Flash Team

How about full mouse wheel support for the Mac? Both in the IDE and Flash Player? In the IDE, it really bugs that the wheel works in most places, but not in the timeline panel for scrolling through layers. I'm sure I've got tons of other requests, but this is one that just really bugs me for some reason.

JSFL wishlist :
- get the use count of an item in library.
- determine the context timeline ( in the main timeline or in the item n of the library )
- A method to turn a standard shape into a graphicObject
- when doc.testMovie() or doc.testScene(), the availabily to close the opened window
- XML2UI : menulist, radiogroup, availability to get selected value by item idx, not only by label
- XML2UI : popupslider, availability to give a start value
- doc.breakApart() , determines whether you can use the doc.breakapart() method like "canBreakApart()". Actually, if you use it when it 's not possible, an alert message that stops the script. Also in a try..catch
- a simple method to set the position on stage. ex : setPosition(x,y) , not with doc.moveSelectionBy
- In library : item.name gave the full path "Folder_1/Symbol_1". A property to access the short name "Symbol_1" could be nice
- Layer Object : a simple method that return an array of the keyframe position. Like layers[0].keyframes

ACTIONSCRIPT wishlist :
- Array.indexOf()
- Array.lastIndexOf()
- Array.unique()
- Array.min()
- Array.max()
- Math.roundToDecimal()
- String.trim()

Advanced sound manipulation. It would be interesting to match the new visual richness in the audio dimension.

A fullscreen option that can be triggered form a webpage.

Extra's like in Director.

Hi,

first of all: Flash is superb, but there is one thing that really stops Flash from overtaking rich GUI or game applications:

I would like Flash 9 to make use of OpenGL and/or DirectX. I would like to have Actionscript offer OpenGL/DirectX graphic commands in addition to the timeline (e.g. MovieClip versus OpenGLClip ;-). Have a look at "http://www.processing.org" and see how they do it rather comfortably.

Regards
Sabrina

Here goes:

1/ symbol distortion

It would be nice for designers and developers to be able to distort instances of symbols (perspective,etc). It would be nice to have it without implementing it in some difficult actionscript only BitmapData Filter API. It would be nice if this could apply to any graphical symbol: MovieClip, Button,TextField, Video, etc.

This would allow easier access to 3 dimensional effects that are traditionally rendered out as video or image sequences.

2/Team Workflow,kill FLA

Mike, I did a presentation a while ago in Toronto that you sat in on, where I explained all of the headaches of team development in Flash. The FLA format locks many hybrid teams into waiting for another team member to finish working with an FLA before you can work on it. Perhaps a new way to allow teams to work on traditional Flash projects that is similar to Flex, but looks like Flash.

This would allow my design and development teams to work together at the same time on the same project from start to end. The value on that is priceless.

3/ A real project Panel

I realize that GProject is out there, and is great, but there really should be a proper project panel in Flash.

This again is time save because a group could work as a team and not need to individually update their own FLP files. =(

I have a few others related to the JSAPI that I was upset about from awhile ago, but they are more minor. I will save them for another time.

- association for flv format so they can be previewed without using a 3rd party viewer

- greater text support like mouseLine, mouseWord,mouseChar (drawing from director)

- inherent doubleclick

-jsfl - date support ( in terms of referencing)

- more sound properties, like determining if a sound is playing on a timeline (soundBusy), or something of that sort. Its pretty limited and could use some work, altho I am sure others would disagree.

- Hardware accelerated graphics for better performance. Almost all PCs have GPUs today and more performance could make Flash a real application platform.

- Create players that can do some OS stuff. Make a new 'Director' Flash player with abilities to run high end video and access the file system etc. Director has aged too much for serious cd-rom development.

- More and better base classes and components to ease up the development cycle. With good documentation of course.

- Other performance enhancements

The ability to playback video and audio at non-realtime speeds while maintaining audio integrity.
Imagine being able to playback a video-recording of a lecture at 200% speed. That 1-hour lecture can now be experienced in just 30 minutes! Similar benefits for podcasts, seminars, presentations, shows, etc.
This may involve dynamic frame-rates which I'm sure would be handy for many other applications too.

Port Shockwave 3D to Flash. I don't understand why you didn't start work on this three years ago.

hitTest() detection between two shapes (not point-to-shape or box-to-box).
This would save many loop cycles in game development where we currently have to define several hitTest() points at the verticies of complex shapes.

How about reworking Remoting to better integrate with .NET applications. Take a look at how FlashOrb/WebOrb makes remoting much more robust.

Also - a rework of the Service Browser to recognize .NET gateways and methods like it does for ColdFusion.

More robust implementation for XML data handling via Xpath API.

A few more (couldn't hold back):

JSAPI

- Native XML Class
- Support for importing assets
- Data Update Events for SWFPanels

Flash Player

- MovieClip.framelabels

- This one is different but I would like more sophisticated pre-loading controls that do not force you to preload dynamic assets to the stage. Instead I would prefer to preload them to the library. It would be nice if I could load an external swf file into a slot in the library, and when it is done use attachMovie to assign it to the stage when ever I want. The same for any other asset.

I disagree with Lol Desai - we dont need the player being bloated 300% - keep 3d to shockwave.

The featuare I want the most, is for the Flash IDE to have a in built tea/coffee maker. Saves me getting up from my desk.

In all seriousness though, there something minor which realy gets my goat.

when I hit F8 to create a library instance, the IDE remembers my last selection. I'd prefer it to be always MovieClip by default.

Second - hardware acceleration would truely rock

How about a debugger that actually debugs?
http://www.flashmagazine.com/897.htm and
http://www.flashmagazine.com/1131.htm

J

Components enhancement:

I would like to see the components base code streamlined and brought up to date with strong typing. I would also like to see the process of skinning and customizing components simplified to the point where a non-developer can do it.

Already mentioned by Sabrina above but...

A hardware-accelerated graphics 'option' for the Flash Player that implements DirectX and/or OpenGL, which also would hopefully lead to runtime 3D support. With Microsoft's Sparkle on the horizon, it's something that urgently needs looking into given the ubiquity of hardware-acclerated graphics cards nowadays.

Overides....overides and a couple more overides on methods would be cool.

I would really love 3d in flash....maybe you could have an addin which included the engine which just extended flash....optional download. Hopefully all my wishes for workflow will come from Zorn :o)
Threading would be great aswell but a major im guessing. Wow do you guys never rest....just released and your into scoping the next release.

Well done on 8....very stable!

Flash 9 ? :)
Speed wishlist for me :

- RegExp !
- SVG ! (MovieClipLoader >> dynamic svg)
- AS2 : final, abstract, protected, destructor keywords ....
- synchronous calls
- ECMAScript V4 ? or Full Ecmascript prototype based with more instructions ...
- HTML 4 or XHTML in TextFields (smiley in text etc...)
- Natives API more complete : Collections/Iterators/Map/Stacks/LinkedList/BlackRedTree.... etc.
- native XML 367 ?
- change the operators
- Operators with Arrays or other Type : example [a,b] + [c,d] = [a, b, c, d] likes ruby api.
- More Geometry & Shapes Api (roundedRectangle, BevelRectangle, Round, Ellipse etc..)
- native EventDispatcher (or better event's api)
- stop progressive download (XML, LoadVars)
- Object.StyleSheet for skin components with css
- xtras , dll ?
- sleep() function
- Flash Right To Left : http://www.quasimondo.com/archives/000559.php#000559

- compilation more fast !!!
- intrinsic auto-make

PS : sorry for my english ;)

1 - Customizeable "Significant Frame" ennumeration in the timeline. I am an animator & work at 24 frames per second. It kills me that the timeline is marked out in 5's & there is no way for me to change that. I would REALLY like to be able to change it to show frames by 4's or 6's sometimes.

2 - Synchronized Sound Channel Editing. I still have to manually edit the the 2 sound channels to match by eye. Please add an option to synchronize the changes from one channel to the other.

3 - Commands pulldown Subfolders. I use a lot of commands and there is no way for me to sort them by association into submenus off the pulldown.

4 - Image properties. In the stage, it would be nice to be able to right click on an image & get the properties panel associated with it rather than having to go find the item in the library.

5 - Spline handles in the Sound Editor. So I can fade a sound out exponentially with 2 points instead of having to faux it with 5.

6 - Actionscript Snippets - I would really like to be able to highlight a chunk of Actionscript code and store into an Snippet library available within Flash.

7 - Selection Filters. I would like to be able to filter the general selection tool to limit it "Only Fills", "Only Strokes", "Only bitmaps", "Only MovieClips" or any combination therein. Often I am trying to pull a specific set of items off the stage & this would save me the time of having to choose things one at a time.

8 - Image Compression Panel. As a web developer who does a lot of banners, I often have to compress images on an individual basis. I would like a common centralized location that I could do this instead of having to open the context menu of each individual image one at a time. (The same with sound compression).

1) Hardware accelleration for the Authoring Flash Player:

The Component Inspector panel and LivePreviews are too slow in the authoring environment. (I'm still on a slow Mac but have seen poor performance on a 3Ghz PC with the same component). The Flash MX Component Parameters panel seemed to perform good even on a 500Mhz G3 PB, so I guess it wasn't processing the parameters to send to the xch object using the Flash Player.

- BETTER ACTIONSCRIPT EDITOR (all caps intended)
- Smaller, more-efficient components.
- Better error catcher.
- More complete and better documentation.
- Help window that minimizes. It is still in the way
when you "collapse" the panel.

Ekameleon picked up a very important point:

To stop a download in a browser you simply hit the "stop" button. There's no native equivalent in Flash.

A native stopHTTP() (or stopLoading() methods added to the MovieClipLoader/LoadVars/XML classes) to halt progressive downloads is very important to stop hogging bandwidth.

IDE whishlist :

- When rollover an instance on stage, a function that wrote in alt-text the instance name of the symbol. No more need to select to symbol to know it.
- Output window : enable Keys Home, End, Page Up, Page Down. (I can't believe it doesn't exist already)
- Output window : possibility to inverse the messages output. The last always on the top, on the first line.

PLAYER wishlist :

- ZLib : Can send and load compressed datas ( I think about people who need to generate picture on serverside of screen captures takes with BitmapData )
- MovieClip.framelabels
- System.capabilities.framerate (Not the runtime fps, just the "built-in" fps of the swf)

Here's my list from after the Eclipse release. I haven't had a chance to check if any/all of these have been fixed in Flash8, but I know some of the main ones weren't.
-- there's no support for SUP and SUB tags.. and so no way to add superscript and subscript in dynamic text fields..
-- ordered lists.. I can do unordered lists with the LI tag.. but no OL tag support
-- there's no way to load a standard XML document and embed in the SWF at compile time. I can #include, but I have to mangle the original file to do it. I should be able to specify an XML doc to embed/include in the SWF, and the object or string name it should be given once it's embedded.. not everybody wants or has the option to load XML from a server.
-- JSFL can't be used to import images into the library. Or if there's a way to do it then it involves some top secret ninja moves.
-- Support for Right to Left text (Arabic) in the Flash Player. **this is a major need for me** See how many want this feature here: http://the-right-to-flash.amirdotan.com/
-- can't put an https URL in the WebServiceConnector WSDL parameter..
-- movieclip in the library set to "always update" degrades publish performance (it takes longer to publish each time)
-- sometimes trying to open "windows SWF A" from the Window>Other Panels menu actually opens "window SWF" B
-- in the Flash Player.. shift key is ignored on non-English keyboards.. an issue since Flash 6. See here: http://oddhammer.com/blog/comments.php?id=135_0_1_0_C (not fixed in Flash Player 8)
-- the Flash IDE shouldn't hide windows when it loses focus. I work on 3 monitors and the benefit of having the IDE spread across multiple monitors is lost when I have to keep clicking on it to see something in one of the Flash windows.
- code folding

I have examples of many of the problems and can come up with use cases as well.. just get in touch.

I think the major focus in Flash 9 should be where you can differentiate yourself from HTML. With the combination of CSS, DHTML, and AJAX, we're starting to see stuff that previously would have been done in Flash.

So far the only thing that has come to mind that I'd like to see is advanced text layout. I'd like to see the ability to wrap text along a path, make text flow around objects I specify (preferably live updating of the wrapping at author and runtime), and the ability to make non-rectangular textboxes and flow text within them (quick and dirty example). This opens the door to more magazine-like layout, which is VERY difficult to do in HTML.

Also, since you'll soon be part of Adobe, please go back to the Flash 5 style of grouping palettes. The prompt every time you grab a tab is ridiculous.

Whoops, quick and dirty example was at http://www.richarddoyle.net/example.gif

* Perspective Distortion Control
* The Usual Speed Improvements
* The Ability to Animate in a 3D space (like with Toon Boom Studio)
* Possible AS access to the above (using global focal control and a z axis)
* E4X!!!!
* XHTML and Proper CSS text rendering support
* And more of the usual stuff that make us go "woah!"

- Direct access to the BitmapData pixel array so it is not necessary to read out an image pixel by pixel if one wants to send it to a server.

- A new blendMode - the opposite of "overlay", something like "underlay": the closer a channel value is to 128 the more visible it will be. This is useful for the construction of special displacementMaps.

- A Minimax filter for BitmapData - very useful for removing pixel noise

- A Median filter for BitmapData

- The possibility to move the handles in the custom ease panel above 100% and below 0%

- A SoundData Object, analog to the BitmapData Object which makes it possible to generate or manipulate sound data within actionscript.

Better HTML support in text fields. Now with upload ability, more and more CMS's will be built in Flash, but there is no GREAT rich text editor because of the minimal HTML support.

I'll take some of the earlier comments
- RegExp !
- final, abstract, protected, destructor keywords, etc.
- Full ECMAScript V4X
- Full XHTML and CSS3 in TextFields. Pass ACID 2.
- AS2lib or equivalent : Natives API more complete : Collections/Iterators/Map/Stacks/LinkedList/BlackRedTree.... etc.
- Operators with Arrays or other Type : example [a,b] + [c,d] = [a, b, c, d] likes ruby api.
- More Geometry & Shapes Api (roundedRectangle, BevelRectangle, Round, Ellipse etc..)
- Event Delegation Model (Java, as2lib, etc.)
- Plugins (audio/video codecs, etc.)
- OGG support
- Hardware acceleration (OpenGL), detectable in System.capabilities, of course.
- 64bit support
- Linux player released at the same time as the others.
- Speeeeed

IDE
------
- A real coding IDE (include Zorn or something similar)
- If you really believe in video, let us manage it like in Avid, etc. We have a timeline, let us add video and audio there, visually.
- Cleaned up intrinsinc classes. The ones in Flash 8 are a total mess.

Many have added some great comments... super and subscript support espcecially.

A few more wishes:

- more full-featured keyframing abilities in the IDE... thinking much more like After Effects. Custom ease-in/out is a great start, but AE is still far more usable.

- layout components, like in flex

- keyframable bitmap effects in the timeline... (animators haven't complained about it yet, but I know its coming.)

- preview window with magnification - dragging reticle affects window position like the hand tool

Also wanted to add something Tinic mentioned a few days ago:

- ability to connect two timelines in lockstep...
syncTo a movieClip or a netStream.

- AS execution speed - At the moment Flash is too slow to be a competitive dev platform.

- Faster object access - Why is it that Flash can render video at 20fps, but I can’t even fill a screen with pixels at 1fps? (Using setPixel)

With just those two improvements Flash wouldn’t need to have a lot of the above suggestions. 3D, Array operators etc could all be coded by us the end user.

If you give us everything pre-made - Flash will become boring to develop in.

Access to the joystick.

I echo the call for RTL.

The basic version should be able
to edit/create AS, JFSL files too...

All the rest is great for me

MIDI support! MIDI support! MIDI support! MIDI support! MIDI support!
MIDI support! MIDI support! MIDI support! MIDI support! MIDI support!
MIDI support! MIDI support! MIDI support! MIDI support! MIDI support!
MIDI support! MIDI support! MIDI support! MIDI support! MIDI support!

Please!

A more efficient way to exclude classes at compile time. Hand-coding on xml file, especially without the help of wildcards and packages, is a real pain.

In an ideal world, we would have a command like "importNoCompile" which uses the class/package for syntax and type checking at compile time, but doesn't emmbed the class in the compiled swf.

Pretty please?

- Please correct all the bugs with MovieClipLoader and make it reliable
- abstract, final, protected keywords
- Interfaces instanceof Object
- destructors

Anyway, keep on the great work

A quick list:

1. ActionScript:
- E4X
- RegExp
- advanced sound controls!

2. IDE:
- a real AS editor - don't tell us there are other alternatives (like FDT), a good editor should be a part of the IDE
- better project panel (some of gProject functionality + source control with SVN/CVS)
- ability to import a .psd file as layers

- Contour gradients like FreeHand
- LAYER Z-DEPTH like AE (with easing and overlaping)
- Text underlining and bulleting
- Ability to tween blending modes
- Quoting David: 64bit support, more Geometry & Shapes Api (roundedRectangle, BevelRectangle, Round, Ellipse etc..),plugins (audio/video codecs, etc.), OGG support, Hardware acceleration

Sorry, the quote in my previous post is by interfaSys not by David.

Cheers to you both guys

-XHTML & CSS & advanced Text Flow / Rendering
-3D and very fast 2D access
-Plugin / Module structur for the Flash Plugin ala shockwave that allows the download of the module after the capabilities of the host are enough.

* Masking of non-embedded fonts
* Getting "equalizer" values of a sound
* Regular Expressions
* Better support for creating standalone players, I want to be able to create CD-ROM projects without using an external tool (ie: SWF studio)
* Joystick access
* Being able to underline text (I was really disappointed that it is still not possible to do so in Flash8)
* Deconstruct for classes
* setTimeout

@MCVirus >> setTimeOut exist in flash 8 ;)
example : http://www.sephiroth.it/index.php?blogId=2005_09_13_weekly.html

XHTML, CSS, and better <img /> support in textfields. I know this was mentioned a few times before, but this is REALLY important for the incorporation of content management systems.

Expanding HTML support and CSS would be nice, but full XHTML+CSS3+pass Acid2 is beyond what any browser maker has done. Let's be realistic here, guys.

Definitely the ability to add underlines and bullets (numbered and not) in the authoring tool would be great.

I'd also like to see easier updating of text externally. Anything on the web needs to be able to be changed constantly, but updating text in Flash is a huge pain, especially if you need to make it editable by a client. This may be as simple as creating a very easy to use XML editor for use with Flash, available for free, or at least cheap, so it can be included in the cost of a project.

Agree with above -

Please try to focus on HTML / xHTML and CSS rendering in flash 9.

Adding table/div support would be nice.

Proper display of images within html content.

Ability to add xHTML or HTML forms to flash dynamically (perhaps rendering with text input components?)

Hello,

Nice to hear *so* soon what we want for the next release!

It's been said:

- "A more efficient way to exclude classes at compile time. Hand-coding on xml file, especially without the help of wildcards and packages, is a real pain."

- Also native RegExp and XPath.

Native (read: optimized, in the player code) Regular expressions and XPATH would be nice;

Native 3d vector math would be great -- non-affine transforms (access to all values of the transformation matrix) would be beautiful;

ability to grab spectrum data from a sound into AS;

3- or n- dimensional perlin noise, currently limited to 2d;

components that are easier to skin;

less strict HTML parsing for wildcard content creators who enter invalid html into CMSes;

more compiler optimizations? inline keyword? or virtual-machine level debugging?

PSD import would be amazing.

Ability to use 3d card pipeline if pixel-perfection is not important to your app (left off by default to allow pixel-perfect backwards compatibility).

Hmm, how about JIT compilation of custom BitmapFilter subclasses? looping through pixel data is painfully slow in the VM...

Oh yeah, mouse wheel on mac.

Built in batch preferences/linkage operations for bitmaps & symbols in the library -- JSFLs are cool but this could be part of the IDE.

Unbelievable work on flash 8 guys :)

Runtime registration poing modification would be really great.

Different languages for native FP dialog windows, eg ExpressInstall or Settings Panel. What have to do the users that do not understand english?

My humble suggestions - although most have been mentioned already:

(more *'s means more important)

- **** hardware graphics acceleration (to better compete w/ sparkle and other technologies)
- *** General runtime speed improvements
- *** enhanced real-time sound control (ie SoundData to go along w BitmapData, which enables accesss and manipulation of equalizer vals)
- *** AS language improvements - abstract, final, protected, destructors, method & constructor overloading
- *** some features to make designers/animators and developers work together easier (see below)
- ** correct bugs with MovieClipLoader and Netstream (haven't tested it in Flash 8 yet, but sometimes events seem to be dispatched at the wrong times)
- ** RegEx
- * MovieClip.framelabels
- * System.capabilities.framerate (so you can monitor expected framerate vs actual framerate and adjust accordingly - I know this can simply be done by defining a var in the fla, but it seems easy enough to implement and will ensure that that value is always there)
_ * sleep() - might be cleaner than having to break up a function into steps and call them with setTimeout or setInterval

As far as as2lib and other code and component libraries are concerned: I say provide us with the essential, slimmed down classes and components, and let the community come up with the extra stuff that it needs.

Note about designers and developers: Flash faces the problem that many other web authoring apps face - the problem of reconciling the very different worlds of designers and developers. How can developers - who tend to find timeline-based behavior and animation troublesome - find a common ground with designers, who tend to prefer timeline-based stuff over script? When Zorn comes out, won't this divide become even bigger? After working on many projects with designers, and trying out several ways of balancing my method of architecting apps with the animator's method, I have found that there is always a danger of the app becoming either a pain to code or a pain to animate. If these two mindsets were somehow connected better, it would be much easier to create great user experiences. It's obviously also a question of workflow and dev process, but how might Flash help to achieve this connection?

I would like to get the features....

1. can get subfolder/files list under the dir.

2. can write data on server side. ( for example: \\mydata\data.txt)

3. more filters for movieClip.

Well I didn't play a lot with flash 8 yet, but there's some stuff that I wish happened to flash a long time ago

Better looking rules ( ctrl+shift+alt+r one's )
better control of the guides ( a la illustrator where you can add points to them )

an fix the annoying bug that when you go to workspace view ( ctrl+shift+w ) and came out from it, don't zoom on the stage!!!!

I bet these are the easier one heh!

A few more come to mind...

- Dynamic Text support for superscript & subscript text.

- Property timeline keyframing similar to AE & most 3d app's so that I can offset easing & keyframes for multiple transformations.

- A video object that can access MPEGs, Quicktimes & AVIs within the Flash Player

Another two:

- INCREASE THE WORKSPACE SIZE for Christ sake! Sometimes we all need "a little" much nore space to put things there and organize later
- Zoom to 4000 or 6000 instead of just 2000%

- Improve working with fonts, so that they can be loaded once, anywhere and work for all text boxes once they've been loaded. Also, embedding the outlines tremendously increases the filesize - would it be possible to load the fonts directly?

- Improve the context menu to work on any item at any depth.

- Rather than include things like 3D in the default player, just some of the common 2D / 3D formulas and transformations implemented in the intrinsically for performance would be great. IE: Math2.transformX({x, y z}) would perform y = Math.cos(tx) * y + Math.sin(tx) * z; z = -Math.sin(tx) * y + Math.cos(tx) * z;

- Bitmap.getPixels() and Bitmap.setPixels(array) implemented natively for those of us who would like to do demo-scene style effects or send bitmap data over the wire, etc.

- Unclutter the IDE, perhaps taking clues from the VisualStudio .NET IDE. Accordian panes take a ton of vertical space, whereas tabs on a single collapsable region take less cumulative space. In addition, they should be customizable what goes where.

- Improvements to the code editor to bring it up to speed with other editors. Things like code folding, auto-complete (for classes, methods, variables, etc), keyboard shortcuts (ctrl-f3 for find next, ctrl-f2 for goto definition, etc), highlight matching tags (ala eclipse, ascs).

- Math.round(number, [decimalPlaces]);

- Distortion of clips into an arbitrary shape.

- Version of the player that provides limited access to the system for creating desktop apps, cd-rom apps, etc.

- Simplify and reduce the component sets. I never use the components anymore if I can help it simply because of the filesize and the complexity in skinning them (for when clients wants an XP-style interface, etc).

- Additional collision detection options for working with the true shape of the clips (separating axis theorem, Grant Skinners method using the bitmap object?).

- Full XPath support, or at least close to complete.

- Complete formatting options of text fields (underline, sub, super, etc), including ability to dictate the padding (to remove the 2px padding in text fields). There are still many things that cannot be done to provide rich text presentation to clients in their applications.

- Ability for future extentions to be provided, separately from the core player. Then game-engines, 3D support, etc can be supported without penalizing those who would not use them.

- ZLib compression support. The more applications are brought into flash, the more this is required to reduce bandwith consumption and increase responsiveness.

- The ability to capture keystrokes inside flash (like Control-C, Control-O, etc) for being able to provide similar capabilities as applications users are accustomed to. Currently browsers grab these for themselves, and they are different for each browser. Providing standard shortcut keys for an application is frustrating at best.

- Some way to allow for a preloader in your movies / applications while being able to access exported library items without having to dump all your assets on the second frame. Possibly an "export on x frame"?

- Additional text options for more expressiveness, such as was mentioned previously with Fill Shape, Follow Path, Flow Around, etc.

- Update file uploading to allow for additional parameters in the post.

- Update file uploading to allow for return values from the post target.

- Eliminate the need to embed the default fonts for rotation and masking.

- More sound controls like equalization data, spectrum data.

- I agree with the elimination or modification of the .FLA - it becomes more of a hinderance in team environments. In addition, possibly the "code" window association could be eliminated by intrinsically associating an .as file with a .fla and opening that in a new tab (ala VS.NET), like form.fla and form.fla.as.

- Some way to better manage resources / library items for cases where that is the only reason where you have the .fla. For example, I create an application that has dozens of .as files and everything is either user-drawn or attached from the library - in that case, why should I need an .fla? Especially if I have a "suite" of applications that need to share the same interface elements.

Improved text handling. First by fixing (still) existing bugs listed at http://play.ground.gr/?p=77

I'd like to set the size of a TextField by numbers
in the property pannel without scaling the font, only the bounding of it.

I'm still using MX SO I don't know if these have been added yet.

I would like to see.

-NTSC Safe Colors. (Flash is used widely for brodcast animation.)

-RBG Color Mode for output to print.

-Ability to export Adobe illustrator files without the transparent colors becoming corrupted.

To include 'collapse' in ActionScript, but better that the one of DW.

When you create a class (or includes a external one) at 'Classes' folder and calls this class in AS, be able to arrange the methods of the class.

php remoting. Yes I am aware of amfphp (which does rock). Just some better support for it. Component wise and so on.

A scaleType attribute for MovieClips and TextFields.
Posible values could be:
normal: The way it works now.
fixedRatio: would automatically scale the movieClip mantaining a fixed aspect ratio proportional to the scaling of the parent movieClip.
none: The movieClip would mantain its size regarding of the scaling of the parent movieClip.
This attribute would help a lot in the development of full screen or full window flash applications.

I would like to see more options, like sound options, examples, more actionscript functions and a brand new layout of Flash 9. Also more support with other Browsers like FireFox and Netscape, because it is a problem that diffrent browsers will show your flash file in another format or show nothing. Flash 8 is almost the same as 7!

otherwise
Suprise us with Flash 9, give us another Flash than the versions before!!!

Wow! Reading through this list, the one feature I would love to see most of all isn't even mentioned.

I would love to see a vector-based bones system and IK solution for character animation.

I also think something like toon titan should be included as standard. A nice cell shading system with a varied ink stroke generation option.

Up till now my biggest issue has been rendering small type and apparently that has been fixed with Flash 8.

Cheers,
Jeremy

Remove this limitation please..
**Warning** The class definition for 'class' exceeds the bytecode limit of 32,767K. Please extract some functionality into other classes or risk unexpected behavior at runtime.

code collapse would be really nice.

RTL language support - come'on... it is time, don't ya think?

There are many changes I would like to see in Flash 9--joystick support, better symbol packaging, more projector customization, and revamped terminology (e.g. change "Flash Slide Presentation" to something that will make it clearer to new users that such documents are not only for slide presentations) rush to mind--but I would love to see you fix the bug I found within my first few minutes with Flash 8 before then: please STOP Flash from modifying documents when selecting "Save As..." from a newer version of Flash than that which created the document. The current document should *NEVER* be modified without permission and there is certainly no need to do so in response to a "Save As..." command.

It seems that the bug details I mentioned were not quite correct: "Save As..." changes the modification time (and who-knows-what else) of Flash documents even within the *SAME* version of Flash that created the document. Either I never noticed this in Flash MX 2004 before just testing it a few minutes ago after seeing the above behavior in Flash 8 or I forgot about it.

just rtl support, and not something else

multi-threading :)

1. Real motion blur -- think AfterEffects. I want to be able to tell Flash to blur this object based upon its movement around the screen.
2. RegularExpressions
3. Time to update HTML support!!!
4. onHTTPStatus for loadMovie
5. Implement Cubic Beziers!!
6. AfterEffects Timeline w/ built-in support for IK in the IDE.
7. Export to AEP :) :)

I would really like to be able to change the angle of the control points, the position of the nodes, and the control point weight all while using the pen tool and pressing alt or shift. I want the same bezier drawing tool Illustrator has.

Also pretty please get transperancy working with window forms? just expose the alpha channel. The guys at screenweaver open source have been rendering it off screen with a black background...then a white....then calculating the alpha from that. Pretty expensive operation which limits the usefullness of flash as a grahical userinterface option. Pleeeeeease with sugar on top.

- use of xhtml-strict publishing (never use alternative publish/code anymore)

OK, Flash 8 is great! But I wish the filters be able to use on every thing, I mean like graphics and shapes. You can improve the filters' commands
like in photoshop.
It's will be great!!!
Sorry about my english, it's not my strong side.
Thanks!

I really like the object/global undo feature but would like to use them both (perhaps with ctrl-z and ctrl-shift-z) and not have to toggle each in the preferences

Here are few things still missing,

1) More supported HTML tags in Text Fields i.e. support for Sub Script, Super Script text(Dynamic Text)
2) Method like Copy To ClipBoard (Not just Text), which can copy a perticular area as a screen grab to clip board.
3) Ability to build sub menu using ContextMenu Class
4) Ability to add icons to menu built using ContextMenu Class
5) More features which SWF to EXE applications provides. i.e. Ability to communicate with Host Machine (Registry, Comman Dialogue Boxes).

Regards,
Tushar

IntelliSense!
R-T-L support in the IDE!

Here is a radical idea- have the same language support in all the players.

Since flash player 6 and up (including flash 8) on OSX-
* it is impossible to switch to a Hebrew keyboard when in a flash based form widget.
* certain dynamic Hebrew text does not disply in the mac player (see the comic ballon in the screen shot:
http://img144.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture26sw.png )
This is regardless of the browser used.

As these two (basic) feature *do* work with the Windows player, and many dev's (rightfully) assume that "flash player 8 is flash player 8", the result is that many Hebrew web sites built on Windows DO NOT work on OSX, that that flash based rich web applications are limited to Windows users if you want to use Hebrew. For example, sending Hebrew email using http://webserver001.goowy.com/ .

I am not even asking for full RTL support (althugh that will be nice)- just for the ability to type in my language and view Hebrew text people put in flash applications.

fl.getDocumentDOM() -- returns a script file, .as, .asc, .jsfl, etc...

being able to execute applications through the jsapi

being able to reference frames by their labels like:
if( mc._currentframe == "over" )....

being able to extend trace

Hello,

The size of the SWFs produced by the IDE is larger when using longer variable names.

So, have the compiler shorten variable names when compiling! It's just incredible that the compiler (apparently) includes the variable names in the compiled code.

Thanks,
Mike

- Frame Bookmarks
Animators would be happy to bookmark frames and navigate through the bookmarks with Bookmarks panel. It is possible to implement Bookmarks just by extending current frame labels feature and creating special Bookmarks Panel. Bookmarks should be visualised on timeline.
- Througout Bookmarks and Bookmarks Panel. Throughout bookmarks can be implemented to support not only frames, but code, movieclips, effects, panels etc. Bookmarks accesible through single Bookmarks Panel will create solid, consistent workflow.

Anchor and control points of paths should can be aligned with align tool. Maybe distrubuted too but align is needed strongly.

Not sure how to achieve either of these two? Maybe with the Adobe merger you can figure these out.

1. FlashHD: Maybe a new IDE and/or player. HD is on the rise as we all know and Quicktime already supports it. I can make millions the minute Flash can support HD coupled with current Flash capabilities.

2. 3D sound: Something along the lines of Maven3D incorporated into the Flash IDE. Its great to have more sound channels in Flash 8, but it would be great if we can actually use them to a fuller extent. Panning sounds is very cumbersome and non-convincing.

There is a huge market out there for dynamic HD w/ 3D sound. A whole new market that is untapped.

Lets jump to the next curve!

When using the component inspector to assign data and labels to a combobox or list control, you have to go into separate fields, one for data, and the other for label. Maybe combine the two so that the developer can enter both simultaneously. The Delphi IDE has a feature like that, and it is very convenient!

if i draw in pen-tool, give me access to these bezier's in drawing api. I i make any other vector, give me access to these bezier's corner points, please

look at what you can do with flash editor and x3d, since we're close to conecting flash-player to grapics-card-driver

wishful thinking, start putting a z-point in the editor :-)

any_mc.loadSharedMovie("any.swf")
Movieclip loaded with this command should add its Library objects to main (_root) movie's Library (considering _lockroot). Herewith characters in the same fonts must be added to existing rather than replacing whole existing font libraries (so, existing characters must still be accesible). This it is important for such languages as Chinese or Japanese. Also, it would be great to provide such type of loading by the existing MovieClipLoader class.

Actionscript access to all vector data contained in a swf and also to the font glyphs. I don't care if the retuned data is cryptic or difficult to parse - I just want some way to access it.

TextFormat.getTextExtent should work properly and with HTML (XHTML) too. HTML support is very important problem.

For web-mapping applications, we are still lacking :
- access to inner polygons/polylines and
vertex coordinates especially for shapes drawn with the drawing API :
MovieClip.getRingAt(i)
MovieClip.getNodesAt(i)
MovieClip.nbNodes
MovieClip.nbRings...
- dashed lines
- decimal stroke widths, not only integers 1-255
- ability to change independently stroke attributes (width, color, line style) and fill atrributes after a shape is drawn, without having to rebuilt it from scratch.

I would love to see the IDE become able to reflect changes made on the stage reflected as code and vice versa.
So if you draw a vector shape it should be accessible as code and if you code a vector is should be visible on the stage without compiling.
Dragging a bitmap onto the stage should result in an attachMovie being visible in the actionscript editor.

I tend do do most of my work now using MTASC and SciTE, but if the IDE could be used to draw elements reflected as code and visualize coded elements in realtime the advantages would be enormous for the way I work.
I can also imagine that that kind of integration would make it a lot easier for people to learn how to code actionscript.
I guess it needs some major changes to the way the IDE works, but it would be truely awsome if it was at all possible.

One minor thing that I think would be very cool is the ability to read amplitude values from audio.
Now it's only possible with sound from the microphone or with a 3rd party app like FlashAmp requiering you to process the audio and save the amplitude data as a text file.

A Simple one.....It would be fabulous to be able to underline copy in the IDE. Currently this can only be done by code.

convert timeline motion to graphics/movie clip like in adobe ae

gradient transparency (mask)
symbols multi swap

please do this!!!!!

good work on flash 8 - here are some thoughts -
first next flash player should be a universal player that will also handle windows and real and quick time - just like the swf does for flv - there is no reason there is no universal player ...
as an inventor i am always studying things from the oustide in and inside out - i think as a deconstructionist with learning disabilities - i take things apart and knoodle them - suggest you try learning and creating a more friendly un-flash way of building flash - lots of things in flash could be more intuitive - you also get your info from experts - you might want to take novices and see how they learn and approach learning to make a more intuitive experience...
i am interested in multi video/media non-linear metaphors that are almost there in flash 8 but could be more there - also more detail oriented flash files and video flash tutorials with examples like gotoandlearn.com - i know all this will change when adobe integrates their film/video experience - and am passing this post on to one of adobe people too - thanks for all the years of hard work too

IDE

basics:

it's amazing how Flash IDE is poor.
learn from SE|PY!!, is it possible that flash doesn't have something like its Members / ClassExplorer panels?

the IDE should really implement a project.
this means the possibility to refactor (change the name of a variable/class name-method-properties) part of the project.

you could show a Class explorer tree containing the classes inserted into the project..come on !! give us new developing tools.

I don't pretend it to warn me if I reference a variable that doesn't exist
e.s: _root[var1+"_"+var2]._name
could be everything..but most of the Visual Studio and Eclipse-Java features could be implemented.

AS2

some Java OOP features, overload at least !!!!
Interfaces instanceof Object

DEBUGGER

basics:

make it really works !!!

substitute the awful combo box (that list the impoted classes) with a big tree component (classes represented according to their inheritance hierarchy)..a subset of the Class hierarchy panel you will create.

thanks for allowing Flash8 to remember breakpoints position.

the new custom easing tween tool needs easing presets an a "save as"-button like the fmx2004 extension from http://laco.wz.cz/tween/

I'm a game programmer, use AS1.0 mainly. Here're my comments:

1 Option to hide right-click menu

Right-click is standed control in many games. Although we can handle this message in flash, we'll see the About menu at the same time.
I noticed my friends always tried right-click to cancel an option in my strategy games and RPGs, result in losting focus and got confused; In a shotting game, I have to use 'R' to reload, which is traditionly by right-click.

2 Tips and a view panel for custom functions

Script tips for custom functions would be nice, ie: params in declear code& the prefix comments.I also wish to see which functions we have In current scope. When programming a project more than 3000 lines in AS1.0, I have to use Ctrl + F to find definition to see the exact name and params.

I know it's difficult cause functions in AS1.0 are dynamic. But for example you can use the first declear in " function myFunc() " style --- that may not always be exactitude but may help a lot.

3 Use MIDI in Flash

This would help me minish my file size. one single back ground music in mp3 tooks about 1M. in mamy cases, 80% of the file is swelled with music.

well its a small request but just seems like something that would give more power to switchs...

Its about the switch command. it would be nice if there was a way to enter other values then fixed cases in the cases like in VB, here is an example:

switch(someVar){
case 1-10: doSomthing; break;
case 15: doSomthingElse; break;
default: someCode;
}

thnx ,

Ben Fhala.
p.s. ver8 is a gr8 release :)

correct shape tween
"Save As..." for all flash versions

i want Flash9 can make Three-dimensional cartoon

We want new keyword "sequence" and new programming paradigm.
We are software company that making online casinoes. We made 7 ones so far. And every time we work on complex animation/interactivity task, we always fighting with lots of sequences of actions (flying cards, then moving chips,then user input, etc). We found that standard c++/java programming model is not fit for flash. Sometimes flash requires something to control hundreds of objects on scene, including pauses between actions for animation to finish, user to input data or server to respond. We made some sort of command conveyor and tried to use it in our projects. It decreased time of programming and complexity of code but, since it written on AS, it not fast enough.
So, our wish is "sequence" keyword and new programming paradigm for flash:

sequence seqLogin(){
{seqAnimateWindow("openWindow")}
{this.x=new XML(seqWaitForUserToHitOk())}
{if(!seqSendToServer(this x)) this.goto("error");}
{seqAnimateWindow("closeWindow")}
{return "ok"}
error:{return "error"}
}

Sequences are functions with many bodies (steps). They can be paused between two steps for some milliseconds (or forever) and resumed afterwards. They have local variables visible in each step. Sequences can have parameters and can return values. When sequence called from another sequence, the parent sequence paused until child finish. You can label steps and use "goto" keyword to skip steps. Also there is the need of "dynamic sequences" - when child sequences added dynamically and executed as they added (for example to execute server commands).
It is just explanation on how WE done our conveyor. Macromedia's solution might be much more elegant and powerful. But the main idea is to eliminate ragged code and have all parts of each procedure in one place.

Automatic Library Item updates. If any external resource used in library (for example, bitmap) had had been updated, Flash should handle such event and automatically propose to update corresponding library item. There should the possibility to set such updates to one of three modes: Automatic, Manual (as today) and Automatic with item-by-item prompt for updating.

Aligning anchor points of paths. Anchor and control points of paths should can be aligned with align tool. Maybe distrubuted too but align is needed strongly.

Brushes with soft edges. Illustrators and designers will be happy to have brushes with soft edges.

Color Mixer Panel Should Be rezisable to adjust gradients, colors and alpha more precise. Current compact mode should be preserved. Last panel settings should be saved as default.

Colored Frames / Layers. Frames which belong to different layers should be colored in corresponding different colors.

Frame Bookmarks. Animators would be happy to bookmark frames and navigate through the bookmarks with Bookmarks panel. It is possible to implement Bookmarks just by extending current frame labels feature and creating special Bookmarks Panel. Bookmarks should be visualised on timeline.

"File > Publish All" [Ctrl+Shirt+Alt+F12] menu command.

"File > Save and Compact All" [Ctrl+Alt+F12] мenu Ñ?ommand.

TextFormat.getTextExtent should work properly and with HTML too.

Find in Library. At this moment, only thirt-party JSFL solutions avasilbale, but this feature is strongly needed as built-in.

Bookmarks. Throughout bookmarks can be implemented to support not only frames, but code, movieclips, effects, panels etc. Bookmarks accesible through single Bookmarks Panel will create solid, consistent workflow.

Colored Frames / Layers. Frames which belong to different layers should be colored in corresponding different colors.

Frame Bookmarks. Animators would be happy to bookmark frames and navigate through the bookmarks with Bookmarks panel. It is possible to implement Bookmarks just by extending current frame labels feature and creating special Bookmarks Panel. Bookmarks should be visualised on timeline.

TextFormat.getTextExtent should work properly and with HTML too.

Find in Library. At this moment, only thirt-party JSFL solutions avasilbale, but this feature is strongly needed as built-in.

Bookmarks. Throughout bookmarks can be implemented to support not only frames, but code, movieclips, effects, panels etc. Bookmarks accesible through single Bookmarks Panel will create solid, consistent workflow.

3d opengl or DirextX support

I dream it
Macromedia do it

Please a complete and better support of html tag

i have a few but necessary wishes:

1. i want dynamic-text (and input) will have some of the qualities of static-text, like applying mask on a dynamic text, or applying tweening of alpha on a movieclip with a dynamic-text (the dynamic text in this situation wont get transparent like the rest of the movieclip).

2. a better support with different languages. for example, while writing in hebrew the text is inverted, when finishing writing the text get inverted again and if it is a dynamic text it will be invertedt once again in an exported movie (in the swf file).

3. a better performance of loading variables will be great (like LoadVars or loadVariables etc). i cant load hebrew for example, if i'm loading a text file which contains "var1=1&var2=עברית" it refers to var2 as an empty text.

local scope for event objects
improved soap handeling (doc-lit, support for more schemas)

I want flash to work with core PHP, so we can use PHP in actionscripts OR a function that gives you the possibility to import external ationscripts when the site is online. That would say that we could manage and edit that external script with PHP.

One of these two functions would make it much easier to make fully dynamic flash sites.

How about clear pricing policies and an Online Shop that works.

I am a Mexican programmer currently working on Vienna. A couple of weeks ago I tried to buy Studio 8 upgrade from the macromedia online store using my Mexican credit card but I kept getting an error message, by the validation, that the name and address given didn’t match those from my credit card billing address. On the error message was a telephone number with which I could place the order. A telephone number to which I was never able to connect. So I called my credit card company in Mexico to check if every thing was Ok, which it was. I tried to find a customer support telephone number at the macromedia store but I couldn’t find any. So I wrote an Email to the email support address. A couple of days later they answer telling me that they couldn’t help me but that I should try another telephone number, and finally was able to reach someone who could give me some information. She told me that even though my credit card and address were valid, they denied the transaction because I placed the order while being in Austria. But the best part is that because I tried repeatedly to place an order with that credit card, when I thought I may had spelled something incorrectly in my address, my credit card is now marked as invalid in the Macromedia online store, so even when I get back to Mexico, I will still never be able to buy something again from them with my card.

My only chance now is to buy it from amazon, for example, which is going to cost me around 150 USD more!!!!

And don’t tell me this post is out of place because a good shop is a very important part of a good product.

Build small 3д the editor in flash 9 as in macromedia the director for example and accordingly make codes in ACTION SCRIPT for job with 3d by objects! I IMPLORE!:)

It was mentioned before, but the ability to use 'distortion' and 'enveloping' on movieclips would be my no. 1 wish (which I have for many years) It would make 3D in Flash a breeze.

Another great one: support for Photoshop plug-ins...

Rough and soft brushes and erasers!

The mentioned suggestion above 'If you draw a vector shape it should be accessible as code and if you code a vector it should be visible on the stage without compiling.' is brilliant (but of course very hard to implement).

More and better sound support...

Realtime animation recording: drag an object and record this movement as a timeline or scripted animation.

The abilty to embed an iframe (that can have any browsercontent) within Flash :-)

My only wish actually is not really a wish, it's more a missing feature in Mac Flash Player (sorry: it's not really exciting):

the Key listeners don't trigger Mac Keyboard Commands like cut/copy/paste!

It works fine on Windows, but on Mac, it's impossible to know if a user paste text, or select all text... and it's really bad when you have to control the usage of text in an application (I build a really killer Styled text editor but I have some problems on Mac).

- pre-compiler macros like #define
- own typedefs (like in c)
- more performance
- Array.walk
- perspective transformations of movieclips and bitmaps

>support real 3d system
>enhance code editor

OpenGL Accelerated Graphics across MAC/PC, of course this can be realized on many levels the ultimate being Flash's drawing code running completely within the GPU itself offering blistering performance. I believe Apple helped get the current Flash 8 partially accelerated on Mac OSX, if this is so, fantastic, work more with Apple! Maybe you could find a mutually beneficial arrangement, as I think Apple are very interested in resolution independent user interfaces themselves as they're getting the OS ready for a vector based UI.

OpenGL 3D objects/views. Imagine being able to composite real 3D elements into scenes, especially with all the advanced shader capabilities of modern GPU's like normal mapping.

Features to integrate Flash into web browsers better such as: being able to use browsers back/forward to navigate, use browser history, and any other things you'd typically be able to interact with a html page that are currently hard or impossible to do with Flash.
Indexing Flash sites for search engines for example, changing UI/Font size via web-browser enlarge text button.

Ability for Flash to detect computers performance/speed/mhz in order for the site to disable/enable site features to best suite the computers power.

File drag and drop into Flash view, say for uploading files.

Ability to duplicate and move within the scenes hierarchy any loaded movie-clip.

Ability to change the column width in the 'Find' window for Mac Flash 8 Authoring app

Better visualization of CPU usage, what's being redrawn (i know flash 8 has show redraw regions, but its not as helpful as it could be) some way to help determine what area of your code is using up the CPU, say some color coded view of the actionscript that changes the color darker the more often that line is executed or something visual.

Background compiling as you work on the file, so when you come to preview it, it may have already completed.

Better caching of compilation so when you keep recompiling it only updates what it needs to, basically, anyway you can make compiling faster! transparent or instant!

Stop, Pause, Resume file downloads at any point.

Image smoothing on loaded graphic files.

See exactly how much disk space assets in the compiled flash file are taking up.

Completely integrated Flash Player update mechanism so that it updates itself without needing to restart the users browser, at worst it simply reloads the current running SWF

Ability to control caching of graphics, say pre-load graphics, control what's stored in ram for fast access, better caching so that items that go off screen stay cached if the programmer requires it. Many times i have seen things run very fast in Flash 8, only to come to a crawl when they leave the stage and come back on due to the unloading of the bitmap cache.

Ability to see the memory usage and pinpoint what's causing it.

Realtime audio effects could be fun

Scale9 work with bitmaps as well as vector.

Built in code obfuscation to stop people stealing your compiled code, off by default.

IDE
- Moving items on the stage when Snap to pixels is checked, should result in the item snapping to even pixels.

- Get rid of the textfield handles when the textfield hasn't been selected yet. Trying to move a textfield from one of the corners, to keep the snap to pixels functionality happy, is VERY hard to do with those resize handles being there all the time. The resizing and handles are great, but should only be active when the textfield is selected.

- Update the x, y, width, and height values WHILE the stage item is being moved/resized, like in Fireworks. Right now, we need to resize the textfield, let go to see if we got it, resize, check, resize, check, etc.

- Make the tabbing to be the way it used to be. Tabbing should not be fixed to items on the stage. Tabbing should be passed to the selected panel. SWFPanels used to be able to take advantage of some keyboard keys, like Tab, to manage usability. The default now of Ctrl+Alt+Tab is completely unintuitive.

- Ctrl+Tab to move between documents is great but should be consistent. Currently the order changes depending on what panel was selected last.

- Closing a document should cause the next document to the right to be selected, until there are no more to the right, and then the next to the left. Currently this seems to be somewhat random.

- The Timeline should remain the size I left it. Currently if I set the height of a docked Timeline and then open a new document, then flip back to the original document, the timeline height has now changed to the height of the newly added document's timeline height.

- Modeless Find and Replace.

- Remembering previous X number of items in the Find and the Replace (separately).

- RegEx for Find and Replace.

Take a look at EditPlus for the previous 3.

- A text selection mechanism (in AS panel) that makes sense. Currently Flash always understands the leftmost/topmost cursor position to be the anchor point of text selection. In any other editor the anchor point is the first selected point. This is difficult to describe, but here goes:
Place cursor somewhere in the middle of some text. Hold shift and place the cursor to the left of the original position. Text is highlighted. Keep holding shift and place the cursor to the left of the second position. Notice that the selection is between the second and third position, not the first and third position, like every other text editor behaves.

- Being able to export IDE settings as ONE file to ease moving from one computer to another (or after reinstalls). Hunting down registry settings and multiple XML files in multiple locations is annoying at best. It would be great to setup the IDE how I like, export my settings, and at home import the settings. Being able to do this with a next version of Flash would be great too, so that we can immediately start using the new IDE without fumbling around yet again to set it up the way we like.

- The Actions panel and AS editor should optionally be the same beast (or some other behaviour). Having an AS file take over the stage renders a panel setup for FLAs useless. There should be a way to link the file type to a panel setup. This can currently be done with some key mapping, but linking filetypes would be great.

JSFL
- include AS files (and JSFL files for that matter) in the Object Model. Right now only FLAs are even recognized by JSFL. I have a SWFPanel that backs up my FLAs (includes incrementing number to the filename and saves it to a given location), but it would be great to be able to do this with any file in the IDE.

- The ability to target the currently selected line of code/cursor position in the AS panel/AS file editor. This would allow JSFL to be written to do things like code snippets, text filtering, and other AS automation.

FLA
- Doing something to make FLAs (or insert format here) easier to manage with source control software (Source Safe). Storage in FLAs is great, but it pales in comparison to having a format that could be used for source control.

A lot of this behaviour has been around for multiple versions. I LOVE the improvements that were made to the panel behaviours (except tabbing), but more needs to be done to fix the usability issues.

I guess that's it for now ...

- a flash IDE for linux

i've got about 50 animators in my group. we create vector animation(for TV,DVD and for web) using vector softwares such as MOHO,ToonBoom,Expression,and of course Flash.

Normally we combine all their best features to fit our needs. but that leads to heavy work when switching different softwares, import,export, again and again and again...

we are really happy to see the improvements in flash 8. but those new features are far inadequate to fullfill our needs. we would like to see flash become a real animation software(not only for web animation, but also for complex TV aniamtion). Flash 8 is much more powerful than ever, and Flash animation is becoming more and more complex. Flash animation is about to span its orginal goal, so why not make it more powerful? why not change it into a REAL verctor animation software?

I have a dozen of request, below are part of them.

1.make filters and blends for graphic symbol. Please do this in Flash 9, at least.

2.For now, from MC to Avi, only one frame(1st frame) can be exported. please enhance the "export movie" function, let user decide how many frames in MC can be exported to avi and which scene can be exported.

3.A better shape tween function, just like Moho. In TV animation we need to draw 12 frames(or 24) in one sec. Most of these tactic frames are actually formed up by shape transforming. I am saying: in a TV animation, shape tween is used much more frequently than motion tween. Moho knows this and its shape tween function is quite good. So...ehmmm...is it possible to add something like Control Vertices to flash shapes? (not only the simple shape hint in flash, but some accurate and controllable points)

4.a skeleton with Inverse Kinematic and Forward Kinematic. just like Maya or Moho,etc. I think flash is the best way making vector shapes move around, but it is weak to make character action. Of course we can animate the character frame by frame, but if Moho has this advanced function, can flash do the similar(or better) job for us?

5.a camera function will be great.(tracking,zooming, rolling, panning,etc.) make the layer 3D(with z-depth and distance bluring),that saves a lot of time for most animation team.

6.If it is possible, add a function that can create REAL INBETWEEN FRAMES, such as: using 2 or 3 key frames of a face, to create a series of continuous real inbetween frames, making the face tunning 90 degrees. (Toonboom Harmony does that)

7.make the whole workspace rotatable, such as when holding the z key, the workspace rotates CW slowly (or user define). This is very needed for all hand drawing animators. (we usually rotate the paper to draw better curves,that is a habbit for all animators)

Regards
lloyd

TextField XHTML and CSS2 support would be great.

1.for copy/paste from clipboard
Ctrl+Ins
Shift+Ins
2.attach movieClip from stage

Hi, it is very needed -
TextFormat.getTextExtent should work properly and with HTML too.

Without a 3D engine, it's gonna be difficult to compete with M$ Sparkle.

Hi,

Great job on 8ball. :-)

Flash 9 : Better support for CSS would be great !!

c like templates
DataClass
DatClass

and (operator)overloading..

DataClass<Number>
DataClass<String>
(html chars got knocked out)

artist really need a gradients along curves... like in corel draw etc...

-- sub and sub html tags for text.

- use proper xhtml text formating tags (em and strong)

- MovieClip.framelabels

- specify dynamic text field wrapping around images and movieclips.

- linking of two text fields to create multicolumn layouts

- a z axis (a kin to how after effects handles it - i'm not asking for a full 3-D world, jsut the ability tozoom/flip rotate a symbol or two)

- incorporate zeh (hosted.zeh.com.br) or laco's tweening prototypes/classes for easy actionscript based animations

- movieclip expressions or something similar to after effects motion math... ability to create relationships between clips to create dynamically interactive animations.

- psd layers

- code folding!

- better support for illustrator gradient imporitng (many times things get changed ind into bitmaps ad the compound paths or masks get blown away)

- support for webserver based localization/translation methods (i.e php getText())

- code folding!!! please!!! and code bookmarks.
- list of variables and functions.
- code hints for "flash" class library.

What I realy want for now, is promised RegExp... :|~~~

1. More control over the right-click menu.
- disable it completely, and handle within flash
- submenus
- icons next to menu items
- checkboxes next to menu items
- remove the about/settings/etc entries

2. It would be cool, if instead of the .FLA format, there was some project format, where all the assets are not glommed into a single file, but kept in a directory layout, corresponding to the folders in the Library. This would make it very easy to use with various source control solutions (CVS, SVN, VSS, etc), allowing one developer to work on a certain asset, while another developer works on another asset, and not losing the ability to compile / edit the entire thing at once.
Actionscripts left on movieclips or on the stage, should automatically be saved to separate .as files within the project folder, instead of embedded in the .FLA

3. actionscript speed! We want it on the order of java or .net!

4. Linux support...ideally the same as win/mac support, instead of having to wait months after the other platforms, and getting a player with various problems.

5. An IDE that runs under linux. If you are using Eclipse anyway, that is already 80% of the work. Just make the rest of your tools that plug into eclipse cross-platform as well!

6. opengl or DirectX 3D support. I want to write 3d apps/games and get some real performance.

7. multi-threading, so I don't need callbacks and intervals everywhere.

8. BitmapData.getPixelArray(rect:Rectangle):Array
BitmapData.setPixelArray(rect:Rectangle, data:Array);
to be able to get & set chunks of pixel data at once, instead of having to read / set them one at a time in a loop.

Bring back the double click on the frame to bring the action script editor unless you redo it to something better :)

Please add 3d capabilities (OpenGL / DirectX) to compete with Avalon and Sparkle !!!

Thanks
Bernd

It's been requested a number of times, but 3D capabilities using DirectX or OpenGL would be extremely usefull. Just take the Director 3D Xtra and port it to Flash ;)

QUAD for 3D textures :)
bitMap.quad(point1,point2,point3,point4)

When I load some external swf with library to e.g movieclip container, i can attachMovie from this library only to container or its child movieclip. Can be this done in a way, that stuff from library can be use in every movieclips of main swf, not only container mcs?

send BitmapData object to server as PNG

access to SoundData as BitmapData

A smarter ActionScript panel.

In Visual Studio .NET 2003, the IDE actually parses through IL code in compiled classes in order to give you member information for them.

It would be nice if the ActionScript panel parsed through the plain-text .as files in your classpaths, read JavaDoc comments (to display along with available members for a particulare class). That way I could edit MovieClip.as, and my changes would appear in a little pop-down menu when I type myMCInstance..

A better debugger would be nice too. I would like to step through my code, roll-over variable names and get their values (after they've been defined), etc.

Something that i think would give the FlashPlayer strong points :

1) Real Hardware Acceleration ( directx+opengl ... )
2) Player + IDE on Linux (Bring the suite to Linux)
3) Allow us to build full desktop(thus crossplatform - but not in the Central way) applications.
4) A font engine like the one used by GTK or GNOME in linux, gee .. those fonts are eatable! (yes i know about the new font egine, but it cant compete with that of GTK/GNOME(PANGO))
5) A sort of a player or VM with extensions abillities.(such as xpi extensions are for mozilla suite)
6) TRUE DEBUGGER & TRUE NET CONNECTION DEBUGGER
7) REWRITTEN .NET, JAVA REMOTING ... give us a PHP version from you!
8) Accept different versions of video streaming protocols(not your only rtmp)

Even better text handling, Flash has the benefit of embedding fonts and a great text renderer, now let this stand out.
I'm ok with the html/xhtml/css support, but with the benefit of embedding fonts maybe you should get some typographic insights of Adobe and eg. ommit the Bold and Italic styling buttons, more custom tags for eg. super/subscript, better typographical features in general… flash is more then html, so maybe it should not follow html so strictly

More 3D, example vector rotation.

text flow !!!

Pass letter another input text when input text is full.

I stand in line with all of the previous posters that have asked for a 3d engine. When playing with the very cool and simple 3d software sketchUP it's easy to start dreaming of how cool 3d could look and work in the flash environment.

1. Better drawing tools!
2. Better animation tools - something like the bones feature in Moho ( http://lostmarble.com/moho/index.shtml )
# Bone system with inverse kinematics: makes character animation like working with puppets.
# Lock inverse kinematic chains using Moho's bone constraint system. In this case, only the center of the body is animated - Moho is controlling the character's arms and legs automatically.
# Bone dynamics: automatically animate parts of a character using springy bones.

Agree with Sébastien Ballesté-Antich above.

Macromedia has built into the player the ability to download extensions from Macromedia in order to dynamically add features to the basic player. The Breeze presenter extension is an example.
The extensions, such as an early version of file upload, and the Breeze screen capture feature, have not always been available to third party developers. For example the screen capture utility is not available to Flash Media Server 2 developers.
I would like to see Macromedia make available extensions that third party users can use. I think an improved 3D extension (better than Shockwave please) would be a great example. Director as a development tool is out of sync with Flash and the workflow hassles and integration irritations of combining Flash and Director (or imagine Flex and Director) just to get at 3D are too great.
Yours truly,
-Brian

Linux Flash Player... you're talking about 8.5 and still no 8 for linux!

hurry up!

Flowchart a la After Effects for better view of what goes where and what parent to who

Thankfully everything I've ever wanted will apparently be a part of zorn and the 8.5 player.

So freeing me up to thing about some creative features, I'd say

1) A really nice component skinning tool with the ability to animate and morph components as their state changes and blend video into a component's design.

2) really good shape morphing

3) A good particle engine
(like 3dStudioMax's Particle Flow?)

- Fillet tool

Known well in the architecture and design world, this is a very useful tool for creating rounded corners.

Many peoples designs often use rounded corners of some sort and I think it would cut time out of designing if there was a tool to select a point in subselection mode and enter a radius value and to see it create a perfectly rounded corner. I would hope this would work on all corners whether they are obtuse, accute, or 90 degree angles.

I think the major thing that holds Flash from completely securing itself as the Web Application platform of the future is Text Control and Display. Having more advanced HTML and CSS control over text display would make Flash always the answer for ANY web application scenario.

Here's some Text related features that would make the above happen:
- linking text fields to one large body of text could flow over several text fields via textfield.grouping array.
- text flow to path
- text fill into complex shape
- all the regular HTML and CSS text controls.
- render text as bitmap? or other text display performance boosting (currently large bodies of text outside a textField chug hard on the processor)

All this ofcourse makes the Flash plugin a bigger download but I think it's worth it.

How about sorting out superscript & subscript within dynamic textfields? just a little wish, but in car sites etc it crops up all the time!
:)

1) Better timeline control(stretch keyframes, put tweens end on end, cascade tweens, ect.)
2) Motion blur
3) Alpha masks
4) Better Mac playback

Support for keyboard access to hypertext links in TextFields.

true search engine support.
render bitmaps better when they are scalled down

and for the love of god...
GRAY SCALE MASKS!!!

Flash UIComponents more light and litle...
Mid Suport...
Gray Scale Masks...
Can will be save an MovieClip in JPG file on user PC...
Create Chromaqui Alpha channel in Flash Video Encoder (Select color and alpha in this...)

And create player for Linux ;)

Director is a disaster.Bunch of dumb people wants to make flash a disaster too.
NO 3d.
NO Xstrass.
This is the entire opposite way that the one that makes flash the greatest plugin over the net
Anyway, those who really want those things, already have it in director.No need to screw up flash.

-Better support for html in TextFields. For example, be able to have images inline with the text.

-Fix issues with Shared Libraries. Like the hack workarounds you have to do in order to have shared font symbols.

-Better AS editor

-hitTest detection between two shapes

hitTest - to detect shape with shape, not only shape with point or bounding box with bounding box

I second "Hardware accelerated graphics for better performance. Almost all PCs have GPUs today and more performance could make Flash a real application platform."

I just would like to run this (http://www.everflash.com/flash/choppytest.html) kind of animations smooth and without tearing.

IDE:

More and more of computer graphics experts uses 2 screens to work. The scene only should be déplacable on the 2 eme screen in full MDI.

De plus en plus d'infographistes utilise 2 écrans pour travailler.
La scene seule devrait etre déplacable sur le 2 eme ecran en MDI.

A stretchable timeline...
Just like Livemotion had (make animation longer? Simply stretch the timeline...)
Now THAT would be so cool!

Scriptable Drawing API strokes ie (hairline, dot, slash, ect.)
Scriptable Drawing API stoke placement ie ( inside, outside, centered)

and for the love of god...
GRAY SCALE MASKS!!!

In the next Flash player releases it would be nice to find the following extensions of the Sound class:
1) the possibility to read the Sound object level in the certain moment of time to build waveforms of the signal according to obtained values. The values would be put to the array, and then parts of the signal's waveform would be drawn using the lineTo method;
2) the possibility to show spectrum characteristics of the signal using Fast Fourier Transform;
3) the possibility to equalize the signal of Sound object (at least low- mid- high- frequencies);
4) the possibility of putting reverb onto Sound object.

"Linux Flash Player... you're talking about 8.5 and still no 8 for linux!

hurry up!"

Second that, get to it you slackers!!

I'd like to see these things intergrated in flash9:

- Better intergration with the browser (backbutton/advanced history and rightmouseclick control)
- A good flash check in the publish settings, give us the option not to deal with that stuff.
- Real support for CSS3 and (X)HTML.

3D!

Mac IDE:
*INTERFACE SPEED*
Flash 8 is noticably sluggish during common operations like selecting text and switching from Actionscript Editor to FLA editor.
Flash 7.2 felt much snappier.

Actionscript Editor:
-Code folding ala Dreamweaver
-Function/Variable browser

I don't think 3D in Flash need to be as 'powerful' as those in Director or Swift 3D, however I do hope that AS can include some 3D related class in it.

I think there's a need as you can see many ppl are developing their own 3D class. I know many programs can do 3D, but Flash is a bit different isnt it? I think including some 3D classes is a good idea.

Can comment a entire AS code block with a click, like DW 8 make with the PHP.

:-)

Function/Variable browser

... more complex class's

Here we go -- the _long_ version.
Some things have been said by other guys but I'm repeating them to help you getting a feeling how important some things are...

Prio 1+
=======
* You should enhance the text fields. Proper HTML and CSS support would be a good start, although you should also incorporate more high-quality typographic features as in InDesign. See below for more suggestions.

Prio 1
=======
* IDE: Recognize UTF-8 AS files also without BOM.
* support Soft hyphens, \u200B (zero width space), non-breaking hyphen and non-breaking space in text fields.
* Proper HTML/XHTML and CSS support. CSS Support at least: Superscript, subscript, line-through, line-height, background-color, background-image, background-repeat, background-position, word-spacing, vertical-align, display, the border and padding styles, list-style-image and list-style position, page-break-before and page-break-after (for flow between text fields).
* Advanced layout features in text fields: baseline offset, compressing and extending letters, space between paragraphs, text flow between text fields, Fill Shape, Follow Path, Flow Around, customizable small caps and initials. Text flow to path
* Support inline images and fix _all_ text field bugs (also resize-related bugs).
* in text fields, support events (onMouseOver for a span).
* You should generally support linking textfields for flowing text between text fields
* fonts: loading once and sharing at runtime, full control over glyph tables. Make sure they work for all textfields.
* loading and sharing of symbols at runtime, also cross-library. Preloading into library.
* Perspective Distortion Control
* MovieClip.framelabels
* MovieClip.isPlaying
* System.capabilities.framerate (Not the runtime fps, just the "built-in" fps of the swf)
* Custom easing as in After Effects. Full control in AS if a property is controlled by timeline tween or AS (fixed or offset)
* pre-compiler macros like #define and #ifdef
* "Output window : enable Keys Home, End, Page Up, Page Down. (I can't believe it doesn't exist already)" - quite true!
* Agree: "INCREASE THE WORKSPACE SIZE for Christ sake! Sometimes we all need "a little" much nore space to put things there and organize later"
* Agree: "Zoom to 4000 or 6000 instead of just 2000%"
* Agree: "Update file uploading to allow for additional parameters in the post. Update file uploading to allow for return values from the post target."
* Agree: "Real motion blur -- think AfterEffects. I want to be able to tell Flash to blur this object based upon its movement around the screen."

Prio 2
======
* IDE: Direct shortcut für "Export with simulated download Show Streaming"
* Advanced sound controls (playback speed/pitch, EQ, filtering, sound synchronisation). Possibility to exactly synchronize sounds with animations.
* Stop/Resume methods for all kinds of downloads
* Agree: there's no way to load a standard XML document and embed in the SWF at compile time. I can #include, but I have to mangle the original file to do it. I should be able to specify an XML doc to embed/include in the SWF, and the object or string name it should be given once it's embedded.. not everybody wants or has the option to load XML from a server.
* Library: export on x frame
* more projector customization
* Cubic Beziers. Also for the pen tool. Improve adding/deleting of anchors.
* Agree: JSFL: - include AS files (and JSFL files for that matter) in the Object Model.
* Prio 3
* XPath.
* AS: Random seed
* hitTest detection between two shapes
* Method to copy HTML Text to clipboard
* MIDI support!
* Agree: NTSC Safe Colors. (Flash is used widely for brodcast animation.)
* Agree: "Method like Copy To ClipBoard (Not just Text), which can copy a perticular area as a screen grab to clip board."
* Scale9 work with bitmaps and text as well as vector.

Prio 3
======
* XPath
* Random seed
* hitTest detection between two shapes
* Method to copy HTML Text to clipboard
* MIDI support!
* Agree: NTSC Safe Colors. (Flash is used widely for brodcast animation.)
* Agree: "Method like Copy To ClipBoard (Not just Text), which can copy a perticular area as a screen grab to clip board."
* Scale9 work with bitmaps and text as well as vector.

Cheers,
david

Graphic:

- perspective effect (as in Photoshop)
- different brushes (as in Photoshop)
- Combine Fireworks with Flash :)

Interface:

- 3D
- flv preview
- MovieClip as default in F8
- Copy Layer
- Flash for Linux
- Flash Player for Linux
- sound editor
- ActionScript snippets
- alpha for layers/frames

ActionScript:

- pause();
- play();
- Windows API (as in SWF Studio/Zinc)
- onDoubleClick();
- playRight();
- System.capabilities.framerate();

:: Command line compilator [must be]
:: Native transparent background support in List, TreeView etc. components
:: Copying PNG-images to clipboard from IDE for using in another applications
:: Implement text antialiasing customization for components
:: Saving all timeline settings as short, tiny etc. in .fla-file
:: Add a few classes like ExternalInterface for more friendly interaction with desktop applications [or change if possible rpc-like protocol, it is almost unusable now]
:: Add a tool for text warping like in Photoshop

I would really like to be able to drag and drop images from the desktop to inside the application.

Very important: Rightclicking inside the library, should give me the option to import. Or atleast place a button on the bottom.

And I would also like basic imagetools inside flash, so I could remove borders and such with for instance tools like crop and the magic wand.

A little bit more advanced shapetween. Images? Or better, anything.

I would love to see these improvements in the animation style:

1) Bones - Bones that can be part of other bones, eg if you move the forearm, the hand moves, but if you move the hand, the forearm doesn't move. Animation can really be sped up with this.

2) 3rd Dimension - Not as a complete 3d modeling or animation suite, but the ability to rotate your 2-d objects on the 3rd axis.

3) Liquid movement options - I am not sure how this would be implemented, but some fluid movement other than FBF would be quite cool. Perhaps a distort over time, or patterned liquid?

ok. here is my comment
i found flash is a very useful and powerful tool for desiners and programmers but it lacks a proper controlling over sound.

what im trying to say is that the sound controlling options in flash versions up to flash 8 are very limitted to the basic options. i really expected that in this laterst version (8) flash could control the ease of the sound. for example if i want the sound to play slower of faster in NUMBER% or so.

so again, it is great that u keep working on flash and i.. and im sure most flash users appriciate the hard work at improving the Graphic and Programming capabilities in flash but flash really lacks the campability of controlling sound in my (and many others) opinion.

hope to see a change in the next version.
thanks.

ohh
and another HIGHLY IPMORTANT suggestion.
u must make flash capable of reading asian languages without scrambling the position of the leters or presenting on the screen gibrish instead of words.
both in the textfields and in reading from outside soure as txt and xml and stuff without using utf-8

Faster AS 2.0 compiler like MTASC would be great.

It's my birthday, and here's what I wished for when I blew out my candles:

1. Auto-detection of GPS devices, similar to the way Webcams and Microphones are currently detected. Access to GPS properties.

2. Joystick support (at least 2-players), similar to the way Webcams and Microphones are currently detected. Access to Joystick properties.

3. Easier/more reliable way to share fonts between .swf files.

4. Code snippets or starter templates for .as Class files.

5. Ability to create/modify UI components that fit into the V2/V3 component framework, in a similar way that Microsoft Sparkle allows designers to create functional components.

6. Built-in inverse kinematics for animation.

7. More tutorials/tools for all the "tweeners" designer/developer types that want to learn how to merge the gap between designing and developing with Flash. Those of us who have grown up with Flash since the early days understand this, but it hard to grasp for new students of Flash - especially since Macromedia now seems to want to segregate the designers from the developers with the Flex 2.0 builder.

8. The ability to write applications in AS3 and have Flash automatically convert it to FlashLite code at "compile-time".

9. Flash Player 8.5 looks like it might have enough power to handle some 3D work. It'd be great to have built-in 3D classes to make development easier.

10. Allow non-11khz-multiples of sound frequency sound files to be playable in Flash, or at least display an error/warning screen when there might be an issue with the sound file. Currently it can be very frustrating trying to figure out why some sound files just won't play.

11. Have the Actionscript window still visible when switching to another program.

My birthday is almost over so I'll stop now ;)

Flash 8 is an awesome release, so I'm happy for now. But if you could add a few features from the list above by my next birthday, I'd be a very happy man!

- Full XPath Support would be great!

AS wishlist :

- MovieClip.framelabels
- MovieClip.lineStyle readable, return object with actual thickness , color...
- MovieClip.position( x , y ) // mc._x , mc._y;
- MovieClip.size( w , h ) // mc._width , mc._height;
- MovieClip.scale( x , y ) // mc._xscale , mc._yscale;
- Math.round(number, [decimalPlaces]);
- Array.indexOf()
- Filter.stroke ( like the effect in Photoshop )
- double click detection
- extend Trace. Possibility to pass multiple arguements. and in class : function toString ( arg1 , arg2 )
- Direct access to the BitmapData pixel array so it is not necessary to read out an image pixel by pixel

Player wishlist :

- Justify for dynamic textfield
- AttachMovieClip through levels , also with loaded swf

JSFL wishlist :

- get the use count of an item in library.
- JSFL encrypted files. Only readable by IDE. For sharing or saling JSFL.

IDE wishlist :

- Line duplicate in the Editor

I think that there needs to be a web browser component to allow loading of external web pages into flash movies. There are ActiveX components that give this functionality to .net applications. It would also give Flash full HTML / XHTML support.

Adding russian lang. of interfases.

I agree with Sébastien Ballesté-Antich regarding expansion of animation tools and would like to see also

- Timeline more suitable for complex animation, like in other professional animation programs
- Graphical nonlinear animation editing (curves)
- Timeline structure import/export
- Effect layers (highlight/shade etc) and/or layer correspondence as already implemented for objects (overlay/multiply/screen etc)
- Color keying and matting for bitmaps (great for hand tracing)
- Well... built-in lipsync? :)

and... already mentioned but still...

- Camera
- Bones/IK

yea, that would be marvelous!

Yes, Sebastien and Ikar hit some of my biggest annoyances. It would be great to see better shape animation tools in Flash. Better control over points, advanced features like IK...At the very least, full curve editing of tweens would help things immensely.

for Array
i want to have a function to automatically set the array elements all to 0

It would be great if Flash 9 have SoundData.

FlashCom and Flash Video rock - Except of the inherently large bandwith costs of providing such videos to a large number of concurrent users. A Bit-Torrent-like way to distrubitue the video data would be a phonomial. i.e. the video data is primarialy obtained from other users viewing the same video, with the flashcom(flash media) server being in control of the whole operation. This would enable widespread and cost effect use of Flash video supporting a huge number of users.

My today most wanted:
- free standalone FLV-Encoder for my customers to encode and upload videos... e.g. CMS (or a eBay-auction... openSource 10kb swf for videoplayback is not the problem :))
- 2pass encoding
- function to 'auto drop-frame' in the videoencoder for very high quality video with the cost of not very smoothe playback

- copy layer in the Flash Timeline (frames, keyframes)

Cool example for Enduser-Encoder (eBay-auction) on http://cgi.ebay.de/Rattenfalle-Marderfalle-Lebendfalle-Kastenfalle_W0QQitemZ7188063326QQcategoryZ13401QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

hi,

my Needs:
- By importing my own AS2-Classes, Flash should
recognize all methods and attributes of my own
Class and it should display me an DropDown-Menu
filled with this things.

Little example:
Just write "MovieClip" and a "." (dot) and you get
this DropDown-Menu I'm talking about.

- The FlashPlayer should be able to view complex
animations with high FPS but without bringing my
System to its knees.

thx, Regan.

Maybe one day flash brings me the coffee..?

- using mxml without flex (directly from flash) ;)

advanced sound object---> pitch? read out the level of different frequency bands? would be good for graphic "equalizer".

And graphiccard support.

- bones
- joystic support
- MovieClip._scale(100%,55%);

Mike Downey has promised synchronous functions for things like loading .swf's, playing sounds, and - most important for me each and every day - AS execution pause:

http://weblogs.macromedia.com/md/archives/2005/08/the_lesser-know.cfm

Will AS 3.0 have these new functions? I am immensely l