Flash

Bring on Rich Media

Technical communicators must adapt to the changing dynamics presented by the addition of rich media in the technical documentation space. Discover some suggestions for how to do so.

Show Me Demos and Captivate

In this audio-visual age, technical writers need an easy way to deliver Flash-based, dynamic screen demos for their help content.

Incorporating Animation into Help Files

Information clarity, ease of use, and modern computing speeds are reasons to consider animation in Help files. Sharp's article presents three common types of animation and how to make them work for you.

Flash: The Pros and Cons

Flash animations have become popular on the Web. But popularity is not often a good measure of useability or effectiveness. So what are the pros and cons of using Flash on a Web site?

Flash Embedding Cage Match

'How can you best embed Flash content?' It should be a simple question, but is likely to evoke a lot of different opinions and arguments, as each of the many available embedding techniques have their own pros and cons. In this article, I will look into the complexities and subtleties of embedding Flash content and examine the most popular embedding methods to see how good they really are.

Semantic Flash: Slippery When Wet

There's a belief within the web standards community that Flash is part of a different world. While all approaches have limitations and drawbacks, Flash has been scorned to the point that many refuse to acknowledge its benefits. Ultimately, this has led to the creation of a virtual separation among web designers; those who use Flash use it exclusively (leading to a saturation of full-screen, 'Skip Intro'-rich Flash sites on the web) and those who don't ever give it a second thought. Although the brilliant option of the hybrid (part Flash, part HTML) site had always existed, it's never really made it far past the typical Flash intro on a corporate homepage. Throughout the history of Flash on the web, the technology has always been intended to be embedded within HTML. Yet it has often seemed a foreign concept to use the two technologies to complement one another.

Generate Flash Movies on the Fly with PHP

Rich Internet Applications is the new buzz-phrase for Web 2.0, and a key component of the substance behind Web 2.0 is Adobe Flash. Learn how to integrate Flash movies into your application and generate Flash movies dynamically using the Ming library.

Human-Computer Interaction: Guidelines for Web Animation

Human-computer interaction in the large is an interdisciplinary area which attracts researchers, educators, and practioners from many differenf fields. Human-computer interaction studies a human and a machine in communication, it draws from supporting knowledge on both the machine and the human side. This paper is related to the human side of human-computer interaction and focuses on animations.

Requirements for Embedding Macromedia Flash Movies in Microsoft Powerpoint Presentations

Embedding is based on the Shockwave Flash Microsoft ActiveX component, an ActiveX component created by Macromedia that allows its content to run in Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Keeping it Small in Flash

If your Flash efforts need to go on some sort of weight loss program, here's a good place to start.

Text in Motion With the Wiggler

When you start using After Effects, there will come a time when you look at the presets and think, 'Gosh, I am bored with these.' That will be the point where you discover Adobe has a wonderful sense of humor and you start using the Wiggler. In the text options, on the timeline, the Wiggly selector can be added to a chunk of text to randomize the values of any of the properties associated with that group. That description may sound rather formal, but when it comes to adding effects, randomness can lead to some happy surprises. Essentially you can have text bend, move, blur, spin, and so on by simply giving it some parameters for the effect.

De Terreur van Skip Intro

Wie zich onder de eerste lichting world wide web-surfers bevond rond 1994, toen de eerste NetScape-browser de Mosaic-browser vervangen had, kan zich waarschijnlijk herinneren dat webpagina's uit niet veel meer bestonden dan tekst met hyperlinks en een lullig patroontje als achtergrond. Er werd nauwlijks gebruik gemaakt van visuele elementen. Helaas kwam daar snel een eind aan.

是不是应该选择Flash? - HTML与FLASH可用性与用户参与

在博物馆站点开发者面临的许多挑战中，可用性和参与性名列前茅。许多开发者采用macromedia公司的Flash作为有力的开发工具，他相比 HTML更具交互能力和多媒体特性。这篇论文对比评价了同一站点的Flash和HTML版本，集中比较了每一版本的用户目的信息搜索，行为和反映。我们然后比较了两个版本的操作阻力，任务完成时间，用户满意度和定性访谈。测试发现了两个版本站点在青少年群体和成年群体之间的显著差异。结果颇有价值地显示了Flash和HTML的相对优势和弱点。虽然我们不能从单一案例的研究得出广泛的结论，但是这些数据可以帮助我们开始关于发展中初步标准和基础框架的讨论，这些标准和框架可以为博物馆站点的开发者面对的大量的选择Flash还是HTML的情境提供建议原理。

To Flash or Not To Flash? - Usability and User Engagement of HTML vs. Flash

Of the many challenges facing developers of museum Web sites, usability and engagement rank high. Many developers have adopted Macromedia Flash as a useful tool that allows greater interactivity and multimedia compared to HTML pages. This paper reports on a comparative evaluation of Flash and HTML versions of a single site, focusing on user information-seeking goals, behavior, and responses to each version of the site. We then compare the two versions based on holding power, time on task, user satisfaction, and qualitative interviews. Testing found notable differences between the two versions of the site, and between youth and adult tester groups. The results provide valuable insights into the relative strengths and weaknesses of Flash and HTML. While we cannot draw broad conclusions from a single case study, these data can help us begin the discussion around developing preliminary standards and basic frameworks for suggesting rationales for choosing Flash or HTML in a number of typical situations facing museum Web developers.

Flash: Friend or Foe?

Macromedia Flash is spreading rapidly across the Internet and many web designers and developers believe Flash, as it is commonly called, is the future of Internet design. The use of Flash includes moving graphics, sounds, motion, and interactivity. These are great from a graphics standpoint although the areas most important to web surfers are content, speed and simple navigation. Of course, Flash has its benefits it has its drawbacks as well and an evaluation of both the pros and cons of Macromedia Flash will help you determine whether Flash is your website's friend or foe.

Web Clients Fatten Up with OpenLaszlo

OpenLaszlo is a rich client application architecture that uses Macromedia Flash as a deployment vehicle. Declarative in design, OpenLaszlo relies upon JavaScript for logic and offers advantages over traditional Flash development, including an advanced UI constraints system, an object-oriented design methodology, and built-in support for Web services and a variety of flavors of Remote Procedure Call (RPC). This article details the basic concepts of OpenLaszlo, and gives examples of situations in which an OpenLaszlo solution might be beneficial.

On-Demand Access to Rich Media Assets

The maturation of digital asset management technology and products has enabled on-demand DAM services to emerge as an attractive alternative to on-premises installation. Organizations facing a variety of problems and constraints, such as speed to market and scalability, are finding software services models to be the most cost effective approach to digital asset management. This paper identifies the four key factors in making the decision between a services model and on-premises installation. It also argues that the decision should be analyzed in terms of discounted cash flows and presents examples of such calculations.

Integrating Video in a Flash Movie

Want to integrate video in your Flash movie? You have two choices. You can embed the video in your Flash document, or keep progressively download it into a SWF file using from a FLV (Flash Video) file. In this tutorial you’ll learn to use the Media Playback Component to display a FLV file in a Flash movie.

Creating a Dynamic Playlist for Streaming Flash Video

As developers, we are often bogged down with mundane tasks such as site maintenance and updates. Until now, if we wanted to pass these tasks on to clients or colleagues who are not tech-savvy, we had to develop sophisticated interfaces to simplify the process for them and to give them easy access to the data. But now, XML is changing that reality.

Creating Events Using the EventDispatcher Class

Handle Flash events more efficiently in your code by using the event listener object model.

Encode, Deliver, Design: Getting a Grip on Flash Video

Follow these simple technical steps to turn your video concept into reality with Flash Video.

Object-Oriented ActionScript

Ironically, Flash users who are new to object-oriented programming (OOP) are often familiar with many object-oriented concepts without knowing their formal names. This chapter demystifies some of the terminology and brings newer programmers up to speed on key OOP concepts. It also serves as a high-level overview of OOP in Flash for experienced programmers who are making their first foray into Flash development.

Using ActionScript in Macromedia Flash MX 2004: Best Practices

Code it right: Use these best practices as you write your ActionScript.

Using Flash for the First Time, Part 1: Building a Banner

This is part one of a three-part article on how to build a simple animated banner in Flash and add it to a web page using Macromedia Dreamweaver. You'll learn how to create a file and modify its settings, import and add graphics to the Stage from the library, and create layers in part one. In parts two and three you'll add an animation and create a button that opens a browser window. Then you'll specify publish settings, and add the banner to a web page.

Using Flash for the First Time, Part 2: Adding Symbols, Animation, and ActionScript

How to create symbols, animation, and even write some simple ActionScript to make a banner function.

Using Flash for the First Time, Part 3: Publishing and Adding the Flash File to a Web Page

This is part three of a three-part article on how to build a simple animated banner in Macromedia Flash and add it to a web page using Macromedia Dreamweaver. In this final part, you learn about file size, banner standards, how to set publish settings, how to add the banner to a Dreamweaver web page, and how to add Macromedia Flash Player detection.

Sympathy for the Plug-in

If Flash is indeed a cancer on the Web, how come so many artists (and viewers) adore it? The much-maligned multimedia plug-in bites back, with help from Flash artist Peter Balogh.

Fast-Track Your Flash Site

Many Websites that use Flash could be optimized to load much more quickly than they currently do. By breaking up one large .swf into multiple smaller .swf files, you can decrease the time it takes your site to load, while at the same time making the site easier to manage. This article will look at how to break your Website into multiple .swf files, and discuss why it's a good idea.

Why Flash Will Never Die

In this article we will look at the strengths and weaknesses of one of the most controversial products in the web development world, Macromedia Flash. We will take a close look at what Flash can do and what Flash can't or shouldn't do. And while in the process we will be comparing Flash to its counterparts HTML and CSS.

Connecting Macromedia Flash and PHP

Many web developers rely heavily on a popular combination of open source software to develop and deploy their websites and applications. This combination is often known as LAMP—an acronym for Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. In this article, you will use a LAMP environment to create a PHP-based Rich Internet Application.

Flash Video Learner's Guide

This guide provides an introduction to Flash Video, including information on how to create and publish Flash Video.

FlashHelp: The Ideal Online Help Format for Web Applications

As the web transitions from a relatively static, information-oriented environment to a highly interactive, task-oriented environment, web developers must provide on-demand user assistance to ensure the usability of their applications.

Getting a Handle on Web Services in Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004

So you have heard that Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 has built-in support for web services. Great! But is this unconditionally true? Are all web services now supported in Flash?

Macromedia Flash MX and PHP

Communicating with PHP (or any other server-side script) from Macromedia Flash has become much easier with the introduction of the LoadVars object in Macromedia Flash MX. Here's a sample in which I use a MySQL database (containing friends' e-mail and phone information and a picture and caption if we have one), a PHP script to access that information, and Macromedia Flash to present it. I'll go through each of the steps I went through to create it.

The Structure of FlashHelp Skins

The real magic of FlashHelp, however, lies in its Flash-based presentation layer, or 'skin.' You can completely customize FlashHelp skins to match the look and feel of any application, no matter how unique.

Using Macromedia Flash MX as a Multilingual Authoring Tool

This tutorial offers procedures and strategies that allow you to adapt a Macromedia Flash MX movie to the language and culture of a target audience. Macromedia Flash MX supports localization through Unicode and the various ways in which you can include different languages in a movie.

Building Preloaders and Progress Bars in Macromedia Flash

One of the unique features of web content built with Macromedia Flash is the ability to control when and how the content loads. When loading a heavy HTML page, the user is usually stuck looking at a blank window until the content starts appearing. Flash allows for the creation of animated preloaders, which give the user precise information about the progress of the loading process. A simple rectangular progress bar or percentage indicator will do the job, but why stop there? A preloader should be given just as much love and consideration as the rest of the site content, especially on a site that is trying to evoke a mood, or create an immersive experience. If a preloader is engaging enough, the user won't mind waiting for content, and the time it takes to load will seem shorter. The preloader is the first element someone will see when visiting your site. You can make a good first impression by welcoming your visitors with a snappy preloader.

Modeling User Workflows for Rich Internet Applications

As Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) become more advanced, the tasks, problems, and processes they address become increasingly complex, making it more important than ever to accurately model user workflows. Early Internet applications were often narrowly focused in scope, and the steps were relatively simple and sequential, for example, purchasing items through simple e-commerce, reserving hotel rooms, or renting cars. But as productivity applications move toward a web-based distribution model, the tasks become more complicated.

Flash: 99% Good

This site is for Flash designers who want to skip the piss and vinegar of the so called 'usability' experts and get right to the solutions for your Flash usability problems. Named in response to Jakob Neilsen's influential 2000 article Flash: 99% Bad.

Flash Design: Does It Really Deliver What Is Promised?

Flash design? Is it all it's cracked up to be? In this article, we'll be confronting all the questions head on: What is Flash? What's good about it? What's bad about it? And, most importantly, what will it do for your online business?

Flash - To Use Or No To Use?

Out there in the WWW there are thousands sites using flash for their needs. But the majority sites are not in this list. Let's summarize some facts about flash usage on YOUR web site. After that it's you will have to decide: to use or not to use.

Tips For Optimizing Flash Movies

When you're ready to deliver your Flash movie to your audience, use the Publish Settings or Export Movie option to export the Flash FLA file to a format for the Web.

Flash 5: The Color Object

Give your visitors the option to control the color in your Flash movies by using the Color Object. An object is a piece of data (color, sound, movie, etc.) that contains a set of methods (the things that objects do).

Flash: Create a Disjointed Rollover

While image rollovers are the standard for navigation, they do have some limitations. Would you like to create a rollover that doesn't have to be the same size as the original image, nor does it need to be stacked on top of the original image? That's what disjointed rollovers are all about, and Flash makes it easy to create rollovers that load quickly and look great!

Flash: Create a Preloader

Flash movies stream, so when the Flash movie contains several frames or scenes, the movie should be preloaded so that it will play back smoothly. Let's set up the animation that will play while the main movie (the presentation from a previous lesson) is loading behind the scenes. We'll create a movie clip for the preloader animation.

Flash MX: Control Projector Files with the fsCommand

Flash provides a way to create a projector file—a self-executable application that doesn’t require the Flash player.

Flash MX : Import and Compress Video

One of the most exciting upgrades in Flash MX is the fact that you can now compress and playback video within Flash. In the previous version of Flash you could import but then could only export the video as a QuickTime movie. You did not have the ability to playback or compress the movie within Flash. If you want to incorporate video into your Flash movies, then Flash MX should be your tool of choice!

Flash MX: The Sound Object

Use the Sound Object to control sounds that are stored in the Flash Library as well as load sounds that reside outside the Flash movie. Controlling sounds includes starting and stopping the sound, adjusting the volume or the right and left balance while a sound is playing.

Flash: The LoadMovie Action

Want to load one movie at a time into a main movie? With Flash MX, you can load a SWF or JPEG file into the Flash Player while the original movie is playing. The loadMovie action lets you display several movies at once and switch between movies without loading another HTML document or a separate Flash movie.

Flash Transitions

Transitions are a very popular technique used in Flash, and they're typically used to let your audience know that a change in content or scenery is coming. They're usually displayed using fading effects and dissolves, and there are two ways to implement this type of effect: an alpha tween and a brightness tween. Let's take a look at both of these techniques.

Use Gradients to Give Objects a 3- Dimensional Appearance

Flash is a two-dimensional program. Using a gradient in Flash can give a two-dimensional object a third dimension. In this example, let's create a series of circular outlines, then add one of Flash's preset gradients to give the outlines a three-dimensional appearance.

Usability SIG Web Site Tests Macromedia FlashPaper

The Usability SIG is always interested in new ways to put publish our newsletter on the Web. When an upgrade to Macromedia’s Contribute 2.0 included a new program called FlashPaper, we decided to give it a try.

Stephen Hawking and Me - Flash MX Accessibility

An article that features tips on building accessible sites in Flash MX.

Tabbing Through Flash

A way of avoiding the problem with embedding Flash on a web page (which you cannot tab out of).

Best Flash Animation

A collection of links to tutorials and high-quality rich media interface designs.

Suggerimenti per un Flash Accessibile

Realizzare siti usabili in Flash è una questione di mentalità e non di prodotto. L'autore ci indica 10 suggerimenti per rendere le animazioni Flash più usabili ed accessibili.

Macromedia Flash: A New Hope for Web Applications

Some new, cutting-edge applications have demonstrated Flash's potential to surpass the power of traditional software applications. These web applications leverage the strengths of Flash to help users make better sense of large amounts of data, presenting information in an easily accessible, graphical visual representation. In this white paper, we will explore how Flash can help developers easily build the next generation of web applications. We will also look at several new applications that have recently appeared on the scene and talk about how they leverage the benefits of Flash.

Some Notes on Simulacra Machines, Flash in First-Year Composition, and Tactics in Spaces of Interruption

This article is an examination of the discourse surrounding a new media tool, Macromedia's Flash, and a discussion of a qualitative study of Flash's use by students as part of an electronic portfolio assignment in a first-year composition course. My article explores how the software industry constructs Flash as a discursive object for the regulation of information flow, while also examining how the present generation of students interacts with these new media environments, making meaning within them through the use of simulacra tools.

Creating Accessible Flash

Macromedia Flash is a vector-based, interactive animation creation program designed to enable the addition of dynamic characters, scenes, interfaces and motion graphics animations to Web sites. Macromedia Flash materials are created using the Flash authoring program, the most recent version of which is Flash MX.

Building with Flash and MySQL

Building a blog is cool, but building a blog with Flash, MySQL, and PHP is so much cooler. Scott guides you through two days of coding and querying.

Getting Started with Flash Video

In this brief tutorial you will learn how to build a simple Macromedia Flash video project in just five easy steps.

Una Perspectiva Global de Flash

Salta a la vista que Flash en la web tiene muchos problemas de usabilidad y accesibilidad pero hay que juzgarlo por lo que es, y no por el buen o mal uso que se hace de él. Antes de poner mala cara ante todo lo que huele a Flash, como hacen muchos desarrolladores, hay que ver la herramienta desde un punto de vista global, con más perspectiva.

Designer's Cafe

A page with links to facilitate users who build website with Macromedia Dreamweaver and Flash.

Inside "Skip Intro": An Author Interview

Flash has been in the news quite a bit these days, partly because of the current release and partly because of the ongoing fallout over the Jakob Nielsen article (Flash: 99% Bad). Even Macromedia has gotten into the act, working with Nielsen to improve the face of Flash and the challenge of usability. 'What Nielsen said, apart from the sensationalistic nature of the headline, was bang-on,' said Duncan McAlester, co-author of ‘Skip Intro.’ 'Flash, for the most part, had been used in a very poor manner up until that time (and still is in many cases).'

Repent from Flash Sins

If I see another goofy Flash interface I am going to scream. Please do not take my prior statement as rejection of everything Flash. I love Flash. I think Macromedia Flash is a wonderful tool with wonderful potential. But along the way, we have a lot of learning to do.

Usability Heuristics for Rich Internet Applications

Over the coming months and years, RIAs will move from cutting edge to mainstream. That transformation will accelerate with the Flash and user experience communities working together to understand and develop best practices and shared knowledge.

(Over)simple Answers for Simple Minds

Part of me feels for Jakob Nielsen for the grief he’s taken over deciding to work with Macromedia after declaring 'Flash 99 percent bad.' After all, the pressures and temptations to provide simple answers to complex issues are ones we all face in our professional practices.

Create Powerful Flash Applications With Shared Objects

Shared objects allow for data persistence in Flash applications, like cookies do in Web pages. Learn to leverage shared objects to create more robust apps.

Better Flash Websites

Alhough Flash has some intrinsic usability problems, designers can respect user expectations about consistency, accessibility, and common sense, and therefore make better Flash websites.

Help! Tips for Working in Flash MX

Before starting work in Flash, sketch out basic screen layouts, a full storyboard, and make notes about any interactivity you want to include. Knowing everything you want to do and how you want it to look before starting to make your movie will save time and frustration.

Basic Flash Concepts and Terms

Macromedia Flash uses a movie-making metaphor in how they define their concepts and areas of their interface. The basic terms used to describe the animation are the movie, stage and motion.

Comparison of Flash and Director

Only six years ago the web did not support graphics and CD-ROM based games asked users if they had 4Mb of memory on their computer with possible hard drive space of 20Mb to play any games. Today, oh heck, that seems archaic.

Effective Use of Flash in Professional Web Sites

Macromedia Flash is a popular animation application that can produce some striking special effects. In professional web sites, Flash must be used effectively instead of simply for novelty. Business applications of Flash can advertise a product or showcase a skill-set. Educational applications can use Flash to provide multimedia instruction. Entertainment applications of Flash include games and cartoons.

Flash Applications

The reason to use Macromedia Flash is usually to provide a solution or to satisfy the need of the Web site owner. Typically, Flash is used to create a company image through animations and special effects in the splash page or even throughout the site, establish better user understanding through demonstrations and simulated processes, and/or entertain or educate through animated cartoons and games.

Major Features of Flash

Macromedia Flash is primarily an animation development application. Its feature-set includes such things as vector-based drawing, Web animations and interactive effects. Drawing is required for animation, which in turn is part of interactive effects.

Planning Your Flash Animations

Before you start developing a Flash animation, it is a good practice to write out a plan of action. The reason is that any type of software development can be complex. Good planning helps to avoid mistakes that may be difficult to find and fix.

The Rhetoric of Flash

Flash, by Macromedia, is a program designed to create graphics and interactivity for the World Wide Web. Its primary characteristics are moving text, sounds attached to that text and/or to navigational buttons, links, and mouseovers. Flash, for this reason, has been compared to television -- indeed, a web page generated in Flash often seems as if it would be equally at home on a stereo-surroundsound, high-definition TV. But there's a catch. . . . After going through the site a few times, the viewer might well discover that his or her choices are limited to those programmed into the site. But it's likely that the site's entertainment value -- as well as its multi-layered rhetorical messages -- will far outweigh any feelings of deception. . . which is, in itself, a monumental rhetorical statement.

The Flash Aesthetic

Scaling, 2-D style, cycle-free motion, and heavy strokes. They’re not just web design trends any more. Join Olson on a cultural scavenger hunt as he tracks the ways Flash design techniques have crept into other media.

Accessibility and Macromedia Flash MX 2004

Macromedia Flash MX 2004 helps to accelerate accessible application development with a core set of UI components. These components can automate many of the most common accessibility practices related to labeling, keyboard access, and testing and help to ensure a consistent user experience across rich applications created with Macromedia Flash MX 2004. For each component, the designer or developer need only enable the accessibility object by using the command enableAccessibility(). This includes the accessibility object with the component as the movie is compiled. Because there is no simple means of removing an object once it has been added to the component, these options are turned off by default. It is therefore very important that the designer or developer enable accessibility for each component. This step needs to be done only once for each component; it is not necessary to enable accessibility for each instance of a component.

ActionScript.org

A collection of resources for writing ActionScript programs within your Macromedia Flash projects.

Flashgeek

The home for Rick Turoczy's Flash and Powerpoint tutorials.

Macromedia Flash Resources

Resources for beginner, intermediate, and advanced Macromedia Flash developers. Learn about the tools and features, plus techniques for animation, interactivity, application design, drawing techniques, and more. Find free vector clip art, audio files, sound loops, FLA source files, and add-ons.

OpenSWF

OpenSWF.org is the source for information on the Flash File Format. Here you will find file format specifications, sample code, links to 3rd party tools and more.

Serving Up Web-Friendly Animations in a Flash: Macromedia Flash Basics

You've undoubtedly heard of Macromedia's Director and have oohed and ahhed over Shockwave movies on the web after, of course, they finally finished downloading. Flash, however, may be less familiar. The May release of Macromedia Flash 2, formerly FutureSplash, marked a new phase in web animation -- one that streams. Working with Flash will enable you to create sophisticated frame by frame animations that stream and include sound. Flash movies require a plug-in; however, you can export your final flash files in one of 12 other formats, including GIF89. So if you're of the anti-plugin crowd, don't hit your back button yet. Besides, if you're relatively sure your audience is using a 'new' browser, then they'll likely have the Shockwave plug-in built in (once both browsers 4.0 are out, that is).

SWFnews

A site with news about new products and techniques for Flash development.

Will Macromedia's Flash Plans Cripple the Web?

Macromedia's Flash-everywhere approach brings new innovations to Web design but carries hidden potential liabilities that could negate its benefits.

Flash MX Accessibility Issues

When usability expert Jakob Nielsen proclaimed Flash was 99 percent bad, he was right on at least one account: accessibility. Until the release of Flash MX and the Flash 6 player, about 41 million disabled Web users could not take full advantage of Flash Web sites (According to World Bank in 2000). Even with Macromedia's move to support Section 508 guidelines, the government's plan for Web accessibility, the majority of Flash developers have not adopted the necessary best practices. Advertisement In previous versions of the Flash player, disabled Web users were unable to view any content generated by Flash. The Flash 6 player took a big step in this regard by retroactively providing text equivalents to the application's content. This change has allowed assistive Web browsers such as screen readers to view or speak Flash content. Many Flash developers question the need for Flash accessibility since proper accessibility requires a text-only version of existing Web content. This is a myth: images and animation can actually help users with nonvisual disabilities such as dyslexia. Flash can also benefit the blind by incorporating sound to notify the Web surfer of events.

Is Flash Too Flash?

Amongst Internet developers, Macromedia Flash is certainly something of a hot potato. On the one hand, many designers see Flash as a powerful multimedia tool that encourages originality and dynamism on the otherwise 'static' web. Proponents of usability, on the other hand, have argued that the presence of Flash on a website is a 'usability disease', '99% bad' and have even branded it as 'evil'. They ask the obvious question: why do the biggest, most well known and profitable websites in the world decide against using Flash? However, the reality is that although Flash presents many usability issues, it is not inherently unusable. It can be used to create usable websites - but this requires designers to follow strict implementation guidelines.

Flash MX: Clarifying the Concept

The new Flash MX authoring environment and the equally new Flash Player 6 solve a few accessibility problems. Screen reader compatibility is the first Macromedia access milestone. Screen readers—which, by the way, are not called “voice browsers” or “text readers”—are software that reads web pages, and anything else on your computer, out loud. (I’d show you a picture, but apart from a few uninteresting configuration screens, these programs have no overt visible form.)

Director MX Versus Flash

Director, which hit the scene way back in 1988, was always considered the ultimate multimedia authoring tool. Then the Web came along and Shockwave, a format that translated Director projects for the Web, was born. It was pretty wowie in its day (circa 1995), but the size of Shockwave files, along with the browser plugin users needed to see them, really slowed Shockwave down. Enter Flash's SWF format, which was designed solely for the Web so it was faster and easier to use than Shockwave. And the rest is history: Flash is everywhere, and whipper-snapper Web developers are all, 'Shockwave who?' But Shockwave has its uses. Flash may be better than ever these days, but you can still outgrow it. Say you need better video performance, or you want to create a game or educational tool that uses a joy stick. Or maybe you're looking for the depth of 3D animation. When it comes to interactive projects in the non-Web world (yes, it's true, there is life outside the Web) — such as CD-ROM games, educational materials, reference books, and presentations — sometimes Flash just isn't enough. If you're tackling a big-league, off-Web project, or a particularly intricate website, then perhaps it's time to take another look at Macromedia's Director MX.

Creating a Video From Still Images

In the following steps, Engine Three explains how to capture and export frames from Premiere, clean them up in Photoshop, and finally assemble them in LiveMotion.

Flash Satay: Embedding Flash While Supporting Standards

I’ve worked with Flash for several years and have always been slightly dissatisfied with the markup needed to embed a movie in web pages. When I recently published a site in XHTML, my dissatisfaction with the markup grew as I realized that it simply wasn’t valid in this context and was bloating my pages to unacceptable levels. A leaner, standards-compliant method of embedding Flash movies was called for.

Flash and Web-Based Applications

In usability tests of 46 Flash applications, we identified several basic issues related to Web-based functionality's ephemeral nature. Some findings restate old truths about GUIs; others reflect the Net's new status as nexus of the user experience.

Flash + Information Visualization = Great User Experiences

By combining tools like Flash and information visualization, designers can dramatically improve how users work with large, multidimensional data sets.

Flash Strikes Back: Creating Powerful Web Applications

Flash is a powerful tool that offers developers huge capabilities. Until recently, developers mostly utilized Flash's strengths to create complex animations or fast-loading movies. However, the most recent versions of Flash offer developers power that's far beyond the tool's original scope. With the advent of Flash MX, we've seen that developers have the power to create web applications with more sophisticated client- and server-side interactivity. When integrated with sophisticated server-side software like ColdFusion Server and JRun, Flash delivers the power and flexibility to become a serious contender in the web application space.

Making Flash Usable for Users With Disabilities

Flash designs are easier for users with disabilities to use when designers combine visual and textual presentations, minimize incessant movement, decrease spacing between related objects, and simplify features.

Flash: 99% Bad

Although multimedia has its role on the Web, current Flash technology tends to discourage usability for three reasons: it makes bad design more likely, it breaks with the Web's fundamental interaction style, and it consumes resources that would be better spent enhancing a site's core value.