What’s New and Improved in Adobe Flash CS5.5
- Copy and Paste Layers
- Scale Content When Changing the Stage Size
- Export Vector as Bitmap
- Convert Vector to Bitmap
- Code Snippets Enhancements
- TLF (Text) Enhancements
- AIR for Android support
- Debug on Device via USB
- Visible Property of Symbols Editable in the Property Inspector
- Shared Project Format with Flash Builder
- Summary
Adobe Flash just keeps getting more powerful as the versions roll on, and CS5.5 is no exception. I myself am a pretty avid user, but I wouldn’t claim to be an ActionScript guru or an app developer. The latest version of Flash has something for everyone, from the addition of copy and paste for layers to tethering to a device via USB for debugging apps.
Rather than talk up these features, I’d rather we just jump in and take a tour of them. This article provides a “top ten” or so I’ve put together, with an honorable mention of features towards the end of the article.
Copy and Paste Layers
It seems crazy that this far into the life of Flash, we are going on about the “new” feature of copying and pasting layers, but it’s finally here. If you’ve ever worked with Flash and you’ve worked with layers within the program (how could you not), you immediately found workarounds to copying and pasting them previously. In Flash CS5.5, you can copy entire layers and layer folders in the timeline and paste them into the same document or other documents (see Figure 1). This will save lots of time on certain projects where copying is essential.
Figure 1 Copying and Pasting layers made easy