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    An Open Letter to Adobe

    captain_code-KOo9rr Community Member
      I am a long time Flash User, in fact I started using flash and writing ActionScript when I was 16. So needless to say I have quite a few years under my belt with it. With each upgrade to the Flash IDE, I have generally been impressed, there have always been a few strange things, but I have to say that for the first time ever, I am ashamed to see the horrible product that is CS4. But what I am even more disgusted by, is Adobe's refusal to admit that there may be something wrong. They only continue to tout the new features, which have no doubt are impressive, but the little things that we use most have been destroyed. I have commented on it in various places, and each time Adobe has removed my comments (generally without notice, until on one of them I called them out on it, so they sent me an email, telling me that I should contact Customer Support for issues regarding [insert completely unrelated, and long list]. I have found tons and tons of places online, where customers are complaining about some of the horrible changes that Adobe has made to CS4. And yet, we still have not been able to get a constructive answer from anyone. I've posted, and emailed, but nothing. I've asked Richard Galvan ( Product Manager for Flash) on his blog and no response. So I tried asking Jay Armstrong on his blog (Flash documentation guy), and once again no response. I've posted on Lee Brimlow's site, and nothing (a co-worker emailed him, which was ignored as well). I've also submitted more bugs and complaints to adobe's Wish form (www.adobe.com/go/wish) that it nearly makes my head spin. So what are some of the complaints that I (and many many others have)? Here is an abbreviated list.

      1.) the introduction of the browser being forced into our work flow sucks. I used to be able to glance, code, glance,code etc and I was very efficient with that. Now, it's code, alt-tab, hunt, alt-tab, code.
      2.) The interface on the web API (no offense) is very hard to use in comparison to the previous help panel interface.
      3.) Every time I press F1 from flash, it opens a new instance of my browser. Why can't it even use the same one? Or even open a new tab? A complete new instance of the browser. It's NUTS!
      4.) Shortcuts are horribly handi-capped. For instance ctrl+a generally means select all in Windows speak. However, you are only allowed to have it assigned to select all when you are on the stage, or select all in a code window. It is no-longer intelligent enough to tell the difference. The same thing with ctrl+g. On the stage, it means "group", in a code window, it meant "go to line".
      5.) Awesome features that were added to CS3 that I use more times in a single day, no-longer work either. In CS3, there was a great new feature added, that allowed us to press ctrl+enter and test a movie when we are writing a class file. This no longer works, we either have to switch to the fla, or use the mouse and select it from the drop-down list.
      6.) Classes that used to compile fine now will not compile in CS4. Presumably because they are dependent on assets from the library of the FLA.

      Adobe, please engage the community in a discussion about this. Don't let CS4 gain the reputation that Vista gained (even though vista did not deserve it, I hate to say Flash CS4 really does.) Don't let flash CS4 mark the decline of Adobe's dedication to making great software. Feel free to contact me, I am more than happy to discuss this, to show you how horribly broken some of the most basic and crucial features of our work-flows have been obliterated. Adobe, we have spoken, and now we must listen for a response from you. Please do not disappoint.

      -- Josh
        • 1. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
          Ross Ritchey Community Member
          I haven't used CS4 yet, and am greatly anticipating upgrading in the *hopefully* near future. Though reading things like this makes me wonder.... WHY did Adobe not have a PUBLIC BETA for Flash CS4?

          It seems to me that when you are changing the entire nature of the software, that is the MOST VITAL time to have a public beta. No (or minimal) user testing, means more bugs that don't get worked out before the release.
          • 2. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
            captain_code-KOo9rr Community Member
            I heartly agree. I public beta would have eliminated TONS of these issues. I am really hoping that Adobe will respond helpfully, and issue an update to CS4 soon to clear up all of the problems.
            • 3. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
              zeroskillz Community Member
              I'd be happy if they could use the same shortcuts across their applications...
              • 4. An Open Letter to Adobe
                Walter Elias Community Member
                I strongly agree with the original comment, and my list of problems with CS4 is longer, and different, than Flashster's. I've reported many of these on this forum, and all of them on the Wish/Bug form. I've also had numerous private e-mail correspondences directly with Flash engineers. Unlike Flashster's experience, the engineers tend to acknowledge the problems.

                But the moment I ask whether there is any plan for a bug fix...silence. Or words like "We're aware of the problem." But not "We're WORKING ON the problem." Judging from the track record of Flash, whether Macromedia or Adobe, there is no intention of fixing anything.

                I said it weeks ago, that the Flash developers always use a very small, elite team of beta testers, most of whom don't do the normal everyday stuff most users do, and that's why so many glaringly obvious bugs - ones that normal users encounter in their first 3 minutes of using CS4 - get through.

                Photoshop CS4 has major problems too. But check the Photoshop forum for a contrast to Flash: PS engineers are in there constantly, asking questions, gathering information, and actually working on fixes. They invite forum users to contact them to download newer test builds of the program and then ask for feedback. Already there have been two new test builds, which anyone can request to test. And the problems are being fixed, one by one.

                The long and short of it is, Flash CS4 is more than simply full of annoyances. It actually can't be used for the majority of my projects. It doesn't work. It's broken. And although the Flash engineers who have posted here have been sympathetic and occasionally informative, they offer no confidence to users that they really give a damn about fixing the problems. Maybe they're working on the fixes for CS5. Too bad, I'll never find out then, because I'm totally fed up. It sounds corny, but this sour experience with this absolutely useless release has made me fall out of love with Flash, period.
                • 5. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
                  Ross Ritchey Community Member
                  The unfortunate thing is that this has been coming since the introduction of AS3. AS3 was developed for the hardcore developers who only work in the code. There was no simultaneous development of tools for the designers to use AS3 without switching over to development. It is obvious that the move to RIA development is overwhelming the basic animation nature of Flash. Leave the hardcore development to the Flex community, and give animators and designers their platform back!

                  The even more unfortunate thing is, in this time where it is absolutely vital for Adobe to be innovating and making no mistakes (as Microsoft has now entered the ring, and Microsoft makes sure to win any ring they enter - they took down Sony in the video game realm, and Sony was the biggest, most popular gaming platform out there - they took out Sega and almost took out Nintendo -- though Nintendo is back and still strong) But anyways, the even more unfortunate thing is that these mistakes are being made, and people are leaving the Flash platform. People who have been around and loyal for years. Look at Walter Elias here, a member of the forums since the middle of 2003, but he's fed up with Flash.

                  The Flash development team at Adobe needs to start listening to the community, or they will lose the internet to Microsoft.

                  This means, public BETA, even ALPHA releases. Across the board at Adobe, they need to listen to criticism about major UI changes. Also, they need to vocalize the thought that they could move the help documents exclusively online, and simply provide a PDF for offline help. Perhaps they wouldn't have made that mistake had people known it was coming.

                  Above all, Adobe needs to think about the ENTIRE market of people that are using their products, not just the ones that work into Adobe's goals for the future of the internet.
                  • 6. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
                    captain_code-KOo9rr Community Member
                    Walter,

                    I have a much more extensive list of problems that I also feel are issues, but I felt that a small sampling of some of the most critical would be best to attempt to get the ball rolling. I can also agree to the difference of working with the Photoshop Engineers, and product managers, and the like. Trying to work with Flash's is like trying to pull teeth. No offense to any Engineer, product manager, and the like that reads these things. We don't want a relationship like we have had in the past. We want you to step up to the pump, and support the great, and amazing things that you guys have all done in the past, and are working on in the future. But as Walter said, you CAN NOT ignore these things, and leave us to deal with them until CS5. Please engage in a discussion, I think that you will find the majority of the community, fair minded, and even a touch cheering for you. We want to love your products, we want to use them, and we want to be able to justify the costs of upgrades. However, unless you can respond, be constructive, help us out, how can either of us accomplish those goals? I recently met one of Flash's lead Engineers at MAX. He shared his contact information with me, and invited me to email him about a few CS3 issues that I was having. Excited, I went home from the conference, assembled the information and sent it to him. I have since waited two months, with absolutely no reply. I must admit that I feel as if he was just trying to get me to shut-up and walk away. But no longer Adobe will we go quietly grumbling into the night. No longer will we sit on our haunches and just "deal with it". We expect better, we deserve better, and you must be better.
                    • 7. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
                      san_flash Community Member

                      Hi Josh,

                      If you search the forums, there are members of the Flash team actively responded to the threads. I apologize if we missed any thread. We appreciate your feedback and bug reports and are doing our best to get all the information from you. Please continue to submit them to us via bug reports or post them on the forums. 

                      Help issue 1, 2 and 3: we've been receiving similar feedback on the web help and forwarding them to the Learning Resource team. I'll send them again.
                      (4) Shortcuts: would you please provide the steps to reproduce and how it's different from the previous releases. 
                      (5) I'm unable to reproduce this. Ctrl Enter in the AS file would test movie the fla that is selected in the Target dropdown. What OS are you on? Has this ever worked in CS4 for you? Is the problem intermittent or can you reproduce it every time?
                      (6) This should work the same way as in CS3. Would you please send me the source with the steps to reproduce? <removed by moderator>

                      Walter, we are working on fixing some bugs at this moment. Please understand that there are rules that I need to follow in what I can say on the forums. I'm allowed to say that we are working on some bug fixes. However, I cannot say if there's a patch coming or not. 

                      Thanks,
                      San 



                      • 8. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
                        captain_code-KOo9rr Community Member
                        San,

                        Thank you for the reply. Would it be possible to get some feedback from the Learning Resource Team about issues 1, 2, and 3? I'll address the others below.

                        4.) Open a new document. Add some items symbols to the stage. Select them, and press ctrl+g. They should group as in CS3. then open the actions panel, put some code on it, and press ctrl+g, you should be presented with a dialogue box asking which line to go to (at least in CS3 you would), but instead nothing happens. And if you go to assign it in the keyboard shortcuts, it makes you unassign "group". It seems as if CS4 has lost the context sensitivity that CS3 and previous releases had when it came to shortcuts.

                        5.) If I have a document class (or any .as file for that matter) open, and it's FLA (as I would in CS3) with the .as file the active tab, I used to be able to press "ctrl+enter" to launch the test movie. Now it does nothing. Everytime. Instead I have to either use my mouse, and select it from the control drop-down menu, or flip back to the fla and press ctrl+enter from there.

                        6.) I will have to get authorization from my boss to release the source to you, or try to find some time to throw a basic example together. (The basic idea (that I have run into so far) is when I have exported a font in the library, it refuses to compile a reference to it in a class.)
                        • 9. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
                          Fede Rivas Community Member
                          I'm totally agree.

                          Like i say in another post, i have gone backwards to CS3, after some days of "fight" with CS4. There´s a lot of issues, i think too much issues for a "release" version.

                          I'm not going to talk about that problems, but i think it's very important that adobe learn about all the things that are happening.

                          Lot of posts, forums, mail lists, talking about the same...

                          As another posts says, please, let we have a Beta before you put a release in the market. Most of the issues are simply incredible, and i hope Adobe will react as soon as possible, at least that's i want to belive ...

                          Sorry about my poor english.
                          • 10. An Open Letter to Adobe
                            san_flash Community Member
                            Hi Josh,

                            4.) I'm unable to reproduce this. When the Actions panel has focus (ie. I can type into it), Ctrl + G brings up the Go to line dialog on both Win XP and Vista. In the keyboard shortcuts dialog, I saw the problem with the strings that said it's assigned to group command, but this is the same as CS3 and other previous version of Flash. I'll log this strings issue.

                            5.) I'm also unable to reproduce this on both Win XP and Vista. Ctrl + Enter in an AS document brings up test movie window for the target fla. There's no known issue on keyboard shortcuts around this area. Many users also use ctrl enter in AS file but we haven't heard any problem on it before. I'm beginning to think it might be machine specific. Do you run into the same keyboard shortcuts problem in CS3 on the same machine?

                            6.) It'll be great if you can get us the simple example.

                            Thanks,
                            San
                            • 11. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
                              captain_code-KOo9rr Community Member
                              Hi Sans,

                              I am running a brand new installation of CS4. I have a pretty rockin' machine running on Vista. I have 4 GB's ram, an AMD 64 X2 4600+ Processor, and Dual nVidia 8800 GTS Graphics cards hooked to 3 Dell 20" monitors. And I wish that I was unable to re-produce #4 & #5, but I have other machines here in the office that exhibit the issue. The only common denominator that I can think of, is we imported a shortcut set from CS3. But I don't know why that would cause issue. If you need, we can arrange to do a screen sharing session via PM, and I can demonstrate the issue for you.

                              Josh
                              • 12. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
                                san_flash Community Member
                                Josh,
                                You were right on the spot when you mentioned shortcut set from CS3. I could reproduce the problem with the actions panel keyboard shortcuts. When a CS3 set is brought into CS4, some of the keyboard shortcuts don't map and therefore they don't work. I'll log this issue.
                                I still cannot reproduce the Ctrl Enter with the CS3 keyboard shortcut set. Would you please try selecting the Adobe Standard set and check if the Ctrl Enter problem is solved?

                                Thank you so much for your help.
                                San
                                • 13. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
                                  captain_code-KOo9rr Community Member
                                  San,

                                  I tried switching to the "Adobe Standard" set, and that does solve the ctrl enter problem. I'm curious as to why my set still causes the issue, and yours does not seem to... Strange indeed.

                                  Josh
                                  • 14. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
                                    san_flash Community Member

                                    Josh, 
                                    Would you please send me the CS3 keyboard shortcut set that you use? I can try out that set to see if I can repro the Ctrl Enter issue.
                                    <removed by moderator>

                                    • 15. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
                                      captain_code-KOo9rr Community Member
                                      San,

                                      I sent the shortcut set to the email address that you listed there.

                                      Josh
                                      • 16. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
                                        Walter Elias Community Member
                                        San,

                                        I don't believe you about the "rules" which prevent you from saying whether there is a bug fix coming or not.

                                        Go look at the Adobe Photoshop Forum. Right now. Come back after you've browsed it for only ten minutes....

                                        Done? Did you notice at least three Adobe Photoshop developers saying things like "We are working on a bug fix" and "We will release it as soon as possible" and so on? Did you notice the posts from Adam, with his e-mail address, saying "Write me and we'll send you the latest test build of Photoshop CS4".

                                        Same company. Don't give me nonsense about your "rules" against saying the same things as your Photoshop colleagues. We are paying customers. We bought a broken, unfinished product. If you can't even tell us whether or not you intend to issue a free, public patch within a reasonable time to fix as many of the problems as you have currently identified, then you have totally broken trust with your users.

                                        I know it isn't you who makes the rules. But I don't believe you about the rules. And you only make people like me more irritated each time you make such unhelpful statements.
                                        • 17. An Open Letter to Adobe
                                          :::@::: Community Member
                                          I still do not use Adobe's Flash. I have tried just once to install a trial version of CS3 on my 3 years old laptop, which still is a quite powerfull machine. The install took 1,5 hours. The program took ages to open and close. It took the same 1,5 hours to uninstall a day later and in the same way as for the install the CPU heated as if I'm running a modern 3d shooter...
                                          I don't know why a design application runs like a game, it's beyond me, I've always thought that it should be as modest on resources as possible so that my computer runs at its maximum speed with it - the way Photoshop 7, CS and even CS2 runs.
                                          I am not a geek, plus that I have other interests than computers, therefore I'm certainly not buying a 2000 $ laptop every year. I just want to do my job easily and fast. 4GB of installation - I just can't imagine what is in there and why. And how much a CPU and HDD must work just to load such software.... Yes HDDs become bigger, but, imagine, I like to keep movies on them! Not software. And they certainly do not become faster at the same rate as their capacity goes higher.
                                          One other thing I hear from colleagues is that once uninstalled CS3 and 4, you don't stand a chance of reinstalling them unless you format... Sounds like craziness to me....
                                          • 18. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
                                            Newsgroup_User Community Member
                                            _E_,

                                            A number of people are posting to this thread, and I do think it's a
                                            potentially good thread, but it's only useful insofar as it is accurate.
                                            Some of the things you've said blur the lines a bit -- or hint at questions
                                            you'd like an answer to -- so I'd like to respond, and I hope my reply is
                                            helpful. Bear in mind, I don't work for Adobe. I'm an independent
                                            contractor who uses Flash most of the time (and still enjoys it!). I'm a
                                            longtime volunteer on these forums and am replying for the sake of
                                            continuing an objective, fruitful discussion.

                                            > I still do not use Adobe's Flash. I have tried just once to
                                            > install a trial version of CS3 on my 3 years old laptop,
                                            > which still is a quite powerful machine.

                                            As with the the installation of any software, what matters isn't
                                            necessarily the age of the machine, but its specifications: what OS it has
                                            installed, the amount of RAM, available disk space, etc. Did your computer
                                            meet or beat the minimum requirements for Flash CS3?

                                            Note that if it didn't, or if you simply prefer an alternative to the
                                            Flash IDE, there are a number of 3rd party applications available, many of
                                            which are open source and free as breathing. Personally, I very much like
                                            the complete package I get with Flash (coding environment, drawing tools,
                                            and timeline animation metaphor).

                                            http://osflash.org/

                                            > The install took 1,5 hours. The program took ages to load
                                            > and close afterwards.

                                            The installation for CS3 did take an unusually long time, so we agree on
                                            that, but the statement "took ages to load and close" isn't quantifiable.
                                            You seem to be a fan of Photohop, so I'll ask you: does it bother you when
                                            Photoshop takes long to load? In my experience, Photoshop loads quicker
                                            than it used to, but there have certainly been versions that took nearly a
                                            minute to launch. That bothered my sometimes, but (me personally) not
                                            enough to make me hate the application.

                                            If I count "one potato, two potato, ..." as soon as I launch the app,
                                            Photoshop CS4 opens in 3 seconds for me, and Flash CS4 opens in four
                                            seconds. To me, that's no big deal. I still have Flash CS3 installed, and
                                            it also opens in four seconds. Granted, my computer setup is almost
                                            certainly different from yours, and I suspect load time varies slightly for
                                            everyone.

                                            > I am not a geek, plus that I have other interests than
                                            > computers

                                            Me too! :) Well, I probably am a geek, but I also have plenty of
                                            non-computer interests, like unicycling, board games, homemade cheese,
                                            origami, cooking, reading, the list goes on.

                                            > ... and I'm certainly not buying a 2000 $ laptop every year. I
                                            > just want to do my job easily and without unneccessary fiddling.

                                            We agree on that too. When I started contracting full time (June of
                                            2006), I bought a new laptop for my home business. It was $1,200 and I'm
                                            still using it comfortably. I buy a new desktop computer probably once
                                            every four or five years. I bought this current one in early 2007, and it
                                            was $600. I use my computers nearly *every day,* because they're the tools
                                            I use to earn my bread and butter.

                                            I realize you may have been exaggerating to make a point, but to be
                                            fair, it is entirely possible to make a decent living (single income family,
                                            here) for considerably less than $2,000 a year in computer equipment.

                                            > One other thing I hear from colleagues is that once uninstalled
                                            > CS3 and 4, you don't stand a chance of reinstalling them unless
                                            > you format... Sounds like craziness to me.

                                            That *does* sound like craziness, because it simply isn't true. Not in
                                            my experience. I've installed, uninstalled, and reinstalled Flash 8, CS3,
                                            and CS4 numerous times (literally, dozens of times -- for testing purposes,
                                            not because anything was wrong), on this same $600 computer. No problems,
                                            no reformatting.

                                            Now, all of this said ... partially, I count myself lucky. I've been
                                            watching the complaints mount on this forum and concede that a portion of
                                            them seem to indeed be valid. In most cases, they aren't happening to me
                                            (or they happen not to impede my own personal workflow), but clearly,
                                            they're happening to other people, and that's frustrating.

                                            Like others on this thread, I'm curious to see how Adobe will respond.
                                            I happen to take an optimistic view.


                                            David Stiller
                                            Adobe Community Expert
                                            Dev blog, http://www.quip.net/blog/
                                            "Luck is the residue of good design."


                                            • 19. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
                                              captain_code-KOo9rr Community Member
                                              _E_,

                                              It is quite an unfortunate thing that you do not use Flash. It is an amazing tool, and allows for the creation of some equally and even more amazing content. CS3 was prone to exhausting installation problems, I only ever had to re-format once, and that was due to the licensing freaking out, not the installation. CS4, while still a long install (honestly what do you expect? It is the size equivalent of an OS.), it is significantly faster than CS3. There are numerous problems with CS4, and Adobe, we do expect you to correct them and take accountability for what is a flawed release, Flash is still an amazing tool, especially when compared to the competition. I don't see Silverlight as being even in the same league. (Speaking of the platform, not the IDE)
                                              • 20. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
                                                captain_code-KOo9rr Community Member
                                                San,

                                                What would the possibility be of getting some comments from the Learning Resource Team about the documentation issues?

                                                Josh
                                                • 21. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
                                                  :::@::: Community Member
                                                  quote:

                                                  Originally posted by: the flashster
                                                  _E_,

                                                  It is quite an unfortunate thing that you do not use Flash. It is an amazing tool


                                                  I am using it. In fact it's my first and only love :) But I use older version for the reasons mentioned. I too hope Adobe finds the right solution to this. After all, it's of mutual interest.

                                                  To the attention of David: quick spec of my computer: 1 GB RAM, 1.73 Ghz Pentium M, HDD Fujitsu MHV2080AT, Ati Mobility X700
                                                  All the best wishes to all, hope you have a great day! :)
                                                  • 22. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
                                                    Newsgroup_User Community Member
                                                    _E_,

                                                    > I am using it [Flash]. In fact it's my first and only love :)

                                                    I'm trying to correlate this with what you wrote earlier, but I'm
                                                    guessing you meant to say, "I still do not use Adobe's Flash *CS4*," rather
                                                    than "I still do not use Adobe's Flash"?

                                                    > quick spec of my computer: 1 GB RAM, 1.73 Ghz Pentium M,
                                                    > HDD Fujitsu MHV2080AT, Ati Mobility X700

                                                    The Flash CS4 minimum requires are listed here:

                                                    http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/systemreqs/

                                                    ... so by the looks of it, your processor and RAM suffice. Cool.

                                                    > All the best wishes to all, hope you have a great day! :)

                                                    Thanks!


                                                    David Stiller
                                                    Adobe Community Expert
                                                    Dev blog, http://www.quip.net/blog/
                                                    "Luck is the residue of good design."


                                                    • 23. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
                                                      san_flash Community Member
                                                      Hi Josh,
                                                      Please see the Flash Help section in the Flash Product Manager's post today.
                                                      http://blogs.adobe.com/rgalvan/
                                                      • 24. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
                                                        Jay_Armstrong Community Member
                                                        Flashster,

                                                        Jay Armstrong here. San alerted me to this thread today. I'm sorry I wasn't in here sooner.

                                                        <quote>
                                                        1.) the introduction of the browser being forced into our work flow sucks. I used to be able to glance, code, glance,code etc and I was very efficient with that. Now, it's code, alt-tab, hunt, alt-tab, code.
                                                        2.) The interface on the web API (no offense) is very hard to use in comparison to the previous Help panel interface.
                                                        3.) Every time I press F1 from flash, it opens a new instance of my browser. Why can't it even use the same one? Or even open a new tab? A complete new instance of the browser. It's NUTS!
                                                        </quote>

                                                        1) I understand that this new workflow is more painful than in CS3 when you had the Help right in its own panel in the product.

                                                        Here's some background:

                                                        The implementation of Help within the Flash Help panel required that all the Help files be installed on the local drive with the product, resulting in some issues that we tried to address in CS4. Including Help on the installation disc caused issues including:
                                                        = A long install process (as pointed out in this thread by _E_).
                                                        = Crowded the installation disc.
                                                        = Required that Help be completed much earlier for localization and end-game testing.
                                                        = Resulted in static Help files that had been completed early in the development cycle.

                                                        Moving Help online makes it possible to update Help on an ongoing basis, allow users to comment on and embellish the Help, and allow us to add links from the help out to new articles, tutorials, videos, and code samples on adobe.com and throughout the Flash web community.

                                                        We’ve had a struggle about how to deliver the Help for a long time, as we have a lot of users who have been quite vocal about not liking the Help panel consuming space within the Flash window as well as users who really want it there so they don’t have to leave the IDE.

                                                        Having said all that, I still totally understand what you're saying about losing your code, glance, code, glance, code workflow. As you know, we've been getting a lot of feedback about this, along with other issues that online Help has caused. We are actively looking at ways of solving these, but the Help-in-a-browser issue a difficult problem, as this aspect of the Help implementation is baked fairly deep into the product. Since CS4 shipped, we have implemented solutions to some of the issues with Help raised by users, such as allowing you to select the default destination of F1 (though Flash CS4 always went to the actual Help system rather than the Flash Help and Support page, which is what these users wanted in other products). I just don't know if there will be a solution in the CS4 time frame for viewing Help within Flash itself. There are a few independent developers working on non-browser help viewers, such as Jamie Kosoy, Technical Director at Big Spaceship, who has created an AIR application for the CS4 Language Reference docs, available at http://labs.bigspaceship.com/2008/12/09/air-app-as3-language-reference/.

                                                        We knew that people use the AS3 Language Reference a lot, so we did install a local abridged version of that with the product. You only see it when not connected to the internet, and it still opens in a web browser and still has the same navigation interface as the online version. You can also download a local copy of the AS Reference, which does get updated periodically and can be viewed locally regardless of the state of your internet connection, but it also is all html and opens in a web browser. the download is available here: http://help.adobe.com/support/documentation/en/flash/10/ActionScript3LangRef.zip.

                                                        2) With regard to this issue, I don't work on the ASLR, so I'm not sure why the interface in the web version of the reference changed from how it was laid out in the Help panel in CS3. No doubt we were trying to make it easier to navigate. Could you give us some more information about how you used it in CS3 versus CS4?

                                                        3) I'm also not sure about why a new browser window is opening on each press of F1. I'll look into that and post again.

                                                        Flashster, you said you posted to my blog. Did you post to my blog as CaptainCode? That's the only comment on the blog that I haven't responded to. Let me know if that was you.

                                                        And by the way, I know that you are all really frustrated at some of these help changes, and so I want to say how much we appreciate the feedback as well as the civil tone of the conversation. I'm sorry that my reply took so long and that it probably doesn't give you the magic bullet that you are understandably hoping for.

                                                        -Jay
                                                        • 25. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
                                                          michaelbarsotti Community Member
                                                          Jay_Adobe: Thanks for responding but I have a question now. You said
                                                          quote:

                                                          = Required that Help be completed much earlier for localization and end-game testing.
                                                          = Resulted in static Help files that had been completed early in the development cycle.


                                                          So why did Flash 9 have a button to check for updates? Didn't that solve these issues?

                                                          On a side note - when will Adobe stop it with these stupid letters and call it Flash 9 and Flash 10?
                                                          • 26. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
                                                            Rothrock Community Member
                                                            I would like to weigh in on the help issue as well, particularly isssue #2.

                                                            In generally the most useful way to use the help files when coding Actionscript is to see the classes and be able to quickly move between various classes. This is especially true now that there are so many classes that are needed.

                                                            In AS3, if you pressed F1 while the cursor was in a recognized property, method, event, the help window would show a pane on the left (by default anyways) with the class that item belonged to and a hierarchical menu which showed all the other methods, events, and properties, and then the actual entry in a window on the right.

                                                            This was great because you could see everything for that class and exactly which entry you had selected. And if you realized that you needed one of the others you could just quickly click it and see that entry.

                                                            And if you realized something like, "Oh that is right I always think that is part of TextField, but it really in TextFormat." There was a quick easy way to get there.

                                                            Now you are just dumped onto a page with lots and lots of text and it is hard to see which item you selected, which class it is part of, and what the other options are. Sometimes I seem to get a system with panels on the left that show all the classes, but even that isn't as useful as the old hierarchical system.

                                                            Also on issue 3 I have found the results of pressing F1 to be very uncertain. It depends upon if you are using AS2 or AS3 and if you are connected to the internet and if you are on a word that it knows. But basically I am insanely annoyed that I keep getting new windows. And that many of them seem to go to some top level help system that has nothing to do with what I'm looking for. So then I need to click, "Flash help" and then click "flash actionscript help" and then do a search. Far too many clicks.
                                                            • 27. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
                                                              Ross Ritchey Community Member
                                                              quote:

                                                              Originally posted by: michaelbarsotti
                                                              On a side note - when will Adobe stop it with these stupid letters and call it Flash 9 and Flash 10?


                                                              I highly doubt that is going to happen. There is enough confusion in the community about whether or not the user is talking about the Flash Player or the IDE. If both used the same nomenclature, it would only exacerbate the situation. With the Creative Suite letters, if a person says "Flash CS4" you know they are talking about the IDE, because the player isn't CS4. Then again, if a person says "Flash 10" you can assume they are talking about the player.

                                                              @Jay_Adobe
                                                              Two things.
                                                              1. Dreamweaver CS4 has a live web renderer built-in to the software so you can view your site without launching a browser. Why not tap that team and build a web renderer into the Flash IDE as the Help panel?
                                                              2. I still don't understand why a desktop implementation of help can't be updated frequently. The startup window has web-enabled elements that update frequently. Indeed, my Flash 8 that I have at home displays advertisements for CS4 tools. If you can do it for advertisements, you can do it for workflow critical items. My solution would be to install a version of the help on software install, but then have the entire panel web-enabled. Therefore, if the user is connected, the help panel sources all of its information from the web, but still displays in the IDE. But, if the user is offline, it will source it from the local files. Then the local files could be updated with the various patches that get released during the product cycle. Treat help as a WEB SERVICE, NOT A WEBSITE and you will fix every issue raised in regards to the help panel, as well as get all of the benefits that you are looking for. If you do this, you can also have the website, with the option in the IDE to open it for those that prefer it that way.
                                                              • 28. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
                                                                captain_code-KOo9rr Community Member
                                                                Jay,

                                                                Thank you for your comments, I indeed did post as CaptainCode. That is my usual pseudonym, but when I started my forum account back in 2002 I hadn’t thought of it yet, and it is now assigned to a different account.

                                                                I’ll be honest with you, the only part of the help files that I *ever* use is the ASLR. Your response as to the reasons that it was removed is intriguing to me. The long install process is less than ideal but livable, as it happens once but I use the software every day. I am intrigued by your comment where you do have a local, albeit abbreviated, version installed. How much longer can it really take? There have been a few interesting posts by the Installer team on various Adobe blogs, and I’m interested to note that they never blamed their issues on too many help files. Let me quote from him “One could argue that Adobe should make simpler products that don’t require such complex package management. While such an approach is appealing, it would also cripple some of the features which make Adobe’s products so compelling. “(Eric Wilde) I think he hits it right on the head there, while removing the documentation may be compelling, it does significantly cripple our workflows. I suggested in my comment on your blog, and rritchey also mentioned, if constantly updated information is critical, or the extra time to get the documentation right is needed, package the same abbreviated ASLR for local reference when the user is not connected to the internet, and when they are pull it from a web service. Heck, Air already supports a webkit implementation; just make a panel that runs on AIR to bring it in. Then you could have a download for people would rather have the entire help file localized to their hard-drive.

                                                                I think people have demonstrated many viable alternatives to this change, and I feel strongly that much of this problem that is, as you say, baked fairly deep, could have been avoided had major changes such as these been brought to the attention of the community. This should have been done. Plain and simple; I understand that it doesn’t do us any good for the present situation to whine about what should have been done prior to CS4’s release, but it does hopefully provide insight as to the future so that mistakes such as these can be avoided.

                                                                Now, onto the reasons why the online version sucks; I could go on about this for a while, so I will do my best to sum it up for you. First off, the navigation. In CS3, it was very easy to use. It was easy to find things, and jump. The tree based navigation allowed you to drill down to just the area of the API that you were looking for, i.e. classes, methods, properties, etc. This gargantuan list on the side for the navigation is, to say the least, intimidating. It has followed the inexorably frustrating documentation of Java. Finding what we need is hard. That is my main complaint with that part. Second, search, have you ever tried to find anything with that? For your sake I hope that you don’t ever need to, because it doesn’t work. It works well enough if you type in something precise, such as “Tween”, or “Tween Event”, but generally if I am searching, it is because I can’t remember it precisely enough to go straight to it, or type something incredibly definitive.

                                                                To sum it all up, I think Adobe can expect to continue to be flooded with complaints continuously about this until the fix it. People are going to continue to write horrible reviews of CS4. Waiting until CS5 isn’t really an option, and I urge you to do all in your power to nudge the powers that be to make the decision to do something about it now. I know it’s easy for me to say that, especially where I don’t have the source code to look at, but we are all coders at heart here that have issues with this. We understand the complexities that come with bad decisions that were made early in the product development cycle. We understand that they are hard and costly to fix, but you have to realize that it is harder to win a community back, that it is costlier when customers start bailing, and CS4 sales flop.

                                                                Josh

                                                                • 29. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
                                                                  michaelbarsotti Community Member
                                                                  I think the flashster makes a very valid point here. Install happens once but I use the software daily. Going online to get help files is very slow. I still want to know why CS3 had the update button. Didn't this (also) update the help files? What is wrong with that system?

                                                                  the flashster also mentioned searching help. He's correct, you simply can't, it doesn't work. The "old" CS3 method did work and was much more useful. I really hope this get changed.
                                                                  • 30. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
                                                                    Newsgroup_User Community Member
                                                                    Jay,

                                                                    Hey, good to see your name here! :)

                                                                    As you've seen, there are a number of critical issues under discussion,
                                                                    both in this thread and others. As I mentioned in another post to this
                                                                    thread, I can't speak to every one of these from personal experience, for
                                                                    the simple reason that not all of the recently described bugs occur on my
                                                                    system -- or the steps to reproduce them are, by happenstance, not a part of
                                                                    my daily workflow.

                                                                    But I *can* speak to the discussion around Help docs, particularly
                                                                    search. Why? Because, like Flashster, my day-to-day productivity has
                                                                    decreased because of the new Help system. It has become frustrating for me
                                                                    to use the documentation (specifically, the language references).

                                                                    You asked Flashster: "Could you give us some more information about how
                                                                    you used it [the Help panel] in CS3 versus CS4?" Obviously, I don't claim
                                                                    to speak for Flashster, but for what it's worth, I'd like to offer my own
                                                                    thoughts on what's wrong with the current Help search.

                                                                    Let's say I'm working on an app that makes use of movie clip symbols.
                                                                    If I get stuck, I'll need to look up the MovieClip class. Let's step
                                                                    through the scenario in Flash 8, CS3, and CS4.

                                                                    ** Flash 8

                                                                    I have a FLA open (obviously AS2, because AS3 isn't supported yet). I
                                                                    hit F1 to open the Help panel. I have a drop-down filter on the left side
                                                                    that lets me limit my search ActionScript-only results. That's what I want,
                                                                    so I set the drop-down to "ActionScript 2.0." Note that the availability of
                                                                    this filter means I can avoid component results, JSFL results, and other
                                                                    non-AS results.

                                                                    I type "MovieClip class" (without the quotes) and get two main results
                                                                    nodes: "Learning ActionScript 2.0 in Flash," which I can quickly close, and
                                                                    the ActionScript 2.0 Language Reference. Scrolling down halfway, I see a
                                                                    leaf for the MovieClip class, and below that, numerous leaves for MovieClip
                                                                    properties, methods, and events (in fact, they're even labeled as such).

                                                                    This quickly brings me where I need to go. In fact, if I include quotes
                                                                    in my search for "MovieClip class," most of the non-MovieClip results
                                                                    disappear. This is quick and painless.

                                                                    ** Flash CS3

                                                                    In this case, I have a choice between AS2 and AS3. As it happens, the
                                                                    Help panel pretty much behaves the same in either case. Sometimes I feel it
                                                                    would be nice if the panel automatically filtered itself to AS2 or AS3 based
                                                                    on the FLA's publish settings, but instead, the behavior seems to be that
                                                                    the panel simply remembers whatever filter it had last -- and ultimately,
                                                                    that's what I like. After all, it isn't always the case that someone is
                                                                    going to be searching for code-specific documentation.

                                                                    As far as search goes, the same thing happens here for AS2 as it does in
                                                                    Flash 8. For AS3, the results no longer list properties, methods and
                                                                    events, but I can certainly get to the MovieClip leaf very quickly. From
                                                                    there, properties, methods, and events are a quick single click away.

                                                                    ** Quick tangent

                                                                    In both of the preceding scenarios, I can combine my Help and Actions
                                                                    panels into a single group, which makes them easy to toggle between. Flash
                                                                    8 includes an update button, which presumably updates the Help docs via an
                                                                    online connection. I don't see this button in Flash CS3. One of the most
                                                                    useful features (to me) is the fact that I can easily filter among the many
                                                                    "books" (Features, Extending, AS2, AS3, Flash Lite, etc.).

                                                                    ** Flash CS4

                                                                    Here's where the bottom drops out.

                                                                    Naturally, I still have my choice between AS2 and AS3. I don't notice a
                                                                    difference between launching Help from an AS2 or AS3 FLA, so the rest of my
                                                                    summary will combine the two.

                                                                    I type "MovieClip class" (without quotes) into the search field in the
                                                                    IDE's upper right. This opens a browser to the Search Community Help page.
                                                                    The Community Help filter is selected by default (why?! ... I'm looking for
                                                                    Adobe-certified results here!). There's a product filter that specifies
                                                                    Flash (which is nice, because Flash is automatically selected). But ...
                                                                    there is no longer a filter for Features, AS2, AS3, Flash Lite, JSFL, etc.
                                                                    Apparently, my search might turn up results from any of the above, including
                                                                    community content that may not be relevant. A tally on the right said tells
                                                                    me there are 283,000 results (holy cow!). I also see a choice to filter by
                                                                    Adobe.com alone or by Support (what's the difference?). Then there's a
                                                                    "Show only content from Adobe" checkbox (how does this differ from the
                                                                    Adobe.com or Support filters?).

                                                                    And then ... we see the results themselves. Here's the list (I'm not
                                                                    making this up). Remember, I'm searching for the MovieClip class.

                                                                    Adobe Flash CS4 Professional * Working with Photoshop PSD files
                                                                    flash.display.MovieClip (Flex 2 Language Reference)
                                                                    Adobe Flash Lite * MovieClip class
                                                                    kirupa.com - Classes and MovieClips, Page 1
                                                                    Adobe Developer Center: Creating movie clips with reflections
                                                                    kirupa.com - AS1 OOP: Custom Classes with MovieClips
                                                                    Assigning a class to a movie clip symbol
                                                                    Flash 8 Open Source Flash
                                                                    Adobe Flash Media Server 3.5 * MovieClip class
                                                                    Adobe - Flash Quick Starts: Working with symbols and the Document...

                                                                    That's the first 10 results of nearly 300,000. My product filter is set
                                                                    to Flash, remember, yet this list shows Photoshop, Flex, Flash Lite, and
                                                                    Flash Media Server results. Hands down, kirupa.com is a terrific resource,
                                                                    but neither of the articles listed is relevant to the search (and the second
                                                                    one refers to AS1 custom classes).

                                                                    Maybe the Adobe.com filter will help. I click that. Here's the new
                                                                    list:

                                                                    MovieClip class
                                                                    Unsupported and partially supported classes
                                                                    Assigning a class to a movie clip symbol
                                                                    Working with filters, caching, and the MovieClip class
                                                                    Developer Center: ActionScript 3.0 for developers and ...
                                                                    Developer Center: Introduction to event handling in ...
                                                                    Adobe ActionScript 3.0 * Advantages of the display list approach
                                                                    Developer Center: Creating Movie Clip Subclasses in ...
                                                                    Developer Center: Creating Movie Clip Subclasses ...
                                                                    Macromedia Flash MX - Using object in Macromedia Flash MX: Assign ...

                                                                    The list goes on, including a number of other Flash MX articles. The
                                                                    very first entry on this revised list -- MovieClip class -- looks promising,
                                                                    though, so I click it. Sadly, this isn't the MovieClip class entry: it's
                                                                    from the Flash Lite 2.x and 3 docs, and it's actually list of unsupported
                                                                    and partially supported class members of the standard MovieClip class.

                                                                    But even if this entry had been what I was looking for, would it be AS2
                                                                    or AS3?

                                                                    So ... this is a problem. I can't filter by book, the product filter
                                                                    doesn't seem to work, and the search results are far from relevant. Sure,
                                                                    in theory, it's nice to have the *option* to include community content, but
                                                                    when I'm searching the API, I want the API first and foremost.

                                                                    Fortunately, the docs are smart enough (usually!) to go directly to the
                                                                    relevant entry when used in conjunction with the Actions panel. For
                                                                    example, I can highlight the keyword MovieClip in the script pane, hit F1,
                                                                    and jump directly to the MovieClip class. This approach is even context
                                                                    sensitive, meaning the docs correctly filter by AS2 and AS3 automatically.
                                                                    This is *very* useful, and should be underscored in light of how painful the
                                                                    search-by-typing scenario has become.

                                                                    In order to work around the Help search, I've created a handful of
                                                                    browser bookmarks for my most-visited "books," including the JSFL reference,
                                                                    AS2 language and components references, and AS3 language/components
                                                                    reference. To keep optimistic, I understand that I can use whatever tools
                                                                    my browser has (enhanced in-page search, for example) to improve my
                                                                    experience, but over all ... Flash CS3's and Flash 8's local docs were
                                                                    easier to navigate.


                                                                    David Stiller
                                                                    Co-author, Foundation Flash CS4 for Designers
                                                                    http://tinyurl.com/5j55cv
                                                                    "Luck is the residue of good design."


                                                                    • 31. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
                                                                      Rothrock Community Member
                                                                      Amen! brother. And don't forget that if you want AS2 in CS4 and you aren't connected to the internet you will get nothing!
                                                                      • 32. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
                                                                        Damon Edwards Community Member
                                                                        I guess I'll jump in here, and agree that we have a big problem here with the Help documentation. I don't know about everyone else, but when I'm working day-to-day, I use a ton of Adobe products. Even on a well built machine, all these programs slow down a computer, not including an email client, and whatever else is standard for the work flow. The last thing we, or I, need is to be forced to open Firefox (my browser of choice) just to refresh my memory if a class contains a specific property, method, or if a property is read/write and so forth. With Photoshop, Flash, and After Effects open at the same time, your computer will begin to slow down when switching between programs, waiting for the current to finally get focus. Now, add firefox to the mix, and the extra 150megs of memory it takes surely doesn't help any performance issues you might already be having.

                                                                        Luckily for me, I have more than one machine, so I now have a laptop dedicated to the class reference page, sadly.

                                                                        I'd also like to re-iterate the totally useless search features of the online documentation that David was speaking too. I thought a new search engine was being released?

                                                                        Anyway, I still love the product :) but I think the wrong direction was taken on the Help documentation, and someone needs to release a statement to the community that Adobe is aware they made a mistake with this and is working to solve the problem. Just so everyone knows their cries aren't going unheard, potentially loosing Adobe customers, which in turn hurts the developer/designer community which Adobe is built on.
                                                                        • 33. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
                                                                          Ross Ritchey Community Member
                                                                          @dzedward - check out Richard Galvan's blog, as linked above by san. His most current post is precisely the statement you are looking for.
                                                                          • 34. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
                                                                            Damon Edwards Community Member
                                                                            cool, now if that was just posted where we can find it easily, maybe threads like these won't happen as often. back to work... *switches tabs to flash help* *turns to work computer* *sips coffee, wonders why Flash Help is staring me in the back..*
                                                                            • 35. An Open Letter to Adobe
                                                                              RichGalvan Community Member
                                                                              quote:

                                                                              Originally posted by: Walter Elias
                                                                              San,

                                                                              I don't believe you about the "rules" which prevent you from saying whether there is a bug fix coming or not.

                                                                              Go look at the Adobe Photoshop Forum. Right now. Come back after you've browsed it for only ten minutes....

                                                                              Done? Did you notice at least three Adobe Photoshop developers saying things like "We are working on a bug fix" and "We will release it as soon as possible" and so on? Did you notice the posts from Adam, with his e-mail address, saying "Write me and we'll send you the latest test build of Photoshop CS4".

                                                                              Same company. Don't give me nonsense about your "rules" against saying the same things as your Photoshop colleagues. We are paying customers. We bought a broken, unfinished product. If you can't even tell us whether or not you intend to issue a free, public patch within a reasonable time to fix as many of the problems as you have currently identified, then you have totally broken trust with your users.

                                                                              I know it isn't you who makes the rules. But I don't believe you about the rules. And you only make people like me more irritated each time you make such unhelpful statements.


                                                                              Walter,
                                                                              San is not making it up or lying. She is doing exactly what I asked the team to do, which is respect the rules that the Flash team is under. What the Photoshop team does is their business; yes, they are in the same company, but they are under a different group. Their are specific legal and fiscal reasons why the Flash team and others in Adobe do not pre-announce a potential update and I hold the team to that. If you would like to discuss those legal and fiscal issues, we can do that offline. San and the QE team are just trying to help diagnose the problems and assist in anyway that they can. I posted on my blog more information on issues and concerns about Flash CS4; as stated there we are working on some reported issues and I will update on how and when we will address them.

                                                                              • 36. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
                                                                                Community Member
                                                                                Wow...wouldn't want to be trying to placate this thread.

                                                                                At the risk of sounding like I'm kissing *** the simple truth of the matter is — I mean this with all due respect to san_flash and any other staff involved — if members of staff are allowed to offer guarantees, even tentative ones to customers then they will be held to it. You cannot have a scenario where product development is dictated by what 'kevin' promised 'superbad007' last May. (First names off the top of my head, apologies if they match anyone's name/nickname.)

                                                                                Now...in case I haven't inspired a lynching yet I would like add that I think CS4 is better than CS3. I've been using Flash since v4 and some releases are better however for me CS4 is a big improvement over CS3. I haven't had any of the problems listed in this thread. I tried out the Command+G issue (yes I'm on a Mac) and it was fine, although entertainingly if I try Command+G in the actions panel I get a dialog box that reads "Cannot find the string 'autoplay'.". Testing the movie works fine with Command+enter when in a class just as it did in CS3.

                                                                                And finally, just to put the final nail in my own coffin... the move to online help is a godsend, mainly because in CS3 on the Mac it was 50-50 whether the help panel would open blank or not. Whilst I must admit that the search leaves a little to be desired, the general structure of the help files is fine for me. It is basic common sense to centralise information like this. I have in the past been responsible for documentation that had to be maintained across several different formats (xml, html, doc and pdf) and errors inevitably creep in especially when dealing with this amount of information. It also allows for consistency with any archive of legacy documentation. Personally I would much prefer to see accurate documentation with no risk of contradiction across formats than have the help panel retained.
                                                                                • 37. Re: An Open Letter to Adobe
                                                                                  captain_code-KOo9rr Community Member
                                                                                  m0ss.net,

                                                                                  In regards to the keyboard shortcuts, if you read the entire thread, you will find that it is when you are importing a shortcut set from CS3, and it has been verfied by Adobe Engineers. It is there, and it is real.
                                                                                  Now, don't get this thread wrong. It isn't a bash on Adobe, because we hate them, and we are a bunch of jerks. No, it's we are frustrated because of a huge workflow change that has interrupted our ability to efficiently produce content with Flash, which ultimately interrupts our income . If a project takes x amount of hours, and now takes x+1 hours, well that can equate to quite a difference in your per/hour income over time. Especially when you consider all of that extra time could have been used on the next project, and thus new income
                                                                                  If you like removing the flash help panel, that is awesome for you, and FYI the livedocs have always been available since CS3, so nothing has changed for you in that circumspect. Just the removal of the option that a large majority of use regularly. And as far as maintainability, we don't care that the content comes from the web, we care that the content can no longer be accessed while in flash. I think a number of viable options have been given in this thread alone on ways that can be accomplished, and knowing the brilliance of the Engineers that produce this content, they can do a great job coming up with a way to fix this in the CS4 time frame.
                                                                                  We believe in you Adobe!
                                                                                  • 38. An Open Letter to Adobe
                                                                                    I Love Doing Websites Community Member
                                                                                    hello, I am just an amateur here, but I must confess that every time that I publish or open flashcs3 my heart wants to stop because I don't know if this time I would find a horrible bug and the program won't work anymore. I am stressed out.

                                                                                    the other day flash started to crash when publishing, did nothing new, installed nothing new, moved nothing, just another day but flash decided to crash when publishing. Wrote to the forum and no answer
                                                                                    • 39. An Open Letter to Adobe
                                                                                      Walter Elias Community Member
                                                                                      I'm not sure why this thread has devolved into a discussion of the Help feature, since that is only one of the huge problems with CS4 which, as Josh so eloquently pointed out, resulted from the Flash development team losing sight of what their users do, want and need. If the Flash team hasn't realized it yet, Flash is more than just a commercial product or a tool to many of its users. People develop passion and a personal feeling of investment in it. When Flash or its development team let us down, we feel it personally.

                                                                                      I'm sorry, but I absolutely don't accept Richard Galvan's almost flippant remarks about why they can't even say whether they're working on a patch. Richard, read this thread and many, many others on this site. Then re-read Josh's comment above:

                                                                                      "You have to realize that it is harder to win a community back, that it is costlier when customers start bailing, and CS4 sales flop."

                                                                                      Flash CS4 is such a disappointment, not only due to its many bugs and failings, but also because, with no input from its user base, the developers added new features without taking them the full step forward toward usability (for example: bones without nails for even basic IK? A useless toy). Even the kindest reviewers of Flash CS4 have said that these tools are merely tastes of what Flash could be. Between the underwhelmingness of the key new features and the glaringly obvious major bugs that slipped through, Flash CS4 is a true flop. And I've been getting steadily fed up with the management's attitudes ever since my conversation with Kevin Lynch a few years back, in which he stated in plain English that working on patches and bug fixes for Flash was not considered the best use of development budget. In other words, why waste money repairing a broken product? Wait a year or two and then call it a new product and charge money!

                                                                                      So, count me as one who has bailed. I'll still use Flash 8. There are some small but (to me) significant problems with its UI, though as long as clients demand Flash projects, I'll use it. But I have no plans to further support a company that releases broken software which is not properly vetted by real users, and which proudly trumpets an attitude that they refuse to even tell those users whether they intend to fix the problems. It will take huge changes both in the software itself and in the company's attitude before I would ever consider buying Flash again, or any other Adobe product.
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