An introduction to flash

i suddenly had the urge to write about flash. friend had been asking me about flash because of its awesome animation and capability to produce wonderful results be it used on the web or as a stand-alone version.

the flash interface enables the user to create a movie quickly with it's time line and layers. it has frames just like any other movies in editing mode. and it's tweening technology causes simplicity in animation.

it has also incorporated interactivity with the integration of ActionScript. this script allows as to create a program which can handle variables and databases. a one big step to revolution. now, flashers are able to create games and highscore tables to chat rooms and online multiplayer games with flash -- that's the big thing.

although some say SMIL (synchronised multimedia interface language) is going to threaten the survival of flash in the HTML world, i personaly don't agree to it. flash has it's plus points which SMIL cannot replace. one of which would be creating beautiful graphics. moreover you can convert the save the file in a variety of formats from the gif and jpg to quicktime movies. so that it can also be run on a VCD player.

being a multi-purpose program, i guess flash would continue to live on if Macromedia continues to improve the functionality. perharps the only bad point is it's compatibility with older browsers and the requirement of a plugin.