Adobe — Flash Professional Cs5.5 -thethingy-

If you search torrent sites or ancient hard drives for ADOBE FLASH PROFESSIONAL CS5.5 -thethingy-, you aren’t looking for a tool. You are looking for a time machine. There was a specific aesthetic to Flash games from 2011:

That is -thethingy-. The intangible feeling of creating something interactive before surveillance capitalism, before responsive web hell, before you had to support Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and a Samsung smart fridge. You just drew a button, wrote on(press) gotoAndPlay("scene_2"); and it worked. Everywhere. (Except the iPhone.)

If you are a digital archaeologist or a retro-game enthusiast, seeking out a copy of ADOBE FLASH PROFESSIONAL CS5.5 -thethingy- is a worthy quest. Running it inside a Windows 7 virtual machine, you can still export SWFs. You can still use the Bone Tool. You can still write AS3 scripts that manipulate the display list.

Was it perfect? No. Steve Jobs hated it. It crashed. It had memory leaks. But for the indie developer in 2011, -thethingy- was the closest thing to a magic wand. It drew, it coded, it compiled, and it published—all for a one-time license fee of $699.

Today, we use separate tools: Illustrator for vectors, Visual Studio for code, Xcode for mobile deployment. CS5.5 was the last app to do it all. And that, precisely, is why it remains thethingy. ADOBE FLASH PROFESSIONAL CS5.5 -thethingy-

Do you have old .FLA files from the CS5.5 era? Share your memories of the Bone Tool or the AIR iOS packager in the comments below. Long live the thingy.

Since "thethingy" isn't a standard technical term in Adobe Flash Professional CS5.5

, it sounds like you’re looking for a quick "cheat sheet" or a guide to the most essential "thingies" (tools and features) to help you generate a piece of animation or interactive content.

Here is a breakdown of the core components and a step-by-step to get you started. The Essential "Thingies" (Core Tools) If you search torrent sites or ancient hard

: The white rectangular area in the center. This is your "canvas" where all the action happens. The Timeline

: Usually at the top, this is where you control time. It’s made of (empty slots) and (circles where you actually draw or change things). The Tools Panel : Your sidebar for creating. Key tools include the Selection Tool (the black arrow for moving things), the Oval/Rectangle Tool for shapes, and the for easy character animation.

: To make something move easily, you usually convert it into a symbol (Graphic, Button, or Movie Clip). Once it's a symbol, it lives in your How to Generate a Simple Piece Start a Project : Open Flash and select ActionScript 3.0 to open a fresh stage. Draw Something to draw a circle on the Stage. Make it a Symbol : Select your drawing, right-click, and choose Convert to Symbol . Name it "Ball" and choose "Graphic". Create a Motion Tween Right-click your Ball on the stage and select Create Motion Tween

Your timeline will turn blue for a certain number of frames. (the red marker) to a later frame (like frame 24). That is -thethingy-

Drag your Ball to a new spot on the Stage. Flash will automatically "generate" the movement between the two points. Cmd/Ctrl + Enter to see your piece come to life in a preview window. Pro Tips for CS5.5 Flash CS5.5 - Getting Started (for animation) Part 1

By the time CS6 rolled around, Adobe was hedging bets on HTML5. Creative Cloud was looming. But CS5.5 sits in a sweet spot: it was mature enough to be stable, but old enough to lack the bloat of subscription models.

Veterans argue that -thethingy- died with CS5.5 because:

No article about CS5.5 -thethingy- would be complete without the weird, wonderful, and often forgotten creative tools.