Flash

Adobe Flash means

Movies

A flash movie can contain

Movies are played in a player. The player can be

Creating Movies

A common movie format is SWF (stands for "small web file" — it used to stand for "Shockwave Flash" but Shockwave is an entirely different beast from Flash and has practically nothing in common with it so don't even get those terms confused). Generally you produce SWFs like this:

flash.png

More specifically, you can

Note that there exist other applications besides Flash that produce SWFs.

Playing Movies

You can use the FlashPlayer to run the SWF movie, or create a projector out of it. Be aware that the projector is like, really big, since it contains the player (interpreter).

During development (if using the Flash IDE), you can do [Command|Test Movie] (Ctrl+Enter).

Competing and Related Technologies

SWFs are related to or compete with

Exercise: Research what the deal is with SVG and why Flash is kicking its butt in terms of features, usability, and number of users, etc. In what areas is SVG better? Theorize whether anyone would care.

Strengths and Weaknesses of SWFs

The Good

The Bad

Exercise: List some more of these.

History

Version Date Notes
FutureSplash 1995? Basically just 2-D vector animation
Flash 1 Dec 1996 Macromedia Brand
Flash 2 Jun 1997 Object library, stereo sound
Flash 3 May 1998 MovieClip object, transparency, MP3 support
Flash 4 Jun 1999 Variables, input fields, streaming MP3
Flash 5 Aug 2000 ActionScript now a real programming language (built on ECMAScript 3), XML support, SmartClips (now called components), HTML formatting
Flash MX
a.k.a. Flash 6
May 2002 Sorenson Sparc Video codec, Unicode, UI components, vector drawing, Flash remoting
Flash MX2004
a.k.a. Flash 7
Sep 2003 ActionScript 2.0 (ECMAScript 4, class-based), Aliased text, Timeline effects, streaming audio and video, CSS-based styles extensibility layer, significantly faster player
Flash 8 Sep 2005 Filters and blend modes, enhanced drawing, FlashType advanced antialiasing, GIF/PNG support, security enhancements
Flash 9 Player in 2006
IDE to follow
ActionScript 3.0, with regexes and namespaces, New virtual machine (AVM2), E4X, sockets, Adobe brand

It is worth noting that

Links