Brian Lesser says:

Easier precision text layout and more flexible image embedding in text.
Placing text that lines up with other elements pricely on the stage takes too much trial and error. Images embedded inside text fields can only float to be flush left or right. You should also be able to embed an image between text characters and have it stay within a line and in between the text characters. For example smilies in chat text.
Yours truly,
-Brian

CL says:

Motion blur is a very popular effect in the entertainment business and I believe it would be possible to pull off in Flash. Currently, I blur a graphic in Fireworks/Photoshop and import it into Flash. I believe it would be a great feature to have internally.

Better bitmap scaling should also be added to the priority list. Currently we still find heavy pixellation when bitmaps are scaled, something that can be resolved with incremental smoothing; I have a feeling that if an engine to manage bitmap effects were in place, the motion blur and bitmap handling could both be addressed, along with many other cool, After Effects-style effects.

Frank says:

Personally if it could somehow be integrated so that a separate program didn’t need to be downloaded, that would be great. (and probably impossible).

mani says:

OK – couple more things that just came up when i was working this morning (please note: i obviously mean that all these features apply to the author environment, NOT runtime):

- when you use a partially transparent white in a textfield, when entering text in that field the text acually completely disappears – this can’t even be fixed by selecting ‘outline’ mode on that layer. Only way to remedy is to choose solid white, then tweek the alpha after the text is entered. But this is sometimes really inconvenient).
- related to the above, whenever a textfield is selected to enter type, the entire textfield is highlighted in a totally opaque white. Very often, it’d be useful to be able to see through to the underlying design
- when movieclips have nothing in their first frame (except a ‘stop’ command that is), then identifying, selecting and even positioning them becomes very difficult (there can sometimes be a hundred of these empty first-frame clips on stage at the same time). To remedy this, i’d like:
1. to have small labels attached to the little dots that signify ‘empty first-frame’ movie-clips on the stage (these could activate as a tool-tip, or when a layer is selected in the timeline, for example. Or there could be a little toggle “Identify MovieClips” button).
2. Should be possible to have some sort of ‘see into MovieClip’ function on the main timeline – this could be as simple as a Guide layer whose visibility could be toggled on/off FROM THE MAIN TIMELINE. That way objects could be positioned without the trouble of identifying, selecting and opening a MC, just to make sure you are moving the right one 3 pixels up, down or left…

- there should be an easy way to identify if a textfield has embedded characters: when making a site with an embedded font in all textfields, it’s all too easy to miss embedding in some fields. Of course, because you have the font on YOUR OWN computer, you never spot this mistake. Only other people see the ugly mess. How about a little symbol in one of the corners of the textfield in the authoring environment to show fonts are embedded in just THAT field?

Ticean Bennett says:

Oh, one more thing to make me really happy:

When moving an item on the stage via the arrow keys, please create a standard increment by which the item moves. Currently, the increment is different depending on the zoom level.

It makes things confusing when moving items a set count of keystrokes (for example, laying out a quick grid array of graphical items) while zooming.

I’d really rather not move something .8 pixels.

Steven Lyons says:

1) Better type rendering and control of kerning and anti-aliasing. Type control in Flash is very primitive and sloppy. This is my biggest complaint as a designer using Flash. The rendering of small circular letterforms and shapes is particularly egregious (clips the top and bottom of the circle). I am often forced to render small circles in Fireworks and import them as jpegs or gifs.

2) Fix the Pen and other drawing tools to make them consistent with other drawing apps. Every time I introduce a design student to Flash, the reaction is always the same…’why don’t the drawing tools work like other programs?’ All my students at CCA in SF learn Illustrator (face it, design schools don’t teach Freehand) before Flash and then have to unlearn everything about the drawing tools. It makes for great entertainment, but is ultimately a major time waster.
Specific drawing tool changes:
• Better Stroke Control (ability to turn them off and keep them off; more stroke options including endcaps, full dash control ala Illustrator)
• Eliminate the automatic Knockout and Join shape ‘features’ and create a ‘pathfinder’ style palette to control this stuff.
• Fix the stacking order controls so that when you create a new shape it stays on top of the stack (instead of disappearing to the bottom the minute you let go of the tool). Try explaining that one to a first-time Flash student who just spent 20 minutes drawing a complex shape…’WTF? where did it go?”

3)Layer-based blending modes and transparency.

gnaneshwar.m says:

there must be an option in the “Lybrary Panel” , whare we can update all the “bitmap images” at once.

This will greatly minimise the time to updat each image in the lybrary.

Suppose say we have to regularly update 50 images from the lybrary window, we need to take the repeated pain to replace it.

This option i have been looking from MX version and still not got.
I feel this will greatly benifit the regular updates of the bitmaps for the flash designers and developers who are in big scale of flash production.

Will be greatful if i see in the new version.
thank u
gnaneshwar.m
India, bangalore
gnanesh_madhu@rediffmail.com

pong says:

As a digital artist / multi media designer in hongkong… i intensively use flash as tools to creat static motion. Using AS to developed sophisticated action scripted art piece for theatre perforamance and concert projection……i personnally think that 1/increase in I/O capabilitites e.g can “listen” midi device .children toy maker will love MM
2/spectrum analyse of MP3 file
3/SVG style filter
4/url anchor component as MX now have anchor sys. by means of anchor naming in the frame….. but how about dynamic site with dynamic data….and page..we a now all achieve that by extra help of PHP asp.
5/better Draw API.
6/the curve drawing tool can be more advance like the one i find in Illustrator
two control point control/
7/mean while flash can only listen microphone volume….. better can listen pitch also.can detect income R/L input is much much better

///

MaTT says:

Better workgroup management, the exisiting solution is confusing and mickey mouse, the fact that you need something like vss for vc sucks, take a note from versioncue, maybe macromedia should invest in a bespoke system, shipped with studio prof or something, a movie explorer for all open dox, ie a site, to make global changes and with sites getting bigger, a sitemap tool showing relationships based on movie explorer. something like dreamweavers but more interactive, and publishable to send to clients, also shows relationships with say xml files/video files, their attributes. As for Photoshop, I’m alpha so I’m nda’ed:) Actually, I have many more ideas as I go, but forget them, I should make notes.

MaTT

Mushon Zer-Aviv says:

We want the Right to Flash,
it is more importent than any emboss or blur-effect. Macromedia, please make the web “What the web can be”:
http://www.the-right-to-flash.com

Anon says:

Multiply, Screen, etc.

Brandon Flowers says:

So I guess this now relates to wishes for Flash 9 now ;-D

I was looking up something in Help today and would like to see a number beside View comments on LiveDocs which would tell me if there are any comments.

For instance, there was a great fix posted by Jen DeHaan on the “an example using styles with html” which I almost missed…

Also I had a great workshop with Grant Skinner on the weekend and he mentioned that we could email Macromedia about our wishes for Flash… he said the email address was something like “wishflash@macromedia.com” … is that right?

Glen says:

Can you make an easy to import xml data window? I would love to be able to have Flash look at the nodes and then I could just select the one or ones I want.

Daniel says:

I couldn’t understand some parts of this article featue in Flash what would it be?, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.