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Initial Flash: The First Stepsby Peter Cooper Like it or loathe it, Flash has become one of the most used technologies on the Web in 1999...
Like it or loathe it, Flash has become one of the most used technologies on the Web in 1999. Since its original incarnation (known as Splash) in the mid 90s, the use of Flash has grown steadily. Now, in the last few weeks of 1999, it's nearly impossible to avoid "Flash enhanced" sites while surfing the Web. Whether you develop large budget sites for international corporations or for more modest purposes, it's going to prove beneficial if you have at least some minimal experience with Flash, and Shockwave in general. This series of articles has been designed to give you an overview of Flash, both in theory and in practise. While this initial segment will deal with general issues relevant to Flash, further articles will deal with real life techniques and production issues using Flash. Please remember though, the aim of the series is to provide an initial overview of Flash, and won't cover every advanced technique. With that in mind, please enjoy. Why Flash?We've already agreed that Flash is an immensely popular technology, but what makes it so popular? Let's run through a small list of features:
Let's cover a few of these: Vector Based FormatThe fact that Flash uses a vector based system is quite important for its portability and speed. Formats such as JPG, BMP and GIF take a precise digital image of a picture and store it pixel by pixel. Some of these formats then compress the data. A replica of the original picture can then easily be produced from one of these files. This is called the bitmap system. In opposition, vector images are made up of data compromised of instructions on how to recreate the image. For example, in bitmap format a circle would be stored pixel by pixel, which means a lot of data. In a vector format file, simply an instruction to draw a circle would be stored, along with information about the size. Since less information needs to be stored about the positions of objects, and the data required to reproduce them on screen is less, it makes vector based files quick to download. However, Flash can also deal with bitmap formats within its vector based world. Say you want to display a photo of someone in a Flash based site. To reproduce an exact image of the person would be ineffective using vectors since the image is photographic. Flash can deal with this and will include a bitmap image if you so wish. However, it still stores the information about the position of the bitmap image in vector format making it easier to animate later. Clever Flash! Another key point of using a vector based format in Flash is in the way things can be resized. An entire Flash presentation has the potential to be shown at any screen resolution at full size since vector co-ordinates can easily be multiplied or divided. It's far easier to adjust some co-ordinates in a vector file than changing lots of information in a bitmapped one! This feature helps us dilute some of the common issues with varying screen resolutions and HTML as we can simply design our Flash presentation to run at full browser size all the time! [ Click here to move to the next part of this article ] This article first appeared in December, 1999.
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