I finally broke open my fresh copy of Adobe Flash CS4 as I begin the process of set­ting up my web­site. Nor­mally I am able to quickly work with an update of a soft­ware appli­ca­tion. The new ver­sions of Pho­to­shop and Illus­trator were easy to begin using. The process of adapting to the new inter­face was quick. After 36 hours of puz­zling over both the editor inter­face and Action­Script ver­sion 3 (which I am going to attempt to learn) I realize now that this is not going to be quick or easy. Flash CS4 is a par­a­digm shift. While many of the familiar inter­face com­po­nents have been pre­served for the sake of existing users, there are many new ways of working with the system that all users will have to adapt to. There are many new fea­tures that will prob­ably be familiar to people who use Adobe After Effects. How­ever, it’s been some time since I had an oppor­tu­nity to use that.

I am going to need some help. I may want to con­sult a couple of books, since the built-in Adobe help files have been less than helpful. I finally found one resource which looks to be a pretty good primer for Action­Script CS3: A custom classes tuto­rial by Chris­tian Cenizal. I may also want to pur­chase or borrow an O’Reilly book.