Macromedia has announced the 2004 versions of Flash MX, Dreamweaver MX and their, "everything but the kitchen sink" box set, Studio MX 2004.
The latest version of Flash MX will actually be two versions: Flash MX 2004 and Flash MX Professional 2004. In a fairly interesting but perhaps inevitable move, Macromedia is using the new Professional version to take the first preliminary steps away from timeline-based interface.
For a long time now, Flash has been trying to bridge a gap between two worlds: the world of timeline-based web animation from which it was born, and the world of code-based Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) where it very much wants to spend its adult years. As a way of trying to create a happy medium, the Flash MX Pro will offer the developers the ability to create apps totally without having to look at a timeline.
In the various news releases about these new tools, Macromedia likens this new interface to something that will be quite familiar to developers coming from the world of Microsoft's Visual Basic environment.
"The timeline metaphor has never been easy to work with," John Dalton, an analyst at Forrester Research, said. "It's kind of intuitive if you're used to working with animation and video, but even for them, the tool set is pretty difficult. If you're a traditional developer, especially someone familiar with Visual Basic, it's pretty much impenetrable. If they want to grow (the use of Flash), they have to chip away at these traditional developers who have always regarded Flash as a suspicious platform."
Also, let's not forget Dreamweaver, which is also getting a 2004 facelift to include such features as increased support for CSS, cross-browser validation and more. Here's a nice Breeze presentation from Jennifer Taylor.
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