Just doing my part to spread the good news and hopefully give some insight.
First off, Macromedia has released for purchase <a href=”http://www.macromedia.com/software/mx2004/”>Studio MX 2004 & Studio MX Professional 2004</a>.
Secondly, for those only buying Studio to get at the new Flash versions (<a href=”http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=flash”>try Flash</a>, <a href=”http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=flash_mx2004_pro”>try Pro</a>), they too, are available for purchase and download.
Third, Macromedia has released the <a href=”http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash”>Flash 7 player</a> (7.0.14.0) to the general public. It has the auto-update feature built in, so that should help with the many updates we’ll get to the player itself. In my opinion, however, we’ll be getting more updates to the IDE than the player as most programmers we’ll be trying to break their new shoes in.
Finally, although there are a bunch of other phat progs in Studio, you may want to check out <a href=”http://www.macromedia.com/software/dreamweaver/”>Dreamweaver MX 2004</a>. I’ve used this to code in Flash MX, and now I’m hoping with it’s built in CSS, it will rival <a href=”http://www.bradsoft.com/topstyle/index.asp”>TopStyle</a> enough to become many people’s new editor.
Why should you care about the new Dreamweaver? Well, it should definately make designing your blog a lot easier if you use <a href=”http://www.moveabletype.org”>MoveableType</a>.
Also, if your looking to see what people are experiencing throughout their experiments with the new Flash in hopes you too can learn, make sure to check out some of their blogs, including Macromedia’s:
– <a href=”http://www.fullasagoog.com/”>Full As A Goog</a>
– <a href=”http://www.thedevilneversleeps.com/flog/”>Flog</a>
– <a href=”http://www.markme.com/mxna/index.cfm?category=Flash”>Macromedia’s XML News</a>
By the way, did anyone catch the Flash animation on Macromedia’s website touting Flash MX 2004 and Flash MX Pro 2004? It said, “It’s like dating two hot twins, except you only have to chose one.”
…that was definately written by a woman, cause I don’t know of any hetero guy who would only chose one!
Anyway, good luck! Great times ahead.