Quick thoughts about Adobe CS3
Ok, i’ve had a few days to play aroudn with the CS3 suite + Fireworks. Fist of all a big thank you to Adobe for fixing the flash timeline! I can use my mighty mouse to scroll up and down - Finally! Now we need proper zoom in and out and a way to add frame names by double clicking and typing the name right in the timeline rather than in an inspector a mile away at the bottom of the screen.
The new CS3 UI finally brings 3rd party upps in line with modern operating systems’ advances in aesthetics. Dreamweaver and Fireworks still need to make their jump to the new UI. and, though perhaps their interface was less in a need of fixing than say Flash 8’s, it would be nice to have a common UI throughout the suite. As for proper features, Flash probably packs the most punch in the whole suite with the introduction of AS 3.0 and many refinements. Fireworks gains pages support which allows for multiple page site prototyping though there’s no option for imported Freehand files to open multiple freehand page documents in multiple pages in Fireworks. There’s just the option to open individual pages or multiple pages across frames. Definitely further sign of neglect for Freehand. Otherwise all apps gain stability and speed on Intel Macs thanks to universal binaries. A lot of scripts and extensions for macromedia products continue to work, some didn’t even need to be reinstalled. Photoshop plugins however will not work unless running the app in Rosetta.
Dreamweaver gains support for the Spry Framework which I’ll be taking advantage of for sure. Otherwise there’s more support for apps and CSS. Though most of these features appear to be bolted on extras rather than proper new features. Also, whereas before tables would resize correctly when I click outside them now i need to do it manually or test the page to make the tables preview correctly (and yeah I still use tables - shoot me!). I’d like to see some better text support in Fireworks - maybe text runaround text stylesheets in fireworks. Would help start that building process even more! In Dweaver I’d like vertical text selection as is poss with many text editors out there (even word!)
For the first time Fash feels snappy on a Mac (k it’s a mac pro 2.5…) but hey it’s faster than flash 8 by a huge margin). Also, flash’s eps importing seems a bit iffy now, as it doesn’t import some files which opened no problem in 8. However as speed gains have been felt across the board throughout the suite on my work machine, on my single CPU 1.8Ghz G5, the suite feels slower than CS2 but I prefer the feel and usability of the new apps (did i mention scrollable timeline in flash?)
I haven’t had a proper go with Indesign and Illustrator as they’re not really my domain. Illustrator seems to have crashed only once insofar compared to the few times a day that cs2 used to. Photoshop seems to be a bit erratic but I reckon it’s a font issue. Don’t have Photoshop extended but I know someone who might be getting it cos it has features suited to their line of work so i might get to play with it.
Now when will Adobe and Apple release their own 3d app? Maybe i3d and 3d Cut pro. Both companies have productivity suites which sorely lack a 3d App. If they have a simple app on the lines of swift 3d (with better timeline support) they’ll get more people into the industry. It’s also very beneficial to have a complete ecosystem.