Datasheet

Each new product bundling and relationship has increased the requirements for the Flash Player.
As a result, the most recent version of the Player (version 9) has all the features I’ve described:
Object-oriented programming with ActionScript 3
Web-based animation
Rich media hosting and delivery
In addition to the Flash Player that’s delivered for conventional computers, Macromedia
and Adobe have released versions of Flash Lite for hosting Flash content on devices such
as cell phones and PDAs. None of the current versions of Flash Lite support ActionScript 3, so Flex
applications currently can’t be deployed on those platforms. Undoubtedly, this is a goal of future
development by Adobe.
Flash Player penetration statistics
One of the attractions of the Flash Player is its nearly ubiquitous penetration rate in the Web. Each
new version of the Player has achieved a faster rate of installation growth than each version before
it; version 9 is no different. As of December 2007 (according to statistics published on Adobe’s
Web site), the penetration rate for Flash Player 7 was 99% or greater, Flash Player 8 was at 98% or
greater, and Flash Player 9 already had a penetration rate of 93% or greater. Of course, these rates
change regularly; for the most recent information on Flash Player penetration rates, visit:
http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/
Penetration rates are very important to organizations that are deciding whether to build applica-
tions in Flex, because the availability of Flash Player 9 (required to run both Flex applications and
Flash documents built with ActionScript 3) determines whether a Flex application will open
cleanly or require the user to install or upgrade the Player prior to running the application. If a
user needs to install the Flash Player, however, many ways exist to get the job done.
The Debug Flash Player
The Debug version of the Flash Player differs from the production version in a number of ways. As
described in detail below, you can install the debug version of the Flash Player from installers that
are provided with Flex Builder 3 and the Flex 3 SDK.
The Debug version of the Player includes these features:
Integration with
fdb, the command-line debugger that’s included with the Flex 3 SDK
Integration with Flex Builder debugging tools such as the
trace() function and break-
points
Other debugging tools
To ensure that you’re running the Debug player, navigate to this Web page in any browser that you
think has the Player installed:
http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=tn_19245
NOTE
NOTE
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Flex Fundamentals
Part I
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