Flash

What is Flash?

Flash is a vector-based animation and authoring tool for creating rich media sites on the web. What does it mean to be vector-based? Vectors are shapes that are mathematically defined and remembered that way, unlike a collection of pixels on a grid as it’s handled in bitmap applications like Adobe Photoshop. Because

Flash is vector-based, file sizes are generally very small. Moreover, it is resolution independent, meaning that scaling  of animations can be done without losing resolution or increasing file size, and antialiasing occurs on the fly. These are the reasons why Flash is well-suited for Internet delivery.

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Flash Basics

Standard Flash files have an extension of ".FLA". These are the editable source

files that we will be working on. When you finish an animation, you publish a

compressed file called a Shockwave Flash file that has an extension ".SWF".

•You can view the SWF file within the Flash application, within the Flash player

that comes with the Flash application, or within a browser (see the first branch

in the figure below).

•When you want to deliver your animation over the web, you will publish an

HTML file along with your SWF file and upload both to your website (see the

second branch in the figure below).

•You can also create a stand-alone, self-executable file that will play your

animation without a browser or the Flash player. On Windows, they have the

end suffix “.EXE” and on the Mac, they are called projectors.