Update: Flash Player 10 beta for Solaris was released on 9/26/2008. The release candidate for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux remains the same. Please download the new version.
Adobe® Flash® Player 10, code-named "Astro," introduces new expressive features and visual performance improvements that allow interactive designers and developers to build the richest and most immersive Web experiences. These new capabilities also empower the community to extend Flash Player and to take creativity and interactivity to a new level.
This public prerelease is an opportunity for developers and consumers to test and provide early feedback to Adobe on new features, enhancements, and compatibility with previously authored content. Once you’ve installed Flash Player 10 beta, you can view interactive demos. You can also help make Flash Player better by visiting all of your favorite sites, making sure they work the same or better than with the current player.
Key New Features
3D Effects - Easily transform and animate any display object through 3D space while retaining full interactivity. Fast, lightweight, and native 3D effects make motion that was previously reserved for expert users available to everyone. Complex effects are simple with APIs that extend what you already know.
Custom Filters and Effects - Create and share your own portable filters, blend modes, and fills using Adobe Pixel Bender™, the same technology used for many After Effects CS3 filters. Shaders in Flash Player are about 1KB and can be scripted and animated at runtime.
Advanced Text Layout - A new, highly flexible text layout engine, co-existing with TextField, enables innovation in creating new text controls by providing low-level access to text offering right-to-left and vertical text layout, plus support for typographic elements like ligatures.
Enhanced Drawing API - Runtime drawing is easier and more powerful with re-styleable properties, 3D APIs, and a new way of drawing sophisticated shapes without having to code them line by line.
Visual Performance Improvements – Applications and videos will run smoother and faster with expanded use of hardware acceleration. By moving several visual processing tasks to the video card, the CPU is free to do more.
Enhanced Sound APIs – Work with loaded MP3 audio at a lower level in Flash Player 10. The new APIs will let you do application-level audio mixing through ActionScript and even audio filtering with Adobe Pixel Bender.
Download and Discuss
Get the Flash Player 10 prerelease now
Discuss the Flash Player 10 prerelease in the Labs forums
Report issues and feature requestsNow Shipping
See the release notes for more information regarding this prerelease technology.
Feature Demos and Videos
Interactively explore Flash Player 10 via demonstrations of the new 3D effects, custom filters, text layout, and interactive Inverse Kinematics features. If you want to know more about how things work, check out the collection of feature tour videos, hosted by members of the Flash Player team. For those that have created their own filters, the Pixel Bender demo is your chance to see your filter running live! (Demos require Flash Player 10.)
* Release versions of Flash Player 9 are now available from the Flash Player Download Center on Adobe.com.
Getting Started
Follow these steps to get started with the Flash Player 10 beta:
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Important: All users should uninstall any currently installed Flash Player before installing the beta.
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Download and install Flash Player 10
Important: Installing the Flash Player beta means you have accepted the terms of the Adobe Software License Agreement. This is a beta, not a final release.
- See the Product Details section for more information about this release.
- View the interactive feature demos and watch the feature tour videos
- Test existing content and applications, and visit your favorite websites to ensure Flash Player 10 works as expected.
- Download a Flex SDK daily build to start developing content targeting Flash Player 10
- Download the ActionScript 3.0 Language Reference, which provides information on the syntax and usage of the new APIs in Flash Player 10
- Send us your feedback and bug reports (English only)
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Ask questions and share your feedback in the Flash Player 10 discussion forum
Please note that your submission of comments, ideas, feature requests and techniques on this and other Adobe maintained forums, as well as Adobe's right to use such materials, is governed by the Terms of Use.
Community
Below you'll find references and links to help you participate in the Flash and Flex developer communities.
Online Forum
Ask questions, discuss, and share feedback with other beta users and the engineering team in the online forums.
Please note that your submission of comments, ideas, feature requests and techniques on this and other Adobe maintained forums, as well as Adobe's right to use such materials, is governed by the Terms of Use.
Blogs
Keep your eye on developing conversations and news in the blogging community on MXNA.
Resources
If you want to learn more about releases on Labs as well as other Adobe technologies, visiting a user group or connecting with an Adobe Community Expert is a great place to start.
Product Details
FAQ
- Is there a Flash Player 10 beta for other languages?
- The Flash Player 10 beta is available in all supported languages; however, the beta installers are only in English and we can only accept feedback in English at this time.
- I have questions or requests regarding upcoming Flash Player releases. How can I get answers, or where should I send requests?
- We welcome you to send suggestions for the features you'd like to see in future versions of our products. Please submit your requests.
- If my content does not function with the Flash Player 10 beta, what should I do? Does this mean it will not function with the final release of Flash Player 10?
- If your content does not function as intended, please submit a bug via our feedback form. We will validate the issue and make every effort to fix bugs before we ship. Providing a publicly accessible URL demonstrating the incorrect behavior is the most essential attribute in ensuring that the issue will be addressed promptly.
- How do I uninstall Flash Player beta and reinstall a released version of Flash Player?
- Instructions for uninstalling Flash Player can also be found in Tech Note #14157. To reinstall Flash Player, visit the Player Download Center.
- What are some other known issues?
- Please review the full release notes for more information.
- Do the new 3D effects in Flash Player 10 eliminate the need for third party 3D libraries?
- No, the two solutions serve different creative needs. The native 3D capabilities in Flash Player 10 focus on transforming 2D display objects while maintaining full interactivity. Many of the community-based 3D libraries take models created in commercial modeling applications and create fully immersive 3D environments. This is great for very sophisticated effects but usually requires advanced 3D design knowledge. The 3D effects feature in Flash Player 10 is designed to be easy to use, and to work with a developer’s existing 2D knowledge. The new 3D effects capabilities enable the kind of "3D broadcast graphics" effects one might expect to see overlayed on top of television sports or news programs.
- When will the new text layout components be available?
- The ActionScript-based text layout components will be available when the tooling solutions become available that can take advantage of the new text engine.
- Does Adobe Flex work with Flash Player 10?
- Adobe Flex 3, which was launched earlier this year, is designed to work with Flash Player 9, update 3 (9.0.115.0) and higher. All Flex-created content will continue to function as expected with Flash Player 10. To build Flex content that takes advantage of the new features, developers will need the latest Flex SDK daily builds, which support export to SWF 10.
- Where can I get the Flash Player detection script to ensure my content recognizes Flash Player 10?
- SWF Object 2.0 will work with Flash Player 10. Adobe recommends developers verify that Flash Player detection scripts are in use with content targeted for Flash Player 10. It is common for many detection scripts to stop functioning in versions of Flash Player that are released after the script was initially developed.
- Where can I find the documentation for the new APIs?
- Documentation of the new APIs are available as a standalone download of the Action Script 3.0 language reference.
- Is File Reference runtime access using the same API as in Adobe AIR?
- No. The File Reference enhancements work the same as they have in previous versions of Flash Player where an ActionScript developer can invoke the file dialog box, but the end user must select the file to save or open. AIR, which works in a different security model, permits greater access to desktop files than Flash Player, using a different set of APIs that suit its capabilities.
- What’s the difference between "Hydra" and Adobe® Pixel Bender™?
- "Hydra" was the former codename for Adobe Pixel Bender.
System Requirements
General system requirements for Flash Player 9 are available on Adobe.com. Flash Player 10 no longer supports Mac OS X versions 10.1, 10.2, and 10.3, nor Windows 98. Ubuntu support has been added, and we have updated our support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux distributions. See the release notes for the complete system requirements and known issues with the supported systems.
Release Notes
These release notes document known issues related to the beta versions of Flash Player 10.
