With the release of the Flash Catalyst Beta 2, the public gets its next look at Adobe’s rapid prototyping tool.

The application has continued to mature since the last release. Here is a brief rundown of some of the features and capabilities:

• The ability to create new components: Checkbox, Radio Button, Toggle Button, Horizontal Slider, and Vertical Slider


• All the wireframe components are skinable via double-click


• Early support for video


• 3D rotation for objects


• New filters can be applied to any object (bevel, blur, glow, etc)


• Major improvements to working with text

The actual Flash Catalyst application also underwent some major changes. Most notably, the HUD (Heads Up Display) and the Interaction panel. The Interaction functions that were embedded within the HUD have been placed in their own panel.

This was due to feedback from the community about this feature. So remember, the team is listening. They have also added an interaction, giving users the ability to Navigate to an external URL. They also enabled the ability to hide the HUD completely (F7).

The Library Panel now supports duplicating and deleting items, and we now have the ability to zoom on the Canvas. This is useful to ensure that the art importing process occurs correctly. This is another area that was improved upon, but lives mostly behind the scenes.

One final new feature to point out is all the new “settable” properties of various objects. You can now quickly define tab order, focus ring color, or the preferred cursor.

There are a lot more things that have changed, but I just want to give you a rundown of some of the major changes.

I hope you take the time and download the latest release and try some of these new features. Make sure you let the Flash Catalyst team know what you think of these improvements. The sessions on Flash Catalyst from the Adobe MAX conference should be available online soon and should be worth the time to watch.

Have fun!

Read more from Chris Griffith.