Flash Catalyst discontinued?

So I read on the internet that Flash Catalyst is being discontined? Is this true? I'm literally livid if Adobe, a multi-billion dollar company are dropping programs like this, considering how much time I've put in. And they have the cheek and audacity to advertise Flash Catalyst on their site. Unbelieveable.
There was an advert for Adobe Captivate on youtube today. "Why not try Adobe Captivate?" was its cheery message at the end. "What have you got to lose?"
err, how about an entire week of my life trying to work out this new software, only for you lovely gentlemen to discontine it for no reason next month? Stop toying with your customer's respect, and don't advertise discontined products on your site. Literally sickening.
Turn Flash Catalyst into an html 5 editor or something, or integrate it into Dreamweaver! Don't kill it!

I too am dissapointed that Catalyst has been dropped. I purchased a couple of books to help me on my way and spent some time trying to master this small application. However, there were many limitations with it and some of the important features I wanted were not there. At the end of the day I still have my current version which works and is still usable, so no hard done by feelings from me. I guess I will just have to wade through my 900 page manual on Flash Pro and learn that application.

Similar Messages

After Flash Catalyst discontinued - What Workflow Designer / Developper to use? and how skin compone

Hi,
Now that Flash Catalyst is discontinued before being totally usable,
I used Flash Catalyst for skinning components and prototyping design of App.
So i wonder how experienced people do that without Flash Catalyst?
And more im asking to Adobe the same questions. What do you propose to do now what Flash catalyst helped to do until now?
how do you skin components?
how do you work with designers to get their App Pages designs?
in a word, what is the WorkFlow?
Thanks

I couldn't agree more with you that developers need a solid WYSIWYG tool, and Catalyst was Adobe's closest rival to Blend. It had much more potential than the amount of attention it received. Adobe was very foolish pulling the plug on it, not to mention all their other recent decisions related to the Flash Platform.
My point was that with all of the importing and exporting capabilities of Illustrator, Photoshop, Flash Professional, and especially Fireworks, you already have all of the capabilities of Flash Catalyst, at least in regards to making creative assets available to the Flex framework. That was the sole purpose of Catalyst- to bridge the gap between Adobe's design applications and Flex. If you weren't concerned with Flex, Flash Catalyst would be of no use, even if it were still in development. Exporting a Catalyst project to Flash Professional or HTML was never on it's roadmap, although I'm sure I'm not the first person who thought of those possibilities.
Catalyst, simply put, was the FXG editor which Flash Builder's design mode was not. For example, you could not draw a rectangle using Builder's design mode. With Catalyst CS5.5, it allowed you to directly assign FXG assets to MXML skins for ten of the nineteen Spark components which use the MXML skin architecture. This was a huge limitition, and espeically obvious with the new roundtripping feature, because using any of the non-supported components could easily break the connection between Builder & Catalyst. Honestly, myself and many of the Adobe engineers I talked to on the Flash Builder team, still do not understand why Catalyst wasn't merged into Flash Builder in the first place.
Perhaps it's not as useful out of context, but I compiled a presentation a few months ago for my Adobe user group, titled "Creative & Production Harmony": https://acrobat.com/#d=jNyu*qRjpF68tbl*8lCiTw&x=s
Basically what it outlined, was when to use Catalyst, and when you are better off exporting straight from the other design apps. My conclusion, was that you're generally better off designing your assets in the app you're comfortable with. That IS your WYSIWYG editor, to the precision of 1px. It was also a future proof answer since Catalyst was discontinued and many of the other Flex related workflows have evaporated. The main loss behind discontinuing Catalyst, were its states, timeline, and visual editing of FXG less commonly preserved when exporting from the other apps.
A workflow example for a project I recently used Catalyst with, http://disneycruiseadventure.com/ was to open the PSD provided inside of Photoshop, launch Catalyst, draw a shape (or copy/paste in a vector smart object from Illustrator), and use it's properties panel to match the Photoshop layer styles. This basically the climax of the day, because the rest of it was all spent manually editing code in Builder (and often fixing a lot of the crap code Catalyst spit out). For advanced use of graphics, we relied heavily on the Flex Component Kit, which basically lets you work with any MovieClip inside of Flex or even insert Flex components into a Flash Professional container. The integration between Flex & Flash Pro is most commonly overlooked, which is sad because it still offers the very most design freedom for Flex and has been around long before Catalyst.
In my personal project, my workflow heavily involves Fireworks. It's exporting capabilities are unparralled by any of the other Adobe design apps. You can design with the 1px precision you are after, and almost always preserve that precision after exporting to Flex 3, FXG, and even CSS. Speaking of CSS, now you can export to CSS3 and jQuery mobile themes using Fireworks. If I had a choice between Fireworks and Catalyst, I would take Fireworks without any question. If you're looking for another workflow, consider the idea of taking HTML/CSS exported by Fireworks and opening it inside of Adobe Edge for adding animation and interactivity. Then do your final editing with Dreamweaver, or skip the Edge step if you don't need it.

Converting Flash Catalyst FXP File into HTML

Hey there Adobe Community,
We have a client who's website we built quite a while ago in Flash Catalyst, the problem is as many of you know that Flash Catalyst has been discontinued.
Does anyone know of any way to get our FXP File converted into HTML?
If you have a solution please let me know.
Thankyou Adobe Community!
James

I am afraid you are just going to have to roll up your sleeves and rebuild it from scratch. You might look at Adobe' Edge Animate tool to assist with some of the animation that you may have within you FC project.
Good luck,
Chris Griffith

Download Assistant in not listing Flash Catalyst CS5.5

So how do I download it ?

Flash Catalyst was discontinued last week. You can find addditional details at http://www.adobe.com/products/flashcatalyst.html.

@Adobe, do you intend to contribute Flash Catalyst as Open Source Project ?

Hello,
in the recent Whitepaper* you write that you no longer develop Flash Catalyst.
Wouldnt it be great if you make it open source (contribute to Apache as well?)
or sell it to another developer so that it can be continued to be developed ?
I think many people will totally agree with this and would be happy to continue using
Flash Catalyst to visually built/prototype engaging GUI for the Apache Flex Framework.
What do you think ?
Best Regards
Marc
Flash Catalyst
Flash Catalyst CS5.5 is the last release of Flash Catalyst.
At this time, it will not be updated to work with Flex SDK 4.6 or any Apache Flex releases nor will it be included in future versions of the Adobe Creative Suite software offerings.
*http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/whitepapers/roadmap.html

Hi daslicht,
im also very interrested to know the answer.
But im afraid they wont because it uses code from other proprietary tools.
And even if the community get flash catalyst source code, it will be useless (in a sens) mainly because the synergy with other Adobe Tools will not be maintained. And for me it was the main power of Flash Catalyst.
And knowing that, i think it is more easy for Apache community to create a new tool from scratch not linked to Adobe's tooling chain.
It could be a Flex app!!
For you information, the design view from Flash Builder has also been discontinued by Adobe. But in that case its a flex app incorporated in Flash Builder so theres good chances that Adobe will donate it to Apache community.
So why not use the design view as a base for a Flash Catalyst like tool? by making it a standalone tool or designers.

Flash Catalyst CS5.5

Hi, I downloaded the installer for a 30 day free trial of Flash Catalyst CS5.5 and a warning appeared saying that the installer couldn't initialize. Does anyone know how I can fix this? It is for PC. There is no Adobe Support for this that I can see as it is a product that has been discontinued.

start at the top and work your way down applying applicable fixes until your problem is resolved.
if cc (win): https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/creative-cloud-desktop-application-failed.html
if, your error is:
"Installer failed to initialize. File not found." or "Installer failed to initialize. This could be due to missing files."
first, rename OOBE Folder to OOBE.old.
to find OOBE:
64 bit win OS: Program Files x86\Common Files\Adobe\OOBE
32 bit win OS: Program Files \Common Files\Adobe\OOBE
mac os: HD>library>application support>adobe>caps
mac os: USER>library>application support>adobe>OOB
if that fails or isn't the exact error you see, uninstall, clean (http://www.adobe.com/support/contact/cscleanertool.html) and reinstall.
if you're using a dvd to install:
copy the disc contents to a desktop directory and install from that directory.
if you're using a mac:
1. Try to Create a new user account in Mac with Administrator Priviledges.
2. Login to the New user, Navigate to Mac HD> Application> Utilities> Adobe Installer folder, Locate products like Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash, Adobe Air and un-install them
3. Navigate to User Library> Application Support> Adobe and move Adobe to Trash.
4. Navigate to Mac HD> Library> Application Support> Adobe and move Adobe to Trash.
5. Start the installation again.
if everything applicable above fails, check your installation logs:
http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop-elements/kb/troubleshoot-install-using-logs-elements.html

Flash Catalyst and CS Extension Builder?

Does anyone know if it is possible to use exported Flash Catalyst projects in CS Extension Builder? If so are there any examples anywhere?

I don't think so...
If you discover otherwise, I'd be interested in knowing. (Although FC has been discontinued...)

Unable to run project: illegal character in path - Flash Catalyst CS5.5

Environment is a new install of Windows 7 x64 on a new Dell workstation in an Active Directory environment. Until fall of last year, we used redirected folders for the Application Data folders until issues with Adobe Reader 9.x forced us to abandon that and we reconfigured our network not to use redirected folders. We have not experienced any issues and all programs are using the Application Data folder on the local machines.
Just installed Adobe Master Collection on a new workstation and all Adobe applications are using the C:\Users\cballew\AppData\Roaming\Adobe folder including Flash Catalyst. However, when I try to Run Project in Catalyst, it created a folder named Application Data using the network path to where we used to store the Application Data folder and is saving its workspace there. No other programs (including Adobe products) are doing this. Any ideads of how to fix it?
Error message:
Unable to run project
Illegal character in path at index 47: file:///////xxxx.corp/home$/cballew/Application Data/Adobe/Flash Catalysts CS5.5/workspace/Project/bin-debug/Maim.html

This seems to be configured in an ini file located at C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5.5\configuration\config.ini
[email protected]/Application Data/Adobe/Flash Catalyst CS5.5/workspace
[email protected]/Application Data/Adobe/Flash Catalyst CS5.5
[email protected]/Application Data/Adobe/Flash Catalyst CS5.5/configuration
Can anyone tell me where the variable @user.home is defined and whether I can change it or not? I might find that some of the other applications might experience this same issue

How to make a fullscreen button for Flash Catalyst?

Hey everyone. I really hope someone can help me with this. How can I make a fullscreen button in Flash Professional that would make my Flash Catalyst project go fullscreen?

I'm sorry I really don't know Flash Catalyst as much as I'd like to. Designing interfaces is left up to me, no designers at my agency use Catalyst. Though this is the Flash forum so that's as much as I can tell you. I didn't know Catalyst didn't support basic scripts (I thought I read that it did).
Ultimately, for a very cheap price you can do something like go to http://www.lynda.com/ and buy a membership. Dirt cheap compared to what you get. They offer many courses on all this stuff and I'm sure your answer would lie in one of the (nicely broken up by subject) video training videos.
Just searching for Catalyst brings up a bunch of courses:
http://www.lynda.com/search?q=catalyst&x=0&y=0
edit:
For instance I watched the essential CS5.5 training and I saw in 2 minutes flat that when you click on a button you should have an "Interactions" panel that lets you do things. If they didn't put fullscreen as an interaction that's another thing but I'm just pointing out it's very easy to learn how to do all sorts of things in video training. If you do not want to purchase a membership there just find a video you think would have the info in it and I'll watch it and let you know if it told me how to do it, and how to do it.

Three things I would like to see in Flash Catalyst.

1. I would REALLY like a way to edit the code in Flash Catalyst. If Adobe doesn't figure this one out, they will lose a lot of business. I'm not going to buy an other product like Flex just so I can edit the code. I'm sure I'm not the only one, but once in a while, designers need to edit some code.
2. It would be nice if I could just double click groups or layers to edit them (like in Flash an illustrator). Currently, it is very painful having to dig through groups and layers just to edit an object. This is a real time waster and it can add several hours on to a small project.
3. Effects. I know you can add drop shadows and glows to objects in Photoshop and Illustrator, but is the a way to do these in Catalyst? That would be nice to have.
Thoughts?

Thank you for the feedback. Let me respond to each of your suggestions:
1. Code editing
We certainly recognize the value of editing code in Catalyst and recognize that designers as well as developers want to edit their code. Being about to robustly round trip code in Catalyst is a feature that we plan to address in a later version of Catalyst.
2. Editing in place/isolation mode on groups
I agree that this is a real time saver by making selections and editing much faster. For now, a work-around that may work for some artwork is to convert it to a custom component so that it can be edited in isolation. I recognize this is a trade off. If you convert artwork to a component then you can edit in place, but you won't be able to use the white arrow selection tool to "reach" into the component when you are not editing in place
3. Applying effects to artwork in Catalyst
Coming in the next beta release :-)
Ty

FAQ: How can I make my Flash Catalyst application scale/use a liquid layout?

Flash Catalyst CS5 currently only supports applications with fixed dimensions. Custom components you create in Catalyst have absolute sizing.
If you want to experiment with creating resizable applications (liquid layouts) and components in a preview of the next version of Flash Catalyst, codenamed "Panini", you can find more information here:
Introducing Adobe Flash Catalyst "Panini"
Download Adobe Flash Catalyst "Panini"
Adobe Flash Catalyst "Panini" help
Keep in mind that Flash Catalyst "Panini" preview is meant for exploration and testing, not real production. If you are doing real production work, here are some options that work with Flash Catalyst CS5 and Flash Builder:
Liquid Layouts
If you are building an application that requires relative constraints, you can take the FXP file from Flash Catalyst into Flash Builder, and apply constraints there so that your components resize according to your application dimensions.
For more info, see this Help topic:
Using constraint-based layouts in Flash Builder
SWF Scaling
If you want your swf to scale, without relative constraints, there's a simple way to make that work in Builder as well. Simply save out your FXP file from Flash Catalyst and import it into Flash Builder. Open up the "Main.mxml" file. Remove the width and height attributes on the Application tag, and add the attribute:
preinitialize="systemManager.stage.scaleMode='showAll'
The entire Application tag should look something like:
<s:Application xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009"
                  xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark"
                  xmlns:d="http://ns.adobe.com/fxg/2008/dt"
                  xmlns:fc="http://ns.adobe.com/flashcatalyst/2009"
                  xmlns:ATE="http://ns.adobe.com/ate/2009"
                  xmlns:ai="http://ns.adobe.com/ai/2009"
                  xmlns:flm="http://ns.adobe.com/flame/2008"
                  xmlns:lib="assets.graphics.*"
                  xmlns:components="components.*"
                  backgroundColor="#FFFFFF"
                  preloaderChromeColor="#FFFFFF"
                  preinitialize="systemManager.stage.scaleMode='showAll'"
                  >
There are a couple other scale modes you may want to try, such as "exactFit", which are outlined at the below link:
Flash Stage Scale Modes
Finally, you will have to adjust the object embed code in your html page to set the size of your swf.
Original discussion here

you can`t. allow your application internet access without the network admin defining an exception for it specifically.
If you have admin rights use the router`s/proxy`y configuration software to allow an exception.

Problem Extracting Photoshop elements/gradient in Flash Catalyst to create skin

Hi,
Is there is any way to get all the psd elements( i.e background gradient), in Flash catalyst.The photoshop files can be opened with different layers but all the
gradient/color portion are getting converted into images.
Excluding catalyst, Do we have any mechanism to create skin file(mxml)from psd files,except the Flex skin extensions.
Please let me know how can we open photoshop file into Catalyst so that its color/gradients won't get convert into image.
Regards,
Renu

I took a look at the tutorial PSD file and couldn't find anything wrong with it.
When you save your project file, the only file that it should save is the ecotours_ui.fxp file. The ecotours_site.fxp file was one that was bundled in the tutorial files .zip package.
It shouldn't be a problem that you have the CS3 versions of Photoshop and Flash. As you have said, you are not running them. The lack of RAM could possibly be an issue. Another possibility might be some permissions getting in your way. Have you checked to see if the files or folders that got unzipped will allow you to write to them?
-Adam Altman
Catalyst Engineering

How do I reuse a custom component in Flash Catalyst?

All-
I'm sure this is easy, I simply can't figure it out. I've created a custom component in Flash Catalyst with two states, open and closed. I'd like to reuse this component in my app with different text assest. How is this done? Duplicating the component isn't available in this version...do I need to recreate the whole thing with different text?
Cheers,
`me

If you look in the library panel, there should be an entry for your custom component - probably something like CustomComponent1.mxml. Drag this out onto the artboard to create a new instance of the component.
In the case of a custom component, you can't change much on the second instance. If you have something like a text input skin though, you can change the text it is displaying for each instance.
We are working on making this sort of thing easier in the future, so stay tuned

FAQ: How do I create a scrolling panel in Flash Catalyst?

A common challenge in web design is finding space in the available window to display all of the necessary content. One solution is to create scrolling panels. A panel creates a well-defined container for content in the user interface. By adding scrolling content and a scroll bar, you can place a large amount of information in a limited space. To create a scrolling panel in Flash Catalyst, you need:
An object to define the panel area, such as a rectangle shape (optional)
Scrolling content, such as a long block of text or a series of images (required)
A scroll bar used to scroll the content (recommended)
Follow these steps in Flash Catalyst Help to create a scrolling panel:
Create a scroll panel component
There are also video tutorials showing examples of different scrolling panels:
Creating a scroll panel in Flash Catalyst, by Doug Winnie
Create a scrolling text panel in Flash Catalyst, by Terry White

Thank You, Thank You,
Thaqnk You
Allen D. Macfalda

Warning when trying to install flash catalyst

I get this warning when I try to install Falsh Catalyst:
Support for CPU extension SSE
This product does not support PowerPC architecture CPU.
Is my computer too much of a dinosaur or something? It's a G5. Help

Thanks for the input Arthurlock,
This is such a bummer. You guys aren't alone in your disappointment. I was extremely excited too. Thank you two for posting. I finally found a relevant post after 5 hrs and change. I couldn't figure out how to resolve this same problem, and I was too stubborn to give in. All I needed was a simple answer, as Arthur stated.
That said, what are our options? I've been running around in circles trying to figure what my next steps should be? ... Any input is welcome. I really don't want to purchase another computer to be able to use the new adobe software. I guess I didn't realize my computer was turning into such a dinosaur...
"Sorry Mac Daddy, no more Christmas Flash Catalyst for you... "
Running on:
imac 1.6GHz PowerPC G5
OSX 10.5.8
Thanks,
Brandi

Flash Catalyst discontinued?

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