So finally Flash CS4 gets it’s much deserved update, I’m glad some of the mayor bugs on it seems to have been solved according to Richard Galvan’s post, One of those bugs ( The Bad Fonts Problem) made us  scratch our heads and our hard drives (by formatting them ) at Grupo W, and thanks to the efforts of  Adobe’s Flash Team it’s solved now  here’s a little excerpt  of Richard’s Post:

Adobe Flash® CS4 Professional (10.0.2) addresses a number of performance issues. Some key fixes are:

• Fixed a performance issues when dragging objects on stage, scrubbing the timeline, or entering symbol edit mode in large AS 2.0 and AS 3.0 files.
• Fixed a performance issues when opening large files or files with many nested symbols.
• Fixed a performance issues when working in the library such as scrolling, selecting items in the library, dragging item to stage, or editing symbol from library.

It also addresses several crashes involving creating a text fields on stage and opening specific files with corrupted fonts.  The font issue was causing many people to suffer crashes because Flash was not handling inappropriate or corrupted fonts very gracefully.

Hurry up and download the update here !!!

And The complete list of Fixed Bugs on this release WOW  lots of things fixed :

Bugs fixed in this release:

• AS2 Doc Crashes CS4 when buttons not rendered correctly
• Auto Format beaks the code if encounters ++ or — with an array inside if statement
• Clicking through movie clip with large preview takes long to select in the Library in AS 3.0 file
• Scrubbing and pressing Enter to play timeline is not smooth, slower in AS3 documents
• W and H of instance incorrect after frame 2 if apply tween to instance with filter
• 3D tools appear incorrectly to a child movie clip when applying skew and rotation to the parent 2d movie clip.
• Changing W/H for nested 2d>3d movie clip from PI does not work. After scrubbing the hot text, it snaps back to the original size.
• Dragging from Library to Stage is slow in some files in CS4
• Selecting items in the library is slow in CS4
• Scrolling the library (vertical scroll bar) is slow compared to CS3
• In a FLA with lots of library items, double clicking a symbol “in the edit mode” hangs Flash on Mac.
• Library contents explode CS4 memory (CS3 sits at 75M)
• Performance issue with Stagecore (AS 3.0 fla) – scrubbing, moving, altering objects.
• Object visibility is compromised when created inside empty groups in AS 3.0 fla files.
• Double clicking symbol or symbol name in library hangs Flash; library contains a lot of items
• Text with device font disappears when it is selectable
• Component parameters don’t work for scenes greater than scene 1
• Selecting frames with textfields is a lot slower if the Components Inspector panel is opened
• Empty maskee incorrectly renders mask invisible rather than visible
• Crash when opening a  fla that uses a font symbol whose name was identical to the Postscript name of the underlying font and the font is missing
• Optimize a section within a shape leaves gaps in the shape
• Optimize opening and closing FLA files, frame manipulation for FLAs with many frames
• Win only: Crash on exit when the text field is in edit mode and clicking X button to quit without save
• Compiler errors when opening “Air Settings” while adl still running.
• (screens) timeline playhead can’t scrub and jitters when playing anything that spans frames
• gotoAndPlay(“framelabel”) compiles differently in CS3 versus CS4
• Scrubbing the timeline and selecting frames is much slower in CS4 than in CS3
• Crash when creating a text object on stage when there are corrupted fonts
• Graphic symbol looping setting changes when apply color effect to instance in PI
• Files with lots of nested clips suffer from performance issue (file open) in Flash CS4
• Edit in Place of 2d objects which has 3d movieclips nested inside is not functioning correctly.
• Edit in place is slow for complex instances in FP10 documents
• Breaking apart a nested movie clip erases instance name of child movie clip
• Efficient calculation between keyframes so dragging is faster and generally makes people happier if spans are long and complex.
• AS3 Components not compiling correctly when using the Component Definition dialog
• Window Only: Flash crashes when double clicking a fla to open while a current fla is opened with text block selected
• Can’t interact with Flash because modal dialog is up, but hidden behind the workspace when switching between applications
• From crash reporter: crash on Mac when double click to enter symbol edit mode (when the black dotted rectangle is drawn)
• Mac IDE flashes when right-clicking on Library after doing Test Movie
• Performance is slow after double clicking movie clip to enter edit mode and exit
• Setting an instance’s width and/or height to 1 makes W and H hot text unusable in the vertical PI.
• Hot text in the Vertical PI for X, Y, W, H displays only 1 decimal point while edit field displays 2
• Export image: Dimension values in Export dialog and Vertical PI do not match which is misleading to user.
• Crash when selecting text field on stage with many fonts on user’s system.
• Text PI is stuck and some controls on the PI are not drawn with certain fonts on user’s system
• The JSAPI that allows users to publish FLA files without opening them was inadvertently removed when the Project Panel was deprecated.  fl.publishDocument( flaURI [, publishProfile] ) is added.
• “Export classes in frame” behavior is different in CS3 than in CS4
• Drag and drop large nested symbol from library to stage hangs Flash
• Dragging from Library to Stage slow on subsequent drag or after scrubbing the timeline
• Scrubbing and pressing Enter to play timeline is not smooth, slower in AS3 documents
• W and H of instance incorrect after frame 2 if apply tween to instance with filter
• Large amounts of text nested in a symbol causes performance problems in non-AS3 documents
• Playback in authoring is not smooth (playhead skips frames), cannot stop it when hitting enter, eventually hangs and takes long to respond (both AS 2.0 and AS 3.0)
• Performance Creating Exported Symbol when the classpath contains lots of files and folder
• Create ease, undo after first edit removes ease
• Selecting and deselecting raw shape after convert to symbol spikes memory and/or crashes
• FLA crash on open when fonts loaded
• Mac only: User input resets to previous setting when attempting to change any value in Vertical PI input area
• Accessing a Windows SWF after it has been moved or deleted crashes Flash
• Crashing when re-opening FLA after canceling publish
• Crash in test movie when running a file with video and filters

Adobe has released the Adobe AIR 1.1 Update, so what does this update have for us ?

The Adobe AIR 1.1 includes the following new capabilities:

• Installation and other runtime dialog boxes have been translated into:
• Brazilian Portuguese
• Chinese (Traditional and Simplified)
• French
• German
• Italian
• Japanese
• Korean
• Russian
• Spanish
• Support for building internationalized applications, including keyboard input for double-byte languages
• Support for localizing the name and description attributes in the application descriptor file
• Support for localizing error messages, such as SQLError.detailID and SQLError.detailArguments, in the SQLite database
• Addition of Capabilities.languages property to obtain an array of preferred UI languages as set by the operating system
• HTML button labels and default menus, such as context menus and the Mac menu bar, have been localized to all supported languages
• Support for certificate migration from a self-signed application to one that chains to a certificate of authority (CA)
• Support for Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition and support for 64-bit editions of Windows Vista® Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise.
• Addition of File.spaceAvailable : API to obtain the amount of disk space available on a disk
• Addition of NativeWindow.supportsTransparency property to determine whether a window can be drawn as transparent by the current operating system
• Bug fixes and memory improvements.

Here’s a list of some of the things you can get to start playing with AIR 1.1:
Adobe AIR 1.1 first of all you’ll need the runtime download it here.
If you’re working with Flash CS3 Professional here are the instructions and download links to get your copy of Flash up to date with the new AIR.

if you’re working with Flex 3 go here and wait for the Adobe Flex SDK 3.0.2 stable build, according to Matt Chotin this update will be available this afternoon they’re just giving it the final touches.

And the AIR SDK can be found here.

And don’t forget to visit the Adobe AIR Developer Center and check the new AIR Cookbook section

Until next time Happy Coding !!!

Adobe hast just released (as a matter of fact on April 8 of 2008, but haven’t had the time to write this post until now) the Flash Player 9 (9,0,124,0), to strengthen the security of the player and to cover previous vulnerabilities.
This update will take effect on your content if:

You use sockets or XMLSockets, regardless of the domain to which you are connecting

You use addRequestHeader or URLRequest.requestHeaders in any network API call when sending or loading data cross-domain

or

You provide access to content on remote domains as a web service provider

You have SWFs that are exported for Flash Player 7 (SWF7) or earlier that communicate with the hosting HTML by any means

You use “javascript:” through network APIs to communicate outside a SWF
If any of this apply to your content read this article on Adobe’s Developer Connection it has indications of how to make the needed changes.
This security update will make the optional socket policy file changes introduced in Flash Player 9,0,115,0 mandatory.
Now the HTTP socket policy files will not longer allow socket access.

Flash Player has two types of policy files: HTTP policy files that are crossdomain.xml files on a server and define whether SWFs from other domains can load that server’s content; and socket policy files, which define what ports Flash Player can connect to via socket or XMLSocket connections. In the latest Flash Player, the rules regarding socket policy files have changed.
Be sure to read more of this on Adobe Developer Center so the changes go smoothly in case your content needs any.
Happy Upgrading

Download the latest Flash Player (Flash Player 9,0,124,0) here.
And for developers download the Flash Player (Flash Player 9,0,124,0) debugger versions here.
This Tech Note may be of help in the case you need to uninstall the player before upgrading.