Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5.5 - complete package

Create expressive, interactive content without writing code Transform static artwork from Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Fireworks software into fully interactive user experiences without writing code. Prototype user interfaces for Flex based websites and applications, and collaborate intelligently with developers who use Adobe Flash Builder software.

Top reasons to upgrade to Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5.5

Full designer-developer workflow—Work with confidence on shared Flex based projects with a new bidirectional workflow that allows designers to collaborate with developers who use Adobe Flash Builder 4.5.

Resizable applications and components—Visually design and preview the position and scaling of objects when designing interfaces and applications that adjust to fit various screen sizes or resolutions.

Enhanced timelines and animations—Craft precise, expressive transitions and effects with greater control and less effort. Animate filter effects and font sizes, and easily apply customizations across effects or objects.

Common Library panel—Quickly design wireframes and evolve developer-ready interface concepts using native Spark components and placeholder graphics.

Custom skinnable components—Craft the visual appearance, or skin, of developer-built custom components without the need to understand the underlying code or logic.

Improved interactions—Define user interactions more efficiently with the ability to globally target any component within your project, and specify double-click actions as interactions.

User-requested enhancements—Align and distribute objects with a new Align panel, lock aspect ratio when manipulating objects, easily name components for better collaboration with developers, and more.

Use a new efficient workflow to collaborate intelligently and roundtrip files with developers who use Adobe Flash Builder 4.5 software. Rapidly prototype user interfaces for resizable Flex based websites and applications with new components. Craft more precise and expressive transitions and effects, and efficiently design developer-built custom components.

Flash Catalyst CS5.5 software enables designers to expand their skillset and design user interfaces and interactive components for Flex based websites and applications without writing code. Designers can quickly create functional prototypes using new components and interactions, which can then be sent to clients for approval. These prototypes are based on the open-source Adobe Flex framework, and can be handed off directly to a developer for coding in Adobe Flash Builder 4.5. New in Flash Catalyst CS5.5, developers can send projects back to designers, who can then continue to tweak the design and to skin components using artwork from Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, or Fireworks software. This collaborative workflow allows designers and developers to work in parallel. Built for designers, Flash Catalyst combines an intuitive user interface and toolset—similar to those in Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Fireworks—with the expressiveness, consistency, and reach of the Adobe Flash Platform.

^{An intuitive user interface allows you to easily set constraints—settings that determine how your content will adjust when viewed on screens of different sizes—for the entire artboard or individual components.}

With Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5.5, you can:

Speed the design and development process. Build functional, interactive user interface designs with a collection of Spark Flex components and new placeholder components. Collaborate intelligently and roundtrip project files with developers who use Adobe Flash Builder 4.5. Open a Flex project that was created or previously edited by your developer partner directly in Flash Catalyst, where you can skin components using artwork from Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and Fireworks.

Approach interaction design without writing code. Transform static Photoshop, Illustrator, or Fireworks designs into fully interactive projects without requiring any development or coding skills. Use a new Align panel, an enhanced Timelines panel, and a more powerful Interactions panel to quickly and easily prototype user interface designs for Flex based websites and applications. With an easy-to-use and approachable interface, Flash Catalyst enables designers to expand their skill set to include interactive projects.

Leverage the power of the Adobe Flash Platform. Rapidly create expressive interfaces and interactive content to your exacting design standards. Deliver your creative vision using the reach and consistency of the  Adobe Flash Platform. Easily integrate video, sound effects, and dynamic media, and get the look you want quickly and precisely with layout tools and panels. Bring designs created in Flash Catalyst into Flash Professional for further refinement and development. Export projects for the web as finished SWF files or directly to a customer as Adobe AIR projects that can run across platforms as desktop applications.

Top new features of Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5.5

Full designer-developer workflow
Flash Catalyst CS5 and Flash Builder 4 enabled a workflow that allowed designers to provide native Flex Project (FXP) files to developers, who could then open and continue to work with those files. Now, Flash Catalyst CS5.5 and Flash Builder 4.5 expand on this concept and deliver a powerful new workflow that lets designers and developers collaborate on the same project.

For example, you can begin by creating a wireframe in Flash Catalyst CS5.5. Add interactions, transitions, and constraints, and then hand the file off to a developer. In Flash Builder 4.5, the developer can add logic, create connections to data sources, and then return the file to you. You can then open the file in Flash Catalyst CS5.5 to add final artwork and skin the application.

^{A full roundtrip workflow allows designers and developers to work collaboratively throughout an entire project.}

A protected workflow
When you open files created or modified by a developer in Flash Builder, there is the risk that you may compromise the work done by the developer. To avoid potential issues, Flash Catalyst CS5.5 helps prevent you from deleting or modifying components, if doing so will result in broken code. For example, if a developer adds ActionScript code that references a component, and you remove that component, the file will produce errors, or it wont run as expected.

In addition, you may open a file that contains a data list that a developer has already linked to a data source. You can still skin the component within Flash Catalyst CS5.5, but the Design-Time Data panel is disabled for that component, thus protecting the integrity of the code. The data displayed in the component when you test it will be live data.

^{When you select a data list component that was created by a developer, a message in the Design-Time Data panel informs you that the data cannot be edited in Flash Catalyst.}

Resizable applications and components
Creating applications that look great across devices with different screen sizes is a huge design challenge, so Flash Catalyst now lets you to define constraints that control how applications and components adjust when they appear on screens with different sizes and resolutions.

You can set a project to be resizable via an option in the New Project dialog box, or in the Artboard Settings dialog box that causes objects and components on the artboard to display with small circles on each of the four sides of the object. Click on the little circles, called constraint handles, to apply constraints to the bounds of the application or the parent component.

Changes in the size of components across states are tracked as state transitions and can be animated. In addition, when working with a resizable application, you can drag the widget that appears in the lower right corner of the artboard to preview how your application will behave when it is resized or displayed on different sized screens.

You can preview how your design will adjust by resizing the artboard directly within Flash Catalyst

^{When selected, components display with four constraint handles, allowing you to easily set constraints} 

Enhanced timelines and animations
Flash Catalyst CS5.5 makes it easier to navigate through longer timeline transitions, with a new horizontal scroll bar across the bottom of the Timelines panel. In addition, Flash Catalyst CS5.5 takes advantage of more efficient code enhancements. Transitions that are applied in the Timelines panel have been rewritten to use the <animate> tag, making for more efficient and better performing code.

Common Library panel
The Wireframe Components panel in Flash Catalyst CS5 has been replaced with a new Common Library panel in Flash Catalyst CS5.5, sporting larger and more descriptive icons. Appearing in a horizontal format, the panel contains a collection of new components that fall into two categories:

• Flex components. Flex Spark components, written to support Adobe Flex 4.5, can be skinned and used directly by developers when projects are opened in Flash Builder 4.5. Flex components are identified with pencil icons in the Common Library panel.
• Placeholder components. Unlike Flex components, placeholder components are not Spark components, and they cannot be skinned in Flash Catalyst. They are intended to be used as mockups or placeholders, which a developer can modify later in Adobe Flash Builder 4.5.

The Common Library panel features a Search field that allows you to quickly find the component you need. In addition, there are filters that allow you to view all components, just Flex components, or just Placeholder components.

^{The new Common Library panel makes it easy to build wireframes with components.}

Custom skinnable components
Custom skinnable components are elements that are built by developers in Flash Builder 4.5 and contain customized parts that are defined and controlled by the developer. These custom components can be skinned by a designer in Flash Catalyst CS5.5.

When a custom skinnable component is imported into Flash Catalyst CS5.5, you can choose Modify > Convert Artwork To Component > Skinnable Component. This brings up the Select Skinnable Component dialog box, which allows you to choose from a list of all of the components available in the project. The dialog box also features an Import From File button that allows you to quickly import additional component definitions from a Flex Project Library (FXPL) file.

Improved interactions
With Flash Catalyst CS5, you could specify a transition to a state at the application level when defining an interaction, but you could not specify a transition to a state within other components. In Flash Catalyst CS5.5, you can visually target components directly from the artboard, making it possible to easily define transitions to other component states. A new target mode is now available when you define an interaction, which allows you to navigate and visually select another component or object on the artboard. You can then choose to target a state from the selected component.

^{When defining interactions, you can choose a target visually, directly from the artboard. Flash Catalyst CS5.5 offers a new On Double Click interaction for extended functionality.}

User-requested enhancement
Adobe continuously reaches out to both designers and developers in efforts to add useful features. Flash Catalyst CS5.5 adds a number of enhancements requested by users, including the following:

• Align panel
  The new Align panel is similar to that found in other Adobe design applications such as Illustrator. It can be found grouped with the Interactions panel and contains align, distribute, distribute spacing, and match size functions. In addition, the panel allows you to align objects to the artboard.

^{The Align panel makes it easy to quickly square up your wireframes and designs.}

• Efficient component naming
  When you convert artwork to a component, or when you double-click a wireframe component in order to skin it, that component is added to the Project Library panel. In Flash Catalyst CS5, these components were named automatically (i.e., Button1, Button2, and so on). In Flash Catalyst CS5.5, any time you convert artwork to a component or attempt to skin a wireframe component, you are prompted to name the component. In this way, the components in your library can be quickly understood, making it easier for developers to work with your projects.
• “Replace With” command
  Flash Catalyst CS5.5 simplifies the process of mocking up functional wireframes by enabling you to easily replace objects on the artboard. With an object selected, choose Modify > Replace With and the Select Asset dialog box open, listing all the objects in your project library. This allows you to quickly replace a rectangle with a component, or even replace one kind of component with another.
• Updated color theme
  Flash Catalyst CS5.5 features a new theme for wireframe component skins, which uses shades of gray to give you a color-neutral wireframe for your project. This new color theme appears in both the Flex and the Placeholder components. In addition to the neutral gray color scheme now featured in the components, all drawing tools in Flash Catalyst CS5.5 create shapes that use a matching shades of gray by default. This theme allows you to quickly generate wireframes with a consistent look.
• Placeholder components.
  In addition to the neutral gray color scheme now featured in the components, all drawing tools in Flash Catalyst CS5.5 create shapes that use a matching shades of gray by default. This theme allows you to quickly generate wireframes with a consistent look.

System requirements

Mac OS

• Intel processor
• Mac OS X v10.5.8 or v10.6
• 1GB of RAM (2GB recommended)
• 1GB of available hard-disk space for installation; additional free space required during installation (cannot install on a volume that uses a case-sensitive file system or on removable flash storage devices)
• 1024x768 display (1280x800 recommended) with 16-bit video card
• DVD-ROM drive
• Java Runtime Environment 1.5 or 1.6
• Broadband Internet connection required for online services and to validate Subscription Edition (if applicable) on an ongoing basis

Windows

• Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon 64 processor
• Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2; Windows Vista Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise with Service Pack 1; or Windows 7
• 1GB of RAM (2GB recommended)
• 1GB of available hard-disk space for installation; additional free space required during installation (cannot install on removable flash storage devices)
• 1024x768 display (1280x800 recommended) with 16-bit video card
• DVD-ROM drive
• Java Runtime Environment 1.5 (32 bit) or 1.6
• Broadband Internet connection required for online services and to validate Subscription Edition (if applicable) on an ongoing basis