Visual Size Report
An extension for Flash Professional that allows for easier size optimization of SWF files.
Other Resources
Flex Apache
Flex applications can be deployed to Flash Player in the browser, Adobe AIR on desktop and mobile or to native Android, IOS, QNX, Windows or Mac applications.
Adobe Developer Center
Tutorials, samples, articles, and other resources to help you master Flash.
Flash Professional Forums
Ask and answer questions in the Adobe Flash Professional community forum.
Flash Builder Forums
Ask and answer questions in the Adobe Flash Builder community forum.
Flex Forums
Ask and answer questions in the Adobe Flex Player community forum.
AIR Community Forums
Ask and answer questions in the Adobe AIR community forum.
Flash Player Community Forums
Ask and answer questions in the Adobe Flash Player community forum.
Adobe Gaming Website
Adobe Game Developer Tools provide the key building blocks you need to build, optimize, and deliver amazing web, mobile and desktop games.
Adobe AIR Runtime Distribution
Learn more about limited distribution of the Adobe AIR runtime.
Adobe Flash Player Distribution
Learn more about Adobe Flash Player distribution and use in multi-user installations.
Adobe Public Bug Database
Submit a bug or follow-up on a previous bug submission [13].
A History of Adobe Flash
If you ever think Flash is difficult to use, you should try drawing with a joystick on an Apple II before the concept of undo was invented. That will test your patience.
-Jonathan Gay, Father of Flash.
The long history of Flash has proven to be an interesting journey. Mostly all Internet users are familiar with the Flash Player plugin which, along with Adobe Reader, is constantly pushing updates. Flash is the original multimedia platform for the web which spans all the way back into the 1990s.There is a lot of speculation going forward now that Flash has been pulled from the Android Store. There isn’t a clear marketplace on the mobile web and although Flash has recently fallen to other technologies, there are still many areas where Flash/ActionScript development is wildly popular. Adobe Flash can find its origins back in some original software named Future Splash Animator released in 1995. This project combined animated media with vector graphics to create an alternative for Java developers on the web. In 1996 this software was purchased by Macromedia. The words “Future” and “Splash” were combined to create the more familiar “Flash”. The whole software suite was devoted towards creating animations and dynamic content which could be published on the Internet. There wasn’t a whole lot of exciting possibilities until the ActionScript language was paired with the software. The released of Flash 4 in 1999 included an overhaul of the scripting language. Developers could target graphics on the screen and call functions to animate them throughout different frames. It’s arguable that ActionScript was one of the defining programming languages which eventually pushed Flash technology further into the mainstream. By now Flash Player was already somewhat popular and growing very quickly. By early 2002-2003 Macromedia updated the Flash/ActionScript pair with the largest innovative push forward. ActionScript 2.0 paired with the software suite Flash MX 2004 was a powerhouse for generating dynamic web content. AS 2.0 is a fully-fledged Object-Oriented programming language similar to Java or PHP or C++. You could build entire websites running on Flash – let alone custom UI panels such as video players or mp3 playlists. Possibly the most famous practitioner of Flash Player was YouTube who launched in February 2005. Every video uploaded to the website was converted on the backend into an FLV and passed into a Flash video player. The digital media could be protected from direct downloads and yet still accessible to nearly every viewer. Most video upload websites followed this exact same format when launching online, and even many animation websites and music streaming services as well. Ironically 2005 is also the same year Macromedia was purchased by Adobe Systems. They acquired the Flash software along with other big-name brands like Dreamweaver and Fireworks. ActionScript 3.0 was eventually released which improved the OOP functionality to include classes, libraries, and core interface features. It’s fair to say that Adobe Flash is still a powerhouse for multimedia animations & rich Internet applications. Many game developers still work within Flash to publish their ideas on the web. There are even some tools you can use to convert Flash projects into native iOS apps for smartphone devices. But one area where Flash has fallen off a cliff is within the web development community. Very few websites today are still created solely on a Flash SWF file for a number of reasons. The most obvious being a lack of SEO value since each individual page can’t be linked to a URL. But additionally there are so many open source JavaScript libraries that you can replicate almost any Flash functionality within the browser. Going forward I would expect to see Flash content as a means for publishing online games, or even cartoons/animations. Web development is moving towards a more open collection of protocols and that doesn’t include Adobe Systems. This doesn’t mean nobody will support flash video players anymore – if anything websites such as ActiveDen will turn into a repository for premium Flash-based interfaces. But it is nice to know Adobe understands the trends and can gracefully cope with these new ideas. Future releases of Flash Player will not need to support mobile devices. This points towards more Flash/AS developers focusing efforts on RIAs along with their own creative ideas. Flash is by no means a dead technology. Actionscript development is still heavily influencing web games, animated websites, and other copy-protected dynamic content. The Flash browser plugin is also a staple install for new PCs and Macs alike. It’s hard to believe that Flash will ever completely phase out of existence unless some other better technology can take its place [14] (see figure 1.8).
