The Hitchhiker’s Guide to a Flash Player update

I really hate Flash Player updates just because it always takes me some time to figure out again how to update all of them on my Mac. Why isn’t there some kind of centralized Flash Player Manager?

Well, as normal user it’s really easy. Just visit Adobe and you’re almost done. But for me as developer I need to update all players used by Flash CS 5, Flash Builder 4 and the Flex SDKs as well. Note to myself: Just remember these steps (in this case for 10.2):

Visit the Flash Player Download Heaven.

Update Browser Debug Player:

• “Download the Macintosh Flash Player X.X Plugin content debugger (Intel-based Macs)”
• Run “Install Adobe Flash Player Debugger.app”.
• Do nothing with Google Chrome! It updates automatically and will be your performance weapon of choice. It’s still running a release version of Flash Player. Really great if you use apps like http://audiotool.com/.

Update Adobe Flash CS 5 Release Projector for Mac OS X:

• “Download the Macintosh Flash Player 10.2 Projector”
• Save file as Applications/Adobe Flash CS 5/Players/Flash Player.app

Update Adobe Flash CS 5 Debug Projector for Mac OS X:

• “Download the Macintosh Flash Player 10.2 Projector content debugger”
• Save file as Applications/Adobe Flash CS 5/Players/Debug/Flash Player Debugger.app

Update Adobe Flash CS 5 Release Projector for Windows:

• “Download the Windows Flash Player 10.2 Projector”
• Save file as Applications/Adobe Flash CS 5/Players/FlashPlayer.exe

Update Adobe Flash CS 5 Debug Projector for Windows:

• “Download the Windows Flash Player 10.2 Projector content debugger”
• Save file as Applications/Adobe Flash CS 5/Players/Debug/FlashPlayerDebugger.exe

Well, there is one issue I don’t understand, but I think everything is working properly. I created a little file running this script:

import flash.system.Capabilities;
import flash.text.TextField;
import flash.text.TextFieldAutoSize;
 
var textField : TextField = new TextField();
	textField.autoSize = TextFieldAutoSize.LEFT;
	textField.text = Capabilities.version;
 
addChild( textField );

But when I’m just “testing” in Flash CS 5 it still says “MAC 10,1,52,14”. When I’m “debugging” it says “MAC 10,2,152,26”. I removed all Flash Player.app and Flash Player Debugger.app except the latest. If you have a clue – let me know.

Just for me – Flash Player Updates I manually installed lately:

• 15.06.2011 – MAC 10,3,181,26