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http://www.macromedia.com/software/breeze

2. Licenses

Pursuant to the terms and conditions of this License, you are granted a nonexclusive license to use the Specification for the sole purposes of developing Products that output SWF.

No documentation indeed:
http://download.macromedia.com/pub/flash/flash_fil e_format_specification.pdf

I thought the same thing until I started digging down into it - beleive it or not, Flash's file format, called "SWF", is a somewhat open standard (you can download it from Macromedia from here, and you're allowed to implement it without licensing restrictions, but neither is it GPL'ed) and has been implemented by at least open source project, so you don't even technically need Macromedia Director to create Flash stuff. Writing SSWF scripts feels a lot like programming. Now I just wish I could think of something interesting to do with it...

Unfortunately, code signing, as currently implemented and (mis)understood by users, is an all-or-nothing proposition. There are certainly legitimate uses for privileged mobile code, but most users don't really read or understand security warning dialogs, they just think "I just clicked the Start Game button, and now it's asking me if I really want to Start the Game. How stupid."

Marimba actually came up with a good partial solution ages ago. When their framework loaded and executed a Java app, the framework would closely manage exactly what resources could be exploited by the app. Each application's ability to read and write files was restricted by default to its own tiny corner of the filesystem, and the amount of space it could occupy with its files was constrained as well.

Note that Java's security manager infrastructure has allowed these sorts of fine-grained controls since 1.2 (circa 1998), but no one to my knowledge has yet found a way to effectively communicate to a user:

• what resources a given piece of mobile code will want to exploit;
• what the risks of running it might be;
• some assurance that the code is published by someone they trust;

MSIE's concept of local policies set according to centrally defined security zones was a step in the right direction; it's too bad its development stalled when the Browser War was "won."

Linux doesn't just run on x86, you know.

But flash *does* run on the vast majority of desktop platforms out there. Since this guys wants to do banking, I assume he's working on some sort of desktop system. Who runs a desktop that isn't x86, PPC, or SPARC?

Let me whip out my linux binary of flash player. Let me look around for a second... BAM! Here it is: http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/downl oad.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash&P2_Platform =Linux&P3_Browser_Version=Netscape4
That wasn't so hard. If there was a Google test you wouldn't pass.

Flash doesn't require Active X.

Here, see for yourself.

Not every use of binary data is a "kludge".

Since the primary use of Flash is for sending out over network links (and was created in the mid-1990's when very few people had broadband), I think this was a reasonable decision on their part. (Is PNG a "binary kludge"? Should PNG have been XML-based?)

And the spec is available for download. So if the Firefox guys wanted to, they could write an open-source implementation of this, too. (You could probably even make it render just the text, if you wanted.)

Calling Flash "some binary kludge" sounds to me suspiciously like people saying PDF sucks because Adobe's Acrobat Reader crashes their computer. OK, the viewer sucks, but what does that have to do with the file format?

You miss the point totally . Flash had the first Ajax (stupid name - because he went crazy and killed himself) like implementation. You should look at XmlSocket in flash to realize how good it was .

Flash is cool , was cool and Adobe willing will remain cool. (and I'm a FOSS geek who thinks animated SVG will never quite make it).

Flash Player Help

Model-Glue: MVC for Object Oriented CFMX

MVC with Fusebox

MVC with Mach-II

And if you're using CFMX J2EE: Streamlining Application Development Using Struts in ColdFusionMX

Everybody knows Adobe as the inventor of PDF, but unfortunately the company was nowhere on the servermarket. MacroMedia on the other hand has a more than interesting server product: Cold Fusion. The combination of both technologies looks very promising to me.
But wait a minute! Weren't you able to produce PDF documents with Cold Fusion? Of course you were: ColdFusion MX 7.0 is shipped with the iText.jar (iText, a free Java-PDF library, hosted on SourceForge, originally developped by yours truly).
And now comes the funny part: due to some regulations I don't fully understand, MM can't use any Adobe technology (or vice versa) till the end of the year. This means that the new company Adobe Systems will be shipping iText in their products for PDF generation.
The company that invented PDF, shipping my F/OS library hosted at SourceForge! What a weird way things work out some times.

Macromedia already has FlashPaper which converts printed documents to SWF.

No, it hasn't, but the companies it was formed out of were around, and were making Macintosh software as early as 1984. Adobe started making Macintosh software in 1987.

Adobe Timeline [PDF]
Macromedia History

I hate to break this to you, but the Flash (SWF) file format is actually open, and there are a number of tools available to play with SWF files.

I don't have links right now, but I'm pretty sure your other claims are false. Dreamweaver, for example, generates valid XHTML/CSS code. You obviously haven't used any of these products.

Now I think I understand. What is everyone complaining about in relation to PDFs? The plugin. What does FlashPaper do away with ? The plugin.

Well, not really, there's still the Flash plugin. But instead of two proprietary nonstandard plugins, you'll get one, with features ( as needed/desired ) provided through the Flash app. Which is a good thing if you're targeting small devices like cell phones, which is how they're trying to spin this to the market.

Ugh.

Honestly, this is a little distressing. I've been a long-standing user of both companies' products and I'm not even sure what to think.

Probably my biggest fear is that they'll do something to ruin Flash.

Now before you say "good riddance" (I realize that /. as a whole hates Flash) ... I still think the true power of Flash has yet to be fully realized, and the destruction of Flash will have a greater impact than on just Flash itself.

Prime example: since version 2 of Flash, I've had a desire to be able to write Flash-based apps in a traditional programming or XML tagged based environment. Macromedia finally released my dream with Flex -- an XML development platform that uses Flash for the display teir without the worry of browser or platform incompatabilities.

There's a "sales-y" video demo of a shopping cart system in Flex as well as some example components and existing apps that you can view if you what to see what Flex can do.

It's still fairly young and I'd really hate to see this combination of technology fade into obscurity due to mismanagement from a company primarily involved in developing content-creation tools, and who seemingly doesn't listen to its customers as well as Macromedia (just my personal experience).

I'm hesitantly optimistic that I'm worrying for no reason.

Ugh.

Honestly, this is a little distressing. I've been a long-standing user of both companies' products and I'm not even sure what to think.

Probably my biggest fear is that they'll do something to ruin Flash.

Now before you say "good riddance" (I realize that /. as a whole hates Flash) ... I still think the true power of Flash has yet to be fully realized, and the destruction of Flash will have a greater impact than on just Flash itself.

Prime example: since version 2 of Flash, I've had a desire to be able to write Flash-based apps in a traditional programming or XML tagged based environment. Macromedia finally released my dream with Flex -- an XML development platform that uses Flash for the display teir without the worry of browser or platform incompatabilities.

There's a "sales-y" video demo of a shopping cart system in Flex as well as some example components and existing apps that you can view if you what to see what Flex can do.

It's still fairly young and I'd really hate to see this combination of technology fade into obscurity due to mismanagement from a company primarily involved in developing content-creation tools, and who seemingly doesn't listen to its customers as well as Macromedia (just my personal experience).

I'm hesitantly optimistic that I'm worrying for no reason.

Ugh.

Honestly, this is a little distressing. I've been a long-standing user of both companies' products and I'm not even sure what to think.

Probably my biggest fear is that they'll do something to ruin Flash.

Now before you say "good riddance" (I realize that /. as a whole hates Flash) ... I still think the true power of Flash has yet to be fully realized, and the destruction of Flash will have a greater impact than on just Flash itself.

Prime example: since version 2 of Flash, I've had a desire to be able to write Flash-based apps in a traditional programming or XML tagged based environment. Macromedia finally released my dream with Flex -- an XML development platform that uses Flash for the display teir without the worry of browser or platform incompatabilities.

There's a "sales-y" video demo of a shopping cart system in Flex as well as some example components and existing apps that you can view if you what to see what Flex can do.

It's still fairly young and I'd really hate to see this combination of technology fade into obscurity due to mismanagement from a company primarily involved in developing content-creation tools, and who seemingly doesn't listen to its customers as well as Macromedia (just my personal experience).

I'm hesitantly optimistic that I'm worrying for no reason.

Ugh.

Honestly, this is a little distressing. I've been a long-standing user of both companies' products and I'm not even sure what to think.

Probably my biggest fear is that they'll do something to ruin Flash.

Now before you say "good riddance" (I realize that /. as a whole hates Flash) ... I still think the true power of Flash has yet to be fully realized, and the destruction of Flash will have a greater impact than on just Flash itself.

Prime example: since version 2 of Flash, I've had a desire to be able to write Flash-based apps in a traditional programming or XML tagged based environment. Macromedia finally released my dream with Flex -- an XML development platform that uses Flash for the display teir without the worry of browser or platform incompatabilities.

There's a "sales-y" video demo of a shopping cart system in Flex as well as some example components and existing apps that you can view if you what to see what Flex can do.

It's still fairly young and I'd really hate to see this combination of technology fade into obscurity due to mismanagement from a company primarily involved in developing content-creation tools, and who seemingly doesn't listen to its customers as well as Macromedia (just my personal experience).

I'm hesitantly optimistic that I'm worrying for no reason.

I wonder what's going to happen to Cold Fusion? It's already the black sheep of the Macromedia "familiy". Maybe they'll just keep "supporting" it as poorly as they do now...

This merger of technologies seems very interesting. However, I think there is room for caution given recent issues on Acrobat and Flash:

There is the document tracking (via javascript) that is turned on by default in Acrobat Reader 7.0. This "feature" was uncovered by LWN.net and was previous mentioned here

One web site mentions Flash's ability of using local share objects to restore deleted cookies or to store them at a third party web site. Although I don't understand the details, this ability seems in part tied to javascript as well. They provide a link that is "dedicated to securing your local Flash-player installation".

Adobe's web site isn't responding at the moment, so I couldn't look for their explanation of Adobe Javascript.

Hmm. I wonder if this means we'll be seeing SVG support in Macromedia's Flash Player any time soon?

That alone would be worth the ridiculous amount of money Adobe coughed up...

I tried to get the press release from Adobe, but their site seems to be /.'ed. The text below is from Macromedia's Site

--

ADOBE TO ACQUIRE MACROMEDIA

Combined Company to Deliver Industry-Defining Technology Platform for Rich, Interactive Content

SAN JOSE, Calif. - April 18, 2005 - Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq: ADBE) today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Macromedia (Nasdaq: MACR) in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $3.4 billion.

The combination of Adobe and Macromedia will provide customers a more powerful set of solutions for creating, managing and delivering compelling content and experiences across multiple operating systems, devices and media. Together, the two companies will meet a wider set of customer needs and have a significantly greater opportunity to grow into new markets, particularly in the mobile and enterprise segments.

"Customers are calling for integrated software solutions that enable them to create, manage and deliver a wide range of compelling content and applications - from documents and images to audio and video," said Bruce Chizen, chief executive officer of Adobe. "By combining our powerful development, authoring and collaboration software - along with the complementary functionality of PDF and Flash - Adobe has the opportunity to bring this vision to life with an industry-defining technology platform."

Under the terms of the agreement, which has been approved by both boards of directors, Macromedia stockholders will receive, at a fixed exchange ratio, 0.69 shares of Adobe common stock for every share of Macromedia common stock in a tax-free exchange. Based on Adobe's and Macromedia's closing prices on Friday, April 15, 2005, this represents a price of $41.86 per share of Macromedia common stock. Upon the close of the transaction, Macromedia stockholders will own approximately 18 percent of the combined company on a pro forma basis.

In the combined company, Chizen will continue as chief executive officer and Shantanu Narayen will remain president and chief operating officer. Stephen Elop, president and chief executive officer of Macromedia, will join Adobe as president of worldwide field operations. Murray Demo will remain executive vice president and chief financial officer. Dr. John Warnock and Dr. Charles Geschke will remain as co-chairmen of the Board of Directors of the combined company and Rob Burgess, chairman of the Macromedia Board of Directors, will join the Adobe Board.

"Both Macromedia and Adobe are passionate about creating and enabling great experiences across a wide range of devices and operating systems," said Stephen Elop, president and chief executive officer of Macromedia. "Our combined teams will be a powerful force for innovation around cutting-edge platforms for delivering content and applications."
Integration

The two companies are developing integration plans that build on the cultural similarities and the best business and product development practices from each company. The companies will make additional details and information about the acquisition available at http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/invrelations/adobe andmacromedia.html.

"While we anticipate the integration team will identify opportunities for cost savings by the time the acquisition closes, the primary motivation for the two companies' joining is to continue to expand and grow our business into new markets," said Chizen.

The acquisition, which is expected to close in Fall 2005, is subject to customary closing conditions, including approval by the stockholders of both companies and regulatory approvals. The transaction will be accounted for under purchase accounting rules.

Due to the absence at this time of estimates of the acquisition-related restructuring costs and the allocation of the purchase price between goodwill, in-process R&D, other in

I must be stupid but what does Macromedia have for "print/press media"?

http://www.macromedia.com/software/

I was under impression that Macromedia is "Web designer" products company.

hmm...I started to submit this story, but I guess taco beat me. So I'll just post the story I submitted ;)

As reported here and even on Adobe and Macromedia, Adobe will be aquiring Macromedia for $3.4Billion. From the Macromedia site: "The two companies are developing integration plans that build on the cultural similarities and the best business and product development practices from each company. The companies will make additional details and information about the acquisition available at http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/invrelations/adobe andmacromedia.html."
With Adobe recently putting out reader 7 for linux, what should our hopes be that linux apps will be kept reasonably up to date in the integration plans?

Typing each of the first ten numerals into google gives:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

It seems that UK-based Websites that use Flash to track visitors must clearly display a reference to this use. This is because UK legislation is not specific to cookies.

Information Commissioner's Office
Information Commissioner

"Cookies or similar devices shall not be used unless the subscriber or user of the relevant terminal equipment a) is provided with clear and comprehensive information about the purposes of the storage of, or access to, that information; and b) is given the opportunity to refuse the storage of, or access to, that information."
privacy and electronic communications (ec directive) reg. 2003

"...a visitor must be informed wherever a cookie or other tracking system enables the collection of personal data. This might be done via an on-line notification that appears before data collection begins, or via the website's privacy statement. However, if a notification provided via an on-line privacy statement is to be relied upon it is important that at least some reference to the use of tracking technology is clearly displayed to all site visitors."
FAQ

The marketers have responded with PIE. Persistent Identification Element (PIE) is a technology that uses Macromedia's Flash MX to track you even without using cookies.
slashdot

"[Macromedia] Local Shared Objects have the same functionality as cookies" Slashdot

"The list of Visited Websites displays the following information for each website: The name of the website..."
Privacy Settings

(IANAL)

Why would you be so trusting of Intuit but not Omniture?

Yeah.. plus, as an Omniture customer, I'm not completely sure they're the genius overlords people make them out to be.

here is a sample of what an actual omniture tracking bug looks like. It's a bit of javascript, an img tag and some categorization variables. (Ours is slightly different than the sample code macromedia has.. because each customer's tracking bug is customized by omniture)

We don't give omniture our server logs (hell, we don't even have them turned on).

Now looking at today's reports, omniture claims that 124 people have hit our index page using Lynx. How can they know that? Lynx doesn't run javascript, and doesn't load imgs... so a Lynx browser should be totally hidden from them.

What's even more suprising is that Omniture claims that 4 people have hit our index page using "wget (unknown version)".

While omniture does provide some amazing statistics... the magical tracking of Lynx and wget make me suspicious.

Hmm, apparently you need a Macromedia server for this as described here.

Under what operating systems will gnome-meeting run?

1. Point your browser to Macromedia's Global Storage Settings Panel.
2. Drag the slider to "None". The setting seems to take effect immediately.
3. Click the last tab on the right, a picture of a folder with a green arrow pointing in.
4. Any sites that have already stored data locally will show a value in the "used" column. I had a few suspicious entries in mine which were instantly cleared by clicking "delete all".

Go to this page:

http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en /flashplayer/help/settings_manager03.html

Go through each of the tabs on the Settings Manager and select the most privacy friendly options available.

You can get a list of all sites that use SharedObjects (the feature that works like cookies) into on your computer here.

http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en /flashplayer/help/settings_manager06.html#117645

It lists how much it uses, and you can delete what you want.

How to uninstall Flash player (Tech Note)
http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/in dex.cfm?id=tn_14157

Direct Links

Flash 7
http://download.macromedia.com/pub/flash/ts/flash7 /uninstall_flash_player.exe

Flash 6
http://download.macromedia.com/pub/flash/ts/uninst all_flash_player.exe

How to uninstall Flash player (Tech Note)
http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/in dex.cfm?id=tn_14157

Direct Links

Flash 7
http://download.macromedia.com/pub/flash/ts/flash7 /uninstall_flash_player.exe

Flash 6
http://download.macromedia.com/pub/flash/ts/uninst all_flash_player.exe

How to uninstall Flash player (Tech Note)
http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/in dex.cfm?id=tn_14157

Direct Links

Flash 7
http://download.macromedia.com/pub/flash/ts/flash7 /uninstall_flash_player.exe

Flash 6
http://download.macromedia.com/pub/flash/ts/uninst all_flash_player.exe

Wow. You're set in your ways.

I'd equate a talentless WebDev more with someone who doesn't understand that to advance and have talent it will involve learning and working with new technologies. A talentless WebDev would still make static HTML sites. A talented WebDev will be making database driven sites or applications. Luckily in 1999 I managed to move past static sites and since then I've worked on some great projects.

All your Flash rage is still based on animation and intros. I couldn't produce a worthwhile Flash animation if my life depended on it. I agree and think they're dated and add minimal value to every site.

I can on the otherhand produce some pretty nice Flash apps (as long as I have a design resource to make it cute). Here's a couple of links.

http://www.subaruprimalquest.com/race2003/index.cf m?tabSection=leaderboard

http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/store/

Now this is just one man's opinion, but I think both of those sites are way better with their Flash versions compared to the HTML versions. I'll let you make your own decision.

That's fine but nobody is saying which tab in here to click
http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en /flashplayer/help/settings_manager.html
and what to turn off

http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en /flashplayer/help/help02.html

I believe the above link applies to these settings. It wasn't obvious from Macromedia's website where to go for this.

Who in the right mind would allow random Flash applications access to their camera and microphone? What use would this have?

No one should allow "random" sites to have access to their camera or microphone. But that doesn't mean that it has no legitamate use.

With Macromedia Breeze, you can have live seminars, online meetings or training sessions with anyone who has the Flash player installed.

Seems pretty useful to me. I agree that for most public website content, the microphone and camera have no real use, but that's why Flash denies access by default. It's there if you need it, but you're not vulnerable by default.

Let's see you got 1 and 1/2 out of your 4 points correct.

1) Bandwidth hungry.
Not always true. Think about Flash applications. One Flash movie load of 200K can replace a dozen or more page views at 100K each. So 200K vs. 1200K. Which is less?

2) Annoying advertising.
Yep!

3) Section 508 compliance.
You're not even close to right here. Flash does support section 508 compliance. It's just like any web technology, you have to take the time to do it. http://www.macromedia.com/macromedia/accessibility /features/flash/

4) Google does index Flash
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Google+indexi ng+Flash&btnG=Google+Search

Conclusion. You don't know what you're talking about. I hope you get modded down now that these facts have been linked for you.

Do you have a text/html editor?
Some people do.

Have you ever considered Macromedia Fireworks (cost: US$299)? There is a significant price difference as compared to Adobe Photoshop (cost: US$649.00). IMHO, I do not consider Macromedia Fireworks inferior to Adobe Photoshop, as it has the necessary features I require from a graphics editing program. And also, I feel that it is much easier for lay people to learn.

I beg to differ.

Dreamweaver is also a great framework for plugins. While the host application still offers some functionalities, they are related with the actual implementation of the plug-in architecture. You probably don't know - but Dreamweaver is now mostly built from plugins, and those are built with HTML and JavaScript almost exclusively. The HTML editor is not a plugin, but almost everything else is, and the options are unlimited.

Not only this plugin architecture is powerful, but it's also platform independent - you can easily configure it to generate PHP/ASP or JSP code with the same plugin implementation and different platform files. Everything is XML, and a lot of regexps are used to detect code patterns and parameters that are presented in the visual interfaces. This plugin system is so powerful, that it allowed us to build a fully functional Dreamweaver PHP support layer (they only supported ASP and JSP back then), in just several months.

If you've read the Cooper book - The Inmates are Running the Asylum you will understand easily how plugins have appeared in Dreamweaver back in the Drumbeat 2000 times - as a layer between the IDE user (Betsy - an HTML designer) and the hardcore programmer (I forgot his name, but he was a he :). When building dynamic sites, the designer and the programmer always clashed as they have different value systems (the designer dislike programming, the programmer don't care about design). So Dreamweaver was built as a layer between the programmer and the designer - helping the programmer work with the designer by writing plugins for the IDE that the designer will use to create complex things.

That's what a lot of companies are doing now with great success. <shameless plug>We're doing it - http://www.interaktonline.com - with significant results - 10000 licenses sold and 500,000 downloads for the free extensions</shameless plug>, and there are also a lot of other companies doing it (you'll find more on the Macromedia Exchange - a place where people exchange free and commercial plugins)

Dreamweaver also avoids the plugin hell using a powerful packaging technique (they came with their own package format - MXP - that knows how to do "safe changes" to the IDE - like adding menu entries, code completion features, etc). Those changes are applies using the Extension Manger - a nice piece of software that knows how to "undo" IDE changes when uninstalling an extension.

Want to learn something from a working implementation? Learn how Macromedia did it and a lot of interesting lessons will be learnt.

Alexandru

Yes, you probably are. In all seriousness, there are quite a few applications that cost significantly more than the OS: Lightwave3D is $1695.00, Maya 6.5 Unlimited is $6999.00, Cinema 4D R9 Studio is $2995.00, Coldfusion MX 7 is $2999.00. And those are just a few from one field. Just take a look at CAD software, high-end video and audio editing software, not to mention prioretary enterprise-wide business solution software.

I understand that when your computer world consists of bittorrent, w4R3z, and the one legitimate game you bought for $29.95, $150.00 seems like alot. However, for professionals $150.00 is practically nothing.

Check this out: http://www.demicron.com/wirefusion/

This could replace Flash soon. Key points:
* Visual programming based on blocks(objects) and wires that connect them which are used to send events like counters and mouse over.
* High quality real time 3D rendering with reflections, morph targets, shadows, animation.
* Host SWF(Flash 2.0) within scene.
* MP3 playback(with add-on)
* Based on Java 1.1 which works everywhere.
* Stable Dev environment itself based on Java.
* Light weight player which bundles with your app.
* Stream resources.
* Mix 2D, 3D, Real-time photoshop-like image filters.
* Extend functionality with Java programming itself.
* Java penetration is 87% according to Macromedia.Next best to Flash itself.
* Really easy to test and debug.
Cons:
* High price... for now. I'm sure they'll lower it once more people start using it. Right now its $1K for the professional and $2K for enterprise. $99 for standard.

I have a lot of fun using it and don't like flash's frame based approach. WF is all event based. How it works for large scale apps remains to be seen.

Kon

I looked at flash and was happy to see that a flash *.swf file saved and run localy, can't do anything more then when its on the web

This page on the Macromedia site can install an application called Macromedia Central and launch it, all through Flash. It's disconcerting to see an application appear on the dock in OS X, launched from the web through Flash. I haven't tried it out on Windows, but I presume it works the same. It feels like a security hole that can allow software to be run outside of a sandbox environment.

Did any of the alarmists actually go to the download page?

The Yahoo bar option shows up in IE, not the other browsers.

And if people are concerned about this, why not take some positive action? Sure as Macromedia is checking blogs, they'll be looking at how many people download the Yahoo version vs. the regular version.

Instead of sulking, go and download the regular version if this upsets you. To MM, that will be one more person who doesn't want the Yahoo bar.