Dear Adobe…

Ever come across something frustrating while using Adobe Flash or any of the other Creative Suite applications for that matter, but felt like there was no-one listening? Well feel alone no more! Dear Adobe is a Web site (totally unaffiliated with Adobe), that allows users to submit painful problems and gripes about Adobe’s entire suite of Web and design applications, including Flash.

You Got a Problem, Punk?

Don’t like the way Flash is so fussy with fonts? Hate the way the Flash IDE interface is so cumbersome? Then get it off your chest at Dear Adobe. You can vote for other people’s gripes or leave a message to a fellow Adobe sufferer to let them know they are not alone.

Addictive

The site is strangely addictive. Not only because the gripes are honest and funny, but by simply entering your own personal gripes, you actually feel better for getting the issue off your chest!

The site has become so popular in fact that Adobe now visit the site to get first-hand user feedback and, better still, they now have their own page on the site called “Adobe Responses” that show official responses from Adobe to some of the questions and gripes posed.

Top 25 Flash Gripes

Here are the top twenty-five gripes people have posted for Adobe Flash. Are they the same gripes you have about Flash? What bugs you the most about using Flash?

(Numbers in parenthesis indicate total number of votes at the time of writing.)

1. (+188) Flash Player needs to perform the same on Mac as it does on Windows. Crazy idea, right?
2. (+160) Please use a proper installer so I CAN install your updates.
3. (+158) Why can’t the Flash plugin be fast on the Mac?
4. (+147) Name Flash Player and its version number updates correctly. What the fuck is 9.0.124.0 for the April security update and 9.0.115.0 for Flash Player 9 Update 3? From Flash Player 10, call it Flash Player 10.1, then 10.2 then 10.3.
5. (+145) Undo when editing text: have you heard of it?!
6. (+140) Leave the operating system shortcuts alone (preferences, window switching)
7. (+139) Please improve Flash Player performance on OS X
8. (+136) Why did Flash CS3 jump from Flash 8’s 400MB install to 1.5GB and then tell me I have no choice but to install lots of crap on my root drive – it’s full already.
9. (+131) When I input a pixel location on a movieclip in flash, DO IT. Don’t add random decimal points for no reason.
10. (+129) Try making it so that fonts in Flash render the same as they do in Photoshop or any other Adobe product.
11. (+128) Please make a Flash plugin for Linux that doesn’t suck.
12. (+122) Make flash on osx faster as the windows version. And when you are at it, please please, optimize it so you don’t need a supercomputer to see 2 banners.
13. (+122) For those of us who actually know how to illustrate and design in Flash it sure would be super to have Text On A Curve. Can we please add this rocket science to Flash so I don’t have to open Illustrator just for one act? I mean really, come on…..
14. (+120) make flash work better in firefox on linux
15. (+116) Please support SVG in the Flash player
16. (+116) Yes, please support SVG in Flash player – or better yet accept the fact that open standards are the way of the future.
17. (+115) Please bundle 2 free 21″ displays with Flash. Or, you know, just design a better UI.
18. (+111) Backspace deletes but delete doesn’t? Wha?
19. (+109) Please make Flash Plugin Mac crash less often, as in never.
20. (+108) flash for iphone,now.
21. (+96) Do I really HAVE TO shut down my browser just to install your Flash Player? #629
22. (+96) Monitors are capable of displaying millions of colors now. There is no reason for you to be using checkerboard pixel patterns in the Flash timeline, unless you actually want to give me a flickering moire seizure.
23. (+92) Fix trackpad scrolling with Macs in Flash Player.
24. (+92) Don’t default the import file type to .AI in Flash! Just show me all my file types!!
25. (+92) Sort out fonts in flash