Introduction

Flash is an animated graphics technology and format from Macromedia. Macromedia's Flash MX and Freehand applications, as well as many other third-party authoring programs, generate Flash files, which can be viewed through a Web browser plug-in (the Flash player) or multimedia applications that access the player directly.

Animation is choreographed using one or more sequential timelines in which actions and interactions are defined, and Flash files can include sound.

Flash Supports Vector Graphics

Flash files are widely used on the Web because they are very space efficient. Other movie files (AVI, MPG, etc. ) are massive by comparison. The reason is Flash's support of vector graphics images, which take up much less space than bitmapped video frames. In addition, vector images scale with the application window as it is resized.

The SWF Format

Flash uses the .FLA file extension for source files and the .SWF extension for the Flash "movie" that is created and played.

Originally, the SWF extension meant "ShockWave Flash," which has confused people, because Shockwave is another Macromedia format created by its Director software. Shockwave files use the .DCR extension. Today, Macromedia calls the SWF format the "Small Web Format."