Flash Enabled Blog

The numbers are clear and speak for itself. The Adobe Flash platform has a dominant market position of the online world and I think will remain so for the next years. The Adobe shows today that continues the careful research and development of this creative world, and introduced the beta version of Flash Player 10. This new version of Flash Player is compatible with Windows, MacOS (> = 10.4), Linux and Ubuntu.

The new features are:

Filters and effects created by the user

Through Adobe Pixel Bender who want to, can now create new filters and apply them in their Flash applications in a way as simple as was previously with the existing filters. Filters created by the user can be applied to any type of DisplayObject, from the vector images and video. Filters can then be animated in runtime.

Support native 3D

We can finally use 3D in our applications without having to resort to Papervision 3D, or Sandy Away3D, thanks to the support of embedded coordinated Z.

Drastic improvements in supporting text

Support for text has been dramatically improved, allowing:

* Apply anti-alias, rotations, etc., the sources system (device fonts);
* Support the text right-to-left;
* Support the typographical elements such as bandages typographical;
* Control the layout of the text through tables, inline images, columns;
* Support of advanced anti-aliasing (Saffron 3.1), which increases the performance and quality sources of anti-aliased;

Improvements to the Drawing API

It is much easier to design without having to recourse to the technique of “lineTo”, “lineTo”, “lineTo”, one can build complex figures with relative simplicity. One of the features of the new Drawing API is the possibility of changing figures already built - which greatly simplify the process of animate pictures drawn by the user.

Increased visual performance through hardware-accelerated

Through a parameter in the code of Embed SWF Flash Player will use the graphics card to calculate effects of composition of bitmaps, filters, blend modes, video, etc., leaving more space for the CPU usage. In systems whose graphics are not supported in, the Flash player adapts itself to use the processor, as happened before.

Support for audio and video improved

It was introduced to support Dynamic Streaming which allows the video quality to be adjusted automatically on the server side, so as to optimise the viewing experience of the user, avoiding the effect of “video to hiccups.” This adjustment is done by calculation of quality of service that measures both the conditions of the network (bandwidth) over time, as information from the CPU.

The support of streaming by RTMP has also been improved, and introduced the protocol RTMFP that is not more than the RTMP to run on UDP, resulting in a performance much higher.

The audio has also been improved with the introduction of a new codec - Speex - that will better quality sound with smaller wide needs of bandwith.

You can watch the following videos and download the source code of examples about above features:

• Watch Justin Everett-Church, Sr. Product Manager for Flash Player, demonstrate 3D effects
• Watch Justin Everett-Church demonstrate custom filters and effects
• Watch Justin Everett-Church demonstrate advanced text layout
• Watch Justin Everett-Church talk about the enhanced Drawing API
• Watch Justin Everett-Church talk about the visual performance improvements