SlideShowPro News

09.13.05 | Upgrading to Flash 8? Read me.

In case you haven't heard, Flash 8 (Basic and Pro) is now available for purchase and download from the Macromedia Store. There are lots of exciting new things to play with in the updated IDE, but in case some of you were concerned how this affects SlideShowPro, here's the deal.

First, SlideShowPro works exactly the same in Flash 8 as it does in Flash MX 2004. You can publish Flash Player 7 or 8 movies with the component and everything should work fine. I was a beta tester for both the player and the IDE, and never ran into any problems -- even with the early betas. So on that front you should be good to go.

The one wrinkle in the update is that with Flash 8 comes a brand new Extension Manager which replaces your existing copy from Flash MX 2004. It manages extensions for both Flash MX 2004 and Flash 8. You can toggle which version you want to run the component with a simple on/off toggle in the Extension Manager.

So if you're upgrading to Flash 8, I would recommend first going through the entire registration / authentication startup of the app before doing anything with Extension Manager. Once the app is "live," quit it, and then launch Extension Manager. SlideShowPro should be automatically assigned and turned "on" for Flash 8. If not, toggle the "on/off" option to the "on" setting, and relaunch Flash 8. The component will be in the Components panel just as it was before.

If you run into trouble with Extension Manager, as in you can't toggle a component one/off or upgrade an older copy, I would recommend turning "off" SlideShowPro in both Flash MX 2004 and Flash 8, and clicking the "Remove" button. The component will be removed from both apps. Then reinstall using the MXP file.

If anyone has trouble, shoot me an email.