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Macromedia launched the new Flash Updater 2. Code-named Ellipsis, this is an important dot release (7.2) to Flash MX 2004 and Flash MX 2004 Professional. Upgrading is simple, free and highly recommended as this update contains over 160 tweaks and fixes. It’s probably worth pointing out, just to avoid confusion, that there are no changes to the Flash Player. This update is purely for the Flash authoring environment.

- Hunt out or copy down your Flash serial number. You may need this later.

- Launch the Macromedia extension manager and disable any Flash extensions. This may take some time so be patient. If you don’t have any Flash extensions then you can skip this step.

- Now download the Ellipsis updater from Macromedia’s web site. Unfortunately it’s the size of a house. At over 60Mb it’s going to be pretty much impossible to pull down over a dial up modem. If you’re in this position you’ll need to find a buddy with fat connection and CD burner.

The upgrade process:

1. Run the updater. This may take a minute or two to complete. Don’t interrupt this process as folders and files are being moved around.

2. When the updater is complete, re-launch Flash.

3. Under certain circumstances you may be asked to re-enter your serial number. If so then do this and proceed. Flash should open as normal.

4. If you had Flash extensions then close down Flash and re-open the extension manager. Re-enable any Flash extensions. Now you’re done!

Performance

There are a lot of improvements in this updater but some things are more obvious than others. You should find that the rearranging of the file locations (see step 1 above) will improve the start up time. This is particularly noticeable in multiple log-in environments. Compilation time has also been improved.

Stability

This updater fixes 18 crash bugs and just as many usability issues. For that alone it’s worth updating now.

Components

Over 40 component issues have been addressed and fixed. One of the most noticeable is the welcome return of a new standalone scrollbar component. There was much rejoicing. There is also a new Event Delegate class that allows you to specify specific functions for individual event listeners.

Help

The biggest improvement by far however is the massively overhauled Help documentation. Previous incarnations of this have been notoriously patchy or inaccurate. Macromedia have put some serious time and effort into sorting this out. This update comes with over 400 new code examples and 21 new example FLA files. ActionScript documentation alone has almost doubled with virtually every entry now carrying a code example. Over 2000 documentation bugs have been fixed and entire chapters added or re-written. In addition to this there is now a Flash engineer in a permanent position on the documentation team. This all bodes very well for the future.

All English downloads and boxed versions are now shipping with version 7.2, and international versions (French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Simplified Chinese (Flash Professional only) and Traditional Chinese) will be released in a few weeks

So there you go - thanks to the hard work of the Flash team and beta testers you now have a faster, more stable, better documented work environment. So when you’ve upgraded then nip along to the Flash Team site and say thanks.

For more information

- Download the 7.2 updater

- Read the release notes

- What Is the Significance of Ellipsis?

- Proxying event with the mx.utils.Delegate Class