Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash CS3 under Mac OS X. Mac OS X (mæk oʊ ɛs tɛn is a line of computer Operating systems developed marketed and sold by Apple Inc, the latest of which is pre-loaded on all currently
Developed by	Adobe Systems (formerly by Macromedia)
Latest release	CS3 (9. A software developer is a person or organization concerned with facets of the software development process wider than design and coding a somewhat broader scope of Adobe Systems Incorporated (pronounced a-DOE-bee əˈdoʊbiː ( is an American Computer software company headquartered in San Jose California Macromedia was a North American graphics and Web development Software house headquartered in San Francisco, California producing such products A software release is the distribution whether public or private of an initial or new and upgraded version of a Computer software product Adobe Creative Suite is a collection of Graphic design, Video editing, and Web development applications made by Adobe Systems. 0. 2) / December 12, 2007 (2007-12-12); 183 days ago
Written in	C++
OS	Cross-platform[1]
Genre	Multimedia
License	Proprietary EULA
Website	Adobe Flash Professional Homepage

Adobe Flash (previously called Shockwave Flash and Macromedia Flash) is a set of multimedia technologies developed and distributed by Adobe Systems and earlier by Macromedia. Events 627 - Battle of Nineveh: A Byzantine army under Emperor Heraclius defeats Emperor Khosrau II 's Persian Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. A programming language is an Artificial language that can be used to write programs which control the behavior of a machine particularly a Computer. C++ (" C Plus Plus " ˌsiːˌplʌsˈplʌs is a general-purpose Programming language. An operating system (commonly abbreviated OS and O/S) is the software component of a Computer system that is responsible for the management and coordination In computing cross-platform (also known as multi-platform) is a term used to refer to Computer software or computing methods and concepts that are implemented Computer software can be organized into categories based on common function type or field of use Multimedia is media and content that utilizes a combination of different content forms. A software license (or software licence in commonwealth usage is a Legal instrument governing the usage or redistribution of copyright protected software Proprietary software is Computer software on which the producer has set restrictions on use private modification copying, or republishing. A website (alternatively web site or Web site, a back-construction from the Proper noun World Wide Web) is a collection of Web pages Multimedia is media and content that utilizes a combination of different content forms. Adobe Systems Incorporated (pronounced a-DOE-bee əˈdoʊbiː ( is an American Computer software company headquartered in San Jose California Macromedia was a North American graphics and Web development Software house headquartered in San Francisco, California producing such products Since its introduction in 1996, Flash technology has become a popular method for adding animation and interactivity to web pages; Flash is commonly used to create animation, advertisements, various web page components, to integrate video into web pages, and more recently, to develop rich Internet applications. The bouncing ball animation (below consists of these 6 frames Advertising is a form of Communication that typically attempts to persuade potential Customers to Purchase or to consume more of a particular Brand Rich Internet applications (RIAs are Web applications that have the features and functionality of traditional desktop applications.

Flash can manipulate vector and raster graphics and supports bi-directional streaming of audio and video. Vector graphics is the use of geometrical primitives such as points lines, Curves and shapes or Polygon (s which are all based In Computer graphics, a raster graphics image or bitmap, is a Data structure representing a generally rectangular grid of Pixels It contains a scripting language called ActionScript. "Scripting" redirects here For other uses see Script. ActionScript is a scripting language based on ECMAScript. ActionScript is used primarily for the development of websites and software using the Adobe Flash Player It is available in most common web browsers and some mobile phones and other electronic devices (using Flash Lite). A web browser is a software application which enables a user to display and interact with text images videos music games and other information typically located on a Electronics refers to the flow of charge (moving Electrons through Nonmetal conductors (mainly Semiconductors, whereas electrical Adobe Flash Lite is a lightweight version of Adobe Flash Player, a software application published by Adobe Systems. Several software products, systems, and devices are able to create or display Flash, including the Adobe Flash Player. An information appliance ( IA) is an Appliance specializing in information a personal device designed to perform a specific activity such as playing music photography The Adobe Flash Player is a widely distributed proprietary multimedia and application player created by Macromedia and now developed and distributed by Adobe The Adobe Flash Professional multimedia authoring program is used to create content for the Adobe Engagement Platform, such as web applications, games and movies, and content for mobile phones and other embedded devices. In 2005, Adobe Systems bought Macromedia. The Adobe Engagement Platform is the announced name of the product line resulting from the merger of Macromedia

Files in the SWF format, traditionally called "ShockWave Flash" movies, "Flash movies" or "Flash games", usually have a . The File format SWF (acronym of " Shockwave Flash "pronounced swiff)a partially open repository for multimedia and especially swf file extension and may be an object of a web page, strictly "played" in a standalone Flash Player, or incorporated into a Projector, a self-executing Flash movie (with the . A filename extension is a suffix to the name of a Computer file applied to indicate the encoding convention ( File format) of its contents exe extension in Microsoft Windows). Microsoft Windows is a series of Software Operating systems and Graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Flash Video (FLV) files have a . Flash Video is the name of a File format used to deliver Video over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player (initially produced flv file extension and are used from within . swf files. The File format SWF (acronym of " Shockwave Flash "pronounced swiff)a partially open repository for multimedia and especially

History

The program Flash was the brainchild of Jonathan Gay, who developed the idea in college and later while working for Silicon Beach Software and its successors. Jonathan Gay is a computer programmer and software entrepreneur based in Northern California Silicon Beach Software was an influential early developer of software products for the Macintosh Personal computer ^[2][3]

In January 1993, Jonathan Gay, Charlie Jackson, and Michelle Welsh started a small software company called FutureWave Software and created their first product, SmartSketch. Year 1993 ( MCMXCIII) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1993 Gregorian calendar) Charlie Jackson is a computer software entrepreneur who founded Silicon Beach Software and co-founded FutureWave Software. FutureWave Software was a software developer and publisher based in San Diego CA A drawing application, SmartSketch was designed to make creating computer graphics as simple as drawing on paper. At first, it didn't gain enough of a foothold in its market. As the Internet began to thrive, however, FutureWave began to realize the potential for a vector-based web animation tool that might easily challenge Macromedia's Shockwave technology. The Internet is a global system of interconnected Computer networks Computer-generated imagery Computer animation is the art of creating moving images with the use of Computers It is a subfield of Computer graphics Adobe Shockwave (formerly Macromedia Shockwave) was Macromedia 's first and most successful multimedia player prior to the introduction of Macromedia Flash (now In 1995, FutureWave modified SmartSketch by adding frame-by-frame animation features and re-released it as FutureSplash Animator on Macintosh and PC. FutureSplash Animator was a software product for creating vector -based animations the predecessor of Flash. Macintosh, commonly nicknamed Mac is a Brand name which covers several lines of Personal computers designed developed and marketed by Apple Inc A personal computer ( PC) is any Computer whose original sales price size and capabilities make it useful for individuals and which is intended to be operated By that time, the company had added a second programmer Robert Tatsumi, artist Adam Grofcsik, and PR specialist Ralph Mittman. The product was offered to Adobe and used by Microsoft in its early work with the Internet (MSN). Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational Computer technology Corporation, which rose to dominate the Home computer MSN (The M icro' s' oft N etwork is a collection of Internet services provided by Microsoft. In December 1996, Macromedia acquired the vector-based animation software and later released it as Flash, contracting "Future" and "Splash" of the FutureWave name. Year 1996 ( MCMXCVI) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar)

Player

• Macromedia Flash 2 (1997) Features: Support of stereo sound, enhanced bitmap integration, buttons, the Library, and the capability to tween color changes. In Computer graphics, a bitmap or pixmap is a type of memory organization or Image file format used to store Digital images The Tweening, short for in-betweening is the process of generating intermediate frames between two images to give the appearance that
• Macromedia Flash 3 (1998) Features: Brought improvements to animation, playback, and publishing, as well as the introduction of simple script commands for interactivity. As of 1998, Macromedia has shipped 100,000 Flash products. Year 1998 ( MCMXCVIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar)
• Macromedia Flash 4 (1999) Features: Achieved 100 million installations of the Flash Player, thanks in part to its inclusion with Microsoft Internet Explorer 5. Windows Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer abbreviated MSIE) commonly abbreviated to IE, is a series of graphical Flash 4 saw the introduction of streaming MP3s and the Motion Tween. Streaming multimedia is Multimedia that is constantly received by and normally presented to an end-user while it is being delivered by a streaming provider (the MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a Digital audio encoding format using a form of Lossy data compression Initially, the Flash Player plug-in was not bundled with popular web browsers and users had to visit Macromedia website to download it; As of 2000, however, the Flash Player was already being distributed with all AOL, Netscape and Internet Explorer browsers. 2000 ( MM) was a Leap year that started on Saturday of the Common Era, in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. Netscape Communications (formerly known as Netscape Communications Corporation and commonly known as Netscape) is an American computer services company Windows Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer abbreviated MSIE) commonly abbreviated to IE, is a series of graphical Two years later it shipped with all releases of Windows XP. Windows XP is a family of 32-bit and 64-bit Operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on Personal computers including home and The install-base of the Flash Player reached 92 percent of all Internet users.
• Macromedia Flash 5 (2001) Features: Flash 5 was a major leap forward in capability, with the evolution of Flash's scripting capabilities as released as ActionScript. Flash 5 also saw the ability to customize the authoring environment's interface.
• Macromedia Generator was the first initiative from Macromedia to separate design from content in Flash files. Generator 2. 0 was released in April 2001 and featured real-time server-side generation of Flash content in its Enterprise Edition. Generator was discontinued in 2002 in favor of new technologies such as Flash Remoting, which allows for seamless transmission of data between the server and the client, and ColdFusion Server. This article is about the computer programming language For the nuclear reactions see Cold fusion.
• In October 2000, usability guru Jakob Nielsen wrote a polemic article regarding usability of Flash content entitled "Flash 99% Bad". For other people with similar names see Jakob Nielsen. Jakob Nielsen (born 1957 in Copenhagen, Denmark) is a leading (Macromedia later hired Nielsen to help them improve Flash usability. )
• In September 2001, a survey made for Macromedia by Media Metrix showed that out of the 10 biggest websites in the United States, seven were making use of Flash content.
• Macromedia Flash MX was released on March 15, 2002, with the new Macromedia Flash Player 6 with support for video, application components, shared libraries, and accessibility. Events 44 BC - Julius Caesar, Dictator of the Roman Republic, is stabbed to death by Marcus Junius Brutus, See also 2002 (disambiguation Year 2002 ( MMII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar.
• Macromedia Flash Communication Server MX, also released in 2002, allowed video to be streamed to Flash Player 6 (otherwise the video could be embedded into the Flash movie).
• Macromedia Flash MX 2004 was released in September 2003, with features such as faster runtime performance up to eight times with the enhanced compiler and the new Macromedia Flash Player 7, ability to create charts, graphs and additional text effects with the new support for extensions (sold separately), high fidelity import of PDF and Adobe Illustrator 10 files, mobile and device development and a forms-based development environment. September 2003: January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September In Computer science, runtime or run time describes the operation of a Computer program, the duration of its execution from beginning to termination Adobe Illustrator is a vector-based drawing program developed and marketed by Adobe Systems. ActionScript 2. 0 was also introduced, giving developers a formal Object-Oriented approach to ActionScript. V2 Components replaced Flash MX's components, being rewritten from the ground up to take advantage of ActionScript 2. 0 and Object-Oriented principles. Flash MX 2004 was the first release of Flash to be segmented into "Basic" and "Professional" versions. The Basic version was targeted at traditional Flash animators while the Professional version brought more advanced capabilities that developers would use, for example the data components.
• In 2004, the "Flash Platform" was introduced. This expanded Flash to more than the Flash authoring tool. Flex 1. Adobe Flex is a collection of technologies released by Adobe Systems for the development and deployment of cross platform Rich Internet applications based on the proprietary 0 and Breeze 1. Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional (formerly Macromedia Breeze) is software used to create information and general presentations online training materials web conferencing 0 were released, both of which utilized the Flash Player as a delivery method but relied on tools other than the Flash authoring program to create Flash applications and presentations. Flash Lite 1. 1 was also released, enabling mobile phones to play Flash content.
• Macromedia Flash 8 (2005) is touted by Macromedia as the most significant upgrade to Flash since Flash 5. New features included filter effects and blending modes, bitmap caching, a new video codec called On2 VP6, an enhanced type rendering engine called FlashType, an emulator for mobile devices, and several enhancements to the ActionScript 2. TrueMotion VP6 is a Video codec developed by On2 Technologies as a successor to earlier efforts such as VP3 and VP5. 0 spec, such as the BitmapData class, several geometric classes, and the ConvolutionFilter and DisplacmentMapFilter classes. Geometry ( Greek γεωμετρία; geo = earth metria = measure is a part of Mathematics concerned with questions of size shape and relative position
• Macromedia Flash Lite 2 was also released in 2005, which brought its capabilities in line with Flash Player 7.
• On December 3, 2005, Adobe Systems acquired Macromedia and its product portfolio (including Flash). Events 1800 - War of the Second Coalition: Battle of Hohenlinden, French Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. ^[4]
• Adobe Flash Player 9 was released for Windows and Mac OS in 2006, which marked the first time a Flash Player major release occurred without a simultaneous Flash authoring program major release. Mac OS is the trademarked name for a series of Graphical user interface -based Operating systems developed by Apple Inc Flex 2. 0 was released in conjunction with Flash Player 9, and the player was continued when Flash Authoring 9 was released in 2007. For the first time in the history of Flash, the Flash Player had an opportunity to become widely installed before the release of the equivalent Flash program.
• Adobe Flash Player 9 was released for Linux in January 2007. Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks January 2007 is the first month of that year It began on a Monday and 31 days later ended on a Wednesday. ^[5]
• Adobe Flash 9 Public Alpha was released in 2006, and was a preview of ActionScript 3. 0.
• Adobe Flash CS3 in 2007, originated from Flash 9 Public Alpha with several updates for integrating into other Adobe products, is released as a bundled software of the Adobe Creative Suite 3. Adobe Creative Suite is a collection of Graphic design, Video editing, and Web development applications made by Adobe Systems. This currently-newest version also brings ActionScript 3. 0 and a new XML engine to the Flash authoring tool. Don't change "Extensible" It also has an improved and optimized GUI like the rest of the CS3 suite.
• Adobe Flash Player 10 beta was released on 15th May 2008 and notably introduces support for hardware GPU accelerated features like 3D graphics and programmable pixel shaders. A pixel shader is a shader program often executed on a Graphics processing unit. ^[6]

Authoring tool

• FutureSplash Animator (April 10, 1996): initial version of Flash with basic editing tools and a timeline
• Macromedia Flash 1 (November 1996): a Macromedia re-branded version of the FutureSplash Animator
• Macromedia Flash 2 (June 1997): Released with Flash Player 2, new features included: the object library
• Macromedia Flash 3 (May 31, 1998): Released with Flash Player 3, new features included: the movieclip element, JavaScript plug-in integration, transparency and an external stand alone player
• Macromedia Flash 4 (June 15, 1999): Released with Flash Player 4, new features included: internal variables, an input field, advanced ActionScript, and streaming MP3
• Macromedia Flash 5 (August 24, 2000): Released with Flash Player 5, new features included: ActionScript 1. Events 879 - Louis III becomes King of the Western Franks. 1407 - the lama Year 1996 ( MCMXCVI) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar) Year 1996 ( MCMXCVI) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar) Year 1997 ( MCMXCVII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1997 Gregorian calendar In Computer science, a library is a collection of Subroutines used to develop Software. Events 1279 BC - Rameses II (The Great (19th dynasty becomes pharaoh of Ancient Egypt. Year 1998 ( MCMXCVIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar) JavaScript is a Scripting language most often used for Client-side web development Transparency is possible in a number of graphics file formats Events 763 BC - Assyrians record a Solar eclipse that will be used to fix the Chronology of Mesopotamian history Year 1999 ( MCMXCIX) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1999 Gregorian calendar) A variable (ˈvɛərɪəbl is an Attribute of a physical or an abstract System which may change its Value while it is under Observation. Streaming multimedia is Multimedia that is constantly received by and normally presented to an end-user while it is being delivered by a streaming provider (the Events 49 BC - Julius Caesar 's General Gaius Scribonius Curio is defeated in the Second Battle of the Bagradas River 2000 ( MM) was a Leap year that started on Saturday of the Common Era, in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. 0 (based on ECMAScript, making it very similar to JavaScript in syntax), XML support, Smartclips (the precursor to components in Flash), HTML text formatting added for dynamic text
• Macromedia Flash MX (ver 6) (March 15, 2002): Released with Flash Player 6, new features included: a video codec (Sorenson Spark), Unicode, v1 UI Components, compression, ActionScript vector drawing API
• Macromedia Flash MX 2004 (ver 7) (September 9, 2003): Released with Flash Player 7, new features included: Actionscript 2. Don't change "Extensible" HTML, an initialism of HyperText Markup Language, is the predominant Markup language for Web pages It provides a means to describe the structure Events 44 BC - Julius Caesar, Dictator of the Roman Republic, is stabbed to death by Marcus Junius Brutus, See also 2002 (disambiguation Year 2002 ( MMII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. A codec is a device or program capable of encoding and/or decoding a Digital Data stream or signal. In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's In computer software a widget engine is a software service available to users for running and displaying desktop widgets on the desktop. Events 1000 - Battle of Svolder, Viking Age. 1379 - Treaty of Neuberg, splitting the Austrian Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. 0 (which enabled an object-oriented programming model for Flash), behaviors, extensibility layer (JSAPI), alias text support, timeline effects
• Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 (ver 7) (September 9, 2003): Released with Flash Player 7, new features included all Flash MX 2004 features plus: Screens (forms for non-linear state-based development and slides for organizing content in a linear slide format like PowerPoint), web services integration, video import wizard, Media Playback components (which encapsulate a complete MP3 and/or FLV player in a component that may be placed in an SWF), Data components (DataSet, XMLConnector, WebServicesConnector, XUpdateResolver, etc) and data binding APIs, the Project Panel, v2 UI components, and Transition class libraries. Object-oriented programming (OOP is a Programming paradigm that uses " objects " and their interactions to design applications and computer programs Events 1000 - Battle of Svolder, Viking Age. 1379 - Treaty of Neuberg, splitting the Austrian Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. Microsoft PowerPoint is a proprietary Presentation program developed by Microsoft. A Web service (also Web Service) is defined by the W3C as "a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction
• Macromedia Flash Basic 8 (released on September 13, 2005): A less feature-rich version of the Flash authoring tool targeted at new users who only want to do basic drawing, animation and interactivity. Events 509 BC - The Temple of Jupiter on Rome 's Capitoline Hill is dedicated on the ides of September Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Released with Flash Player 8, this version of the product has limited support for video and advanced graphical and animation effects.
• Macromedia Flash Professional 8 (released on September 13, 2005): Released with the Flash Player 8, Flash Professional 8 added features focused on expressiveness, quality, video, and mobile authoring. Events 509 BC - The Temple of Jupiter on Rome 's Capitoline Hill is dedicated on the ides of September Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. New features included Filters and blend modes, easing control for animation, enhanced stroke properties (caps and joins), object-based drawing mode, run-time bitmap caching, FlashType advanced anti-aliasing for text, On2 VP6 advanced video codec, support for alpha transparency in video, a stand-alone encoder and advanced video importer, cue point support in FLV files, an advanced video playback component, and an interactive mobile device emulator. On2 Technologies ( formerly known as The Duck Corporation, is a small publicly-traded company (on the American Stock Exchange) headquartered in Tarrytown
• Adobe Flash CS3 Professional (as version 9, released on April 16, 2007): Flash CS3 is the first version of Flash released under the Adobe name. Events 1178 BC - A Solar eclipse may have marked the return of Odysseus, legendary King of Ithaca, to his kingdom Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. CS3 features full support for ActionScript 3. 0, allows things to be converted into ActionScript, adds better integration with other Adobe products such as Adobe Photoshop, and also provides better Vector drawing behavior, becoming more similar to Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Fireworks. Adobe Fireworks, known as FW for short is a bitmap and Vector graphics editor.

(*Adobe Flash CS4 - the new version of flash, codenamed, "Diesel" -- Not to be confused with the latest public prerelease of the Flash 10 Player, code named "Astro" -- will contain inverse kinematics (bones), basic 3d object manipulation, object-based animation, an enhanced text engine, and further expansion on AS 3. Inverse kinematics is the process of determining the parameters of a jointed flexible object (a Kinematic chain) in order to achieve a desired pose 0. )

Future developments

Adobe Labs (previously Macromedia Labs) is a source for early looks at emerging products and technologies from Adobe-Macromedia, including downloads of the latest software and plugins. Flash 9, Flex 3, and ActionScript 3. Adobe Flex is a collection of technologies released by Adobe Systems for the development and deployment of cross platform Rich Internet applications based on the proprietary 0 are discussed on the labs. adobe. com website.

An important new development in Flash (as of 2007) is its increasing use in providing the presentation layer in handheld devices. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Adobe is courting cell phone and PDA vendors, and partnering to deploy Flash Lite as the user interface. Adobe Flash Lite is a lightweight version of Adobe Flash Player, a software application published by Adobe Systems.

As of November 2007 Adobe Labs is developing the Adobe AIR Project^[7] which is a cross-OS runtime that allows developers to reuse their existing web development skills (Flash, Flex, HTML, Ajax) to build and deploy desktop Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). November 2007 is the eleventh month of that year It began on a Thursday and 30 days later ended on a Friday Adobe AIR is a Cross-platform Runtime environment for building Rich Internet applications (RIAs are Web applications that have the features and functionality of traditional desktop applications.

The next version of Flash will have two additional components designed for large scale implementation. Adobe is adding in the option to require an ad to be played in full before the main video piece is played. This would be most useful for large scale video sites. Also, Adobe has announced plans to add DRM into the new version of Flash. This way Adobe can give companies the option to link an advertisement with content and make sure that both are played and that they not be changed. ^[8]

Open Screen Project

On May 1, 2008 Adobe announced Open Screen Project,^[9] which wants to drive rich Internet experiences and create a consistent application interface across all devices like personal computers, mobile devices or consumer electronics. Events 305 - Diocletian and Maximian retire from the office of Roman Emperor. 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common The Internet is a global system of interconnected Computer networks A personal computer ( PC) is any Computer whose original sales price size and capabilities make it useful for individuals and which is intended to be operated A mobile device (also known as cellphone device, handheld device, handheld computer, "Palmtop" or simply handheld) is a pocket-sized Consumer electronics include electronic equipment intended for everyday use ^[10][11] It is perceived that the main goal of the project is to bring Adobe Flash to mobile phones. ^[12] The project brings advantages to device makers - it abolishes licencing fees for Adobe Flash Player and Adobe Integrated Runtime, removes restrictions on the use of the Shockwave Flash (SWF) and Flash Video (FLV) file formats and publishes Application Programming Interfaces for porting Flash to new devices. The Adobe Flash Player is a widely distributed proprietary multimedia and application player created by Macromedia and now developed and distributed by Adobe Adobe AIR is a Cross-platform Runtime environment for building The File format SWF (acronym of " Shockwave Flash "pronounced swiff)a partially open repository for multimedia and especially Flash Video is the name of a File format used to deliver Video over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player (initially produced A file format is a particular way to encode information for storage in a Computer file. It also publishes Flash Cast protocol and Action Message Format (AMF), which let Flash applications receive information from remote databases. ^[13] Some developers reported the actual licences missing from the project documentation, but Adobe stated to address the issue. ^[14]

Programming language

Main article: ActionScript

Initially focused on animation, early versions of Flash content offered few interactivity features and thus had very limited scripting capability. ActionScript is a scripting language based on ECMAScript. ActionScript is used primarily for the development of websites and software using the Adobe Flash Player

More recent versions include ActionScript, an implementation of the ECMAScript standard which therefore has the same syntax as JavaScript, but in a different programming framework with a different associated set of class libraries. ECMAScript is a Scripting language, standardized by Ecma International in the ECMA-262 specification. ActionScript is used to create almost all of the interactivity (buttons, text entry fields, drop down menus) seen in many Flash applications.

Flash MX 2004 introduced ActionScript 2. 0, a scripting programming language more suited to the development of Flash applications. "Scripting" redirects here For other uses see Script. It is often possible to save a lot of time by scripting something rather than animating it, which usually also enables a higher level of editability.

Since The Arrival of the Flash Player 9 alpha a newer version of ActionScript has been released, ActionScript 3. 0. ActionScript 3. 0 is an object oriented programming language allowing for more control and code reusability when building complex Flash applications. An object-oriented Programming language (also called an OO language) is one that allows or encourages to some degree Object-oriented programming ActionScript 3. 0 has also allowed for formal software engineering methods to be implemented when working with Flash, this is because of the object oriented programming approach. Object-oriented programming (OOP is a Programming paradigm that uses " objects " and their interactions to design applications and computer programs

Of late, the Flash libraries are being used with the XML capabilities of the browser to render rich content in the browser. This technology is known as Asynchronous Flash and XML, much like AJAX. This technology of Asynchronous Flash and XML has pushed for a more formal approach of this technology called Adobe Flex, which uses the Flash runtime to build Rich Internet Applications. Adobe Flex is a collection of technologies released by Adobe Systems for the development and deployment of cross platform Rich Internet applications based on the proprietary Rich Internet applications (RIAs are Web applications that have the features and functionality of traditional desktop applications.

This technology can be used in players like those on MySpace and YouTube, to provide protection for the content that the Flash calls, like MP3s and videos. MySpace is a popular social networking Website offering an interactive user-submitted network of friends personal profiles blogs groups photos music and YouTube is a video sharing website where users can upload view and share Video clips YouTube was created in February 2005 by three former PayPal employees The content called is streamed - or passes - through the Flash files, making downloading for storage a difficult task for most people. Programs such as Real Player Downloader and browser extensions like Firebug can trace the XML files. The Firebug extension for Mozilla Firefox allows the debugging editing and monitoring of any website's CSS HTML DOM and JavaScript and provides other web development tools

Content protection

Often, Flash authors will decide that while they desire the advantages that Flash affords them in the areas of animation and interactivity, they do not wish to expose their images and/or code to the world. However, once an . swf file is saved locally, it may then quite easily be decompiled into its source code and assets. A decompiler is the name given to a Computer program that performs the reverse operation to that of a Compiler. Some decompilers are capable of nearly full reconstruction of the original source file, down to the actual code that was used during creation.

In opposition to the decompilers, SWF obfuscators have been introduced to provide a modicum of security, some produced by decompiler authors themselves. Obfuscated code is Source code or Intermediate language that is very hard to read and understand often intentionally The higher-quality obfuscators use traps for the decompilers, making some fail, but none have definitively been shown to protect all content.

Competition

Format and plug-in

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. A Java Virtual Machine ( JVM) is a set of computer software programs and data structures which use a Virtual machine Adobe Acrobat is a family of computer programs developed by Adobe Systems, designed to view create manipulate and manage files in Adobe's Portable Document QuickTime is a Multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc, capable of handling various formats of Digital video, Media clips sound text Windows Media Player ( WMP) is a digital media player and media library application developed by Microsoft that is used for playing However, care must be taken to detect and embed the Flash Player in (X)HTML in a W3C compliant way. A simple and widely used workaround is provided below:

<object data="movie. swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="500" height="500">    <param name="movie" value="movie. swf" /></object>

More Information on how to detect and embed Flash Objects in a W3C compliant way is provided in the xSWF description.

The use of vector graphics combined with program code allows Flash files to be smaller, or streams to use less bandwidth, than the corresponding bitmaps or video clips. For content in a single format (such as just text, video or audio) other alternatives may provide better performance and consume less CPU power than the corresponding Flash movie, for example when using transparency or making large screen updates such as photographic or text fades.

In addition to a vector-rendering engine, the Flash Player includes a virtual machine called the ActionScript Virtual Machine (AVM) for scripting interactivity at run-time, support for video, MP3-based audio, and bitmap graphics. As of Flash Player 8, it offers two video codecs: On2 Technologies VP6 and Sorenson Spark, and run-time support for JPEG, Progressive JPEG, PNG, and GIF. The Sorenson codec (also known as Sorenson Video Codec, Sorenson Video Quantizer or SVQ) is a Digital video Codec devised by the company Portable Network Graphics ( PNG) is a bitmapped image format that employs Lossless data compression. In the next version, Flash is slated to use a just-in-time compiler for the ActionScript engine. In Computing, just-in-time compilation ( JIT) also known as dynamic translation, is a technique for improving the runtime performance of a Computer

Market share

Flash as a format has become very widespread on the desktop market and created a market dominance. Market dominance is a measure of the strength of a Brand, product, service, or firm, relative to competitive offerings Adobe claims that 98 percent of US Web users and 99. 3 percent of all Internet desktop users have the Flash Player installed,^[15][16] with 45%–56%^[17] (depending on region) having the latest version. Numbers vary depending on the detection scheme and research demographics.

The Adobe Flash Player exists for a variety of systems and devices: Windows, Mac OS 9/X, Linux (only 32 bit x86, sound may not work), Solaris, HP-UX, Pocket PC, OS/2, QNX, Symbian, Palm OS, BeOS, and IRIX). Mac OS 9 is the final major release of Apple's "Classic" Mac OS. Mac OS X (mæk oʊ ɛs tɛn is a line of computer Operating systems developed marketed and sold by Apple Inc, the latest of which is pre-loaded on all currently See also X86 assembly language The generic term x86 refers to the most commercially successful Instruction set architecture in the history of Personal Solaris is a Unix -based Operating system introduced by Sun Microsystems in 1992 as the successor to SunOS. HP-UX (Hewlett Packard UniX is Hewlett-Packard 's proprietary implementation of the Unix Operating system, based on System V (initially A Pocket PC, abbreviated P/PC or PPC, is a hardware Specification for a Handheld -sized Computer ( Personal digital assistant OS/2 is a computer Operating system, initially created by Microsoft and IBM, then later developed by IBM exclusively QNX (pronounced either Q-N-X or Q-nix is a commercial Unix-like Real-time operating system, aimed primarily at the Embedded systems market Symbian OS is an open Operating system, designed for Mobile devices with associated libraries, User interface frameworks and Palm OS (also known as Garnet OS) is an embedded Operating system initially developed by U BeOS is an Operating system for Personal computers which began development by Be Inc IRIX is a computer Operating system developed by Silicon Graphics Inc For compatibility with devices (embedded systems), see Macromedia Flash Lite. Adobe Flash Lite is a lightweight version of Adobe Flash Player, a software application published by Adobe Systems.

Open standard alternatives

A full end-to-end implementation of the W3C SVG and SMIL specifications would offer close competition for most of the features of Flash 8 and earlier. SMIL (ˈsmaɪl "smile" the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language, is a W3C recommended XML Markup language for describing Adobe used to develop and distribute the 'Adobe SVG Viewer' client plug-in for MS Internet Explorer, but has recently announced its discontinuation. ^[18] It has been noted by industry commentators that this is probably no coincidence at a time when Adobe has moved from competing with Macromedia's Flash, to owning the technology itself. ^[19] Meanwhile, Opera has supported SVG since version 8,^[20] and Firefox's built-in support for SVG continues to grow. Opera is a Web browser and Internet suite developed by the Opera Software company ^[21] Open source did take a shot at developing a complete replacement for Adobe Flash. This program was called UIRA. UIRA was a project for a Linux alternative to the Adobe Flash IDE This project collapsed, however, in mid 2007, though people are now being called upon to revive/continue the project. ^[22]

In May, 2008 Adobe launch Open Screen Project which will remove restrictions on use of the SWF and FLV/F4V specifications. MAY ( also known as: Mei メイ 메이 is a Korean singer well known in South Korea for singing the song "Miracle" 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common

Third-party implementation

Specifications

In October 1998, Macromedia disclosed the Flash Version 3 Specification to the world on its website. Year 1998 ( MCMXCVIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar) It did this in response to many new and often semi-open formats competing with SWF, such as Xara's Flare and Sharp's Extended Vector Animation formats. Xara Flare Open Vector File Format is a format that was introduced in 1997 by XARA to compete with the Macromedia Flash format Extended Vector Animation ( EVA) is a web-based vector graphic file format developed by Sharp Corporation in 1996. Several developers quickly created a C library for producing SWF. tags please moot on the talk page first! --> In Computing, C is a general-purpose cross-platform block structured The C standard library (also known as libc) is a now-standardized collection of Header files and library routines used to implement common operations such In February 1999, the company introduced MorphInk 99, the first third party program to create SWF files. February 1999 was a month with twenty-eight days The following events also occurred during the month Macromedia also hired Middlesoft to create a freely available developers' kit for the SWF file format versions 3 to 5. A software development kit ( SDK or " devkit " is typically a set of development tools that allows a Software engineer to create applications

Macromedia made the Flash Files specifications for versions 6 and later available only under a non-disclosure agreement, but it is widely available from various sites. A non-disclosure agreement (NDA also known as a confidentiality agreement, confidential disclosure agreement (CDA proprietary information agreement

In April 2006, the Flash SWF file format specification was released with details on the then newest version format (Flash 8). Stories without links will be removed'. News stories must be in English Although still lacking specific information on the incorporated video compression formats (On2, Sorenson Spark, etc. ), this new documentation covered all the new features offered in Flash v8 including new ActionScript commands, expressive filter controls, and so on. The file format specification document is offered only to developers who agree to a license agreement that permits them to use the specifications only to develop programs that can export to the Flash file format. The license forbids the use of the specifications to create programs that can be used for playback of Flash files. The Flash 9 specification was made available under similar restrictions. ^[23]

Playback

Since Flash files do not depend on an open standard such as SVG, this reduces the incentive for non-commercial software to support the format, although there are several third party tools which use and generate the SWF file format. The File format SWF (acronym of " Shockwave Flash "pronounced swiff)a partially open repository for multimedia and especially IrfanView is capable of playing SWF files. IrfanView is a Freeware Image viewer for Microsoft Windows that can view edit and convert image files and play video/audio formats There is a large and vibrant open source community. Flash Player cannot ship as part of a pure open source, or completely free operating system, as its distribution is bound to the Macromedia Licensing Program and subject to approval. The Adobe Flash Player is a widely distributed proprietary multimedia and application player created by Macromedia and now developed and distributed by Adobe Open source is a development methodology which offers practical accessibility to a product's source (goods and knowledge Free software or software libre is Software that can be used studied and modified without restriction and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified

There is, as of late 2007, no complete free software replacement which offers all the functionality of the latest version of Adobe Flash Player. Gnash, based on GameSWF, is a Flash player replacement that is under development and has the support of the Free Software Foundation - see High Priority Free Software Projects. The Gnash project aims to create a free player and Browser plugin for the Adobe Flash file format and replace the Proprietary software niche GameSWF (pronounced "game swiff" is an Open source Public domain library for parsing and rendering SWF movies using 3D The Free Software Foundation ( FSF) is a Non-profit corporation founded by Richard Stallman on 4 October 1985 to support the Free software movement The Free Software Foundation ( FSF) is a Non-profit corporation founded by Richard Stallman on 4 October 1985 to support the Free software movement Gnash supports Flash 7 and below, but not files that require version 8 or 9 features. ^[24] Swfdec is another open-source flash player available for Linux and FreeBSD and SWFOpener is a good program if functionality is needed. Swfdec is a free / open source replacement to the Adobe Flash web multimedia player FreeBSD is a Unix-like free Operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD branch through

Authoring

Open Source projects like Ajax Animator, and (the now defunct) UIRA aim to create a flash development environment, complete with a graphical user environment. Open source is a development methodology which offers practical accessibility to a product's source (goods and knowledge UIRA was a project for a Linux alternative to the Adobe Flash IDE Alternatively, programs such as swfmill, SWFTools, and MTASC provide tools to create SWF files, but do so by compiling text, actionscript or XML files into Flash animations. swfmill is a Free software command line tool that generates SWF files SWFTools is a suite of software tools to create and manipulate SWF files MTASC (Motion-Twin ActionScript 2 Compiler is an Open-source ActionScript 2 A Flash animation or Flash cartoon is an animated Film which is created using Adobe Flash animation software and often distributed in the It is also possible to create SWF files programmatically using the Ming library, which has interfaces for C, PHP, C++, Perl, Python, and Ruby. Ming is a C library for creating Adobe Flash ( swf) files It is often packaged as a PHP module this allows for the dynamic generation of Flash tags please moot on the talk page first! --> In Computing, C is a general-purpose cross-platform block structured PHP is a computer Scripting language. Originally designed for producing Dynamic web pages it has evolved to include a Command line interface capability C++ (" C Plus Plus " ˌsiːˌplʌsˈplʌs is a general-purpose Programming language. NOTES FOR EDITORS "Perl" is not an acronym (read the "Name" section below Python is a general-purpose High-level programming language. Its design philosophy emphasizes programmer productivity and code readability Ruby is a dynamic, reflective, general purpose Object-oriented programming language that combines syntax inspired by Perl with Smalltalk haXe is an open source, high-level object-oriented programming language geared towards web-content creation that can compile Flash files. haXe is a Programming language, designed for creating interactive Web applications Currently there are four official compiler targets - Adobe Flash

Many shareware developers produced Flash creation tools and sold them for under US$50 between 2000 and 2002. The term shareware, popularized by Bob Wallace, refers to Copyrighted commercial Software that is Distributed without payment on a trial In 2003 competition and the emergence of free Flash creation tools had driven many third-party Flash-creation tool-makers out of the market, allowing the remaining developers to raise their prices, although many of the products still cost less than US$100 and support ActionScript. As for open source tools, KToon can edit vectors and generate SWF, but its interface is very different from Macromedia's. KToon is a 2D computer graphics animation toolkit designed by Colombian Toonka Films for animators Another, more recent example of a Flash creation tool is SWiSH Max made by an ex-employee of Macromedia. SWiSH Max is a program that utilises Adobe Flash technology to create Cross-platform compatible presentations Toon Boom Technologies also sells traditional animation tool, based on Flash - Toon-Army. British spellings. Thank you --> Toon Boom Animation Inc is a Canadian

Other tools are focussed on creating specific types of Flash content. Anime Studio is a 2D animation software specialised for character animation which creates SWF files. Anime Studio is a proprietary vector -based 2D animation software for animators originally distributed by LostMarble later by E frontier. Express Animator is similarly aimed specifically at animators. Express Animator is a software program for making animations primarily Flash animations for websites Question Writer publishes its quizzes to Flash file format. Question Writer is a quiz authoring tool for Microsoft Windows.

Users that are not programmers or web designers will also find on line tools that allows to build a full Flash-based web site. One of the oldest services available (1998) is FlashToGo. Such companies provide a wide variety of pre-built models (templates) associated to a Content Management System that empowers users to easily build, edit and publish their web sites.

Adobe wrote a software package called Adobe LiveMotion, designed to create interactive animation content and export it to a variety of formats, including SWF. Adobe LiveMotion was a product created by Adobe Systems released in 2000 and perceived as a direct competitor to Macromedia Flash. LiveMotion went through two major releases, but failed to gain any notable user base.

In February 2003, Macromedia purchased Presedia, which had developed a Flash authoring tool that automatically converted PowerPoint Files into Flash. February 2003: January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - Macromedia subsequently released the new product as Breeze, which included many new enhancements. Since that time, Macromedia has seen competing PowerPoint-to-Flash authoring tools from PointeCast (not to be confused with PointCast) and PresentationPro among others. In addition, (as of version 2) Apple's Keynote presentation software also allows users to create interactive presentations and export to SWF. Apple Inc, ( formerly Apple Computer Inc, is an American Multinational corporation with a focus on designing and manufacturing Consumer electronics Keynote is a presentation software application developed as a part of the IWork productivity suite (which also includes Pages and Numbers

Wikimedia projects and Flash

The Wikimedia Foundation has partnered with Kaltura to experiment with user-created Flash animation in a wiki environment. The Wikimedia Foundation Inc is a Non-profit charitable organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, United States, Kaltura is a Software company based in New York which was founded in 2006 A wiki is a page or collection of Web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content using a simplified Markup language. ^[25]

Related file formats and extensions

Video in web pages

Flash is increasingly used as a way to display video clips on web pages, a feature available since Flash Player version 6. The key to this success has been the player's wide distribution in multiple browsers and operating systems, rather than any superior video quality or properties. It is available for many popular platforms, including Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Flash is used as the basis for many popular video sites, including YouTube and Google Video. Google Video is a free video sharing website and also a video service from Google that allows anyone to upload Video Clips to Google's web One major flaw with multimedia embedded through Flash, however, is the considerable performance penalty placed on playback hardware as compared with a purpose built multimedia playback system. Many files that drop frames and skip audio when embedded within Flash play without any issues using other multimedia formats on the same hardware.

Flash Video (. flv files) is a container format, meaning that it is not a video format in itself, but can contain other formats. A container format is a computer file format that can contain various types of data compressed by means of standardized audio/video codecs. The video in Flash is encoded in H.263, and starting with Flash player 8, it may alternatively be encoded in VP6. H263 is a Video codec standard originally designed as a low-bitrate compressed format for Videoconferencing. The audio is in MP3. The use of VP6 is common in many companies, because of the large adoption rates of Flash Player 8 and Flash Player 9. ^[17]

On August 20, 2007, Adobe announced on its blog that with Update 3 of the Flash Player, Flash Video will also support the MPEG-4 international standard. Events 636 - Battle of Yarmouk: Arab forces led by Khalid ibn al-Walid take control of Syria and Palestine Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. MPEG-4 is a collection of methods defining compression of audio and visual (AV digital data ^[27] Specifically, Flash Player will have support for video compressed in H.264 (MPEG-4 Part 10), audio compressed using AAC (MPEG-4 Part 3), the MP4, M4V, M4A, 3GP and MOV multimedia container formats (MPEG-4 Part 14), 3GPP Timed Text specification (MPEG-4 Part 17) which is a standardized subtitle format and partial parsing support for the 'ilst' atom which is the ID3 equivalent iTunes uses to store metadata. H264 is a standard for Video compression. It is also known as MPEG-4 Part 10, or MPEG-4 AVC (for Advanced Video Coding) Advanced Audio Coding ( AAC) is a standardized lossy compression and encoding scheme for Digital audio. MPEG-4 Part 14, formally ISO / IEC 14496-142003, is a Multimedia Container format standard specified as a part of MPEG-4 3GP is a Multimedia Container format defined by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP for use on 3G Mobile phones but can A container format is a computer file format that can contain various types of data compressed by means of standardized audio/video codecs. The 3rd Generation Partnership Project ( 3GPP) is a collaboration between groups of telecommunications associations to make a globally applicable third generation ( 3G Timed Text refers to the presentation of text media in synchrony with other media such as audio and video ID3 is a Metadata container most often used in conjunction with the MP3 Audio file format. iTunes is a proprietary digital media player application introduced by Apple Inc Metadata ( meta data, or sometimes metainformation) is "data about data" of any sort in any media Adobe also announced that they will be gradually moving away from the proprietary FLV format to the standard MP4 format owing to functional limits with the FLV structure when streaming H. 264. The final release of the Flash Player supporting MPEG-4 had become available in Fall 2007. ^[28]

Criticisms

Main article: Criticism of Adobe Flash

Criticism of Adobe Flash have included questions of its usability, the problems Flash-laden pages cause for those with disabilities, security issues, limited platform compatibility, performance and compatibility issues on certain platforms, the inability for search engines to index data contained in Flash binary data, and its use as a means to restrict access to content and the implementation of Digital Rights Management. Adobe Flash as a format has become very widespread on the desktop market and created a Market dominance. Digital rights management ( DRM) is a generic term that refers to Access control technologies used by hardware manufacturers publishers and Copyright holders

See also

• OpenLaszlo
• Liveswif
• Newgrounds

References

External links

• Adobe Flash Player