Talk:Adobe Flash/Archive 1 - Flash Tutorials

Asynchronous Flash

Of late, the Flash libraries are being used with the XML capabilities of the browser to render rich content in the browser. Since Flash provides more comprehensive support for vector graphics than the browser and because it provides a scripting language geared towards interactive animations, it is being considered a viable addition to the capabilities of a browser. This technology, which is currently in its nascent stage, is known as Asynchronous Flash and XML, much like AJAX.

This section confuses two totally different ideas: vector graphics and ajax, therefore I separated the two parts. â€"Preceding unsigned comment added by Zslevi (talk • contribs) 09:11, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Flash9E.OCX Error

I'm getting errors on some sites that have flash ads saying that there was a module exception at FLASH9E.OCX . Looking around the net there seem to be quite a few other people complaining about it too, I was wondering if there's a solution? I'm using flash player 7, so I don't know why I'm getting an error relating to player 9, but one ad in particular seems to be triggering it on www.news.com.au . Is this common enough to mention in the article?

Cleanup/clarification needed

Under Cleanup/Usage, there seem to be 2 related paragraphs, starting with "Covered entities under the ADA...", which start abruptly without context. This needs some kind of introductory sentence to make any sense. at the very least, state what ADA is. where does this quote come from?

Also, this Talk page is getting too long. It needs some archiving or prioritization... DKEdwards 20:05, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Price

The Flash Creative Suite 3(the new one), is currently aviable for $699.

Proprietary

Flash, despite being a veritable web standard, is proprietary. A mention of this plus a reference to open source efforts to replace Flash ought to be mentioned (Gnash: http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/)

There is also the site http://osflash.org and the utilities mtasc (http://www.mtasc.org/) and swfmill (http://swfmill.org/) that provide free open-source compilation of actionscript and generating swf-files. 85.165.213.212 00:02, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh and there's also haxe, great initative http://haxe.org 85.165.229.111 02:46, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out! --Zslevi (talk) 09:22, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Flash Tutorial

Is there a website that is a tutorial about flashmaking? I want to make a Flash about stick figures.

Yes, there are hundreds of sites with such tutorials. Google is your friend. Futurix 21:19, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikivid: Flash has a pretty complete video course, is it ok to add the Wikivid link to the external links section, I know we like to keep it clean, but this seems like the perfect link.--Seiche 13:22, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

There is also a wiki devoted to flash: [1]

I believe this article should have a section dedicated to resources for learning flash, to answer those looking for the tutorial above. While Google is a valuable resource, it produced a lot of sites both free and requiring payment. With a list of resources, we can select the best, pointing out which ones are free, and the level of experience they are designed for. also, we can differentiate between action script tutorial sites and just straight flash tutorial sites Armorsmith42 21:03, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I prefer human-edited links too. --Zslevi (talk) 09:24, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Cultural Influence

I think there should definitely be something about the cultural influence of Flash-based media, the ease of creation of artwork, movies, animations, viral cartoons, annoying ads, and so on. Has anyone perhaps already written on this in a different section? --NeoThe1 07:00, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

Futuresplash article put into Adobe Flash article?

FUTURESPLASH SHOULD BE ON ITS OWN!!!

Why? It is just an older version of Adobe Flash. Some Person 23:40, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually I was originally going to support consolidating, but since Futuresplash started out as a competing technology, and has it's own history (albeit short), I think it should have a freestanding article. x 20:02, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Futuresplash did not start as competing technolody with Flash (it was Flash). Futurix 22:33, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I didn't say it was competing with Flash; and I'm not clear what your point is. What I'm saying is that Futurewave and Futuresplash had a unique presence before Macromedia got hold of them. It was more than just a name change. x 01:38, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

You said "Futuresplash started out as a competing technology", and since the topic of the article is Flash - I assumed you are talking about competing with Flash.

In any case, Futuresplash plug-in wasn't particularly popular until Macromedia bought it, so I don't think it deserves separate article. At most it should have a section in the current article. Futurix 08:33, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Interesting using popularity as a criterion. And yeah I was using the term "competing technology" in a wider context, sorry about the confusion. x 14:55, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I think FutureSplash should be mentioned in the main flash article, but still have it's own seperate entry for more detailed info.

I agree that FutureSplash should remain as its own article. Although it was bought by MacroMedia which is now part of Adobe. The company history for FutureSplash and the recognition that Adobe had nothing to do with it at the time is important. Flash should only a be reference to how the software evolved. Futuresplash stands as an important milestone on its own merit.jobe 16:42, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

prank flash

Is Prank flash that common?--Chealer 17:52, 2005 Feb 1 (UTC)

IT SCARES ME!!!!!!!!!!! I hate it!- Wikk

Damn right, heh, I hate those too. Well, if you stay away from StileProject and various Animutations, you should be fine. ;) --NeoThe1 07:00, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

What is this prank flash, I haven't made any flashes. Right now im working on a flash and cant find any of the action script I want so i can make a pre-loader. I need one bad.

use the newgrounds preloader

There's also a premade one. http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/preloader.fla - pikachuhobbes â€"Preceding unsigned comment added by Pikachu hobbes (talk • contribs) 00:26, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

needs updating

There is a lot of info missing from this page, particularly new advancements that have happened in the last couple of years. ActionScript has matured into an object oriented language,(AS2.0) supporting many of the constructs that go with that, such as classes and interfaces. Not much here applies to versions later than Flash 4 (now at Flash 8).

NPOV?

It seems like the article's structure (and, to a lesser extent, the text itself) isn't very well balanced. The advantages section (which isn't actually a section) reads like a fairly well organized presentation, whereas the disadvantages section seems a good deal more haphazard and looks like everyone with something foul to say has just added it to the end of the list. Gripes about inconsistent scroll bars and buttons aren't balanced with a note that this sort of thing is even possible in the first place. The security points are misorganized and don't have any clear focus.

Can someone who is more familiar with the format take a look into this? I'll look again in a week or two, but I'd really rather someone who actually works with Flash make these changes. --Milkmandan 21:18, 2005 Feb 13 (UTC)

Hm... I'm not entirely sure most Flash authors actually pay attention to the disadvantages of the format. 146.186.145.37 14:53, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

To be honest, I think most (real) Flash developers would be kind of afraid to mess with the disadvantages list (combining topics and stuff), in fear of looking biased through the eyes of the 'flash==evil' crowd. I'll have a look at it though and provide a few links to add more information to that. Zeh 14:54, 11 Apr 2005 (GMT -3)

Okey, I've changed a lot of that advantages/disadvantages section. Rewrote many of the comments, added some, split some, merged some. I believe it's a bit more neutral now (on both accounts), although I think it's too big and it's getting a bit lost. --Zeh

As the article stands today, it still reads to me like a sales presentation. Where are the dissenting voices? Most people I know who despise Flash don't hate it because of a few minor security flaws, patched long ago. They hate it because the whole premise is "wrong", for the same reason they detest Web sites that do browser sniffing and shunt all non-"Mozilla" browsers to an error page. 121a0012 02:30, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

The current "Security" section looks really, really biased. I don't know anything about the subject, but the language is definitely slanted and the use of allcaps emphasis is pretty over-the-top. Joshf 11:11, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Opinionated and unsupported claims: Criticisms - Usage

"Like most new technologies that are easy to learn, Flash has often been misused in a way that lacks customer focus. Flash, particularly in its early days was used to create unusable and inaccessible sites. In recent years the Flash usage has matured and the quality is much higher"

I agree with this statement, but there is no data to back it up and saying that "the quality is much higher" seems very... pointy.

Also:

"These factors make Flash-based content unsuitable for indexing by search engines. However, this problem can be alleviated with correct web site design."

This is also true. Nintendo, for instance, is heavily misusing Flash to create things as simplistic as static image links (simple HTML) which are unuseable if Flash is unavailable and can only be clicked in one way resulting in only a single action (Left click, changes the page in the current window).

"Correct" web design in the case of proper search engine indexing would involve the use of alternative content for those unable to view Flash; the statement should be better explained.

Most of the "usage" section sounds like a obsessive compulsive rant, not actual criticism, and not reflective of reality. Most of those criticisms are of bad usage of the technology, not problems with the technology itself. And some of the technological complaints reflect a poor understanding of the technology (e.g., the search indexing complaint; Flash content can be easily indexed if the content creator so desires, the fact that some don't isn't a valid complaint about Flash as a technology). There seems to be a lot of FUD here.

I agree. I was taken aback by the bias and overall attitude of a lot of the statements on this page. Most of it does not have a purpose and should be removed (IMO). Other things can be rewritten without the bias. --Iamdeadfish 21:19, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I revised the two paragraphs in usage that I had the biggest problem with a while ago and I'm pleased to still see them intact. In general there's probably more that could be done to this article, but I think there have been a lot of good contributions and it's a lot better then it was a couple months ago.--Iamdeadfish 17:55, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

The DRM(Digital rights management) heading in the Critcisms section is odd. I've read that BBC article but it doens't quote Adobe or any athoritive sources. Saying Flash can make people look at ads is not a valid point. Any website can make you look at ads. It's not a new technolgy, and it's certainly not DRM. Suggest that be removed. â€"Preceding unsigned comment added by Multikev (talk • contribs) 18:03, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

OOo & Flash?

"...emergence of free Flash creation tools, most notably OpenOffice.org..."

OOo can make fla?.... I find that questionable. --Menchi 20:55, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Not .FLA, but rather Flash movies, that is, SWF files. Both their Draw (vector drawing) and their Impress (presentation) tools can create flash files. Check this out and search for .SWF: OpenOffice product description, OO DRAW, OO Impress --Zeh

organization

I cleaned up and organized the page quite a bit, but the pros and cons section could still be further edited...

What I found very hard was to explain the true nature of ActionScript 2 - from programming point of view, it is quite a true OO language, but it's the compiler that performs things such as type checking. When referencing dynamically in run-time those features lack utterly. --Skrim 08:09, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think the specifics of ActionScript 2 should be left to the ActionScript entry. Ill try and get some more info up on it on that entry. --Mikechambers

I second what my says in that this is not the proper article to discuss technical details of actionscript. I added a link to main ActionScript article and removed some doubled information. joaoflash

Stock Flash resource

Flash is definitely having an impact on the web. Designers are using it in very elegant and also very horrendous ways. I've just run across a site www.stockflash.com that offers really slick animations and flash templates. There's also another site called Bigshotmedia (not sure of the URL) that offers similar but much more expensive clips. Seems like you don't have to design a flash site from the ground up anymore. Hopefully with resources like this the web will become a much better place.

OpenLazlo

It would be nice to include some information on http://www.openlaszlo.org

It is an open source compiler which compiles source code in XML plus Javascript to executables for the flash player. An Eclipse plugin for authoring is available. Hirzel 4 July 2005 07:18 (UTC)

Realize that there is a difference in this plug in - it is not a visual IDE like Adobe's FlexBuilder. Having such a tool is huge advantage from the process design-development point of view, especially in Enterprise situations. Having to code visuals in text is just a time hog, not to mention that if you're making such a leap from page-based technologies you don't want to have to keep to old "throw it over the wall" processes (give static designs to developers to translate). Without a visual IDE, lots and lots of tweaking must be done sitting "side by side" with a developer - quite inefficient. Additionally, User Experience teams should be able to "own" and edit the look and feel - which requires a better separation of the functional and presentation layer that a visual IDE helps with. -Uigrrl 19:48, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

most installed program?

According to Robert Cringely's June 2nd article: "Flash is installed on more computers than any other program." I can't find a source to back this up, but the author is certainly well respected. Cacophony July 4, 2005 16:35 (UTC)

Macromedia's own website[2] says, "Flash Player has become the most widely installed Internet video client", which is a lot different and hardly worth the mention here, I think. --Nigelj 19:26, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Doesn't sound credible to me -- I'd have thought Acrobat Reader was more widely deployed, especially in corporate environments where Flash can be disallowed. Ratarsed 12:40, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps to counter-balance this pro we could also mention that this might not actually measure the number of people that want flash. There seems to be a demand for flash blockers and several plugins are available to restore control back into the hands of the end-user. A useful example link would be http://flashblock.mozdev.org/ for the popular mozilla firefox browser .

Right, I added mention of blocking tools and FlashBlock under "Influence"

Probably the biggest reason that Flash is the most popular browser plugin out there is because of the little vendetta between Microsoft and Sun regarding inclusion of Java Runtimes with stock Windows installs. --Allaryin 15:42, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Flash is on 890 million computers of the 904 million computers using the internet: http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/PC.html --DavidPesta (talk) 03:32, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Please add link spam here

Maybe we should delete the section "Major Studios". It doesn't seem terribly useful, especially since there aren't any criteria defining "major". If they are major and leading studios, how come they don't have their own articles in WP? The section might as well be called "Please add link spam here". Rl 07:50, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree that probably the main use of listing them here is advertising by giving them a higher Google rank. As R1 says the open question is what the criteria to include them are at all. A criteria could be that they have a well populated download section with free templates, configurable flash movies or design instructions. That would justify the inclusion here. In the meantime I think it is best to remove the section alltogether (the content is not lost; it may be accessed through the history for people who want to move them back) Hirzel 10:36, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

I would like to add that we already have sub sections for sites that have free templates, examples, or tutorials. The section you removed was only ever used to advertize "major studios". Rl 10:55, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Reorganization

I reorganized the article, most notably got rid of the pros/cons and distributed the items to other sections. I feel it's better this way; the pros and cons section seemed to lure quite biased comments (both ways).

The features section is still quite incoherent.

Consider removing extension pronunciation

I have never heard them pronounced like that; these pronunciations should not be encouraged.

supposed "influence"

I removed an entire paragraph that claims Apple's iPod advertisements, among other things was influenced by Flash. I defy anyone to find any substantiation for a claim like this. I suppose that the person who wrote this has never seen a James Bond film, or lived through the sixties where such stylisms were common. --Anon

Good edit. I wasn't sure why the article attributes so heavily the rotoscope effects to Flash. --Menchi 01:24, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

I've been an industry designer for 20 years and it seems obvious to me that the clean vector artwork with minimal color used from exported video in flash (seen a lot in 2000 and 2001) has had a huge influence in advertising and other media.

Removed biased and incorrect information

I reverted recent edits - sorry for the anonymous user for this - but I decided that the content was very biased and irrelevant. Most notably, the entire Security section was about Shared Objects, sandbox violation and the text was edited to give impression that the theoretical security holes in some previous version have caused actual problems. And so on. I do agree that privacy problems exist with Flash Player, and now they are mentioned with some proportianality. Flash Player has *very good* security track record, when compared to, for example, IE or Firefox. Skrim 06:48, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

RE: "CPU loading

Flash player uses uneffective approach in CPU usage, loading processors too hard. Some Athlon CPUs do not work long time playing flash animation."

This should be explained or deleted. And maybe rewritten in correct grammar.

64-bit Flash

In the 'Future Developments' section, it might be good if someone (I don't have the knowledge) could write something about the probable future 64-bit version of Flash, particularly as its non-appearance has annoyed Linux users to the extent that an online petition was started to demand its release. 203.59.123.73 03:14, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

How large is this petition? It would be also good to mention the proliferation speed of 64-bit desktops, as it would give a good estimate of the timeline Macromedia will assign to the 64-bit port of Flash. Jbetak 06:51, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Latest news on the possibility of a 64-bit port (Linux and otherwise) is mentioned in http://www.kaourantin.net/2006/07/random-bits-on-current-status.html --Allaryin

"mac" performance?

How about (non-x86) GNU/Linux, where it's not even available?

I can run flash in firefox on SuSE. If your talking about flash as in the development program, guess what you can do to run it in linux? uh huh, wine. download the windows trial of flash 8 , enter your serial, and it works ok. http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?versionId=3673&iTestingId=2772

Future developments

Flash 8 is here. Can someone please rewrite this section? Thanks! -- Perfecto  19:46, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I added the link about macromedia labs. Would that not be enough about it? We could talk about some of the flex stuff.mrrealtime

Thank you. You guys are fast! :) -- Perfecto  20:55, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

New heading suggested: Flash industry milestones

First Fullscreen/full motion flash website in 1999: Balthaser.com ?

First Flash Cartoon: Batman by Digital Image f/x or Chilly Beach or??..1999?

First CDROM for major release(over 100,000 copies) built entirely in Flash (standalone executable), in Sept. 2000 for Little Golden Books(6 individual titles to over 1 million users).

First Learning Management System built in Flash and MS ACCESS in March 2001 for Trainingscape for over 20,000 users (one of the first RIAs)?

Flash becomes most downloaded plugin, beating Quicktime and Real player...when??

First corporate website to use flash?

First entertainment website to use flash? Pop.com?

First flash based simulation game...leisure suit larry?

First Television show produced using flash?

First exclusively flash based animation studio?

First flash resource website -flashkit?

First person to make their living entirely from flash outside of Macromedia? I was in June of 2000. Im sure lots of others were by then too.

Are these and milestones like them appropriate for this article? Am I incorrect on the claims? It would be interesting to note industry milestones like these and others to track the influence and rapid growth of flash.

• Some info, or even better, a diagram about these milestones hsould be definitelly added... Or maybe a timeline with all the important dates--seifip 13:26, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

number of browsers with flash plugin

From the article page: Flash as a format has become very widespread on the desktop market. Through an NPD study, Macromedia claims that 98% of Web users have Flash Player installed [3]â€"90% having the latest version. Numbers vary depending on the detection scheme and research demographics

The demographics might not be representative on this site. It lists Google at over 80% market share and Yahoo! at less than 5%. A recent US study shows them much closer: both slightly over 30%. We should find a separate source to contrast Macromedia's claims, but I'm afraid Webhits might not be representative enough. Are you familiar with Webhits? How established are they in Germany? Any other sites aggregating similar numbers?

Webhits (German page) counts only 66% of Flash-enabled browsers

There is nothing wrong with a US study showing Yahoo and Google at 30% in the US, but Webhits is German and Yahoo isn't popular in Germany at all. I agree that we should cite not just Webhits, but multiple sources, but I know no other.--Hhielscher 13:34, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Too many external links

This article has way too many external links. I suggest removing all of them except those in the 'Macromedia' section. JeremyA 18:42, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

--I agree. This kind of advertising defeats the purpose of wikipedia. If people wanted to learn about those flash knock offs, they could simply do an internet search on "Macromedia Flash" in a commercial setting. If others agree to this, I am happy to help out by watching the link section and actively removing links to companies other than Macromedia or non commercial community groups such as actionscript.org. mrrealtime

This has been fixed. Overzealously by some. ;> â€"The preceding unsigned comment was added by 59.167.78.74 (talk • contribs).

Does anyone object to adding Wikivid Flash Page as an external link to cover the tutorials? --Seiche 02:37, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

format and macromedia

try to focus more on the format and less on macromedia it's about flash and not macromedia

for example the java(programming language) pages focus on the technology itself and sun isn't named at evry lines by the way the java has the same approach than this page with the java technology

Accessibility

Sites heavily relying on flash may violate accessibility guidelines. This is a consideration when designing sites.

Examples

These examples:

• Flash sites gallery
• Free Flash Tutorials

Are they really any good, you Flashies, or are they just cruft?

Programming

It would be a really good idea to have a flash programming wiki either as external wiki or as a subset of this entry.

- Probably not - this isn't really the place to learn how to program for Flash. There are plenty of websites that already provide that. It's also not the place to offer your services as a developer.

Actionscript image

I've made two simple Actionscript 2.0 sample screenshots. I've put up one of them in the article (Image:OSX10-2-actionscript2.png), but just in case you can find good use for the other one which is currently not being used anywhere, here's the link: (Image:OSX10-2-actionscript.jpg). --Michiel Sikma 20:18, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, nevermind, it was deleted for not being in use for too long. --Michiel Sikma 23:25, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Added a new and much better example. It can be found at Image:As2_bounceball.png. â€"Michiel Sikma, 14:00, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Semantics

What do you call a flash interactive animation? Is there an industry-standard noun used to describe such a thing? I know "website" doesn't fit, since it wouldn't neccessarily have to be online. "Flash animation" and "multimedia installation" seem too wordy, and "flash piece" is too general. "Animation" by itself isn't intereactive enough, so is there a word already existing? --Muckapedia 12h05, 19 Mar 2006

At least Adobe calls all swf files movie.--Henke37 (talk) 14:24, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Shockwave Flash

Perhaps correct name for the format is "Shockwave Flash". Macromedia Flash is the name of of the program used to create Flash movies, but maybe the format itself is "Schockwave Flash". While that name is confusing, and Macromedia has stated that it is incorrect and is the result of confusing two of their products, the fact is that it was Macromedia who first called it that. In fact to this day some of the URI's on Macromedia website still refer to it by that name. Also some of the pages on the macromedia website refer to it as that.

Note that there are lots of references to "Shockwave flash", even inside the players themselves, but it may never have been truely official. (Even with the MIME type application/x-shockwave-flash)

URI's in support: www.macromedia.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=tn_13422 www.macromedia.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=tn_04160 www.macromedia.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=tn_14235

URI's in opposition: weblogs.macromedia.com/jd/archives/2004/08/shockwave_vs_fl.cfm (somewhat convincing)

Tacvek 05:03, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't this article be moved to Adobe Flash?

With the purchase of Macromedia by Adobe, I would imagine that the product is now called Adobe Flash. Should the article not be changed accordingly? Arrenlex 05:59, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Maybe someday soon, but for now they still call the product Macromedia Flash. -- Barrylb 06:28, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

It is now Adobe Flash as you can see on Adobe's website --Astrowob 19:15, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

This has it called Macromedia Flash on the Adobe website. Do you have a link to a reference on their website to it being called "Adobe Flash"? If not, I'll move it back. Stephen B Streater 17:37, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

The official title for Flash, at least until version 9 is released, is Macromedia Flash 8 from Adobe.

Flash Player 8.5

According to this FAQ entry Flash Player 8.5 is now named Flash Player 9. Future development section should be updated.

What is AMF?

I was reading the page, and found: "Macromedia has released the specifications of the Flash file format (excluding specifications of related formats such as AMF)"... what is AMF? It should either be a wiki link to an article about it, or at least expand the acronym.

Kool Moves

• This is a rather cheap and independent Flash like application. It can make SWFs and use ActionScript 1. So my question is, should applications like Kool Moves be mentioned? if so, here, on the SWF or ActionScript page? If here, it can be mentioned under "Programs similar to Flash". SRodgers--65.24.77.104 01:13, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Programs similar to Flash as ToonBoom Studio or Kool Moves should have their own article on Wikipedia and then added to See Also links... --seifip 13:24, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

"Security" section terribly POV

The "Security" section of this article is terribly POV. The very first sentence begins "Adobe, like Macromedia, claims disingenuously..." The section is filled with similarly damning language that's unbefitting of an encyclopedia -- "these silently invasive, privacy-threatening LSOs..." (emphasis mine), "The default (declared by Macromedia and open to at Adobe's whim)", etc. This section needs to be cleaned up -- has there been a discussion about it already? It's rather embarassing, quite frankly. 64.154.219.210 20:57, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I moved the information about Local Shared Object to it's own page and tried to change the text to a more mature form Skrim 07:52, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

But what exactly is Flash animation?

I come in here in hope of finding out what flahs animation actually is, and all is see is a long artice about how its history, what it is used for and other stuff that doesn't answear my question. This article would be much improved if this was mentioned in the intro. What differs it from traditional animation, how are the drawings made (mouse or tablet or something else), what advantages does it have compared to traditional animation, what advantages has traditional animation compared to flash animation, is there different ways to make the flash animation? And so on. 193.217.192.96 16:00, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I share the previous commentor's frustration: What's the architecture of a flash-based system? What are the components, where do they live, what are the interactions between the components and how are those interactions triggered? There is nothing in the article that tells me how a flash-based system works. A few diagrams of the implementation architecture would be worth a thousand words!

I think they were more interested in the actual aspect of animating in flash, where you have more questions with interactive development. However, I think both subjects warrant their own pages. This page is more about Flash as an application and the uses of which are many.--Iamdeadfish 21:27, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Entry on Flash Player 9 in this article is misplaced, and contains unsupported claims

The entry for the release of Flash Player 9 seems to be misplaced, as there is now an article specifically for the player (vs authoring tool) on Wikipedia. Also, the claims that v9 is buggy aren't really substantiated in this article or entry: "unlike past versions of Flash, it is buggy and unstable, leading to frequent browser crashes on various platforms. It is also a less seamless upgrade than previous versions, and is not fully backwards-compatible."

While we did experience extremely high server loads that decreased our QoS in delivering the install during the MySpace upgrades, we have not yet seen a high volume of customer reports or bugs filed that indicate to us that v9 itself is "buggy and unstable." Of course, that's not to say it isn't true so I encourage users and developers to report these problems to Adobe. Also, if developers are finding areas that they feel are causing the player to not be backwards-compatible we would like to understand these issues. We are always extremely careful to protect backwards compatibility whenever possible, but it could be that we did not make clear changes or updates that were necessary for our security model OR it could be a bug that we need to address.

Any details and repro steps will help us track these issues down and resolve them asap. Bugs and issues should be reported here: www.adobe.com/go/wish.

I won't correct this entry myself since I don't have an account and don't want the action to be misinterpreted. I hope that the community will see fit to edit this to be more neutral, as it typically does. ;-)

best regards,

Emmy Huang, Sr. Product Manager, Adobe Flash Player --216.104.211.5 18:36, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarifications. Unverified claims almost always get the boot, and it helps to have feedback from the subject of the article. Thanks, GChriss <always listening><c> 23:43, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Video?

I don't know enough about the subject to add it myself, but some information about the video system now included in Flash (and so popular with the likes of youtube) would be very interesting. Dan100 (Talk) 12:40, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Windows XP Media Edition

Why does Adobe prohibit product installation on a Media Edition version of XP? -Litefantastic 22:05, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm using it right now on media edition...the player works fine too, if that's what you mean. 216.37.131.119 21:06, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Wrong Title

The page has wrong title. The product is called Macromedia Flash, not Adobe Flash, regardless of the acquisition of Macromedia by Adobe. Just check the official Adobe site. https://store1.adobe.com/cfusion/store/index.cfm?store=OLS-US&view=ols_prod&category=/Applications/FlashP&NR=0

I suggest the page name moved back to Macromedia Flash, which is the correct name of the product, not Adobe Flash as there's no product of that name (yet).

Flash 9 will be "Adobe Flash 9" so the current name is quite appropriate... --seifip 13:21, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

"The new version of Flash will be known as Adobe Flash after the recent acquisition of Macromedia." Yes, it will, but so far it is not known by Adobe Flash, but Macromedia Flash. Hiilidioksidi 22:08, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

--seifip 13:21, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

As well, most of the references to Adobe Flash in the text are inaccurate. Hiilidioksidi 21:09, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Adobe does call the player Adobe Flash Player, but it seems as though Adobe mostly just calls the format Flash. How about Flash (computing)? --Pmsyyz 22:16, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

That would create confusion between Flash as software, and flash as storage technology. I think Adobe Flash is the best title possible. Futurix 22:48, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree that calling it Flash (computing) could cause too much confusion with other flash technologies. I think we have to determine what this article is describing. If the article is about the Flash technology overall, then the title Adobe Flash is appropriate. If we are talking about the Flash development tool that Adobe makes, then the title Macromedia Flash is more appropriate. In any case, these three concepts/products should be addressed in future revisions of this and related articles.--Janus657 21:52, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

As software naming conventions go, I suspect the product will be changed to Adobe Flash within the major release or so. Changing a product name requires a lot of work (all the documentation has to be checked and changed, coding needs to change, error messages need to change, internal catalog has to change, etc. etc. ad nauseum). I don't know what their release cycles are like but I wouldn't be surprised to see the name change for Flash (and other products like Dreamweaver) getting the Adobe label within a year or so. Just a guess. --Traveliter Friday, 2007-03-02 T 20:54 UTC

Flash 9???

There is no information on Flash 9 on this page...

Does anyone have good information to add here?

Asharism 12:52, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

flash 9 and internet explorer

flash 9 closes down internet explorer. fixes? 82.12.86.64 14:32, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Flash, SVG, and others

Adobe Flash Player Statistics has a picture from a study, comparing the internet usage of different software platforms. Information in this study should be included in the article. --70.111.218.254 16:43, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

need consistent spelling of "website"

Both "website" and "web site" appear in this Wikipedia entry (say under 4.2 Usage). It appears that both spellings are valid, but I think consistency should be maintained (at least within a given section). JY.public 13:13, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

XML bugs and the problems this causes to XMPP server projects

Can someone with more technical experience of the problem add a note in the criticism section about the XML bugs in Adobe Flash? See also page on the ejabberd website about a Flash patch, mention of the problem on the mailing list of jabberd14 and jabberd2, and some more details about the problem. Adobe should fix this because the XMPP world don't want to become like the Web where browsers needs to catch up with implementing unstandard behaviour which makes the web less open and thus it's more difficult to enter the market of the Web (web browsers, web site building tools, and web sites). NaturalBornKiller 14:44, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

The bug in question was fixed in Flash 9. Besides the whole issue is too small to be mentioned in the article. Futurix 16:50, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

FlashWiki

Despite the warning stating no more links, I think that the website flash wiki should be added to the external links because I assume a few of the people looking through this page is looking for a reference, and flashwiki is an ideal reference for such people, while Wikipedia isnt. â€"The preceding unsigned comment was added by Trig1 (talk • contribs) 20:45, 2 February 2007 (UTC).

Citations for first, large scale, FLASH syndication and VIDEO use

Miniclip's FLASH Dancing Bush game using VIDEO, was freely syndicated to all websites in 2001:

- Wall St. Journal, Jan., 2002 article referring to 2001 FLASH Dancing Bush sensation: http://www.domainmart.com/news/WSJ_ecommerce-marketing2.htm

- Library of Cogress, archive, Oct, 23, 2001 : http://wasearch.loc.gov/sep11/2001*sa_/dancingbush.com/ clearly shows Dancing Bush freely syndicated: "Put on your site for free" link under Dancing Bush game. This is the earliest archived example of a large website freely syndicating FLASH online content.

- Google: Go to google and type in "dancing bush" to see the thousands of websites that Dancing Bush was syndicated to.

- Comscore Media Metrix Industry reports: http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?id=254 showing Miniclip as a top newcomer to the Internet (a major website) in 2001 with over 1 million users.

- Dancing Bush game in action originaly DEMONSTATING THE USE OF FLASH VIDEO in 2001 with 2001 copyright notice and syndication link: "Put this on your website for free" http://www.miniclip.com/games/dancing-bush/en/ (Dancing Bush character was filmed by digital video camera, imported into FLASH and made interactive.) This is also the first use of INTERACTIVE VIDEO in FLASH.

- One of the first websites the FLASH game was syndicated to with the syndication link visible in game under the "more" button: http://www.dancingbush.com/

Wikipedia is not a reference, so people don't look for reference in it. No more external links means no more external links. Futurix 22:26, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

blablablabla i will put a link here if i damn well want to 63.152.13.80 18:16, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Flash 9 IDE Release Date

The article says that the Flash 9 IDE will be released May-June 2007. Are there any sources for this date?

Updated question: Now the article says that the Flash 9 Authoring tool will be released in April 2007. Please provide a source for this critically important information. Developers with active projects have to make decisions about which version develop with based on the projected release date. An incorrect date could cause serious issues for some developers that take that date to be accurate. Thanks.
-John 202.44.163.237 03:16, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I added a citation needed tag to it. But not being a real Wikipedia contributor, I'm not sure whether that's the right course of action or not.

BitTorrent?

Wondering if there's any initiative underway to integrate BitTorrent distribution into Flash, eg for BitTorrent to be used to loadMovies called for from within SWFs. Doesn't seem to be, but figured I'd post a wonder here just in case. -:)Ozzyslovechild 05:47, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

yes and no, full support would require that flash has full support for sockets. It's strictly a client. It might be possible to use a java applet to create a listener socket however, but I haven't had a need to test this theory out. In principal the communication would be like this:

flash -----> java applet <------ remote host â€"Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.19.134.69 (talk) 10:29, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

A really good example of how a Flash website should look like

This studio is called 2advanced and I recommand it 2 high-level Flash designer, The background sound, Custome Panel, Background picture. [4]

Another good example is Webmindcreator Studios website [5]

P.s I think perhaps most of designers had already seen them â€"The preceding unsigned comment was added by Curious Darkness (talk • contribs) 13:25, 23 March 2007 (UTC).

Version misinformation

"Flash Professional 8 (released on 13 September 2005) - Released with the Flash Player 8, Flash Professional 8 added features focused on expressiveness, quality, video, and mobile authoring. New features included Filters and blend modes, easing control for animation, ..."

Easing was already in Flash in version MX. Maybe earlier, I'm not sure because MX was the first version I had. Ryratt 01:17, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Developers of program

I think there should be a part with the developers' name listed. It would be helpful. Waterbender kara *talk • contribs*

agreed 189.24.147.168 12:15, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Flash Alerts.jpg

Under the picture flash alerts.jpg it lists reasons for seeing this alert. Not mentioned is the most common reason for seeing this error. Usually when you get this error its because there is actionscript running in an infinite loop do to poor programming.

Copyedit

Hmm

Article says: "There is to date no Linux Flash Player for non-x86 compatible processors (e.g. x86-64 native, PowerPC, ARM, etc.)." but there is Linux-based Nokia N800 with Flash 7 (ARM processor).--Zzzzzzzzzz 21:10, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Also, Gnash runs on those processors without trouble, and it's a Linux Flash Player.

replace sound card to upgrade to ALSA?

As the drivers are open source, I think most sound cards with drivers for OSS will have a driver for ALSA too.

So the phrase:

"switch to ALSA, which involves upgrading the kernel and typically the sound card."

should really be

"switch to ALSA, which involves upgrading the kernel and maybe the sound card."

or something.

Upgrading the kernel may not be mandatory, too.

189.24.147.168 12:25, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy regarding flash illustrations in articles?

This is probably the wrong place to ask this question, but I am trying to determine if there is any policy page for or against the use of Flash as illustrations in wikipedia articles.

Generally the options to support animation in articles, particularly the complex 3D, math, and physics related articles, forces editors to deal with sub-par and huge animated GIFs. Wikipedia seems to prefer SVG wherever possible, but that cannot be animated AFAIK so we have to go back to GIFs..

Using flash animations (silent, minimally moving, nondistracting) in wikipedia articles would greatly simplify the process of creating self-made, high quality, GFDL/CC illustrations and examples for articles.

Due to the high saturation of Flash usage in the world, there likely aren't going to be very many potential content viewers that don't already have Flash installed from somewhere else, and Adobe's licensing for the player seems fairly open and relaxed.

DMahalko 03:28, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

There is not a policy page for it, but it is not an ideal format because it is not an open format. There was much similar debate around using MP3 format for audio samples here; we ended up switched to OGG because it is open and MediaWiki developers were able to make a free tool for playing the files inline. --Bloodzombie 04:40, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

It's quite annoying how MediaWiki has to ignore propietary formats at the cost of ease of use. Many propiertary formats are better than their OpenSource versions. SWF is much better than animated GIF's and 98% of browsers have Flash installed. 70.49.167.161 (talk) 21:21, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

You could use animated SVG images with embedded PNG or JPEG graphics or MNG for animations.

71.234.39.244 (talk) 01:32, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

@70.49.167.161 By strongly discouraging non open formats like flash, wikipedia is creating a demand that browsers be able to render open formats properly. It would be a bit hypocritical were wikipedia to not do this, as it would prevent or hinder the truly open distribution of information. Wikipedia might change it's mind with the openscreen project, since the protocol's been opened up, but until there's FOSS that can create a good flash file, it's not likely to happen. Additionally, the format of SVG actually fits in with revision histories alot more easily as well. â€"Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.19.134.69 (talk) 10:42, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Example Flash content

It might be a good idea to present a lightweight example of Flash content in the entry. Even if embedding Flash objects in Wikipedia is discouraged, this entry may be a worthy exception.â€"Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.113.198.54 (talk • contribs) 19:03, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Would you want a drug recipe in an article about a banned drug?

Would you want an excerpt from currently classified document in an article about them?

--AVRS 19:32, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and yes. 209.237.225.236 (talk) 12:37, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Seconded 70.49.167.161 (talk) 21:21, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Thirded. It makes sense as an informative piece. It would help people actually looking up what flash is understand what flash is. Besides Crack cocaine tells you how to make it out of cocaine, and Classified document shows a 1 page exerpt showing a document that has been partially declassified. â€"Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.19.134.69 (talk) 10:50, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

duplication

I just finished editing the "Free Software Alternatives" section, when I noticed there is significant duplication with the "Authoring" subsection under "Third Party...". This needs cleanup - but alas I'm too tired right now. Probably the "Free Software Alternatives" section should be taken out completely or re-written to focus on alternatives to the technology, rather than the tools. --Risacher 06:01, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

"Adobe has been criticized for neglecting to optimize its products on non-Microsoft platforms."

Really? The statement seems to have begun as "Macromedia have been criticized for neglecting to optimize its products on the Mac OS X platform."

I know that this was a criticism of Macromedia, but have people made the same criticisms of Adobe? Adobe actually seems to be working on cross-platform issues with Flash.

Perhaps tagging it with a "who" would be the most conservative approach. superluser_tc 2007 December 05, 13:14 (UTC)

Flash "Diesel" (v10)

Maybe add some of the features that's coming in v10 into this article? Here's some videos giving a sneak peak: http://www.peterelst.com/blog/2007/10/03/adobe-max-chicago-sneak-peeks/ . Things like, adding "bones" to movieclips and graphics, tweening with beziercurves without having to set individual keyframes. And the ability to convert C++ into AS3 (they ported Doom into Flash). --Eikern (talk) 16:30, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Flash alerts.jpg

Image:Flash alerts.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 04:11, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Flash 7 or older

Are the bulk of flash apps out there running flash 7, something older, or somethign newer? I care because it seems Flash 7 is as high as Flash Lite or 3rd party flash apps can handle. Anyone got metrics on this? Or just a listing of the flash version required to view the major webpages dependent on Flash? Youtube etc. Mathiastck (talk) 22:09, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I would be interested to know that too, my old antique can't get anything higher than FP7 either, because it's under 450MHz.

Criticism of Adobe Flash

The "Criticisms" section ("Competition" maybe too) could be split into a new article. The section is quite long already and in such cases it is better to track criticism separate form the original object (like for example Criticism of Microsoft Windows does).--Kozuch (talk) 23:51, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Disagree: Not only has the article taken a too non-critic turn by the split, it seems that the Criticism_of_Adobe_Flash section now gets much less attention. The only advantage is that I can criticize freely without being corrected, but thats boring. To maintain the neutrality, I will continue my critics in the main article. Its not criticism if its true. -Andreas 7.oct.2008 â€"Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.241.30.214 (talk) 02:18, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Flash Based Devices

The Chumby is a Linux based device that displays flash widgets that it pulls from the net. â€"Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.199.72.106 (talk) 15:57, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Open Screen Project

Maybe some interesting news regarding Flash:

• Adobe frees Flash for devices
• Open Screen Project

--Kozuch (talk) 13:58, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Adobe_Flash&diff=211883251&oldid=211830296

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Adobe_Flash&diff=211948098&oldid=211883485

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Adobe_Flash&diff=212862118&oldid=212783035

Some recent editions (from not logged users) looks like vandalism. Can you check it, ban users/IP and fix it? Sorry for my poor English, but it isn't my native language. â€"Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.184.25.204 (talk) 09:31, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Add SWZ file format

This is the file extension for Runtime Shared Libraries in Flex 3. http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Flex_3:Feature_Introductions:Flex_3_RSLs

Blocking Flash contents

While there might be legitimate uses for Flash animations, the Flash mechanism is heavily abused at most sites that use it. Constantly moving animations make the page contents unreadable, annoy the users, just cause headache, and urge the users to leave the page.

The guilt for this is on Adobe itself. The main problem is that Adobe provides no way to stop the animations (as one can stop animated GIFs by pressing ESC) and no way for the browser to control this -- or at least Adobe makes it possible for Flash authors to prevent the user from the ability to stop the animation.

This urges an increasing number of users to install plugins that prevent Flash contents from downloading and execution. A good example is FlashBlock for FireFox.

Now that an increased number of users disables Flash, the main problem of Flash format is that most (well, perhaps for now -- many) users will just not see it at all! Thus web developers should not use it for any important information. I.e., the rule of thumb is: Flash = Spam; if it were something important then the site designer would use some more reliable format (plain text most probably).

I consider the Flash = Spam issue so important that I dared add an external link to FlashBlock to the page, in spite of a phrase there that asks for no more links. I think this would contribute to Wikipedia neutrality: here is a link to install Flash player for those who for some reason still might want it, and here is a link for preventing the Flash annoyance for most of us who wants to avoid it.

Gelbukh (talk) 18:13, 17 August 2008 (UTC)