Adobe Flash Overview Flash
is the premiere development tool for creating multimedia rich content
for the web.
The driving force behind the success of Flash as a web content
development tool is that it allows the author to create powerful
and dynamic presentations that HTML alone could not possible accomplish. And
one of the most brilliant parts of the Flash is that the files
are incredibly small given the richenss of the experience they
provide.
The
use of Flash is everywhere on the web today - from common user
interface items to full length animated movies.
Here are a few examples of how Flash is being used today:
Pepperidge Farm Goldfish
Pepperidge Farm uses Macromedia Flash MX
and Macromedia FreeHand to deliver an interactive animated site that
reflects the Goldfish
branding with games and information.
The New Jaguar XK website
Jaguar delivers a sleek, high-performance site to promote its new XK. Get a feel for the car's performance and handling with immersive video and dynamic content; then customize the look and accessories. Global Beach Group built the site with Macromedia Flash.
Yoplait
Yoplait and publicis-dialog whip up a site to help women meet their weight loss goals. Follow the six So Good Girls on an eight-week journey to wellness, with inspirational video updates, as well as expert tips, menus, and fitness plans. Visitors can share their own successes in this supportive community site. Built with Macromedia Flash.
Electra Bicycle Company
Cruise for stylish bikes at electrabike.com. With the help of developer Ian Eyre, Electra reskinned its site to better showcase the cruiser and comfort bike lifestyle. Check out the latest models, clothing, parts, and more. Built with Macromedia Flash from Adobe.
Various Flash Animations
Shockwave.com / Atom Films have a plethora of animations for you
to check out. Be cautious, many can be offensive and intended for
adult audiences. You've been warned.
Some Key Points on Flash (from Macromedia)
Efficient rendering through
vector graphics. The core graphics-rendering
engine in Macromedia Flash, whether for full images, animations,
or simple
user interface controls, is a vector graphics-rendering engine.
Unlike
bitmapped interfaces that must send data for each pixel in a screen,
vectorbased
interfaces need only send the mathematical description of the interface.
The result is much smaller files and faster transmission. Another
benefit is
that vector graphics scale much more easily to a variety of different
formfactors,
whether smaller monitors with constrained screen space on a
desktop, or new device formats that we have yet to consider, such
as tablet
PCs or PDAs.
Compiled SWF files. Macromedia Flash runtime code (SWF files)
combines
code, media and data into a compact, compiled file format that
can be easily
delivered. HTML pages must combine raw text markup, actual textual
data,
external binary image files, and internal or external script code,
creating
bloated files and non-optimized execution. Unlike HTML pages, Flash
files are
tuned to execute fast.
Streaming, buffered execution of code and content. Macromedia
Flash
SWF files load using a streaming model, where the first few frames
of content
are immediately available once they’ve loaded. This applies
whether the file
contains code, media, or data. As a result, developers can very
easily design
their applications and content to quickly load specific portions
of the
application while the remaining portions are loaded in the background.
This
improves the perceived and real application performance by giving
immediate
functionality and visual cues. For example, an application could
load its
“ shell” and basic navigation, enabling the user to take action,
while more
advanced functions and media load in the background.
Easily create custom user interface components and behaviors. Using
the
powerful drawing tools in Macromedia Flash MX, developers can easily
imagine and create any user interface control that they can imagine,
and then
add behavior and dynamic data to the controls using ActionScript.
There are
already hundreds of free user interface components available from
the
developer community, including spin controls, dial controls, slider
bars, tab
controls, tree controls, and many others.
created: 2006-11-05 |
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