Of course, you will want to have a certain amount of control over the position and scaling of the components on the artboard when the screen resizes. This can be accomplished by setting layout constraints. When selected on the artboard, a component will have four constraint handles for the top, bottom and both sides. By clicking on one of the handles, you automatically lock the distance between a component and the corresponding side of the artboard. For example, if you want a button to stay 25 pixels from the top of the artboard at all screen sizes, you will first place the button at the correct distance from the artboard and then click the constraint handle.

Assigning interactions to global target components is much easier in CS5.5 because you can now visually choose the target by selecting it on the artboard. Your first step is to set up an interaction via the Interactions Panel. When the panel asks you to choose a target for the interaction, just select that component on the artboard.

The workflow between Flash Catalyst 5.5 and Flash Builder 4.5 is now more intuitive. After building a wireframe with the needed interactions, transitions and constraints, the designer can pass the file to the developer who will open the file in Flash Builder to code the back end of the project. At this point the file can be sent back to the designer for further editing. To prevent the designer from making any changes that will conflict with the back end code, Flash Catalyst will display an alert message when a non-editable component is selected and prevent any problematic changes.

Flash Catalyst makes it easy to convert artwork into skinned custom components. Once the custom components are built by the developer in Flash Builder, the designer can open the file into Flash Catalyst and skin the custom component with artwork. After selecting the artwork on the stage, the Select Skinnable Component dialog box and the HUD will walk you through the process of converting that artwork into the programmed component coded by the developer.

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*Adobe provided a review copy to me free of charge.

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