Adobe announces latest version of CS4, makes beta apps available

The software is available to anybody without a license for a two day trial, with officially licensed CS3 getting unlimited access to the betas until an update is released.

Giving away major beta software is an uncommon practice for big software houses, but Adobe is keen to remind the world that it purchased Macromedia in 2005, and now, almost three years later, has fully integrated most of the purchased software into CS4. For Adobe, the integration of Flash and Dreamweaver in particular gives it more opportunity to sell Creative Suite to web professionals who might have just bought Photoshop previously,  as well as up-selling existing customers to a more fully-featured package.

While Dreamweaver CS4 (version 10.0) retains its familiar look-and-feel, it does add some major features like a Related Files Toolbar and Code Navigator that 'allows users to dive deeply into complex pages that include HTML files, links to JavaScript documents and integrated XML data.' There's also a new 'Live View Mode' for Windows and Mac, based on Apple's Webkit rendering engine (that Safari uses), letting users see what their websites look like in real-time, without having to load an external browser. While Live View Mode is certainly a great enhancement, you'll still need to toggle Live View Mode on and off when making changes. Other changes include Workspace sets that make it easy to change layouts, including toolbars and window locations.

Fireworks has seen the most radical overhaul with a completely new user interface, this time 'consistent with other applications within the Creative Suite'. It's also been given the ability to 'export design comps as high fidelity, interactive, and secure Adobe PDF documents' and is now compatible with Adobe AIR, HTML, Flash and Flex Builder.

Soundbooth (Adobe's revamped version of the once popular shareware app Cool Edit Pro) is one of the newest application to be bundled with Creative Suite, and the new version adds support for multiple tracks, and also a 'new speech recognition technology that lets users create transcripts of dialogue tracks quickly and search them for words and phrases within a timeline' -- a feature clearly aimed at podcasters.

All of the software is available for both Mac and PC, however Soundbooth for OS X only runs on Intel-based Macs. The downloads are available now from Adobe Labs.