Flash Catalyst offers new workflow

I’ve spent much of the last four years programming front end interfaces and the rest of the time has been spent designing user interfaces. I can attest there is a large amount of time that goes into recreating the designer’s Photoshop or Illustrator files in CSS or in this case, in Flash.  Adobe has been working steadily at making this migration more integrated and less of a pain. Each successive release of Flash has improved the accuracy and usefulness of this “PSD” or “AI” file import. Flash Catalyst does do this particularly well. It also offers a ‘new’ WYSIWYG interface that allows buttons, transitions, lists and drop-downs to be dragged and positioned by a non-techie. 

First of all, I should note the product I’m reviewing in beta will likely improve before final release. My guess is that this product’s release will occur shortly before it becomes part of Adobe’s ever-growing list of abandoned products, no longer supported by their customer support services. Feel free to call Adobe for help with FlashPaper bugs to experience this wonderful conundrum that happens when a company sells a product they no longer support. 

I feel that Catalyst will be a short-lived project for three reasons:

1. Catalyst isn’t intuitive: I’m not speaking down to designers, here. I’m one of you. But while this interface is mildly insulting to a true Flash programmer, it’s not intuitive by any means. There will be significant time spent bringing graphic designers to a point where they will create useful projects.
   
   
2. Catayst is more GoLive, less Dreamweaver: I have officially joined the growing group of unofficial DreamWeaver evangelists. Its design view is as useless as any other, but its capacity for quick code auto-complete, in-program FTP, multi-user project management, and the standard plethora of niche tools Adobe insets to all of its programs makes it at least a legitimate contender in the realm of non-ASP/JAVA code editors. GoLive doesn’t tend that way. It has been the tool used to create some of the world’s ugliest websites in post-90’s “I have a cousin who can do web design” bubble. GoLive doesn’t allow for control, proper layout, or even cross-browser safe code. It’s too user friendly.
   
   For those not familiar with either GoLive or Dreamweaver HTML editors, I would use a different analogy. Try the analogy of Microsoft Word 2000 (a reasonable interface with elements that could be tweaked without the Autocorrect ruining alignment and, well, everything else) versus Office 10, an infuriating piece of software if you ever try anything but the most basic text edits. Adobe is going to have to overhaul the interface to give more power to designers, to allow this product to turn out anything useful.
   
   
3. Corporate Inertia: Currently project management systems, iterations meetings, and the presentation files themselves often provide as much detail as this tool would allow.  So a Catalyst file handed over to a developer would likely take some time away from his/her work, but just put it on the plate of a designer who would have to do that same work regardless. There are no time savings in changing to this work flow, and if that can’t be demonstrated to corporations, there won’t be much in the way of sales.

Flash Catalyst is currently in beta and available for you to check out for yourself at labs.abobe.com