Adobe is releasing a new product called Flash Catalyst (formerly named "Thermo").

"Flash Catalyst" sounds like a very early version of Flash, or else a very "watered down" version.

I am wondering if Adobe came up with this product because of the backlash they received from infuriated graphic designers who became more and more alienated and frustrated by an ever-increasing complexity with Flash's scripting / programming language, Action Script.

Learning AS2 (Action Script 2) was difficult enough for many graphic artists.

I am no exception in that regard, especially since I am self-taught; I never took any computer science, programming, or scripting courses while in college. (None of the colleges in my area even offered Flash or Action Script courses, either.)

Adobe, unfortunately, made some big changes from version 2 of Action Script to version 3, which furthered increased the difficulty and learning curve.

Here is how the "Flash Catalyst" software is described on Adobe's site (and notice the phrase "without coding"):

Adobe Flash Catalyst is a new professional interaction design tool for rapidly creating application interfaces and interactive content without coding.

These can range from interactive Ads, product guides and design portfolios to user interfaces for applications.

... The designer does this by visually defining events, transitions and motion. Flash Catalyst can output a finished Flash SWF or AIR application that’s ready to publish on the web.

In addition designers can provide the project file to developers who can use Adobe Flex Builder to add additional functionality such as connection to back-end systems.

Notice also that in this product description there is an emphasis here on dividing the tasks between the artist (that is, the front end, visual, creative work) and that of the developer/programmer.

It seems to me the current version of Flash, "CS4," (as well as the previous versions, starting at around 4, 5, or MX all the way to CS3) is aimed more towards computer programmers and application developers.

As such, it should be renamed "Flash for Programmers," while this new product, "Flash Catalyst," should be entitled, "Flash for Graphic Artists," or, "Flash for People Who Hate Coding, Programming, and Scripting and Have No Desire to Learn Any of Those Things."

I cannot, and would not, refer to Flash MX, the current version, or any version in-between, as being "artist friendly," or intuitive to graphic designers.

Forcing artistic, creative types to learn anything even remotely resembling scripting or programming was a very big mistake on Adobe's part, as it was on Macromedia's part (Macromedia being the former owners of Flash).

Adobe, Macromedia, or someone should have created a "WYSIWYG" (what you see is what you get) version of Flash many, many years ago; with "Dreamweaver," Adobe/Macromedia already had such software for web page creation, so why not something similar for Flash?

(About the closest thing I've ever seen to such a package is Swish Zone's "Swish"), and another product called Fly Paper.

If I'm not mistaken, "Flash Catalyst" uses "MXML" and does not provide an option for using Action Script.

If this blog entry is any indication, developers do not like "Flash Catalyst." This one reader comment sums up their feelings (emphasis added):

[by "John O"]
We’ve been talking about the new workflow and came to similar conclusions. At my last 9-5, I was the UI designer for a WPF project using Blend for my work.

After finding out that all the developers wanted was my XAML, I moved back to doing my work in Fireworks and using the Infragistics XAML exporter.

Round tripping sounds great but in reality, no developer I know trusts any auto-generated code.

As one reader ("useflashmore") on another page put it:

Why would Adobe build a new product to do what Flash should have evolved to do?

To read more about Flash Catalyst, try this page:

Adobe's Flash Catalyst Moves Forward

The Adobe tool aims to simplify the creation of interactive applications.

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As I was saying in a post about Abobe's "Flash Catalyst," someone should have made an easy- to- use WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) Flash-like application years ago, as in the year 2000 or 2001.

The closest thing I have seen to such a WYSIWYG application that can output .swf files would be Swish and Fly Paper.

Even though I learned Action Script 2 (I would say I'm towards the 'intermediate' level of the spectrum, or am getting to that point), it is my view that graphic artists should not have to learn, or even have a passing familiarity with, scripting or programming, including Action Script.

(Microsoft's Silverlight is not a solution, since it, like Flash, apparently requires the use of a scripting language as well, if my understanding is correct.)

About three years ago, QID (Quark Interactive Designer) was released, and it is an attempt at a Flash-like WYSIWYG package.

Quark Interactive Designer 1.0 - review from MacWorld

Excerpt from MacWorld review:

This program has a simple and straightforward interface and concept, and it works very well for creating presentations, interactive tours, online ads and banners, or for converting your pages into a Web site complete with multimedia content. You can also use QuID to create familiar elements such as rollover navigation bars, disjointed rollovers, and animations without any coding, programming, or scripting knowledge.

While the vast majority of designers will be satisfied with the basic actions that QuID supplies (and you’ll need to consult the manual or video to understand how to use them—they are not self-explanatory) some designers will need additional complex effects that are more technically difficult to produce. Nonetheless, compared to Flash, QuID is still much easier to learn and use.

A long quest for a simple, easy-to-learn Flash program is over. Or is it?

Excerpts from the above page:

Quark Enters the Flash Market

Quark Interactive Designer (called QID for the rest of this review) is the latest addition to the QuarkXPress 7 bundle of tricks.

Although you buy QID as an individual product, you must also have a copy of QuarkXPress 7.02 installed. (This is similar to the requirements of QuarkImmedia, the long-defunct multimedia predecessor of QID.) You then launch XPress as usual.

....With QID's flexibility comes a bit of a learning curve--a little bit more of a learning curve than I expected. And there's no summary where you can see all the controls that have been applied to an object. There were too many times I found myself wondering why nothing was happening when I went to preview my presentation.

....Given that the whole point of QID is supposed to be its simple learning curve (using the tools you already know in QuarkXpress), I was disappointed in things that were unnecessarily complicated. QID has tools to let you build sophisticated interfaces, but it fails to help you do so easily or quickly.