Adobe Flash

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Adobe Flash, a package of multimedia authoring software developed by Adobe Systems (formerly by Macromedia), is used to create vector graphics-based animation programs, rich content, user interfaces and web applications, and combine videos with web pages.

Adobe Flash is written in C++, and contains ActionScript to build almost all the interactivity media, such as buttons, text fields, and drop down menus, in its applications. In order to view standalone Adobe Flash multimedia files (SWF) and interact with Flash contents, users need to download and install Adobe Flash Player, which is a client runtime available for many platforms such as Windows, Linux, Solaris and Macintosh.

History

Flash program was built by Jonathan Gay, who began his professional Programming life as a Macintosh software engineer early in high school. After years of game design, he focused on building graphics editors and started FutureWave Software company with Charlie Jackson in 1993. In order to make drawing on the computer easier than drawing on paper, they built software called SmartSketch.

As a competitor of Illustrator and FreeHand, SmartSketch didn't gain success until 1995, it was turned into an animation product FutureSplash Animator for people sending graphics and animation over Internet. The ancestor of Flash Player was also born at that time.

In August of 1996, FutureSplash got big support from Microsoft and Disney Online. Microsoft used FutureSplash on MSN to create the most TV-like experience on the Internet. And Disney Online adopted FutureSplash to build animation and the user interface for the Disney Daily Blast.

In December 1996, FutureWave Software was sold to Macromedia, and FutureSplash Animator became Macromedia Flash 1.0. Since then, Flash becomes synonymous with animation on the Internet.

Authoring tool released timeline

Product Name	Released Year
FutureSplash Animator	1996
Macromedia Flash 1	1996
Macromedia Flash 2	1997
Macromedia Flash 3	1998
Macromedia Flash 4	1999
Macromedia Flash 5	2000
Macromedia Flash MX (version 6)	2002
Macromedia Flash MX 2004 (version 7)	2003
Macromedia Flash Basic 8	2005
Macromedia Flash Professional 8	2005
Adobe Flash CS3 Professional	2007

Player released timeline

Product Name	Released Year
Macromedia Flash 2	1997
Macromedia Flash 3	1998
Macromedia Flash 4	1999
Macromedia Flash 5	2001
Macromedia Flash MX	2002
Macromedia Flash MX 2004	2003
Macromedia Flash 8	2005
Adobe Flash 9 for Windows and Macintosh	2006
Adobe Flash 9 for Linux	2007
Adobe Flash CS3	2007
Adobe Flash Player 10	2008

Technology

Standard

Flash hasn't complied to W3C standards perfectly, altough there is a way to use <object> tag to insert flash files into web pages, the common usage of <embed> is an illegal tag, which is a private tag of Netspace, but not recognized by W3C.

In the Draft Recommendation for HTML 5, the W3C has a section named "Relationship to XUL, Flash, Silverlight, and other proprietary UI languages", which says, "This specification is independent of the various proprietary UI languages that various vendors provide. As an open, vendor-neutral language, HTML provides for a solution to the same problems without the risk of vendor lock-in."

Flash files do not depend on an open standard such as SVG. Also, Flash Player cannot ship as part of a pure open source, or completely free operating system because its distribution is bound to the Macromedia Licensing Program and subject to approval. Currently, there are some third party tools which can be used to generate the SWF file format. IrfanView can play SWF files. Other open-source flash players such as Gnash and Swfdec are in development.

Features

The main features of latest Adobe Flash are as follows:

• Import native photoshop(PSD) files while preserving layers and preferences, retain Photoshop text as editable text in Flash, convert Photoshop layers or layer groups to movie clips and specify publish settings.
• Maintain fidelity when working between Flash and Illustrator, users can choose to import illustrator layers as separate Flash Layers, Keyframes or Single Flash Layers.
• Quickly add motion to the creations with the frame-based timeline inspired by traditional animation principles such as keyframing and tweening.
• Easily create pie wedges, round off rectangle corners, define an inner circle radius, etc. Visually adjust shape properties on the stage. And create custom shapes with the included JavaScript application programming interface (API).
• Save time with the new ActionScript 3.0 language.
• Create, edit, and deploy streaming and progressive-download FLV files with a standalone video encoder, alpha channel support, a high-quality video codec, embedded cue points, video import, QuickTime import, and closed captioning.
• Integrate audio into projects by importing MP3 files.
• Rich drawing capabilities, including visually adjust shape properties on the stage with smart shape drawing tools, creating vector illustrations with the new Pen tool inspired by Adobe Illustrator, pasting illustrations from Illustrator CS3 into Flash CS3, etc.
• Extensible architecture makes the Flash APIs develop extensions that add custom functionality easily.
• Convert timeline animations into ActionScript 3.0 code that can be edited, reused, and leveraged by developers.
• Create and test interactive applications and interfaces viewable with Flash Lite software.

The main features of current Adobe Flash Player are as follows:

• Includes the ActionScript Virtual Machine (AVM) known as AVM2, which is designed to work with ActionScript and deliver the performance and features to support the needs of rich Internet application developers.
• Includes H.264 video and High Efficiency AAC (HE-AAC) audio codec support that opens up a broad ecosystem and selection of standards-based video that developers can leverage in their applications.
• The Flash Player cache enables common components, such as the Flex Framework, to be cached locally and then used by any SWF from any domain.
• Enforces security sandboxes for applications, content, data, and URLs to safeguard sensitive data and help ensure safe browsing for end users.
• Displays API and supports integration with HTML, DHTML, and Ajax applications through the External API.
• Based on an asynchronous client-server communication model, enabling rapid client interactivity without web page refresh.
• Supports expanded integration with Input Method Editors (IMEs) for Asian-language Flash applications.
• Provides lightweight footprint and accessibility support.

Examples

How to make an animation using Flash?

An animation is constituted by a series of frames. Each frame represents a single static motion. When they are shown in sequence, it looks like the object on the picture is moving. Here is a simple example of making an animation:

First, create a new FLA file and make two layers as the pictures showing on the left.

(CC) Image: Ganggang Hu Made by Ganggang Hu, 2008 (CC) Image: Ganggang Hu Made by Ganggang Hu, 2008

Second, set the 10th frame as the keyframe for the first layer and the 20th frame as the keyframe for the second layer.

Finally, export, save as a SWF file and display the animation:

(CC) Image: Ganggang Hu
Made by Ganggang Hu, 2008

How to put Flash into a web page?

For the compatibility among different kinds of browser, the format of embedding Flash in HTML is as follows:

<object width="425" height="344">
 <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/hE1K0ZeTtAw&hl=en&fs=1"/>
 <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/>
 <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/hE1K0ZeTtAw&hl=en&fs=1" 
        type="application/x-shockwave-flash" 
        allowfullscreen="true" 
        width="425" height="344"/>
</object>

Or write as follows to comply with W3C standard:

<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
        data="http://www.youtube.com/v/hE1K0ZeTtAw&hl=en&fs=1"
        width="400" height="300">
  <param name="movie"
         value="http://www.youtube.com/v/hE1K0ZeTtAw&hl=en&fs=1" />
</object>

Market

Why and Where to use Flash?

The main reasons of people using Flash are as follows:

• Flash files load fast and save on download time because Flash is vector based whereas HTML is not.
• Flash intelligently "caches" it’s movies so they don’t have to be reloaded.
• Flash tools are easy to use.
• Compared to other plug-ins such as Java, Acrobat Reader, QuickTime or Windows Media Player, the Flash Player has a small install size, quick download time, and fast initialization time.

The Flash technology can be used on CD-ROMs and TV, but its main usage is for web sites. Because of the player's wide distribution in multiple browsers and operating systems, Flash is increasingly used as a way to display video clips on web pages. It is not only available for many platforms and devices such as Windows, Mac OS 9/X, Linux (only 32 bit x86), Solaris, HP-UX, Pocket PC, OS/2, QNX, Symbian, Palm OS, BeOS, and IRIX, but used as the basis for many popular video sites such as YouTube, Google Video, SPIKE and Hulu.

Market Share

According to a survey from Adobe, "Adobe Flash Player is used by over 2 million professionals and reaching 99.0% of Internet-enabled desktops in mature markets as well as a wide range of devices."

Product Name	User's Percentage(%)
Adobe Flash Player	99.0
Java	85.1
Microsoft Windows Media Player	79.3
Apple QuickTime Player	65.5
Adobe Shockwave Player	59.2
RealOne Player	46.2
SVG	7.9

         Worldwide Ubiquity of Player — June 2008

	Flash Player 7	Flash Player 8	Flash Player 9	Flash Player 9.0.115
Mature Markets	99.0%	98.7%	97.7%	81.7%
US/Canada	99.1%	98.9%	97.8%	83.3%
Europe	98.5%	97.9%	96.5%	78.6%
Japan	99.3%	99.3%	98.8%	81.3%
Emerging Markets	97.3%	97.1%	96.2%	82.4%

                  Worldwide Ubiquity of Adobe Flash Player by Version — June 2008

Allies and Competitors

The relationship of Flash to other applications

Flash has wide interaction with other software, such as Empressr, which is an Ajax/Flash-based web application for creating, sharing and storing presentations online, and Goowy, which offers Flash email service for instant messaging and chatting.

Flash can communicate with JavaScript and VBScript, which enables a HTML page to send and receive data from a Flash movie.

Extending ActionScript3 with C within Flash enables the translation from C/C++ code to ActionScript code by the process of C/C++ -->AS3 -->SWF -->Flash, which makes a contribution to the game development.

Also, Flash animations can be imported into VB6, C++, C# .NET by using the Flash player as a component in the project. The Flash Remoting MX provides the connection between Flash and the web application server to create Rich Internet Applications. Users can integrate rich Flash content with applications built using ColdFusion MX, Microsoft .NET, Java, and SOAP-based web services. Flash Remoting MX can parse and translate ActionScript XML objects on the server into an org.w3c.xml DOM, making any remote service (such as CFCs, pagers, EJBs, Java classes, and Microsoft .NET DLLs) that accepts or returns XML documents seamlessly accessible to Flash. Developers who use SOAP for custom XML documents can expose them to Flash clients in a simple model, eliminating the development of server-side parsing previously required when passing an XML stream from Flash.

Competitors

See Silverlight vs. Flash

With the fast development of internet, there are many alternative technologies competing with Flash to enrich the web page, such as Sun Microsystems Applet, Microsoft Silverlight and Sun Microsystems javaFX.

Java applets can be executed by browsers for many platforms, and will cache in most web browsers. However, it requires the Java plug-in, which isn't available by default on all web browsers. Also, Java applet may cost large amounts of startup time when first time it is used.

JavaFX is a client technology for creating rich Internet applications (RIAs) with immersive media and content to enable consistent user experiences on desktop, mobile, TV, and other consumer platforms. But JavaFX is still in development, so there are not that much components available yet.

Microsoft Silverlight is viewed as the biggest competitor to Flash, some people even claim that Flash is dead and Silverlight is the next generation. But since Silverlight is a relative new technology (born in 2007), it may take a period of time to rule the market.

Future Developments

Adobe AIR is a cross-operating system runtime being developed by Adobe since November 2007 that allows developers to leverage their existing web development skills (Flash, Flex, HTML, JavaScript, Ajax) to build and deploy rich Internet applications (RIAs) to the desktop.

As of February 2008, Adobe Systems is working on a research project to make programs written in various languages easier to run on Adobe's ubiquitous Flash Player client runtime. This technology would allow for cross-compiling existing code from C, C++, Java, Python, and Ruby to ActionScript. So these languages can cross-compile to the virtual machine inside Flash and AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime). For example, an alternative PDF renderer providing a lighter version of PDF could be cross-compiled, and the Flash Player could read it and display PDFs.

Another project is called Open Screen Project, which is dedicated to driving rich Internet experiences and creating a consistent application interface across all devices like personal computers, mobile devices or consumer electronics. This project includes abolishing licensing fees for Adobe Flash Player and Adobe Integrated Runtime, removing restrictions on the use of the Shockwave Flash (SWF) and Flash Video (FLV) file formats, publishing Application Programming Interfaces for porting Flash to new devices, and publishing Flash Cast protocol and Action Message Format (AMF) to let Flash applications receive information from remote databases.

The next version of Flash will have two additional components designed for large scale implementation. Adobe is adding in the option to require an advertisement to be played in full before the main video piece is played, and gives companies the option to link an advertisement with content and make sure that both are played and that they not be changed, which would bring advantages to large scale video sites.