Flash

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Definition

Adobe Flash, or simply Flash, refers to both the Adobe Flash Player, and to the Adobe Flash Professional multimedia authoring program. The player features support for vector and raster graphics, a scripting language called ActionScript and bi-directional streaming of audio and video. (Wikipedia, retrieved 12 July 2007).

This page contains some general definitions, as well as links and references to tutorials, software and other websites.

Flash tutorials in EduTech Wiki

In EduTech Wiki we will try to develop a few introductory Flash tutorials for Flash version 9 (aka Flash CS3). I will use these in my COAP 2110 course (Fall 1 2007) and STIC III (Fall 2007) - Daniel K. Schneider 30 August 2007.

So far, we have these (some may be under construction; a beginners series should be completed by the end of sept. 2007):

Setting up Flash and understanding the environment
  1. Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium installation
  2. Flash CS3 desktop tutorial
Basic drawing
  1. Flash drawing tutorial
  2. Flash layers tutorial
  3. Clipart and texture (to help you finding/importing media elements)
Basic animation
  1. Flash frame-by-frame animation tutorial
  2. Flash motion tweening tutorial
  3. Flash shape tweening tutorial
  4. Flash animation summary
Advanced drawing
  1. Flash object transform tutorial
  2. Flash arranging objects tutorial
  3. Flash colors tutorial
Basic interactivity
  1. Flash button tutorial
  2. Flash components tutorial
Overviews (not tutorials)
  1. Flash CS3 keyboard shortcuts
  2. Flash ActionScript 3 overview

Flash related file formats and extensions

Copyright notice: The table below has been copied more or less as it from Wikipedia's Macromedia Flash article on July 12, 2007. Its contents are available under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Ext. Explanation
.swf .swf files are completed, compiled and published files that cannot be edited with Adobe Flash. However, many '.swf decompilers' do exist. Attempting to import .swf files using Flash allows it to retrieve some assets from the .swf, but not all.
.fla .fla files contain source material for the Flash application. Flash authoring software can edit FLA files and compile them into .swf files.
.as .as files contain ActionScript source code in simple source files. FLA files can also contain Actionscript code directly, but separate external .as files often emerge for structural reasons, or to expose the code to versioning applications. They sometimes use the extension .actionscript
.swd .swd files are temporary debugging files used during Flash development. Once finished developing a Flash project these files are not needed and can be removed.
.asc .asc files contain Server-Side ActionScript, which is used to develop efficient and flexible client-server Macromedia Flash Communication Server MX applications.
.flv .flv files are Flash video files, as created by Adobe Flash, ffmpeg, Sorenson Squeeze, or On2 Flix. It's container format that uses (mostly) h.263 for video and MP3 for audio.
.swc .swc files are used for distributing components; they contain a compiled clip, the component's ActionScript class file, and other files that describe the component.
.jsfl .jsfl files are used to add functionality in the Flash Authoring environment; they contain Javascript code and access the Flash Javascript API.
.swt .swt files are 'templatized' forms of .swf files, used by Macromedia Generator.
.flp .flp files are XML files used to reference all the document files contained in a Flash Project. Flash Projects allow the user to group multiple, related files together to assist in Flash project organization, compilation and build.
.spl .spl files are FutureSplash documents.
.aso .aso files are cache files used during Flash development, containing compiled ActionScript byte code. An ASO file is recreated when a change in its corresponding class files is detected. Occasionally the Flash IDE does not recognize that a recompile is necessary, and these cache files must be deleted manually. They are located in %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash8\en\Configuration\Classes\aso on Win32 / Flash8.
.avi AVI file is a video file, standing for Audio Video Interleave. Flash includes several compression codecs, including some from Radius.
.gif A GIF image; either a single static frame or multi-frame animation.
.png A PortableNetworkGraphic image.

Alternative technologies

General formats
Others

See also multimedia authoring systems and computer games. Some of these have their own format, some can export to more common formats.

Links for software and media elements

General / Indexes

  • OsFlash has a large comprehensive list of links to Open Source Flash projects, both those hosted on OSFlash and elsewhere. Of particular interest are tools that generate flash in various ways.

Viewers

  • Adobe (Flash player download)
  • Gnash (Wikipedia article) A project which aims to create a player and browser plugin for the Adobe Flash file format which is free software.

Authoring tools

  • SWISH. An alternative set of commercial products to produce Flash. Much cheaper and somewhat easier it seems, but doesn't export to *.fla files (so you can't import to the Adobe authoring tool). See the Wikipedia article.
  • UIRA A project to make a free authoring tool. Should output both Flash and SVG. (development seems to have stalled in 2007).
  • FLAME. A similar project. For the moment, outputs SVG.

Special purpose authoring tools

  • Adobe Captivate. An authoring environment to create simulations, scenario-based training, and robust quizzes. Can importexport to Flash *.fla documents.
  • Adobe Flex is a software development kit and an IDE for a group of technologies to make [rich internet application]s with Flash, HTML, JavaScript etc.).
  • OpenOffice Impress (the power point clone) can produce *.swf
  • Some capturing tools (see screen capture, photo gallery makers, and video editing software can export to Flash.

Generating Flash

  • Ming Ming is a C library for generating SWF ("Flash") format movies, plus a set of wrappers for using the library from C++ and popular scripting languages like PHP, Perl, Python, and Ruby.

Reusable flash code (*.fla)

Indexes
Free (need more)
Commercial (I only want to have 5-6, the best at some point and not a long list ...)

In addition, you also should know that you can import several vector graphics formats. e.g. Windows Metafile formats into Flash CS3 (speeds up drawing).

Media for building your own scenes

Tutorial and reference links

This section only should index good and free tutorials. No junk indexes with nothing but advertizements. There is also a problem with Flash Version. Various Flash versions are considerably different.

Web sites with tutorials

(both just links or "real" repositories)

Collections - both text and videos
  • Oman3D. Contains both good text and video tutorials (the latter from learnflash.com).
Collections - mostly video
  • Wikivid Flash. Index of Video Tutorials (mostly Flash 8, but CS3 is similar) from the whole web. Probably the biggest index of training videos.
  • cartoonsmart.com/ Includes three good Flash video tutorials, e.g. shape tweening and a button tutorial.
  • LearnFlash.com. (Some good free ones, scroll down, for more registration is needed)
Collections - mostly text tutorials
  • lukamaras.com Probably one of the best short tutorials site (mostly Flash MX/Flash 8)
  • WebWasp (some content is free, *.fla files are sold)
  • ToxicLab.org. About 99 little Flash tutorials submitted by various people. The ones I have seen are short and nice.
Collections - to sort out
  • Flash Kit Index of Tutorials (lots of outdated ones too).
  • Subsites of http://about.com, e.g. webdesign and [http:animation.about.com animation] have several flash related resources. You need to search ...

Recommended introductory CS3 tutorials

(almost empty for now, I'd like to have the top 2 per category)

Drawing
Motion tweening
Shape tweening
ActionScript 2.0
ActionScript 3.0

Academic Flash courses

(should include lecture notes or Slides, plus examples)

Cheatsheets

Other links

General

Links to Adobe

(includes some tutorials, including video tutorials)

Help

Good Flash examples

Artsy websites
Flash trailers for company websites / advertizements
Flash comics

(missing so far)

Books

No idea if they are any good, except Veer, The Missing Manual which is great for learning drawing and the Flash CS3 tool. It doesn't cover ActionScript 3.

  • Adobe Creative Team (2007). Adobe Flash CS3 Professional Classroom in a Book. ISBN 0321499824
  • Anderson, Andy (2007). Adobe Flash CS3 Professional On Demand. ISBN 0789736926 592 pages.
  • Finkelstein Ellen and Gurdy Leete (2007). Flash CS3 For Dummies. ISBN 0470121009, 408 pages.
  • Gerantabee, Fred (August ? 2007). Dynamic Learning: Flash CS3 Professional. ISBN 10 0-596-51058-6
  • Veer, E.A. Vander and Chris Grover (2007). Flash CS3: The Missing Manual. ISBN 0596510446 - 527 pages. - O'Reilly page (From reviews on the web, this looks like the most suitable one for starters. The example files can be found on the Missing CD-ROM page. Daniel K. Schneider bought this and I think it's ok, can be used as a textbook, if you agree to cover topics by topics v.s a more project-oriented approach.)
  • Morris David (2007). Creating a Web Site with Flash CS3 Professional: Visual QuickProject Guide. ISBN 0321503007
  • Moock, Colin, Essential ActionScript 3.0. ISBN 0-596-52694-6. (From reviews on the web, this seems to be best action script 3.0 book)
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