SlideShowPro News

04.24.07 | Adobe Flash CS3 and SlideShowPro Compatibility

The "Design" and "Web" editions of Adobe Creative Suite 3 are now out the door. Both include the first Adobe branded version of Flash. Which begs the question -- is SlideShowPro compatible with Flash CS3?

You bet! Like the move from Flash MX 2004 to Flash 8, SlideShowPro just works. There is however a slight change to your workflow when adding the component to a new FLA, plus a few finer points intermediate to advanced Flash users should be aware of. I'll get to Flash in a minute, but first let's talk about Extension Manager.

Activating existing Flash MX 2004/Flash 8 extension for CS3

The first thing you should do is install Flash CS3 per Adobe's instructions. When complete, launch Flash and enter your serial number to activate the product. When the Flash finally launches, quit it.

Included with Flash CS3 is a new version of our old friend Extension Manager -- now named "Adobe Extension Manager." Launch it.

When open, you should see a drop-down field at the top of the app window. Select "Flash CS3" from the list. If you already have SlideShowPro installed for Flash MX 2004 or Flash 8, you should see "SlideShowPro" in the extension list with an unchecked checkbox to its left. Click on the box to activate. SlideShowPro is now available for Flash CS3.

Adding SlideShowPro to an FLA

Here's where things are a little bit different (and trust me, it's actually better this way). In Flash CS3, select "New" from the File menu. In the left window pane of the dialog that appears, choose "Flash File (ActionScript 2.0)," not the default choice of "ActionScript 3.0". Then click OK. When the FLA is created, add SlideShowPro to your movie from the Components Panel like you always do.

What happens if you create a new FLA with the default 3.0 setting? Open the Components panel, and you'll see. SlideShowPro simply isn't available. This is a good thing, for it prevents people from accidentally adding SlideShowPro to an unsupported FLA type.

More on Flash Player 9, ActionScript 3.0

All that said, there's nothing stopping you from changing the Publish Settings of your FLA once it has been created. If you change the publish settings from 2.0 to 3.0, SlideShowPro won't work. All you'll see is a white box. You can however publish to Flash Player 9, but you can't use the ActionScript 3.0 setting. The same goes for any parent movie you try to load SlideShowPro into. Unless the parent is published as 2.0, the component won't work there either.

Conclusion

So what does all this version stuff mean, really? For nearly everyone using SlideShowPro, not much. ActionScript 3.0 is bleeding edge, and unless you're using SlideShowPro as part of another application that must be coded in the same language type, this won't affect you in the least. Just make sure you always select 2.0, and you'll be golden.

That's all! Enjoy CS3.