I nearly spit out my morning coffee while I was booking my sessions and saw this topic on the agenda at Max, and also at Ted Patrick’s blog. I have so many questions here… as a Director Developer before I was a Flash Deseloper , I just wonder what Adobe could have up it’s sleeve here… If it is truly going to be a major reworking or just a tweak… some things I would expect in Director 11, if it is to be a seriously considered tool:

• HD Video man! - Maybe even support for authoring/mastering HD-DVD/BluRay for set-top boxes. It at least needs to do 1080p video of some codec for interactive devices/computers.
• Supports AS3 - If not, it’s going to be a tough sell amongst the L337 flashers out there. Why go from a strongly typed OOP syntax like AS3 to some sort of dot syntax soup like old skool lingo. (Sorry Lingo, you did serve me well 7 years ago.)
• OpenGL/DirectX - Cross Platform accelerated 3D enhancements galore.
• Ability to cross compile full fledged apps - Think Visual Studio/XCode but with a nice sheen like only Adobe can provide.
• AIR support - er, duh.
• Vector Sprites - Heck yes. An import module like how Flash does AI import. A must.
• A lower price - If Flash does 90% of what I need Director to do at 1/3 the price, I can still afford Zinc or some other SWF to exe tool to add the other 10% and still be ahead several hundred dollars in software licensing costs. For a small agency, it just doesn’t make sense to have so many expensive apps.
• Jumping on the Webservices and API train - A lot has happened in the web since Director MX, a lot. So much needs to be added for XML handlng here that it could be a post all on it’s own.
• Compile to Flash Player 10 compatible SWFs - Selling me on a waning plug-in like Shockwave is just tough. I want penetration for my media, not a niche market.

All these things said… I’m still not sure that I would be jumping ship from the Flash/Flex juggernaut. I’d like to hear from the other devs out there looking at the Max agenda scratching their heads about the upcoming Director 11, too. What do you think that Adobe has up their sleeve?

Posted on September 15, 2007

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