Adobe Flash - difference between CS4 and Builder 4

paddyrg

Hi All,

Adobe have me mystified (frequently), I want a copy of Flash (creator, not player), not bothered about the latest and greatest, mostly to do fairly dull animated graphics for corporate websites. I see "Adobe Flash CS4 Professional" and "Adobe Flash Builder 4", but am having a terrible time working out what the differences are. Do you need both? Does one contain the other? Can I get the same results with either?

So, has anyone got any plain English advice on when you want one and when you want the other?

Muchly appreciated!

GeoffX

If you're looking at Flash Builder then you should consider using Adobe's Flex SDK with FlashDevelop. Both are open source and free.

paddyrg

Ooohhh I'll look into those cheers :-)

Will I still need CS4 to do the compilation/design bits?

GeoffX

For FlashDevelop, you can just download it and it will download any extras it requires. I'm sorry, I haven't used CS4 or CS5, but I think the main difference is they include a visual element to creating Flash files, while the Builder / FlashDevelop route requires you to do everything yourself in Actionscript 3.

paddyrg

Much appreciated GeoffX, double thanks to you :-) Now I think I get it more - one is an IDE and the other is a graphical surface - so I rather need both :-)

All the best,