Flash
Overview
Workflow
Generating Flash files for viewing on the WWW is a fairly straight-forward process. The other part of the equation is knowing how many users have the ability to see your Flash files and what they need to do so.
Authoring Environment
The Flash application installed on your computer is known as the authoring environment. This is where you will organize elements such as images and sounds to create your movie. When you save this source file, the application will assign an .fla extension to the file name.
Publishing
When the Flash file is completed, you will export (or publish) a compressed, optimized movie that is assigned an .SWF (Shockwave Flash) extension. As part of the publishing process, the program can also generates an HTML file which provides instructions to web browsers on how to display the movie. These instructions include things like what size to display the movie, what background colour to display in the HTML document, quality of playback, etc.
Uploading Files to the Server
The next step is to upload the .SWF and HTML files to a web server using an FTP * program. Once those are on the server and a user visits the site, the .SWF file is downloaded to the user's computer and plays in the browser.
Viewing Flash Content
The Flash Plug-in
The browser needs to have the Flash Player plug-in installed for the user to see the Flash file. A plug-in is software that works as a helper to the browser program, enabling the playback of media types not supported natively by the browser. The plug-in must be the same version as the authoring software in order to read the file. If you publish a movie as a version 5 .SWF file, the user needs to have the version 5 plug-in. If the user has a previous version, the Player won't be able to read the file and display it. Flash provides the option of publishing in earlier version formats but if you are using features unique to a particular version, this won't be an option. Flash will generally give you some kind of warning if you try to publish to an SWF version that is not compatible with the features you are using.
Flash Penetration
"How many people will be able to view my Flash creations?" you might wonder. According to a December, 2003 survey published on the Macromedia web site, 466 out of 476 million users world-wide have Flash player installed, which is equivalent to 97.9% of Web users.
The Flash Player comes pre-installed with many operating systems, browsers, and online services such as AOL, Prodigy, and WebTV. The Flash Player plug-in is compatible with the following operating systems and browser versions:
| Operating System | Internet Explorer | Netscape |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Windows 95 or later
Microsoft Windows NT 3.5.1 or later |
4 or later | 4 or later |
| Macintosh PowerPC System 7.1 or later | 4 or later | 4 or later |
| Linux Redhat 7.0 (Pentium-based only)
Linux Slackware 3.5 (Pentium-based only) |
NA | 4 or later |
| Solaris 2.5 or 2.6
(24-bit colour, SPARC only) |
NA | 4 or later |
Workflow Summary
The steps for generating viewable Flash content are:
- Design content in the Flash application and save work as an .fla file.
- Publish the movie to generate the .SWF and HTML files.
- Upload those two files to a web server using FTP.
- Visitors to your site need to have an appropriate Flash plug-in installed to view the Flash content.
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