Northcode’s SWF Studio 3.1 has been released. This release comes out not too long after the 3.0 release in July. Why so soon? We wanted to release around the time Macromedia was releasing Flash 8, the new features kick ass, and all the hard work that went into 3.0 is still paying off by speeding up the time it takes for us to add new features and make bug fixes, so we were able to get the new stuff in pretty fast.

So what’s new?

Flash 8 Player Support

As part of our player licensing agreement with Macromedia we are required to ship SWF Studio with the latest stable version of the Flash player. We’re happy to announce that SWF Stuido V3.1 now uses the Flash 8 Player to play your Flash files. This means that by using SWF Studio you can automatically take advantage of all the hard work Macromedia has done to improve the performance of the Flash player.

Synchronous Commands

You now have the option of making ActionScript API calls synchronously or asynchronously. When an SWF Studio command is called synchronously, data is returned to the caller immediately through a return object and is available for use immediately in the next line of code. No callbacks are required, which can reduce the amount of code you have to write making you instantly more productive.

Splash Screens

With just a couple of clicks you can add splash screens using JPG, BMP or GIF files. Splash screens appear immediately when your application starts to let users know that the application is working so they don’t attempt to start multiple copies.

Those are the biggies. For a complete list check out the release notes in 3.1.

It’s important to note that, unlike some competitors that change their syntax every other build, SWF Studio 3.1 does NOT require you to change any code to upgrade. Obviously if you want synchronous support your code will need to change, but existing projects won’t have to be redone. 3.1 continues to support asynchronous commands, and you can in fact mix asynchronous and synchronous commands - every other command if you want.

Asynchronous commands actually have an advantage in some cases. They don’t block the Flash player from continuing to animate and run code, data is returned to your callback function. Synchronous commands will definitely be prevelant in most projects simply because of the ease of coding. Plus some functionality returns data extremely fast. However, some operations require significant time, and having your application unresponsive is just bad. For instance, if you want to download a file via FTP you wouldn’t want your application to stall while the download occurs.

Another improvement that wasn’t mentioned in the What’s New is the help docs. We spent a good deal of time adding more information and reorganizing existing info to make it easier for people to get started. The ActionScript API has it’s own section and the different aspects of API calls is covered there. However, the cool part is that you can look at a command in the help and see 2 examples of usage (async and sync) and click on parts of the usage code, which will bring you to the page in the AS API covering that aspect. We will be adding examples to the help as well, however, I think this will be a good start for most people.

I’ll be posting more info and some Bits Of Tid™ soon.

So, go try it and then buy it!

If you have any questions or problems about SWF Studio please go to the Northcode Forums. My handle on the forums is mbd.