MACROMEDIA FLASH 8-USING FLASH Use Manual page 16

Text support
FlashType, a new text rendering engine, enhances the quality and consistency of the way Flash
displays text.
Improved text in both Flash authoring and Flash Player Text on the Stage now has a
more consistent appearance in the Flash authoring tool and in Flash Player. For more
information, see About FlashType in Chapter 6, "Working with Text," on page 157.
Improved anti-aliasing options
You can specify anti-aliasing options for individual text
blocks; these options enhance the display of text for different environments. For example, you
can specify anti-aliasing for animation or readability, or apply custom settings that you
control. For more information, see "About anti-aliasing text" on page 161 in Chapter 6,
"Working with Text," on page 157.
Scripting improvements
The scripting improvements in Flash Basic 8 and Flash Professional 8 provide better
performance, flexibility, and ease of use.
Script Assist A new assisted mode in the Actions panel, Script Assist lets you more easily
create scripts without having detailed knowledge of ActionScript. Script Assist helps you build
scripts by selecting items from the Actions toolbox in the Actions panel, and provides an
interface of text fields, radio buttons, and check boxes that prompt you for the correct
variables and other scripting language constructs. For more information, see Chapter 13,
"Using Script Assist to write ActionScript," on page 328.
Workspace enhancements
Expanded Stage work area You can use the area around the Stage to store graphics and
other objects without having them appear on the Stage when you play the SWF file.
Macromedia expanded this area, called the work area, to allow you to store more items there.
Flash users often use the work area to store graphics they plan to animate on the Stage later, or
to store objects that do not have a graphical representation during playback, such as data
components. For more information, see "Using the Stage" on page 56 in Getting Started with
Flash.
16 Introduction