Macromedia announces upcoming Studio MX 2004 release

[MacBytes]

Category: 3rd Party Software
Link: Macromedia announces upcoming Studio MX 2004 release (http://www.macromedia.com/software/mx2004/)

Posted on MacBytes.com (http://www.macbytes.com)

Approved by arn

[Nermal]

I'm sure the people who actually use MX will appreciate this :)

I've got an, um, "backup" ;) copy of Dreamweaver which I've used about 3 times, so I've got no idea how good it is when you're actually using it for "real" stuff. I just use it instead of TextEdit to make sure my code's good :)

[ethank]

So what does this mean for Director? It isn't getting an update, and as far as I'm concerned Director MX is terrible. Crashes all the time, Lingo is out-dated and really inefficient to program in. Is this the end of days for Director?

[irmongoose]

Originally posted by ethank
So what does this mean for Director? It isn't getting an update, and as far as I'm concerned Director MX is terrible. Crashes all the time, Lingo is out-dated and really inefficient to program in. Is this the end of days for Director?

Director is not part of Studio MX. I'm sure they will be updating it, most likely after Studio MX, though, since Director MX was released much later on.



irmongoose

[Dahl]

Is it really time to upgrade again ?
I feel like I just did it.

[Megaquad]

mmmm... I can't wait for new version of Flash!
IMHO calling it Studio/Flash MX 2004 is pretty bad from marketing perspective.
It doesn't "feel" right for some reason but ok.

[iGav]

Originally posted by ethank
So what does this mean for Director? It isn't getting an update, and as far as I'm concerned Director MX is terrible. Crashes all the time, Lingo is out-dated and really inefficient to program in. Is this the end of days for Director?

Are you a Flash fan by any chance?? :eek: :p :p

Personally I've found DMX to be very stable and from what I recall I've yet to experience it crash. But that's my own personal experience.

As for Lingo, out-dated?? errr... yeah right... no really it is... totally useless... Why on earth would they want to change a programming language that is already well known?? That works... and works well...??

[Tiauguinho]

I surely do hope that this new version of Flash will have a lot of Bug fixes. Flash has a lot to grow and could have much more features. Im anxious to try this new version!

[mkaake]

pretty sweet - the thing i noticed was

flash mx - 2 times faster

...


matt

[zim]

err... okay not sure how I feel about the separation of flash into two versions, the descriptions did not really satisfy my as to why, I am sure it will be made more clear, can't wait to see the price difference. Funny, I was just talking with a friend who both of us have agreed that the pow of flash has really died off, I feel that macromeida sent out a bad message when they tried to do their whole home page and much of the internal in flash, then switched back. I love flash but have also noticed that in the past year, I have not been pushing it on my clients much, thanks to CSS and xhtml, the "static" side of the web has gotten a lot more interesting to develop with. Can't wait to try out their new version of DW with css compliance.

Was just reading about the software activation policy....


"Current Macromedia End User License Agreements generally allow you to install and use software on a single computer. However, we realize that many customers need to use software on more than one computer, such as a desktop and a laptop. Therefore, the Macromedia license agreement for products that require activation has changed to allow individual users to install a secondary license for non-concurrent use. Product activation allows installation on two machines."

glad to see that they allow you to install on a laptop and on a desktop. I hope that they also offer a way to de-authorize a license for future hardware upgrades.

[Mr. Anderson]

Its interesting to see that there's a FlashMX and a FlashMX Pro....

I'll be upgrading when its available, look forward to it. The pro version has better video support which really sounds good.

D :D

[fJones]

zim:

Studio MX 2004 $899.00 (full) $399.00 (upgrade from MX)

Studio MX 2004 w/New Flash $999.00 (full) $499.00 (upgrade from MX)

[zim]

Originally posted by fJones
zim:

Studio MX 2004 $899.00 (full) $399.00 (upgrade from MX)

Studio MX 2004 w/New Flash $999.00 (full) $499.00 (upgrade from MX)

Thanks, I found that shortly after I posted... but, I am not interested in Studio MX, just Flash and DW, I personally don't like Freehand nor Fireworks, but I also know that the price of DW and Flash pro combined might just make it silly not to go with the Studio set. I bet they will not post the individual pricing till it comes out.

My college is kicking it self right now, and if it is not then I will be. Last year I pulled together quotes form all the software vendors so that we could go legal, of which we did, but they refused my much stressed proposal that they should go with the subscription rates rather then purchasing a new license every time a new version comes out... now with all the budget cuts, well it just does not look good... stupid school, I know that at the end of the year this topic will come up again and I just picture them sitting there staring at me saying what do we do now?

[Moxiemike]

Originally posted by Dahl
Is it really time to upgrade again ?
I feel like I just did it.

You people whine that Macromedia isn't doing enough, that it's not releasing software in a competitive manner, and then they release stuff and you whine about it.

God. Tech people... So STRANGE.

[zkmusa]

I'm glad the new Dreamweaver MX is coming soon....

I hope Macromedia Dreamweaver and Fireworks MX 2004 will both have the "single window" option that their Windows counterparts have. That's the one feature I really miss about the Windows MX lineup.

[redAPPLE]

is there an alternative to Director?

[Dahl]

Originally posted by Moxiemike
You people whine that Macromedia isn't doing enough, that it's not releasing software in a competitive manner, and then they release stuff and you whine about it.

God. Tech people... So STRANGE.
Not really... You must have me confused with somebody else :D

I'm not whining, but as a designer in a biz with little jobs these days, I'm not eager to just buy an upgrade because it's there, I'll be upgrading a ton of Adobe later this year too. It's too cheap.

I love Flash, but I would love to see them focus more on the designer tools this time out, I understand that Flash's future might be in it's coding, but the animation tools could use a tune up. I also understand that MM needs to have a presence, but Flash really doesn't have any competitors right now.
I guess they prefer to udgrade the whole line up at the same time.

[Jerry Spoon]

Wonder what the education pricing will be. Any guesses?

[zim]

Originally posted by Jerry Spoon
Wonder what the education pricing will be. Any guesses?

Hopefully better then the full price... the full are $699 for flash and $199 for dw, you might as well buy the whole set. like i said before, freehand blah fireworks not my thing.

If I recall, they had some really good deals for education with the previous set up.

[Dahl]

I don't really use Fireworks or Freehand either, but since it's a part of the Studio package I might as well take it.

It's worth it to take the edu package, sometimes MM offers upgrade prices to the "real" version and the prices are good.

[bousozoku]

Educational package prices were $189 here, even after Freehand MX was included.

I'll be glad when Mac OS X is stable and the applications have been ported so that we'll not upset Moxiemike. :D Actually, it will be nice to cut down on the confusion as well.

Flash speed increases are certainly welcome as would enhanced ECMA JavaScript compatibility.

[beg_ne]

I'm not going to touch this with a 10' pole, not at the current prices anyway. This looks like little more than speed optimizations and some tiny tweaks, atleast on the Dreamweaver side.

And give the...well shoddy speed of all their apps, shouldn't we be getting that for free?

They are asking for a whole 1.0+ revision prices with what looks like a .1 upgrade.

Why fragment Flash? So if you don't want to spend an extra $100-200 you get the crippled version? No new version of Freehand? No Contribute 2?

And on their FAQ they allude to possibly looking into a "Professional" version of DW. What? I guess it isn't professional unless we pay $800 for the app...

Isn't it rather stupid to fragment the suite after they just brought it all together?

I'd reccommend anyone who already has Studio MX to stay away from this and let MM know you don't want to pay out the nose for such a puny update. This whole thing sounds to me like some marketing "genius" who had a really bad idea but thought was really good.

[Dahl]

Amen! :D

[evolu]

check out apple.com

[Chaszmyr]

Macromedia.com has educational prices in the educational section of their store

[shecky]

edu price is $199 for Studio MX and you get a free upgrade to MX 2004.

yummy :)

i do not think its Flash Pro tho :(

[xpormac]

wonder how long it will take for it to be on kazaa :D

[zim]

Originally posted by xpormac
wonder how long it will take for it to be on kazaa :D

make sure that you are aware of the new authorization process before you go jumping for a pirated version, also consider that fact that some people do make a living off this stuff and pirating only hurst the rest of us, example, new authorizing policy.

read some reviews and still have not come to an opinion, I really like what I have read about DW, little concerned about the hinting of a pro version of DW, didn't they try this already with DW ultra dev? Flash Pro sounds nice but I guess I need a demo or to see some of it in action before I upgrade this time around. I remember with Flash 5 and being at the Flash Forward conference in NY, the excitement over flash was powerful, everyone was excited, I had my money in my hand, I just don't feel that way about this update.

I feel in some way that we are in a decline, with the web, I was hoping that CSS styling was going to bring a boom, it did for blogs and I am happy to see DW and Flash now understand CSS but still too many people elect to go with plain html vs xhtml and css... what we need is 2 things, 1 an xhtml compliant way to embed flash, alistapart demonstrates one such way but it has its issues., and 2, DW and such WYSIWYG applications to go full CSS and XHTML, this is the only way the mass of "developers" will get motivated to change.

[iGav]

Originally posted by redAPPLE
is there an alternative to Director?

yes....

iShell is supposed to be very good at delivering media rich content, and I've read some very impressive reviews, but I've yet to try it out myself purely because of the raw development speed I have when using Director.

http://www.tribeworks.com/products/

Years ago I used to use SuperCard for Mac only dev, mainly because of it's control over QuickTime, which was way ahead of Director at the time... I have no idea though is SuperCard is still going, once Director hit version 7 I've never really looked back...

[zim]

Originally posted by iGAV
yes....

iShell is supposed to be very good at delivering media rich content, and I've read some very impressive reviews, but I've yet to try it out myself purely because of the raw development speed I have when using Director.

http://www.tribeworks.com/products/

Years ago I used to use SuperCard for Mac only dev, mainly because of it's control over QuickTime, which was way ahead of Director at the time... I have no idea though is SuperCard is still going, once Director hit version 7 I've never really looked back...

Very interesting, I have used director for 4 years... errr, well lets say last time I used director was 4 years ago. and I was very unimpressed that the current version of director is still yet to be able to create cross platform projectors... i know it relies on the os for resources but whatever... this iShell sounds very interesting because it can make projectors for either or... nice, cuts down on the studio overhead, too bad i am not in the market. I have found that most of my clients, when desiring some form of cd rom based project, are okay with the results from creating projectors in flash, I understand what the limitations are from flash... I am sure most of them are gone with the new version that is coming, but for a small stand alone project flash is great, and affordable.

[VIREBEL661]

Originally posted by Dahl
Is it really time to upgrade again ?
I feel like I just did it.

Me too - this is getting ridiculous..:rolleyes:

[kettle]

I'm still waiting for Macromedia to fix Flash MX. At the mo, Flash MX is about as usable as a bicycle with a red hot poker for a seat. It has to be the worst piece of mac software ever created. I wish I had spent the money on a second hand mac to run Flash 5 booted in Classic 9.0.4

That was the last time Flash worked well for me, and that was 5.0.1!

[bousozoku]

I thought Dreamweaver was the worst Mac software ever created. :D

Studio MX 2004 seems pretty good, but Dreamweaver is really slow, but Flash Pro seems nice enough.

I seriously doubt they're going to fix Flash MX though.