Flash MX Professional 2004

by Macromedia

Product Features

• Top-of-the-line Flash development environment for advanced content and applications
• Tools for creating forms-based data-driven applications, interactive presentations, high quality video experiences and more
• Build effective data-driven applications with familiar forms-based development, powerful data-binding, and Microsoft Visual SourceSafe integration
• Add interactivity and customized interfaces to high quality video
• Broad device deployment is easy with device-specific emulators, templates and sample content

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B0000CAVRR
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 29, 2006
• Average Customer Review: 2.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #17,183 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #30 in Software > Web Development > Web Effects > Objects
  • #62 in Software > Web Development > Professional Development

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 is the top-of-the-line Flash development environment for advanced content and applications. The Professional edition includes everything in Flash MX 2004, plus powerful tools for creating forms-based data-driven applications, interactive presentations, high quality video experiences and easy deployment to mobile phones and devices.

Developers can quickly build effective data-driven applications with familiar forms-based development, powerful data-binding, and Microsoft Visual SourceSafe integration. Video professionals can add interactivity and customized interfaces to high quality video and reach the widest audience through the world’s most pervasive platform, the Flash Player. Broad device deployment is easy with device-specific emulators, templates and sample content.

Product Description

Flash MX 2004 Pro makes it easier than ever to develop advanced Flash content, applications and video experiences! Create your own data-driven applications such as Web services or application servers Easily manage and publish all your files to your site through a single project panel

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Very disappointing, December 31, 2003

By 

D. McAlester - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Flash MX Professional 2004 (CD-ROM)

update 9/29/04 - i just wanted to chime in regarding the 7.2 updater that was recently released. macromedia has done the right thing and released a massive and free update to the horrendous mx2004. though it speaks volumes about the initial release's quality when i say that despite hundreds of fixed bugs and performance enhancements, mx2400 is still a not very good. unless you desperately need a feature of mx2004, i would suggest waiting for the next release, which macromedia has promised will focus on performance and stability.

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the two eariler reviewers are quite correct, flash mx 2004 is a very poor release from macromedia. performance is unacceptable, even the script editing, which is little more than a text editor, is sluggish; crashing is constant; adherence to OS human interaction guidelines is mostly ignored. the new "features" added are buggy and not implemented very well at all making them all but useless in many cases. unfortunately this is indicative of the current state of software development from macromedia (many of the complaints against flash can be lodged against dreamweaver and fireworks as well). they enjoyed their most successful year following the release of the original MX studio, which while flawed was at least usable and relatively stable. MX 2004 was very obviously pushed out by marketing/accounting far too soon and they are now reaping the rewards of their greed (macromedia missed their quarterly earnings because of the "slow uptake of studio 2004" and the stock has suffered). one can only hope that the financial sting of releasing a shoddy product will encourage them to pay attention to the little details in future releases. though the quality of the recently released 7.0.1 updater does not leave me overly confident.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, June 10, 2005

By 

Robert Ogg - See all my reviews

This review is from: Flash MX Professional 2004 (CD-ROM)

Don't be mislead by people who say this is a bad program, they most likely don't know how to use it. Flash MX Professional has helped me a lot with my website, it made it look better and made it better. With this you can also make cartoon animations like the ones on newgrounds and flashplayer, it took a long time to make just a short animation that had good graphics.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I HATE MACROMEDIA FLASH MX PROFESSIONAL 2004, December 31, 2004

By 

ChakaA (Dallas, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Flash MX Professional 2004 (CD-ROM)

9:29 AM 12/31/2004

Amazon Review
I HATE MACROMEDIA FLASH MX PROFESSIONAL 2004

That is the best way to describe how I feel about it. I mainly wanted the newer version of Flash, and now I regret the purchase.

My problems with it are a little different than some of the others who left reviews. First of all, I initially became acquainted with Flash through Flash 5 and have primarily been working with Flash MX over the past few years, so I'm accoustomed to how it operates. With Flash MX Pro 2004 it seems as if they've made everything harder to use, even with all their new features.

1. First of all, they got rid of 'normal mode' for the actionscript panel. I've heard a lot of programmers say that they didn't use it, but I found it a lot more convenient than the cumbersome 'behaviors panel' they have now.

2. They make it difficult to save files in the old Flash MX format, requiring you to select 'Save As' from the file menu, even if the original file was made in Flash MX, and then they have a dialog box come up to comfirm your selection. I'm not familiar with Actionscript 2.0 so I don't use it and would like portablity back to Flash MX, especially since you can only activate the software on one system. So if you have a desktop and a laptop, decide which one you want to develop on or be prepared to buy it twice. They should have made it possible to set the default save format in the preferences and allowed individual users to put the software on at least two systems.

3. The reference library seems more convoluted than helpful. I know they added more things, but they should have been able to figure out a better way to organize it.

4. My biggest problem with this software is that they took the 'Actions' out of the Timeline context menu. It boggles my mind as to why they would do that. In Flash MX if you right click on a frame you could bring up the actions panel. Now you either have to keep it docked, hit F9 or select it from the menu bar. All these other options inhibit workflow. I can't understand it and it frustrates me even after almost a year of using the software, that I keep wanting the bring up the actions panel from the context menu.

Maybe it would be alright if you've never used Flash before, you won't miss anything. I would suggest that if you're happy with Flash MX, don't even bother with 2004. However, I actually bought Flash MX Pro with the entire Studio MX 2004 suite. This is the first time I've used Dreamweaver and Fireworks and actually, I have come to enjoy using them (I'm more into programming and haven't found any use for Freehand yet). So it wasn't a totally loss, but still...

I HATE MACROMEDIA FLASH MX PROFESSIONAL 2004