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Most of you probably wonder what will be new in Flash CS5 Professional, after key feature (exporting flash project as iPhone app) was banned from use? Adobe has presented the new CS5 package on Monday, the new branding looks really great and creative. Right now there is no way to download the trail of any CS5 products. Rumors spreads that the new CS5 package will be available for download around 15th of May. Back to the main topic, what is actually new in Flash CS5?

Text Layout Framework

Flash CS5 Professional will have new text engine called Text Layout Framework or TLF. It will enable a developer to easily perform an advance text styling like: ligatures, kerning, leading and tracking. TLF will also support text blocks, user will be able to flow text across few columns or around images. As the presentation shows developer will simply link text fields. Text will automatically flow from one field to another. If you buy an InDesign CS5 you will be able to export InDesign projects as an fla files, so the import to Flash will be extremely easy :) Those of you leaving in Asia (or other exotic countries) will be astonished with the ability to (finally) change the orientation of the text (left-right, right-left or columns). In other words now Flash CS5 Professional will fully support languages like: Arabic, Hebrew and all the languages using East Asia typography.

Code Hinting

Long awaited full code hinting for custom classes comes to Flash IDE. Code hinting enabled in Flash CS5 will be similar to this in Flex Builder/ Flash Builder, maybe there wont be need for external code editor. Additionally Adobe added code snippets panel, which gives developer the ability to use pre-made chunks of code. Snippets can be edited via XML and easily shared, exported and imported.

XFL – XML based FLA file format

Adobe introduces an alternative for the standard FLA format, it will be called XFL and will contain of XML file along with additional assets like: jpeg, png, flv etc. We can consider XFL file format as uncompressed FLA file. The new work flow will be great because developer can edit the external assets and they will be instantly updated.

Video Improvements

New Flash have also improved video support, the key features include: onstage video scrubbing and enhanced cue point work flow, which means that now in the properties panel you can add and delete the cue points of video object.

Mobile Application Development

This feature is controversial because converting Flash apps to iPhone wont be accepted by Apples App Store so Flash Developers can only develop Apps for them selfs but they cannot sell them on App Store. This feature was the most wanted feature of new Flash CS5. If you want to know more about this Apple vs Adobe situation read this.

Flash Builder Integration

In Flash CS5 developer will be able to choose if he wants to edit the ActionScript code in Flash Builder or Flash IDE. If he chooses the Flash Builder he will be able to compile the project and run it in Flash IDE with single click, no more need to alt/cmd + tab :) Additionally Flash will create the project structure for us.

Additional Features

When you lunch any of the previous Adobe application you surely get annoyed by the rectangle splash screen which stays on top of everything, not any more! In CS5 application the splash screen will hide under other windows currently open! :) Flash CS5 Professional supports Flash Payer 10.1 which mean they are also new “modules” added to ActionScript 3.0 for example we can easily add multi touch support to our projects, if you want to see this feature in action watch this video.

Those are not all of the new feature that will be included in Flash CS5 Pro, there are tones of other features not listed in this post. Those listed here are my own selection, I think they are the most important. I really look forward to the new Flash IDE, the only think that worries me is the export to iphone, I was really hopping to use that feature. I am sure the new Flash CS5 Professional will be better then CS4. Keep your fingers crossed for better performance, after installing Flash Builder I got worried about that little thing…

Don’t forget to watch the Flash CS5 sneak peak prepared by Lee Brimelow.

Kuba