Macromedia Flash

It’s dark. Suddenly there’s a flash of lightning

followed by the rumbling sound of thunder. As you wait with bated breath, out of the

distant darkness there comes the text scrolling out. And the darkness gradually fades into

a bright and cheerful scene.

No, we are not describing the opening sequence of some

video game or a multimedia CD-ROM, but a Website. Yes, you read it correctly–a

Website. And we didn’t wait for more than 30 seconds for this sequence to download

and play out in its full majesty.

Well, let’s end the suspense. This Website has been

created using Flash 3–a program from Macromedia for creating vector-based animation

on the Web. And in the hands of creative artists around the world, it’s fast emerging

as the third-generation Web publishing tool (HTML and DHTML being the first and second).

Complete Websites are now being created using Flash. Some of them so amazing in their

content and presentation that we are sure even the folks at Macromedia never envisaged it.

Flash started out as Future Splash by a company called

FutureWave, way back in August 1996. FutureWave Software was acquired by Macromedia in

January 1997. FutureSplash animator was renamed Macromedia Flash. Presently Flash is in

its third version.

Web authoring using Flash

The user interface of Flash is different from any other Web

authoring tool you might have ever used, and a first time user might find the interface a

bit confusing. Your work area is called the stage. You work along a time-line in which you

have to insert frames. It’s same as an animation or multimedia-authoring program. In

Flash you create movies. The objects that you work on are known as symbols and are stored

in libraries. Symbols can be created using the tools provided by Flash or can be imported

using any of the wide variety of file formats supported (including GIF, JPG,

PNG, etc).

The trace bitmap feature in Flash also gives fair results. The symbols thus created can be

assigned the behavior of graphics, buttons or movie clips. Movie clips are special

symbols, in the sense that they themselves can be complete animation sequences placed

within your main movie. Symbols are placed within your movie after inserting key frames.

Key frames are special frames where you can define events or the action to take place.

Take a very simple example. If you want your symbol

to travel from point A to point B over a period of, say, 12 frames, you have to first

insert a key frame at frame 1. Now place your symbol at point A. Next insert a key frame

at frame 12 and place your symbol at point B. To complete the animation you set the tween

property for motion, and viola! when you play the movie, your symbol will smoothly travel

from point A to point B.

The operative word here is tweening–short for

betweening. Tweening allows you to determine the frames between the two key frames without

actually having to draw each of them. You can also tween along a path and rotate your

symbol along the way. Shape tweening allows you to morph your symbol between two shapes,

such as changing a circle into letter S and so on. You can use any TrueType font available

on your computer and Flash will convert it to vectors for use on the Web (when you publish

it). You also have full control over attributes like word, line and paragraph spacing,

justification, kerning, etc.

Interactivity is added to a flash movie by defining symbols

as buttons. A wide variety of actions can be assigned to these for various mouse events.

With these you can make your usual buttons, menus and some of the most unusual user

interfaces on the Web. Sounds, streaming or more can also be added.

For publishing on the Web, the Flash movie has to be

exported as a Shockwave file and then embedded in an HTML document. The Aftershock utility

provided with Flash does a very good job of automatically generating all the necessary

code for cross browser embedding. But if you wish to do complex things like controlling

movies across frames or via HTML links, then you’ll have to dirty your hands with the

JavaScript code.

To view works created by Flash you require either the

Shockwave plug-in or the ActiveX component, which are very small (by today’s

standards), are easily downloadable and install without any user intervention.

Netscape has already incorporated Shockwave as a native

file format in its browser. The Linux version of the Flash plug-in for Netscape Navigator

is also available. Macromedia has made the Shockwave file format an open file format (to

find out more visit www.openswf.org).

Meanwhile most developers are making two versions of their

sites. Flash and HTML, and have a small detection script direct the user to appropriate

page. However, you still can’t completely do away with HTML because one thing that

Flash is sorely lacking is form elements, or more precisely, the text input field (which

is high on the wish list for version 4).

There’s a general perception that Flash sites are

slow. Well, rather than argue for or against this, we’ll like to state that a Flash

site need not be slow at all because Flash is a streaming media. For example, a movie or a

site need not be downloaded completely before you can start showing it. You can start the

introductory text in the first few seconds itself. Flash also has several tools that allow

you to preview how the movie will stream at various modem speeds without having to upload

your server. It also has a bandwidth profiler which can give you frame by frame report on

bandwidth usage. So by intelligent placement of elements on your site, you can ensure that

visitors need not wait.

You can convert your Flash movie into Real Media. But doing

that will rob it of all its interactivity.

Flash Generator

Any Flash movie can be adapted for use as a Generator file.

Flash Generator is a Web server-based application that automates the creation of

data-driven Flash and GIF graphics, such as real-time headlines, weather maps, and

personalized user interfaces. Generator dynamically composites data—such as in a

stock-ticker text or in sports scores—to a Flash movie that has been prepared and

exported as a template file.