Adobe Intros betas for New Flash Development Tools

Adobe extended its Flash development tools family on Monday with the release of public beta versions of Adobe Flash Builder 4, Flash Catalyst and the Flash 4 framework.

Adobe Flash Builder 4, formerly known as Adobe Flex Builder, is Adobe's IDE to help developers create Rich Internet Applications (RIA) based on the Flash platform. It is based on the open source Flex framework, adds new data-focused development tools, drag-and-drop support for linking processes to interface elements, and more.

The new Adobe Flash Catalyst lets designers use the artwork they create in Illustrator or Photoshop to build Flash application interfaces and then hand them off to developers. Designers can also use the tool to publish SWF files that can be viewed in a Web browser.

The updated version of the open source Flex framework added support for Flash Catalyst.

Adobe Flash Builder 4, Flash Catalyst and the Flex framework are all available for download at the Adobe Labs Web site. Since the tools are in a public beta testing phase there may be unexpected bugs, so avoid using them in a critical production environment.