Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash (formerly called "Macromedia Flash") is a multimedia
and software platform used for authoring of vector graphics, animation, games
and Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) which can be viewed, played and executed
in Adobe Flash Player. Flash is frequently used to add streamed video or audio
players, advertisement and interactive multimedia content to web pages,
although usage of Flash on websites is declining.
Flash manipulates vector and raster graphics to provide animation of text,
drawings, and still images. It allows bidirectional streaming of audio and
video, and it can capture user input via mouse, keyboard, microphone and
camera. Flash applications and animations can be programmed using the
object-oriented language called Action Script. Adobe Flash Professional is the
most popular and user-friendly authoring tool for creating the Flash content,
which also allows automation via the JavaScript Flash language (JSFL).
Adobe Flash Player makes the Flash content accessible on various computer
systems and devices and is available free of charge for common web browsers (as
a plug-in) under a few of the major operating systems, some smart phones and
tablets, and a few other electronic devices using Flash Lite.
Flash Video
Main
article: Flash Video
Virtually all browser plugins for video are free of charge and
cross-platform, including Adobe's offering of Flash Video, which was first
introduced with Flash version 6. Flash Video has been a popular choice for
websites due to the large installed user base and programmability of Flash. In
2010, Apple publicly criticized Adobe Flash, including its implementation of
video playback for not taking advantage of hardware acceleration, one reason
Flash is not to be found on Apple's mobile devices. Soon after Apple's
criticism, Adobe demoed and released a beta version of Flash 10.1, which takes
advantage of GPU hardware acceleration even on a Mac. Flash 10.2 beta released
December 2010, adds hardware acceleration for the whole video rendering pipeline.
Flash in Web designing
Scripting language
Further
information: Action Script
Action Script is the programming language used by Flash. It is an enhanced
superset of the ECMA Script programming language, with a classical Java-style
class model, rather than JavaScript's prototype model.
HTML5
Main
article: Comparison of HTML5 and Flash
HTML5 is often cited as an alternative to Adobe Flash technology usage on
web pages. Adobe released a tool that converts Flash to HTML5, and Google also
released an experimental tool that does the same.
Shum way is an open source Flash Player released by Mozilla in November
2012. It is built in JavaScript and is thus compatible with modern web-browsers.
Tools
Main
article: Comparison of vector graphics editors
Commercial software packages that can create SWF files include Toon Boom,
Xara Photo & Graphic Designer, Vectorian Giotto, CelAction2D, Toufee,
KoolMoves, Express Animator, Alligator Flash Designer, Amara Web and Anime
Studio. These applications provide additional capabilities for creating
cartoons, especially with tools more tailored to traditionally trained
animators, as well as additional rigging for characters, which can speed up
character animation considerably. Additionally, there are programs available
which translate 3D information into 2D vectors for display in Flash Player.
Several third-party tools are able to use and generate SWF files, and some
tools such as Irfan View are capable of rendering SWF files, through the use of
Flash Player. Flash Player cannot ship as part of a pure open source, or
completely free operating system, as its distribution is bound to the
Macromedia Licensing Program and subject to proposition first from Adobe.
[Citation needed] There is no complete free and open source software
replacement which offers all the functionality of the latest version of Adobe
Flash Player.
Open-source Flash content creation software includes Ajax Animator, Clash,
Open Office Impress, KToon, Salasaga, and Synfig.
Players
Gnash is an active project that aims to create a software player and
browser plugins replacement for the Adobe Flash Player. Despite potential
patent worries because of the proprietary nature of the files involved, Gnash
provides most SWFv7 features but does not fully support SWF v7, SWF v8-files,
or the '9'th generation. Gnash runs on Windows, Linux and other platforms for
the 32-bit, 64-bit, and other operating systems.
Swfdec is an open-source alternative standalone flash player available for
the Linux, FreeBSD and OpenBSD.
Lightspark is a free and open source SWF player. It implements the latest
Action Script 3.
Scale form GFx is a commercial alternative Flash player that features full
hardware acceleration using the GPU and has high conformance with both Flash
10ActionScript 3.[99] and Flash 8 AS2. Scaleform GFx is a game development
middleware solution that helps create graphical user interfaces or HUDs within
3D video games.
Compilers
Swfc is an open-source Action Script 3.0 compiler which generates SWF files
from script files, which includes SVG tags. It is currently the most complete
alternative for building Flash content in Linux, despite being entirely
script-based and not having a GUI.
The Ming library is able to import and export graphics from XML into SWF.
Ming has bindings for popular scripting languages such as PHP and Python.
Flash 4 Linux
The Flash 4 Linux project was an initiative to develop an open source Linux
application as an alternative to Adobe Flash Professional. Development plans
included authoring capacity for 2D animation, and tweening, as well as outputting
SWF file formats. F4L evolved into an editor that was capable of authoring 2D
animation and publishing of SWF files. Flash 4 Linux was renamed UIRA. UIRA
intended to combine the resources and knowledge of the F4L project and the
Qflash project, both of which were Open Source applications that provided (to
some extent) an alternative to the proprietary Adobe Flash. UIRA was free
software, but was never truly completed. It reached a stage of being no more
than a shell of a UI with limited functionality. Due in part to the adoption of
theDADVSI law in France, the UIRA project was shut down in January 2008,
according to the project's page in Source Forge.