Home » ? » Flash

Flash

Adobe Flash, formerly known as Macromedia Flash, formerly known as Futurewave Splash, was first introduced on the World Wide Web in 1996. It is an on-screen technology that delivers vector graphics and animation with lightning speed and yielding very small file sizes (which translate into quick downloads). When you view a graphic online such as a .gif or .jpg file, these are bit-mapped graphics. Each pixel (dot) of the graphic has some programming behind it - telling the computer what color, tone, intensity and location (x-y coordinates on your screen) of the graphic. The bigger the graphic, the bigger the file and the longer it takes to download. Vector graphics, on the otherhand, involve two points and a vector drawn between them. This allows an image to be stretched to any size without degredation of quality and without increasing the file size. Geometric shapes, lines and text are ideal for this technology - a lot of animation and information can be presented in a flash movie without long downloads.

Flash is used in CD-ROM presentations, Kiosks and on the World Wide Web. Flash isn't the ideal medium for photographic content, but a flash movie can contain .jpg files (such as photographs) and vector animation.

Why do we use Flash on this site?
On occasion, we might use flash as a way of presenting a photo slide-show, as an attention-getter for an important event or as a part of integrated navigation within the Web site. When developing a Web site, there are always concerns with cross-platform and cross-browser compatibility - in other words, we want to make sure that our site can be accessed by Mac, Windows and Unix,  and that it will work properly on Netscape, Internet Explorer and AOL.  Client-side scripting such as JavaScript may generate errors on some platforms or browsers. Flash can offer the same type of functionality and load faster - without having conflicts on different platforms and browsers.

How do I use Flash?
Flash has become more commonly used in the past few years and is often included in downloads of newer versions of Web browsers. You might already have Flash installed. To the upper right, there is a test Flash movie. If you have the latest version of the Flash Player installed, you will see the test movie. It is possible that you have Flash installed, but it may be an older version - you can upgrade for free by downloading the latest version.

Click here to download the latest version of Macromedia Flash for your platform.