Although Adobe’s takeover of Macromedia is yet to be finalised, the latest version of Macromedia’s Studio web design suite has clearly been influenced by the imminent merger.

One obvious change is that the Freehand vector graphics program is no longer included. Macromedia will continue to support it, but Freehand is being edged out to allow Adobe’s Illustrator to rule the vector graphics market.

The four main programs included within Studio 8 now concentrate exclusively on the business of web design and so Studio 8 will be an important addition to Adobe’s existing range of traditional graphics and publishing software.

Dreamweaver, Macromedia’s successful web page design program, is still present, as is the ubiquitous Flash and Fireworks web graphics program.

To replace Freehand, Macromedia has added Contribute ­ an easy-to-use web page editor, which can be used to update websites that would have originally been developed by professional designers using Dreamweaver.

Contribute is still in version 3 and hasn’t been upgraded along with the rest of the suite. However, the other key programs have all been upgraded to version 8, picking up some key new features along the way.

Flash is one of the best-known Macromedia products, although these days it’s more accurate to refer to Flash Basic and Flash Professional.

Flash Basic, aimed at designers with a graphics or multimedia background, gains a new Pasteboard that makes it easier to lay out graphics and other elements within a Flash animation. It also gets some new graphics tools for creating complex graduated colours.

Flash Professional, aimed at web programmers and application developers, has many new features, in addition to special effects filters that provide more precise control over the movement of animated objects. 

The most significant change for both versions is the inclusion of the Flash Video Encoder, which allows you to include compressed video clips within Flash files.