Adobe® Flash® Catalyst™ is a new professional interaction design tool for rapidly creating expressive interfaces and interactive content without writing code. Create interactive portfolios, product guides, microsites, site navigation, interfaces for RIAs and more.
- Transform artwork created in Adobe Photoshop®, Adobe Illustrator®, and Adobe Fireworks® into interactive designs.
- Rapidly create interactive prototypes with the ability to leverage them in the final product
- Publish a finished project as a SWF file ready for distribution
- Work more efficiently with developers who use Adobe Flash Builder™ 4 to create rich Internet applications (RIAs). Designers use Flash Catalyst to create the functional user experience then provide the project file to developers who use Flash Builder to add functionality and integrate with servers and services.
New Beta 2 release adds support for video, sound effects, motion easing, AIR and more. Read about all of the new features.
Watch a video overview of Flash Catalyst (6 minutes)
Create the user experience through an approachable interaction design tool for designers with no coding required:
- Sell your ideas: Be able to show a functional design instead of static screenshots to communicate your ideas.
- Ensure your creative vision is accurately expressed: Design with the expressiveness of Flash Player.
- Fast learning curve: If you can use Photoshop or Illustrator you can quickly learn to use Flash Catalyst.
Get Flash Catalyst beta 2
Discuss Flash Catalyst in the forums
Vote on new ideas or submit your ownFlash Catalyst and Flash Builder are based on the open source Flex 4 framework.
Getting Started
Follow these steps to get started with Flash Catalyst:
- Review the system requirements and release notes
- Download Flash Catalyst beta 2
- Activate the beta using the beta serial number (available on the download page).
- Learn to use Flash Catalyst
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Ask questions and share your feedback in the Flash Catalyst forum
Please note that your submission of comments, ideas, feature requests and techniques on this and other Adobe maintained forums, as well as Adobe's right to use such materials, is governed by the Terms of Use.
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Vote on new ideas for Flash Catalyst or submit your own
Community
Below you'll find references and links to help you participate in the Flash Catalyst user community.
Online Forum
Ask questions, discuss, and share feedback with other users in the online forums.
Please note that your submission of comments, ideas, feature requests and techniques on this and other Adobe maintained forums, as well as Adobe's right to use such materials, is governed by the Terms of Use.
Ideas
Vote on new ideas for Flash Catalyst submitted by developers and the user community or submit your own ideas.
Visit Adobe Labs Ideas for Flash Catalyst
Resources
If you want to learn more about releases on Labs as well as other Adobe technologies, visiting a user group or connecting with an Adobe Community Expert is a great place to start.
Product Details
Features
| Features Introduced in Beta 2 | |
|---|---|
| Feature | Description |
| Faster performance | A noticeable performance increase over beta 1 |
| Enhanced Interface | A more refined and easier to user interface |
| Video support | Import video files, use standard playback controls or easily create your own |
| Sound Effects | Add sound effects to interactions |
| More components | Convert artwork into more components such as sliders, radio buttons, scroll panel and more |
| More interactions | Specify a URL to open during an interaction, play a video |
| Export to AIR (in addition to SWF) | Export projects that run outside the browser using Adobe AIR. |
| Motion Easing | Define easing for more fluid motion |
| Filters | Apply multiple filters to alter graphics such as adding drop shadow, glow, blur and more. |
| Blend modes | Select how objects blend with other objects |
| Accessible Content | Create an accessible SWF file that can be used by the visually impaired. |
| SWF control | Play a SWF file from a specific frame |
| SWF output options | Create a SWF file that is deployable, redistributable and has fonts embedded. |
| Features Introduced in Beta 1 | |
| Feature | Description |
| Integration with Photoshop and Illustrator | Import native Photoshop or Illustrator files with full fidelity. Round-trip editing preserves the structure and interactions added in Flash Catalyst. |
| Transform artwork into a dynamic components | Transform any piece of artwork it into a dynamic component such as a button, scroll bar, text input field and more. |
| Interaction Design without coding | Create sophisticated interactions without writing any code. |
| Design-Time Data | Set the look and behavior of data when real data from servers is not available. |
| Create a list from artwork | Convert artwork into a component that has a variable number of items or rows of data. |
| Timeline panel | Graphically edit and create animated transitions between pages or states of components by specifying the start and duration time in seconds. |
| Pages and States | Organize your project into different pages create states for objects such as buttons. |
| Layout productivity tools | Achieve just the look you want quickly and precisely using layout tools that produce sophisticated page layouts. |
| Extend with Flash Builder | Provide your project files to developers who use Flash Builder to add functionality and integrate with servers and services. |
| Export to Flash Player | Export your project as a ready-to-publish Flash SWF for display in a web browser. |
FAQ
- How is the Flash Catalyst beta 2 different from beta 1?
- Please review the beta 2 features list.
- Can Flash Catalyst beta 2 open projects created in prior versions?
- Due to the numerous changes in the Flex 4 SDK, Flash Catalyst beta 2 can only open projects created in that version. It cannot open projects created in any prior versions including beta 1.
- What are the goals of the public beta release?
- Flash Catalyst is a new product so we need to get user feedback to make the product a success. We want to ensure it meets the expectations and needs of designers. We also want to understand how designers using Flash Catalyst work with developers who use Flash Builder.
- When is Flash Catalyst shipping?
- The final product will ship in the first half of 2010.
- How much will Flash Catalyst cost?
- Product pricing will be announced when the final product ships in 2010.
- Is this beta release early or close to final? Can I use it on real projects?
- This is a public beta release of Flash Catalyst and should only be used for evaluation purposes and not for mission-critical projects.
- Is this beta release feature complete or will more features be added?
- Not all features are implemented in the public beta release. Additional features may be added before the final product ships. You can submit Flash Catalyst ideas.
- How is Flash Catalyst different from Flash Professional?
- Flash Catalyst is an interaction design tool, based on the Flex 4 framework that is focused on creating expressive interfaces and interactive content without writing code. Flash Catalyst is an approachable tool for designers who want to rapidly create Flash content that is organized into pages or “states”. It is also ideally suited for projects that may need to be extended by developers who use Flash Builder 4. Flash Professional is the industry-leading tool for creating engaging interactive experiences across the multi-screen environment. Learn more about Flash CS4 Professional on Adobe.com.
- Will Flash Catalyst be included in the Creative Suite?
- Flash Catalyst is currently in development and pricing, packaging and availability have not yet been announced.
- How is Flash Catalyst different from Flash Builder 4?
- Flash Catalyst is a design tool and does not require any coding. Flash Builder 4 is an Eclipse-based IDE (Integrated development environment) that is targeted at application developers who write code.
- Are Flash Catalyst and Flash Builder integrated? Can I do round-trip editing between them?
- Project files created in Flash Catalyst (FXP files) can be opened in Flash Builder, however once the files are edited in Flash Builder they cannot be re-opened in Flash Catalyst. Developers can selectively merge in changes from the Flash Catalyst file.
System Requirements
The minimum system requirements for the Flash Catalyst beta are as follows:
Mac OS
- Intel® processor
- Mac OS X v10.5.7 or later
- 1GB of RAM (2GB Highly 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 flash-based storage devices)
- 1,024x768 display (1,280x800 or greater recommended) with 16-bit or greater video card
Windows
- 2GHz or faster processor
- Microsoft® Windows® XP with SP2 or greater, Windows Vista® Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise with Service Pack 1 (tested with 32-bit Windows XP and Windows Vista)
- 1GB or RAM (2GB Highly recommended)
- 1GB of available hard-disk space for installation; additional free space required during installation (cannot install on flash-based storage devices)
- 1,024x768 display (1,280x800 or greater recommended) with 16-bit or greater video card
Release Notes
This release of Flash Catalyst is prerelease software and is designed for evaluation purposes only. We do not recommended that this release be used on production systems or for any mission-critical work.
