Macromedia's next generation of software, Studio 8, is here.

While I am not going to try and go through ALL of the new features here (watch sys-con television, there will be interviews and stories running), let me relate some highlights.

First of all, Freehand will no longer be part of the Studio package. Freehand IS NOT being discontinued, but just sold as a seperate package. Also, Studio 8 will ship with ONLY Flash Professional. The non-professional version of Flash will be available as a seperate package.

One of the major features of Dreamweaver will be the ability to drag and drop XML data into the page. In addition, it is coming with  considerably beefed-up CSS capabilities.

With Flash, we see a strong emphasis on mobile technology. You will even be able to test your movies in a mobile simulation environment. For instance, you could test for a specific model cell phone and even get warnings if there are compatibility problems. There will be SWF Metadata to improve the searchability of your movies with search engines. The video codecs have been considerably improved with On2 technology.

Fireworks can now create pop-up menus using CSS (a MAJOR improvement in my opinion). In addition, considerably improved vector capabilities.

In place of Freehand, Studio 8 will be shipping with Contribute and Flashpaper.

Stay tuned to both Sys-con and the Macromedia site to learn more about these remarkable new tools.

More to come.....