Macromedia Ships New Flash Player and MX 2004 Lineup New Tools for Creating Rich Content Eric Grevstad
Mon 9/15/03 -- Macromedia has announced the availability of its MX 2004 product line for helping Web designers create and Web surfers enjoy interactive multimedia content.
Macromedia Flash MX 2004 helps developers accelerate projects with predefined behaviors that eliminate the need for complex scripting of navigation and media controls; timeline effects for common transitions such as blurs and drop shadows; new support for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for sites that blend Flash and HTML; and full spell-checking and global search and replace. The Windows and Mac OS X software is priced at $499 ($199 upgrade); Flash MX Professional 2004, which adds form and video capabilities and connectivity to server data, is $699 ($299 upgrade). The updated Flash Player 7 is free for the download.
Macromedia Fireworks MX 2004 ($299; $149 upgrade) boasts faster performance and new drawing and image-editing tools for creating, optimizing, and integrating Web graphics. Macromedia says Dreamweaver MX 2004 ($399; $199 upgrade) is the only comprehensive Web site building tool that delivers deep CSS support in a visual development environment; it supports all major Web technologies, SecureFTP, dynamic cross-browser validation, and seamless integration with Microsoft Word and Excel.
The new versions of Flash, Dreamweaver, and Fireworks come together in the Studio MX 2004 bundle, priced at $899 ($399 upgrade; add $100 to either for a bundle with Flash MX Professional).
