Flash What is Flash? Multimedia platform used to add animation, - - PDF document

Flash

What is Flash?

• Multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and

interactivity to web pages.

• Supports bidirectional video and audio streaming.
• Can capture keyboard, mouse, microphone, and camera input.
• The adobe flash player is required to view flash content.
• It is available for common web browsers and on many mobile

devices.

• Attempting to position it self as a solution for Rich Internet

application development as of 2009.

Strengths of Flash

• Quick UI development
• Creation of rich and interactive interfaces
• Quick graphics creation
• Animation features like tweens, bone structure, etc
• Large developer community.
• Well documented.
• Quick and easy deployment
• Vector Graphics allow for easy scalability.

Deployment

• Embed an obj ect and give it a path.
• Minimal code needed to embed in html:

<obj ect width="550" height="400"> <param name="movie" value="Untitled-1.swf"> <embed src="Untitled-1.swf" width="550" height="400" / > </ obj ect>

• Add .swf file and resources to server.
• No server changes needed. Only client requires software

to run.

Market

Flash is ubiquitous

• 95% of PCs and 99.3% of web-enabled desktops in America have a

flash plug-in installed

• 92-95% of flash-enabled machines have the latest version
• Therefore, unless developing for iOS, Flash is a safe bet.
• "Many important and popular websites require users to have a

Flash player, sometimes with no fallback for non-Flash web users."

• -Wikipedia

Performance and Security

• Shown in benchmarks to be equal to or better than HTML5
• Poor performance due to poor programming.
• Flash has vulnerabilities that can be attacked
• Adobe has recently officially apologized after taking a year to

fix a major and well known security vulnerability.

• Steve Jobs has arguably been Flash's biggest opponent, citing

performance and security issues.

• But it has been suggested that Flash represents a large threat to

Apple's lucrative "App Store"

Animation in Flash CS5

• Provided tool allow user to easily create smooth animation.

Examples of these tools include:

• Tweens to create smooth animation from point A to B
• Bone structure to create smooth animation of objects
• Tools for smooth 3D rotation
• Motion Presets for quick and constant animation through the

file

ActionScript 3.0

• Object Oriented
• Library of types from simple, String, or complex, MovieClip
• Simple, forgiving coding language
• Can be written in individual slides, objects on the stage, or in external

ActionScript files

• Allows for manual scripting
• More control
• Obfuscators such as secureSWF protect from decompiling

Adobe Flash Creative Studios (CS5)

• Adobe Flash CS5 is the main tool for developing flash applications. It

is a collection of a of Adobe products.

• Lowers the learning curve
• Increased productivity for experienced developers
• Quick graphic layouts
• Code snippets have pre-written code
• Allows you to embed ActionScript throughout the project
• Animation is done on a frame to frame basis

Adobe Flex

• Flex is a software development kit (SDK) released for the

development of cross-platform rich Internet applications.

• Interacts between the animation and the ActionScript
• Provides a work flow and programing model
• Provides a set of user interface components
• Allows for drag and drop, web services.
• Notable user of Flex include YouTube.

Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR)

• A cross-platform run time environment for the development
• f RIA's that can be run as desktop applications.
• AIR allows the applications access to local storage and file
• systems. Server side storage is no longer necessary.
• Applications can be developed in HTML, AJAX, CS4, and

JavaScript

• Data can worked with using: a local XML file, a local SQLite

database, an encrypted local store

Open Screen Project

Several goals announced in 2008:

• 1. Attempt to provide a consistent API across all platforms.
• 2. Abolish licensing fees for Adobe Flash Player and AIR.
• 3. Release of full specifications for implementing .swf and .flv

files.

• 4. Creation of Flash Cast and Action Message protocols to

allow Flash applications to receive content from remote databases.

HTML 5

• HTML 5 along with the Open Web technologies will

phase out Flash, but until then flash will be used as a stop- gap.

• Useful for rendering fancier fonts and for video streaming,

Flash still useful for more in depth things.

• Community driven - has holes in support
• This presentation was written using a web app that was

made using HTML5 .

Comparisons

HTML5

• Zero tool costs
• Non-standard - yet
• Compatibility with mobile

devices

• Easy deployment
• Code is visible - mostly
• Harder to develop fancy

interfaces Adobe Flash

• Tool costs $650 for CS5

upgrade

• Accessible to different

level of computer users

• Large pool of

documentation

• Quick development time
• Greater application range
• Easy deployment

Conclusion

Flash offers:

• A fast, quick and aesthetically pleasing way for developing

web applications

• Accessibility
• Superior code base and documentation
• Large distribution, tool, and code base