MX user, should u b in a rush 2 upgrade 2 MX 04 Pro ?

Flash 8: More Trouble Than It's Worth
I'm an animator, so I do not use flash for it's more complicated tasks such as action scripting. However, I have had so many issues with just drawing, and animation, that I'm about to go back to flash mx. I cannot remember all of them but here is a small list off of the top of my head:

- Images exported now come out the size of your finger nail, instead of actual pixle size
- ctrl + z is now done in such a way that after a few hours of drawing and pressing ctrl + z, a computers resources are almost completely leeched, and flash will crash if you attempt to do it any more. I've gotten to the point where I was waiting about 5 seconds for a ctrl + z to work, and I've got 4 gb of ram.
- When using a wacom tablet, you can flip it for the eraser. Well don't even bother, because the eraser stays the same size as the pen you were just using, so it's about the size of a pin head, and completely useless.
- When pasting in many frames (going from frame to frame pasting things), certain pen strokes become untouchable. You cannot erase them, or changes them. To fix this you have to click the pen mark, then the backround then switch to the tool you want again. This has to be done for every frame and can become very annoying as any animator will know.
- Flash 8 claims to be able to export files so that flash mx can use them. Nope. The files are corrupted when opened with flash mx.
- When drawing with the pen tool, you occasionally get an exploded line. It just shoots off in some direction. This happens mostly when holding shift and using the pen.
- simple action scripts such as button command "onDrag" are next to impossible to find without the index tool, and even then I get errors in action script. I'm not an expert programmer and flash mx was easy enough for me.
- My biggest complaint is the color mixer. It has been reduced to about 1/4 the size and I have to smash my face up against the screen to fine pick a color. All to make room for the now over-sized box that shows you the color you have picked. An alternative to this is to click on the paint bucket and then the color wheel, which isn't too hard... but as I explained, after doing it a thousand times, I'm sick of it.
- A tiny, yet incredibly annoying, glitch for flash 8 is also in the color mixer. It involves trying to pick a color and having it immidiately snap back to black, or white, or whatever color you had previously. The color is indeed chosen anew, but if you want to choose a color and then lower opacity, I'm afraid flash 8 just doesn't allow it.

There a few more things I have forgotten, but I'm sure I've said enough.
~Thanks for reading.

Will FME Worth With Other Streaming Servers?
Hello.

Currently we are providing a live audio stream to our web visitors using FMS and an embedded flash player and we want to also provide a stream in Icecast/Shoutcast/iTunes/WinAmp format.

We'd prefer to do this using the same servers which are currently doing our encoding and serving. The question is... Do I need an additional encoder solution? Will FME encode to anything but the Flash Media Server? Or is FME tied to FMS? Any thoughts? Thank you!

Shared Library -- Worth It?
Are shared libraries worth the trouble? I understand that they could reduce the file size of the destination movie, but don't the assets still need to be downloaded? Assets themselves aren't cached are they? So regardless of the file size of the movie, the total download size of the movie, including assets, is the same. Right?

Worth Me Buying A Book?
I am VERY interested in learning actionscript and amazed as to how some of you can understand the code !

I know this :

on (release) {
getURL("http://www.lewwy.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk", "_blank")
}

Thats all I know ! But hey ! Its a start..

I am planning on taking "Applied IT" at college next year. And they cover flash. I believe if I get a head start now. I will breeze through the course next year..

Im looking to get a book.. To help me along the way.. Case functions are confusing me for a start; and they are supposed to be basic .

Any recommendations on a good book for a Flasher of my *shall we say* calibur?

And do they sell this sort of book in WHSmiths? Or will I have to buy from the net?

Thank you !

Flash Mx? Worth 500 Smackers?
i'll be honest. I got into flash young, at like 15. when i was 17, flash 5 came out. couldnt buy it, obviously i cracked it.

I love flash and i love macromedia products... but not everyone is well off enough for these sorts of things. well now im going on 19 and i have a debit card and money saved up. Im exeptional with flash. enough to probobly make webpages for a side job, and i would love to get better with it.

Well the point is, is flash MX worth 500 buck alone? should i grab Studio MX? Whats the program that does the 3d in flash? is that included in studio mx?

I dont want to stick with my cracked version of flash 5. i would like to buy their product, i just want to know if its worth it.

Me and a few buddies are planning a flash cartoon type series.

lemme know k? thanks

Is XMLConnector Worth The Trouble?
I am relatively new to Flash and have done little more than build a few simple animations. I am currently trying to create an application to parse, view, and write xml files which are several levels deep, and contain nested arrays. I was hopeful that Flash's XML and Dataset components would make my job easier. However, I have found them very difficult to work with, and I have found no documentation or tutorials whatsoever that present more than the most simplistic applications of these components. I have just discovered this site with its wealth of xml-related tutorials, which do not appear to use the XML components. Does it make more sense to simply handle XML files in code? Do the components buy me anything at all if I'm trying to read, display, and write complex XML files?

I would appreciate and value comments from some experienced Flash users.

-jheske

Is XMLConnector Worth The Trouble?
I posted this on the Flash 8 forum and got no response, so I'll cross my fingers and try this one. I can't believe I'm the only newbie who is wondering this.

I am relatively new to Flash and have done little more than build a few simple animations. I am currently trying to create an application to parse, view, and write xml files which are several levels deep, and contain nested arrays. I was hopeful that Flash's XML and Dataset components would make my job easier. However, I have found them very difficult to work with, and I have found no documentation or tutorials whatsoever that present more than the most simplistic applications of these components.

I have just discovered this site with its wealth of xml-related tutorials, which do not appear to use the XML components. Does it make more sense to simply handle XML files in code? Do the components buy me anything at all if I'm trying to read, display, and write complex XML files?

I would appreciate and value comments from some experienced Flash users.

-jheske

HitTest Worth Using For First Pass?
Hey there,

At the moment I'm working on some generic utility code that I'm going to need for some of the games I'm planning, and a major piece of that is dealing with collision detection. Although I'm new to Flash, I'm quite aware that hitTest really sucks for most purposes, so I will definitely be writing my own fine-grained collision code. But here's my question - the actual collision code will be pretty heavy, so I've been using the bounding box overlap test ( object1.hitTest(object2) ) as a first pass in my routines, just to quickly eliminate clips that can't possibly be touching. Now I'm starting to wonder about the efficiency of the method...is it well optimized, or would it be worth the effort to roll my own crude test?

In C++ or Java I would usually handle this by doing a bounding box sort and creating an array that holds a list of all potential collisions, thus avoiding the O(N^2) pairwise comparison method except as a theoretical worst case. Is this already done in Flash when you hitTest? I suspect with enough objects the performance hit of the boolean comparisons (the if (mc1.hitTest(mc2)) clauses) might be bad enough alone to warrant writing my own handler, but has anyone ever had experience with this stuff in Flash? Ideally I'd love to be able to get 100 or more things in a simulation without breaking the frame rate too badly (which you usually can do in other languages), to give some sense of scale.

I'd appreciate any advice anyone can offer...

Tamarin Is Worth Taking A Look At
Hey guys. When I heard about Sothink's AS3 decompiler, and how it costs eighty bucks, someone piped up, "You know, you can make a decompiler with the stuff in Tamarin." Which piqued my interest.

Tamarin, if you're not aware, is Adobe's ginormous contribution to the Mozilla Foundation, and is said to be the largest contributed block of open-source goodness apart from Netscape itself. It's essentially some tools and classes that make up a stripped-down Flash player, which future browsers will probably use to run JavaScript 2 code (which will be based on ES4).

Now, it's not entirely true that you can make an AS3 decompiler from Tamarin. But there's a slew of awesomeness in it, which includes:
An ActionScript 3 virtual machine (AVMplus)
An AS3 compiler, practically written in AS3
A .abc/.SWF "dump" program, which essentially exposes compiled Flash contents' inner instructions
the .as files for Object, Array, String, ByteArray, RegExp, and others (well worth a read)

And on the subject of the AS3 compiler written in AS3, there's this guy who's experimenting with Flash programs that can compile and run .as code. This has similarities (in good ways and bad) to JavaScript's eval() function, and may make it possible in the future for Flash programs to extend and reprogram themselves.

It's also possible to make a web-able Flash CS3 (or a rival product) in Flash CS3, which puts into perspective Adobe's plans to bring its software to the web.

Have any of you guys checked this stuff out? What do you think?

SWF Encryption Software...is It Worth It?
Hi everyone!!

I work as a secondary school languages teacher and a guy working in admin. in a school I used to work asked me if I could design an on-line calendar/diary application for the school...

The app. is almost finished (Flash/PHP/MySQL) now and I am really quite pleased with the results. I am not a professional developer... I just do it as a hobby and to do the school a favour (I am not charging them any money)

To cut short a long story, 2 guys from admin at the school have approached me and asked me if I was interested in selling the app. to other schools 'cause they think there's an opportunity there, blah, blah,...many other schools could be interested, blah, blah, etc...
--if there's any person from the UK reading this....they reminded the program "Dragon's Den"...

They asked me if I could let a guy working in IT have a look at the files (fla's, php, the whole lot!) so he could also "maintain" the website (that was a bit...strange)

I don't know whether I am being a bit paranoid but...I never intended to make any money out of my application and I had never thought that it was worth something but, if it actually is, I don't want these people profiting from the sweat of my arse...

The site will be live soon so, obviously thay can have a look at the php files (those admin guys have access to the site's cPanel) but...

is it worth using a swf encryption tool like amayeta swf encrypt 5.0??

should I also include copyright notices or something like that both in the site layout and within the code?

It's quite sad that something that I have done with the best of intentions ends up this way...

Any advice on this will be very much appreciated!!

Worth Getting Flash Professional?
I think I decided to get Studio MX but is it worth getting the Studio MX Flash Professional for the long run?

This will be my first time with a Macromedia product.

ActionScript Foundation Book Worth Getting?
I am planning on getting the book Action script foundation. Is it a good book for action script beginers? If not what are some good books that are easy to learn action script off of?

-Thanks!

Converting Bitmaps To Vector - Is It Worth It?
Hi,

I have some very nice jpeg images of a castle, tree, and moon that I would like to use in an animation as a backdrop. I know that bitmap files can take up a lot of room and was wondering:

1. Is it worth my while to convert these images to vector?
2. Would it be more advantageous if I imported a bitmap and used it as a fill to *draw* the image on the stage?

Thanks in advance for any answers!

DATAGRID Component, Does It Worth 99 $ On MM Site?
I've nerver seen any component for sale before.I saw this on MM site and it looks interesting. Anyone who buy this please give me review. Thanks.
Or if u could send me url to download.:P

Simple Question, Probly Not Worth Asking
How do you change the size of the light grey area- see attached image

Flash MX 2004 - Is It Worth Upgrading
I would also take the opportunity to upgrade the whole Studio MX to 2004.

Basically I'm out to get the communities views on whether it's worth paying all that money - I am a one man business, I could have better things to spend the osh on (Beer for instance)

Flash Presentations: Your '2 Cents Worth' Is Welcome
Hi All

I have a general question regarding building projector/exe's for a Flash presentation to be distribuetd on CD/DVD.

I am about to embark on a big job building this presentation that will contain text, video images etc. I am present finalising the information architecture and design. I am aware of the need to build a robust 'shell' to house this presentation. I am about to embark on this task as we speak and was wondering if any of you Guru's had some advice on the problems or pitfalls that I might encounter. I have some experience with coding but I am more of a designer. I think becasue of the size and amount of content, I would like to use XML for copy and images instead of hadr coding it in. Is this wise? I have seen a couple of software products that are used to build presentations. Are any of these worth while?

Any advice and/or links would be great.

Thanks in advance.

Worth Learning/reading OOP In AS2.0 Book?
I have a book, slightly dated called Object Oriented Actionscript for Flash 8. It's a friends of Ed book. I was wondering if it was worth at all going through the whole book, or would it be better off finding one for AS3.0? And if so, what books/resources do you recommend. I'm keen on finding something that goes through OOP and actionscript step by step as I've been doing certain parts of actionscript and feel I need to know a basic of it all (arrays especially, I always avoid using them as I don't know 100% how to use them properly).

Basically I don't really know the great difference between AS2.0 and 3.0. I've been using basic AS2.0 for quite a while now. Is the difference between the two that great that I should put this book totally to one side, or would the book have some benefit to me?

I'm keen on getting stuck into learning OOP in actionscript.

Thanks in advance!