A lesser known capability of Flash is that it can produce robust applications outside of the Web Browser. Flash allows developers to publish a “projector” file in .exe format. This method packages the Flash Player into the single “executable” file along with your application.

The capabilities of projector apps are very similar to those of Flash applications that are launched in a browser. Additionally, several companies have developed tools to enhance these capabilities to acheive powerful results. For example, several of these tools enable your Flash program to interact with the user’s file system, desktop, and Windows registry. Installer builders are often included also.

People may get tired of hearing me rant about debuggers, but I found another one I really like. I have been up to my ears in code that was written by other developers. Its the kind of application that has about 30 class files, and much of the GUI is generated dynamically as opposed to visible assets on the “stage”. There are pros and cons to writting Flash apps like this, and I am not going to address that here. Maybe in my next rant.

At any rate, I have immersed myself in the code for days on end and often find myself struggling to remember where various assets are in the heirarchy (not too mention depths). In my earlier post I expoused the virtues of AdminTool (http://acmewebworks.typepad.com/admintool/) which is an excellent debugger. But recently I stumbled across a site written almost entirely in Spanish, that could have easily been overlooked for it’s contribution to the English speaking world. The web site is http://www.luminicbox.com and they offer a free tool called, what else, Luminic Box.

Macromedia has posted a new page of information regarding the Adobe/Macromedia deal. In addition to a talking heads video with the two CEO’s, there is an interesting PDF available from Forrester Research.

See for yourself and lets start an online discussion about this. Download the Forrester PDF file from http://www.macromedia.com/macromedia/adobe_macromedia/

The folks at Forrester have pretty good insight into the world of internet marketing. I’m not sure I agree that Flash will become part of Photoshop, but I like the positive take on the future of Flash as a standard for streaming video.