|
Flash
Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and before that FutureSplash Animator), or simply Flash, refers to both the Adobe Flash Player and to a multimedia authoring program used to create content for the Adobe Engagement Platform (such as web applications, games and movies). more...
 Home
Action Figures
Animation Art, Characters
Apparel & Accessories
Bronze Age (1970-79)
Collections
Comics
Figurines
Full Runs
Golden Age (1938-55)
Graphic Novels, TPBs
International
Magazines
Modern Age (1980-Now)
 Alternative, Underground
Cartoon Character
Horror, Sci-Fi
Movie, TV
Other Modern Age
Superhero
 Alpha Flight
Avengers
 Avengers Disassembled
Avengers West Coast
Original Avengers
Other Avengers
The New Avengers
Batgirl
Batman
Detective Comics
Gotham Knights
Legends of the Dark Knight
Original Series
Other Batman
Shadow of the Bat
Captain America
Catwoman
Conan
Daredevil
Darkness
Deathlok
Defenders
Dr. Strange
Fantastic Four
Fathom
Flash
Ghost Rider
GI Joe
Green Arrow
Green Lantern
Hawkman
Hellboy
Identity Crisis
Incredible Hulk
Iron Man
Justice League of America
Justice Society of America
Lady Death
Legion of Superheroes
Lobo
Magneto
Mixed Items
Moon Knight
Other Superheroes
Crossgen
Dark Horse
DC
Eclipse
Image
Marvel
Other
Valiant
Phantom
Punisher
Sandman
Secret Wars
Shi
Silver Surfer
Spawn
Spider-Man
Amazing
Marvel Knights
Other
Spectacular
Ultimate
Venom
Star Wars
Superman
Swamp Thing
Teen Titans
Thor
Tomb Raider
Transformers
Ultimates
Ultraverse
Witchblade
Wolverine
Wonder Woman
X-Men
Astonishing X-Men
Generation X
New Mutants
New X-Men
Other
Ultimate
Uncanny X-Men
Unlimited
X-Factor
X-Force
Trade Publications
Newspaper Comics
Original Comic Art
Other Comics
Platinum Age (1897-1937)
Posters
Silver Age (1956-69)
Supplies
The Flash Player, developed and distributed by Adobe Systems (which bought Macromedia in 2005), is a client application available in most dominant web browsers. It features support for vector and raster graphics, a scripting language called ActionScript and bi-directional streaming of audio and video.
Strictly speaking, Adobe Flash is an integrated development environment (IDE) while Flash Player is a virtual machine used to run, or parse, the Flash files, but in contemporary colloquial terms "Flash" can refer to the authoring environment, the player or the application files.
Since its introduction in 1996, Flash technology has become a popular method for adding animation and interactivity to web pages; several software products, systems, and devices are able to create or display Flash. Flash is commonly used to create animation, advertisements, various web-page components, to integrate video into web pages, and more recently, to develop rich Internet applications.
The Flash files, traditionally called "Flash movies", have a .swf file extension and may be an object of a web page, strictly "played" in a standalone Flash Player, or incorporated into a Projector, a self-executing Flash movie.
History
In January of 1993, Charlie Jackson, Jonathan Gay, and Michelle Welsh started a small Software company called FutureWave and created their first product SmartSketch. A drawing application, SmartSketch was designed to make creating computer graphics as simple as drawing on paper. Although SmartSketch was an innovative drawing application, it didn't gain enough of a foothold in its market.;
As the internet began to thrive, FutureWave began to realize the potential for a vector-based web animation tool that might easily challenge Macromedia's often slow-to-download Shockwave technology. In 1995, FutureWave modified SmartSketch by adding frame-by-frame animation features and re-released it as FutureSplash Animator on Macintosh and PC. By that time, the company had added a second programmer Robert Tatsumi, an artist Adam Grofcsik ,and a PR specialist Ralph Mittman.;
In December 1996, Macromedia acquired the vector-based animation software and later released it as Flash 1.0.;
Macromedia Flash 2 was released in 1997 with features such as support of stereo sound and enhanced bitmap integration.;
Initially, the Flash Player plug-in was not bundled with popular web browsers and users had to visit Macromedia website to download it, but as of year 2000, the Flash Player was already being distributed with all AOL, Netscape and Internet Explorer browsers. Two years later it shipped with all releases of Windows XP.;
Macromedia Generator was the first initiative from Macromedia to separate design from content in Flash files. Generator 2.0 was released in April 2000 and featured real-time server-side generation of Flash content in its Enterprise Edition. Generator was discontinued in 2002 in favor of new technologies such as Flash Remoting, which allows for seamless transmission of data between the server and the client, and ColdFusion Server.;
In October 2000, usability guru Jakob Nielsen wrote a polemic article regarding usability of Flash content entitled "Flash 99% Bad". (Macromedia later hired Nielsen to help them improve Flash usability.);
In September 2001, a survey made for Macromedia by Media Metrix showed that out of the 10 biggest web sites in the United States, 7 were making use of Flash content.;
On March 15, 2002, Macromedia announced the availability of Macromedia Flash MX and Macromedia Flash Player 6, with support for video, application components, and accessibility.;
Flash MX 2004 was released in September 2003, with features such as faster runtime performance up to 8 times with the enhanced compiler and the new Macromedia Flash Player 7, ability to create charts, graphs and additional text effects with the new support for extensions (sold separately), high fidelity import of PDF and Adobe Illustrator 10 files, mobile and device development and a forms-based development environment.;
On March 15th, Adobe decided to buy the flash player, and put forward the idea of the purchase.;
On December 3, 2005, Adobe Systems acquired Macromedia and its product portfolio (including Flash).;
Read more at Wikipedia.org
|
|
Contact
