I don’t know if the macromedia personell will read this, but every person I’ve talked to about this program has said that flash was SO much easier BEFORE actionscript came into existence. I’m in a actionscript class right now and I am starting to believe it. I hope they get a clue and either make the script easier to use with a translator or something, or take it out completely, cause the current system right now, is failing miserabley.

I made the plunge into Adobe CS2 and Studio 8 in Feb. ‘07. Most of the products are fairly intuitive to use – except for Flash. But realizing that Flash REQUIRES learning to program in ActionScript, I tried to prepare for the learning headache. I began by going through the “Getting Started with Flash 8″ tutorial provided under Flash’s HELP tab – and soon ran into MAJOR problems. The ‘Cafe Townsend’ project looked very slick and the completed example worked flawlessly. But as you try to build this project in the tutorial, there are numerous errors that absolutely halt your progress. Obviously, Adobe never tasked anyone to actually go through the tutorial – not even ONCE. So I called Adobe Customer Service, and after more than an hour of mostly being on hold, their response was: that tutorial was produced by one of their vendors, Element K – and not Adobe’s responsibility. They gave me Element K’s number. (NOTE: Adobe’s Customer Service Dept. is completely outsourced to India and some of their reps are VERY hard to understand. I end up asking them to SPELL the word they’re trying to pronounce. Very exasperating!). Element K said they didn’t develop that tutorial. So back to Adobe and TWO MORE HOURS on the phone – this time with their Tech Support Dept. (American English at least). I finally got a solution to one undocumented problem that was a show-stopper. After hanging up and returning to the tutorial I immediately encountered ANOTHER error that, being a Flash newbie, I simply couldn’t fix. So back to Adobe Tech Support (yechh!). This time, after 2.5 MORE hours on the phone (mostly on hold), the rep finally told me that the Cafe Townsend tutorial project was “full of holes” and that I should upgrade to Flash CS3. I told the rep I wasn’t inclined to upgrade until I could get some utility out of my current 6-month old purchase. So I asked him which Flash tutorials actually DID work? He said that several of the Flash 8 tutorials were buggy. I asked if there was a ReadME, Release Notes or an Errata file anywhere that I could use to navigate around the errors. No such files. Disgusted, this prompted me to ask for a manager. I was then repeatedly put on hold, usually for 30 minutes or more at a time – only to be recycled BACK to Help Desk (my starting point)! I spent 6.5 hours on the phone yesterday (8/20/07)! After spending enormous amounts of money on these two expensive suites of Adobe software (CS2 and Studio 8), I am really disgusted that Adobe has absolutely NO interest in my satisfaction with their products – AFTER the sale. My Adobe Support experience is the WORST I’ve ever had with ANY company. I thought Dell was bad, but at least with Dell you can escalate an issue to eventual resolution (although it may take weeks). But Adobe has no such customer satisfaction intentions or problem escalation policy. BTW, I switched to SwishMax, a Flash look-alike that’s easier to use, way cheaper, and actually produces a compatible .swf file. Plus, their Tech Support is VERY responsive – all the way from Australia (and their tutorials actually WORK!). Shame on you Adobe! a classic bloatware ripoff company. A great argument for OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE. And NO, I will NOT be upgrading to CS3. Flash Buyer beware.

If you do artwork or design Flash is just as important to have in your tool kit as Photoshop is. Flash is an all purpose, multi-functional graphics program. It does animation, drawing, painting, web pages, games, video encoding, and programming. It was originally intended to be a drawing programming, so the basic tool set is very intuitive and once learned aids in drawing. I have seen examples on the Web that actually use it to color their comic pages. I use the drawing tools to draw math diagrams or touch up AutoCad drawings. The animation also has a low learning curve. You can create movie clips, button, or graphics to define your animated entities. There is a time line that is used to create the animation. As shown you don’t need Action Script unless you are designing a game or website, or enhancing the animation. I myself am not much of a coder. But Action Script is relatively easy compared to other programming languages. I have just used it for simple things like buttons and links, but all you need to do is turn on “script assist” and have a good reference book. I have not programmed any games. I would not let Action Script discourage you from trying Flash. As mentioned, Flash is a multi-purpose tool and that is true for all skill levels. The degree of difficulty can range from drawing a line to programming a game. I have yet to create an entire Flash site. That can get involved. But if you look in my profile, my site has some of the things that I have created in Flash. Not the most impressive examples. But one has buttons and another is an animation. It just shows that even with a basic understanding of Flash, work can still be produced.