Essentials of Adobe Flash

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Contents
Articles
Adobe Flash Action Message Format ActionScript ActionScrip 3 ActionScript code protection Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder Adobe Shockwave Sandro Corsaro FHTML Fdb Flash Chart Flash Gallery Adobe Flash Lite Flash MP3 Player Adobe Flash Player Flash Video Flash animation Flash intro FusionCharts FutureSplash Animator FutureWave Software GameSWF Gnash JStart Joe Paradise Jugglor Local Shared Object MTASC Magic gopher Ming library Open Dialect Real Time Messaging Protocol SWF2EXE Software SWFFit 1 14 16 26 26 31 34 37 38 39 39 41 42 45 47 54 59 64 64 66 67 68 69 72 73 75 76 80 81 82 83 84 87 89

SWFObject SWFTools SWX Format Scalable Inman Flash Replacement Screensaver Creator SWF Swfdec swfmill Toufee

90 92 93 94 96 97 100 101 102

References
Article Sources and Contributors Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors 104 107

Article Licenses
License 108

Adobe Flash

Adobe Flash

Developer(s) Written in Operating system Type License Website

Adobe Systems (formerly by Macromedia) C++ Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, Symbian, Windows Mobile Multimedia Proprietary EULA Adobe Flash Platform Homepage
[1]

Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash) is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements and games. More recently, it has been positioned as a tool for the so-called "Rich Internet Application" ("RIA"). Flash manipulates vector and raster graphics to provide animation of text, drawings, and still images. It supports bidirectional streaming of audio and video, and it can capture user input via mouse, keyboard, microphone, and camera. Flash contains an Object-oriented language called ActionScript. Flash content may be displayed on various computer systems and devices, using Adobe Flash Player, which is available free for common web browsers, some mobile phones and a few other electronic devices (using Flash Lite).

History
Originally acquired by Macromedia, Flash was introduced in 1996, and is currently developed and distributed by Adobe Systems. The precursor to the Flash application was SmartSketch, a drawing application for pen computers running the PenPoint OS developed by Jonathan Gay, who began working on it in college and extended the idea for Silicon Beach Software and its successors.[2] [3] When PenPoint failed in the marketplace, SmartSketch was ported to Microsoft Windows and Mac OS. With the Internet becoming more popular, SmartSketch was re-released as FutureSplash, a vector-based web animation in competition with Macromedia Shockwave. In 1995, SmartSketch was further modified with frame-by-frame animation features and re-released as FutureSplash Animator on multiple platforms.[4] The product was offered to Adobe and used by Microsoft in its early work with the Internet (MSN). In 1996, FutureSplash was acquired by Macromedia and released as Flash, contracting "Future" and "Splash".

Format
Flash files are in the SWF format, traditionally called "ShockWave Flash" movies, "Flash movies," or "Flash games", usually have a .swf file extension, and may be used in the form of a Web-page plug-in, strictly "played" in a standalone Flash Player, or incorporated into a self-executing Projector movie (with the .exe extension in Microsoft Windows). Flash Video files[5] have a .flv file extension and are either used from within .swf files or played through a flv-aware player, such as VLC, or QuickTime and Windows Media Player with external codecs added. The use of vector graphics combined with program code allows Flash files to be smaller and thus for streams to use less bandwidth than the corresponding bitmaps or video clips. For content in a single format (such as just text, video, or audio), other alternatives may provide better performance and consume less CPU power than the corresponding Flash movie, for example when using transparency or making large screen updates such as photographic or text fades.

Adobe Flash In addition to a vector-rendering engine, the Flash Player includes a virtual machine called the ActionScript Virtual Machine (AVM) for scripting interactivity at run-time, support for video, MP3-based audio, and bitmap graphics. As of Flash Player 8, it offers two video codecs: On2 Technologies VP6 and Sorenson Spark, and run-time support for JPEG, Progressive JPEG, PNG, and GIF. In the next version, Flash is slated to use a just-in-time compiler for the ActionScript engine. Flash Player is a browser plugin, and cannot run within a usual e-mail client, such as Outlook. Instead, a link must open a browser window. A Gmail labs feature allows playback of YouTube videos linked in emails. Flash Video Until the advent of HTML5, getting browsers to display video was a platform-specific issue, due to lack of a Web standard for video and a common video codec, so developers employed Flash's proprietary technology, which makes multimedia embedded in this way either unavailable or notoriously difficult to access for those without the Flash Player. A web standard for video is in development for HTML 5. Flash Audio Flash Audio is most commonly encoded in MP3 or AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) however it does also support ADPCM, Nellymoser (Nellymoser Asao Codec) and Speex audio codecs. Flash allows sample rates of 11,22,44.1kHz. It does not support 48kHz audio sample rate which is the standard Tv, DVD sample rate. On August 20, 2007, Adobe announced on its blog that with Update 3 of Flash Player 9, Flash Video will also support some parts of the MPEG-4 international standards.[6] Specifically, Flash Player will have support for video compressed in H.264 (MPEG-4 Part 10), audio compressed using AAC (MPEG-4 Part 3), the F4V, MP4 (MPEG-4 Part 14), M4V, M4A, 3GP and MOV multimedia container formats, 3GPP Timed Text specification (MPEG-4 Part 17) which is a standardized subtitle format and partial parsing support for the 'ilst' atom which is the ID3 equivalent iTunes uses to store metadata. MPEG-4 Part 2 and H.263 will not be supported in F4V file format. Adobe also announced that they will be gradually moving away from the FLV format to the standard ISO base media file format (MPEG-4 Part 12) owing to functional limits with the FLV structure when streaming H.264. The final release of the Flash Player supporting some parts of MPEG-4 standards had become available in Fall 2007.[7]

Authoring tools

Adobe Flash CS5 Professional (11.0.0.485) under Windows 7. Developer(s) Written in Operating system Type Adobe Systems (formerly by Macromedia) C++ Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X Multimedia

Adobe Flash

3
License Website Proprietary EULA Adobe Flash Professional Homepage
[8]

The Adobe Flash Professional multimedia authoring program is used to create content for the Adobe Engagement Platform, such as web applications, games and movies, and content for mobile phones and other embedded devices.

History
Release Year FutureSplash Animator Macromedia Flash 1 Macromedia Flash 2 Macromedia Flash 3 Macromedia Flash 4 Macromedia Flash 5 Macromedia Flash MX Macromedia Flash MX 2004 initial version of Flash with basic editing tools and a timeline 1996 a Macromedia re-branded version of the FutureSplash Animator 1996 Released with Flash Player 2, new features included: the object library 1997 1998 Released with Flash Player 3, new features included: the movieclip element, JavaScript plug-in integration, transparency and an external stand alone player 1999 Released with Flash Player 4, new features included: internal variables, an input field, advanced ActionScript, and streaming MP3 2000 Released with Flash Player 5, new features included: ActionScript 1.0 (based on ECMAScript, making it very similar to JavaScript in syntax), XML support, Smartclips (the precursor to components in Flash), HTML text formatting added for dynamic text 2002 Released with Flash Player 6, new features included: a video codec (Sorenson Spark), Unicode, v1 UI Components, compression, ActionScript vector drawing API 2003 Released with Flash Player 7, new features included: Actionscript 2.0 (which enabled an object-oriented programming model for Flash, although it lacked the Script assist function of other versions, meaning Actionscript could only be typed out manually), behaviors, extensibility layer (JSAPI), alias text support, timeline effects. Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 included all Flash MX 2004 features, plus: Screens (forms for non-linear state-based development and slides for organizing content in a linear slide format like PowerPoint), web services integration, video import wizard, Media Playback components (which encapsulate a complete MP3 and/or FLV player in a component that may be placed in an SWF), Data components (DataSet, XMLConnector, WebServicesConnector, XUpdateResolver, etc.) and data binding APIs, the Project Panel, v2 UI components, and Transition class libraries. 2005 Macromedia Flash Basic 8, a less feature-rich version of the Flash authoring tool targeted at new users who only want to do basic drawing, animation and interactivity. Released with Flash Player 8, this version of the product has limited support for video and advanced graphical and animation effects. Macromedia Flash Professional 8 added features focused on expressiveness, quality, video, and mobile authoring. New features included Filters and blend modes, easing control for animation, enhanced stroke properties (caps and joins), object-based drawing mode, run-time bitmap caching, FlashType advanced anti-aliasing for text, On2 VP6 advanced video codec, support for alpha transparency in video, a stand-alone encoder and advanced video importer, cue point support in FLV files, an advanced video playback component, and an interactive mobile device emulator. Description

Macromedia Flash 8

Adobe Flash

4 2007 Flash CS3 is the first version of Flash released under the Adobe name. CS3 features full support for ActionScript 3.0, allows entire applications to be converted into ActionScript, adds better integration with other Adobe products such as Adobe Photoshop, and also provides better Vector drawing behavior, becoming more like Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Fireworks. 2008 Contains inverse kinematics (bones), basic 3D object manipulation, object-based animation, a text engine, and further expansions to ActionScript 3.0. CS4 allows the developer to create animations with many features absent in previous versions. 2010 Flash CS5 was released on April 12, 2010 and launched for trialling and normal buying on April 30, 2010. Flash CS5 Professional includes support for publishing iPhone applications.[9] However, on April 8, 2010 Apple changed the terms of its Developer License to effectively ban the use of the Flash-to-iPhone compiler[10] and on April 20, 2010 Adobe announced that they will be making no additional investments in targeting the iPhone and iPad in Flash CS5.[11] Other features of Flash CS5 are a new text engine (TLF), further improvement to inverse kinematics, and the Code Snippets panel.

Adobe Flash CS3 Professional

Adobe Flash CS4 Professional Adobe Flash CS5 Professional

Third-party tools
Open Source projects like Ajax Animator [12] and the (now defunct) UIRA aim to create a flash development environment, complete with a graphical user environment. Alternatively, programs such as swfmill, SWFTools, and MTASC provide tools to create SWF files, but do so by compiling text, actionscript or XML files into Flash animations. It is also possible to create SWF files programmatically using the Ming library, which has interfaces for C, PHP, C++, Perl, Python, and Ruby. haXe is an open source, high-level object-oriented programming language geared towards web-content creation that can compile Flash files. Many shareware developers produced Flash creation tools and sold them for under US$50 between 2000 and 2002. In 2003 competition and the emergence of free Flash creation tools had driven many third-party Flash-creation tool-makers out of the market, allowing the remaining developers to raise their prices, although many of the products still cost less than US$100 and support ActionScript. As for open source tools, KToon can edit vectors and generate SWF, but its interface is very different from Macromedia's. Another, more recent example of a Flash creation tool is SWiSH Max made by an ex-employee of Macromedia. Toon Boom Technologies also sells a traditional animation tool, based on Flash. In addition, several programs create .swf-compliant files as output from their programs. Among the most famous of these are Screencast tools, which leverage the ability to do lossless compression and playback of captured screen content in order to produce demos, tutorials, or software simulations of programs. These programs are typically designed for use by non-programmers, and create Flash content quickly and easily, but cannot actually edit the underlying Flash code (i.e. the tweening and transforms, etc.) Screencam is perhaps the oldest screencasting authoring tool to adopt Flash as the preferred output format, having been developed since the mid-90s. That screencasting programs have adopted Flash as the preferred output is testament to Flash's presence as a ubiquitous cross-platform animation file format. Other tools are focused on creating specific types of Flash content. Anime Studio is a 2D animation software package specialized for character animation which creates SWF files. Express Animator is similarly aimed specifically at animators. Question Writer publishes its quizzes to Flash file format. Users who are not programmers or web designers will also find on-line tools that allow them to build full Flash-based web sites. One of the oldest services available (1998) is FlashToGo [13]. Such companies provide a wide variety of pre-built models (templates) associated to a Content Management System that empowers users to easily build, edit and publish their web sites. Other sites, that allows for greater customization and design flexibility are Wix.com and CirclePad.

Adobe Flash Adobe wrote a software package called Adobe LiveMotion, designed to create interactive animation content and export it to a variety of formats, including SWF. LiveMotion went through two major releases, but failed to gain any notable user base. In February 2003, Macromedia purchased Presedia, which had developed a Flash authoring tool that automatically converted PowerPoint files into Flash. Macromedia subsequently released the new product as Breeze, which included many new enhancements. In addition, (as of version 2) Apple's Keynote presentation software also allows users to create interactive presentations and export to SWF.

Installed user base

Flash as a format has become very widespread on the desktop market and created a market dominance. General web statistics company estimates availability at 95%,[14] while Adobe claims that 98 percent of US Web users and 99.3 percent of all Internet desktop users have the Flash Player installed,[15] [16] with 92%-95%[17] (depending on region) having the latest version. Numbers vary depending on the detection scheme and research demographics. The Adobe Flash Player exists for a variety of systems and devices: Windows, Mac OS 9/X, Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, Pocket PC/Windows CE, OS/2, QNX, Symbian, Palm OS, BeOS, and IRIX, although the performance is typically best on Windows (see Performance). For compatibility with devices (embedded systems), see Macromedia Flash Lite. Among mobile devices, Flash has less penetration because of Apple's policy of not bundling or allowing third party runtimes. The iPhone has captured more than 60% of global smartphone web traffic, and the iPod touch makes up more than 95% of all "Mobile Internet Device" traffic. This severely impairs Adobe's ability to market Flash as being a ubiquitous mobile platform. However, Flash support has been announced for a number of competing mobile platforms, including the next version of Android.[18]

64-bit support
Adobe provides an experimental 64-bit build of Flash Player 10. It is only for Linux, and only for x86-64 processors.[19] [20] The first release of a 64-bit Adobe Flash Player was on November 11, 2008.[21] Adobe decided to support 64-bit Linux due to numerous requests[19] . Although it is possible to run 32-bit browser plugins in a 32-bit browser on a 64-bit system, alternatively by using an intermediate layer between browser and plugin (such as nspluginwrapper), the solution was impractical for users.[22] Adobe expects final 64-bit support for Windows, Macintosh and Linux in an upcoming major release of Adobe Flash Player.[19] The official 32-bit player is still distributed in 64-bit Linux distributions e.g. Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, of which some users have reported problems with the 32-bit player on some websites.[23] [24] [25] Affected users can install the 64-bit player manually.[26]

Flash blocking in web browsers

Some web browsers default to not play Flash content before the user clicks on it, e.g. Konqueror, K-Meleon. Equivalent "Flash blocker" extensions also exist for many popular browsers: Firefox has NoScript and Flashblock, Opera has an extension also called Flashblock. Using Opera Turbo requires user clicks to play flash content. Internet Explorer has Foxie, which contains a number of features, one of them also named Flashblock. WebKit-based browsers under Mac OS X have ClickToFlash.[27]

Adobe Flash

Related file formats and extensions

Explanation Extension

.swf

.swf files are completed, compiled and published files that cannot be edited with Adobe Flash. However, many '.swf decompilers' do exist. Attempting to import .swf files using Flash allows it to retrieve some assets from the .swf, but not all.

.FXG .fla

FXG is an unified xml file format being developed by Adobe for Flex, Flash, Photoshop and other applications. .fla files contain source material for the Flash application. Flash authoring software can edit FLA files and compile them into .swf files. The Flash source file format is currently a binary file format based on the Microsoft Compound File Format. In Flash Pro CS5, the fla file format is a zip container of an XML-based project structure.

.xfl

.xfl files are XML-based project files that are equivalent to the binary .fla format. Flash authoring software uses XFL as an exchange format in Flash CS4. It imports XFL files that are exported from InDesign and AfterEffects. In Flash Pro CS5, the xfl file is a key file which opens the "uncompressed FLA" file, which is a hierarchy of folders containing XML and binary files.

.as

.as files contain ActionScript source code in simple source files. FLA files can also contain Actionscript code directly, but separate external .as files often emerge for structural reasons, or to expose the code to versioning applications. They sometimes use the extension .actionscript

.mxml

.mxml files are used in conjunction with ActionScript files (and .css files), and offer a markup-language-style syntax (like HTML) for designing the GUI in Flex. Each MXML file creates a new class that extends the class of the root tag, and adds the nested tags as children (if they are descendants of UIComponent) or members of the class.

.swd

.swd files are temporary debugging files used during Flash development. Once finished developing a Flash project these files are not needed and can be removed.

.asc

.asc files contain Server-Side ActionScript, which is used to develop efficient and flexible client-server Macromedia Flash Communication Server MX applications.

.abc .flv

.abc files contain actionscript bytecode used by the Actionscript Virtual Machine AVM (Flash 8 and prior), and AVM2 (Flash 9 or later). .flv files are Flash video files, as created by Adobe Flash, ffmpeg, Sorenson Squeeze, or On2 Flix. The audio and video data within FLV files are encoded in the same way as they are within SWF files.

.f4v

.f4v files are similar to MP4 files and can be played back by Flash Player 9 Update 3 and above. F4V file format is second container format for Flash video and it differs from FLV file format. It is based on the ISO base media file format.

[28] [29]

.f4p .f4a .f4b .swc

.f4p files are F4V files with digital rights management. .f4a files are F4V files that contain only audio streams. .f4b files are F4V audio book files.

[29]

[29]

[29]

.swc files are used for distributing components; they contain a compiled clip, the component's ActionScript class file, and other files that describe the component.

.jsfl .swt .flp

.jsfl files are used to add functionality in the Flash Authoring environment; they contain JavaScript code and access the Flash JavaScript API. .swt files are 'templatized' forms of .swf files, used by Macromedia Generator .flp files are XML files used to reference all the document files contained in a Flash Project. Flash Projects allow the user to group multiple, related files together to assist in Flash project organization, compilation and build.

.spl .aso

.spl files are FutureSplash documents. .aso files are cache files used during Flash development, containing compiled ActionScript byte code. An ASO file is recreated when a change in its corresponding class files is detected. Occasionally the Flash IDE does not recognize that a recompile is necessary, and these cache files must be deleted manually. They are located in %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash8\en\Configuration\Classes\aso on Win32 / Flash8.

.sol

.sol files are created by Adobe Flash Player to hold Local Shared Objects (data stored on the system running the Flash player).

Adobe Flash

Competition
Microsoft Silverlight
In recent years, Microsoft Silverlight has emerged as a strong competitor to Flash. While not yet as prevalent on web sites as Flash, Silverlight has been used to provide video streaming for many high profile events, including the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing,[30] the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver,[31] and the 2008 conventions for both major political parties in the United States.[32] Silverlight is also used by Netflix for its instant video streaming service.[33]

Open standard alternatives

The W3C's SVG and SMIL standards are seen as the closest competitors of Flash.[34] Adobe formerly developed and distributed the 'Adobe SVG Viewer' client plug-in for MS Internet Explorer, but discontinued support and distribution on January 1, 2009.[35] It has been noted by industry commentators that this was probably no coincidence at a time when Adobe moved from competing with Macromedia's Flash to owning the technology itself.[36] Meanwhile, Opera has supported SVG since version 8 and Safari has since version 3,[37] and Mozilla Firefox's built-in support for SVG continues to grow.[38] [39] UIRA was a free software project that intended to become a complete replacement for Adobe Flash. The project collapsed in mid 2007, though people are now discussing reviving or continuing it,[40] and a few other projects like Ajax Animator [12] still exist. HTML 5 is gaining ground as a competitor to Flash: the canvas element enables animation, and scripting can be synchronized with audio and video element timeupdate events.

Third-party implementation
Specifications In October 1998, Macromedia disclosed the Flash Version 3 Specification to the world on its website. It did this in response to many new and often semi-open formats competing with SWF, such as Xara's Flare and Sharp's Extended Vector Animation formats. Several developers quickly created a C library for producing SWF. In February 1999, the company introduced MorphInk 99, the first third-party program to create SWF files. Macromedia also hired Middlesoft to create a freely available developers' kit for the SWF file format versions 3 to 5. Macromedia made the Flash Files specifications for versions 6 and later available only under a non-disclosure agreement, but they are widely available from various sites. In April 2006, the Flash SWF file format specification was released with details on the then newest version format (Flash 8). Although still lacking specific information on the incorporated video compression formats (On2, Sorenson Spark, etc.), this new documentation covered all the new features offered in Flash v8 including new ActionScript commands, expressive filter controls, and so on. The file format specification document is offered only to developers who agree to a license agreement that permits them to use the specifications only to develop programs that can export to the Flash file format. The license forbids the use of the specifications to create programs that can be used for playback of Flash files. The Flash 9 specification was made available under similar restrictions.[41] In June 2009, Adobe launched the Open Screen Project (Adobe link [42]), which made the SWF specification available without restrictions. Previously, developers couldn't use the specification for making SWF-compatible players, but only for making SWF-exporting authoring software. The specification still omits information on codecs such as Sorenson Spark, however.[43]

Adobe Flash Playback Since Flash files do not depend on an open standard such as SVG, this reduces the incentive for non-commercial software to support the format, although there are several third party tools which use and generate the SWF file format. 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 [44] and subject to approval. There is, as of late 2008, no complete free software replacement which offers all the functionality of the latest version of Adobe Flash Player. Gnash is an active project that aims to create a free player and browser plugin for the Adobe Flash file format and so provide a free alternative to the Adobe Flash Player under the GNU General Public License. Despite potential patent worries because of the proprietary nature of the files involved,[45] Gnash supports most SWF v7 features and some SWF v8 and v9.[46] [47] Gnash runs on Windows, Linux and other operating systems on 32-bit, 64-bit and other architectures. Swfdec is another open-source flash player available for Linux, FreeBSD and OpenBSD. See also SWFOpener. Scaleform GFx is a commercial alternative Flash player that features full hardware acceleration using the GPU and has high conformance up to Flash 8 and AS2. Scaleform GFx is licensed as a game middleware solution and used by many PC and console 3D games for user interfaces, HUDs, mini games, and video playback. rtmpdump [48] is an open source software implementation of an RTMP client, Flash's own streaming protocol. rtmpdump was removed from Sourceforge on request by Adobe.[49] flvstreamer [50] is an open source software implementation of an RTMP client, Flash's own streaming protocol. It is a fork of rtmpdump which has all the cryptographic support (i.e. RTMPE and SWF verification) removed from the code.

Critcism
Security
Of the 321 holes Symantec documented in 2009 affecting browser plug-ins, 134 were for ActiveX technologies, 84 were for Java SE (Standard Edition), 49 were for Adobe Reader, 27 were for QuickTime, 23 were for Adobe Flash Player, and 4 for Firefox extensions.[51] Flash's security record[52] has caused several security experts to recommend to not install Flash or to block it[53] . The US-CERT recommends to block Flash using NoScript[54] . Charlie Miller recommended "not to install Flash"[55] at the computer security conference CanSecWest. As of March 27, 2010, The Flash Player has 75 CVE entries[56] , 34 of which have been ranked with a high severity (leading to arbitrary code execution), and 40 ranked medium. In February 2010, Adobe officially apologized[57] for not fixing a known crash for over 1 year. Symantec's Internet Security Threat Report[58] states that a remote code execution in Adobe Reader and Flash Player[59] was the second most attacked vulnerability in 2009. The same report also recommends to employ browser add-ons to wherever possible to disable Adobe Flash Player when visiting untrusted sites. McAfee predicts that Adobe software, especially Reader and Flash, will be the primary target for attacks in 2010[60] . Adobe applications had already become the most popular client-software targets for attackers during the last quarter of 2009[61] . Local Shared Objects ("Flash cookies") Like the HTTP cookie, a flash cookie (also known as Local Shared Object) can be used to save application data. Flash cookies are not shared across domains. An August 2009 study by the Social Science Research Network found that 50% of websites using Flash were also employing flash cookies, yet privacy policies rarely disclosed them, and user controls for privacy preferences were lacking.[62] Most browsers' cache and history suppress or delete functions do not affect Flash Player's writing Local Shared Objects to its own cache, and the user community is much less

Adobe Flash aware of the existence and function of Flash cookies than HTTP cookies[63] . Thus, users having deleted HTTP cookies and purged browser history files and caches may believe that they have purged all tracking data from their computers when in fact Flash browsing history remains. Adobe's own Flash Website Storage Settings panel [64], a submenu of Adobe's Flash Settings Manager web application [65], and other editors and toolkits can manage settings for and delete Flash Local Shared Objects[66] .

Performance
Any Flash player has to be able to animate on top of video renderings, which makes hardware accelerated video rendering at least not as straightforward as with a purpose built multimedia player.[67] Therefore, even when only displaying video, Flash players are more resource intensive than dedicated video player software. Comparisons have shown Adobe Flash Player to perform better on Windows than Mac OSX and Linux with the same hardware.[68] [69]

Accessibility
Using Flash tends to break conventions associated with normal HTML pages. Selecting text, scrolling,[70] form control and right-clicking act differently than with a regular HTML webpage. Many such interface unexpectancies are fixable by the designer. Usability expert Jakob Nielsen published an Alertbox in 2000 entitled, Flash: 99% Bad which listed issues like this.[71] Some problems have been improved upon since Nielsen's complaints: Text size can be controlled using full page zoom, found in many modern browsers. It has been possible for authors to include alternative text in Flash since Flash Player 6. This accessibility feature is compatible only with certain screen readers and only under Windows.[72] The US Justice Department has stated in regard to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990:[73] Covered entities under the ADA are required to provide effective communication, regardless of whether they generally communicate through print media, audio media, or computerized media such as the Internet. Covered entities that use the Internet for communications regarding their programs, goods, or services must be prepared to offer those communications through accessible means as well.

Open web versus proprietary plugins

The proprietary nature of Flash is a concern to advocates of open standards and free software. Its widespread use has, according to some such observers, harmed the otherwise open nature of the World Wide Web.[74] A response may be seen in Adobe's Open Screen Project. Representing the free software movement, Richard Stallman stated in a speech in October 2004 that:[75] The use of Flash in websites is a major problem for our community.

A website of the popular company, as seen by the

Stallman's argument then was that no free players were comparatively visitor using the system without the proper Flash plugin support. good enough. As of February 2010, Gnash and Swfdec have seen very limited success in competing with Adobe's player. Many important and popular websites require users to have a Flash player, sometimes with no fallback for non-Flash web users. Therefore, the lack of a good free Flash player is arguably an obstacle to enjoying the web with free software, and the aforementioned ubiquity of Flash makes the problem very evident for anyone who tries. The continual high ranking of Gnash on the Free Software Foundation's list of high priority projects[76] might indicate the severity of the problem, as judged by the free software community.

Adobe Flash

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Recent developments
Adobe Labs (previously called Macromedia Labs) is a source for news and pre-release versions of emerging products and technologies from Adobe. Most innovations, such as Flash 9, Flex 3, and ActionScript 3.0 have all been discussed and/or trialled on the site. One area Adobe is focusing on (as of February 2009) is the deployment of Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). To this end, they released Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), a cross-platform runtime environment which can be used to build, using Adobe Flash, rich Internet applications that can be deployed as a desktop application. It recently surpassed 100 million installations worldwide.[77] . This is mainly due to the fact that it is installed silently when Acrobat Reader is installed. Many users are unaware of its residence on their system. Two additional components designed for large-scale implementation have been proposed by Adobe for future releases of Flash: first, the option to require an ad to be played in full before the main video piece is played; and second, the integration of digital rights management (DRM) capabilities. This way Adobe can give companies the option to link an advertisement with content and make sure that both are played and remain unchanged.[78] The current status of these two projects is unclear. Flash Player for smart phones is expected to be available to handset manufacturers at the end of 2009.[79] Open Screen Project On May 1, 2008 Adobe announced Open Screen Project, which hopes to provide a consistent application interface across devices such as personal computers, mobile devices and consumer electronics.[80] When the project was announced, several goals were outlined: the abolition of licensing fees for Adobe Flash Player and Adobe Integrated Runtime, the removal of restrictions on the use of the Shockwave Flash (SWF) and Flash Video (FLV) file format, the publishing of application programming interfaces for porting Flash to new devices and the publishing of The Flash Cast protocol and Action Message Format (AMF), which let Flash applications receive information from remote databases.[80] As of February 2009, the specifications removing the restrictions on the use of SWF and FLV/F4V specs have been published.[81] The Flash Cast protocolnow known as the Mobile Content Delivery Protocoland AMF protocols have also been made available,[81] with AMF available as an open source implementation, BlazeDS. Work on the device porting layers is in the early stages. Adobe intends to remove the licensing fees for Flash Player and Adobe AIR for devices at their release for the Open Screen Project. The list of mobile device providers who have joined the project includes Palm, Motorola and Nokia,[82] who, together with Adobe, have announced a $10 million Open Screen Project fund.[83]

See also
Adobe Flash SWF file format, the files generated by the Flash application and played by Flash Player. ActionScript ActionScript code protection Adobe Flash Player, the runtime that executes and plays back Flash movies. Adobe Flash Lite, a lightweight version of Flash Player for devices that lack the resources to run regular Flash movies such as mobile phones, some laptop computers and other portable devices. Flash Video Saffron Type System, the anti-aliased text-rendering engine used in version 8 onwards. Local Shared Object SWFObject, a JavaScript library used to embed Flash content into webpages. Flash CMS, content management for Flash content.

Adobe Flash Other Ogg Theora in HTML 5 HTML5 video Microsoft Silverlight JavaFX OpenLaszlo Synfig

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External links
Adobe Flash Platform Blog [84] - official news channel about Adobe Flash Adobe Flash for MS WinXP/Vista and Mac OS X [85] Flash plug-in for MS Windows 9x / Macintosh OSX 10.1-10.3 / Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and 4 [86]

Communities
Adobe's Flash Forum [87] FlexFlashForum.com - Flash Forum [88] Actionscript.org - Community Resource / Tutorials [89]

References
[1] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ flashplatform/ [2] Waldron, Rick (2006-08-27). "The Flash History" (http:/ / www. flashmagazine. com/ 413. htm). Flashmagazine. . Retrieved 2001-06-18. [3] Gay, Jonathan (2001). "The History of Flash" (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ macromedia/ events/ john_gay/ page02. html). Adobe Systems Inc.. . Retrieved 2009-10-18. [4] "Grandmasters of Flash: An Interview with the Creators of Flash" (http:/ / coldhardflash. com/ 2008/ 02/ grandmasters-of-flash-an-interview-with-the-creators-of-flash. html). ColdHardFlash.com. . Retrieved 2008-02-12. [5] FLV and F4V Video File Format Specification Version 9 (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ devnet/ flv/ pdf/ video_file_format_spec_v9. pdf) F4V is based on ISO base media file format standard: freely available ISO standards (http:/ / standards. iso. org/ ittf/ PubliclyAvailableStandards/ c051533_ISO_IEC_14496-12_2008. zip), and also available via subscription (http:/ / www. iso. org/ iso/ catalogue_detail?csnumber=41828) [6] "What just happened to video on the web" (http:/ / www. kaourantin. net/ 2007/ 08/ what-just-happened-to-video-on-web_20. html). Adobe. . [7] Adobe Press release on MPEG-4 support in Flash Player 9 (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ aboutadobe/ pressroom/ pressreleases/ 200708/ 082107FlashPlayer. html) [8] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ products/ flash/ flashpro/ [9] "Adobe Labs - Adobe Flash Professional CS5: Applications for iPhone" (http:/ / labs. adobe. com/ technologies/ flashcs5/ appsfor_iphone/ ). Adobe. . Retrieved 2010-03-02. [10] "New iPhone Developer Agreement Bans the Use of Adobes Flash-to-iPhone Compiler" (http:/ / daringfireball. net/ 2010/ 04/ iphone_agreement_bans_flash_compiler). Daring Fireball. . Retrieved 2010-04-22. [11] "On Adobe, Flash CS5 and iPhone Applications" (http:/ / www. mikechambers. com/ blog/ 2010/ 04/ 20/ on-adobe-flash-cs5-and-iphone-applications/ ). Mike Chambers. . Retrieved 2010-04-22. [12] http:/ / osflash. org/ ajaxanimator [13] http:/ / www. flashtogo. com/ [14] "Web Browser Plugin Market Share" (http:/ / statowl. com/ plugin_overview. php). StatOwl. . Retrieved 2009-08-18. [15] 98%: NPD study (http:/ / www. macromedia. com/ software/ player_census/ npd/ ) [16] 99.3%: Millward Brown survey, conducted June 2009. "Flash Player Statistics" (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ products/ player_census/ flashplayer/ ). Adobe Systems. . Retrieved 2009-06-04. [17] "Adobe Flash Player Version Penetration" (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ products/ player_census/ flashplayer/ version_penetration. html). Adobe Systems. . Retrieved 2009-06-04. [18] "Andy Rubin says Flash is coming in Froyo version of Android operating system" (http:/ / www. androidcentral. com/ andy-rubin-says-flash-coming-froyo-version-android-operating-system) [19] http:/ / labs. adobe. com/ technologies/ flashplayer10/ faq. html [20] http:/ / blogs. adobe. com/ penguin. swf/ 2008/ 11/ [21] Huang, Emmy (2008-11-17). "SWF 10 spec available AND Flash Player alpha for 64-bit Linux on Labs" (http:/ / weblogs. macromedia. com/ emmy/ archives/ 2008/ 11/ swf_10_spec_available_and_flash_player_alpha_for_64-bit_linux_on_labs. html). Adobe Systems. .

Adobe Flash
[22] "Linus struggles with Flash Player" (https:/ / bugzilla. redhat. com/ show_bug. cgi?id=439858). Fedora bugtracker. . Retrieved 2009-02-21. [23] Installing Adobe Flash 64 bit in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala (http:/ / adammichaelroach. com/ blog/ 110309-installing-adobe-flash-64-bit-ubuntu-910-karmic-koala) [24] http:/ / nocturn. vsbnet. be/ content/ flash-problems-64-bit-linux [25] http:/ / www. mat-wright. com/ 2010/ 02/ flash-player-10-for-64-bit-linux. html [26] http:/ / nxadm. wordpress. com/ 2009/ 04/ 26/ install-64-bit-adobe-flash-player-on-ubuntu-904/ [27] "ClickToFlash" (http:/ / rentzsch. github. com/ clicktoflash/ ). . Retrieved 2009-10-18. [28] Adobe Systems Incorporated (November 2008) (PDF). Video File Format Specification, Version 10 (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ devnet/ flv/ pdf/ video_file_format_spec_v10. pdf). Adobe Systems Incorporated. . Retrieved 2009-08-03. [29] New File Extensions and MIME Types (http:/ / www. kaourantin. net/ 2007/ 10/ new-file-extensions-and-mime-types. html) [30] "Microsoft Silverlight Gets a High Profile Win: 2008 Beijing Olympics" (http:/ / techcrunch. com/ 2008/ 01/ 06/ microsoft-silverlight-gets-a-high-profile-win-2008-bejing-olympics/ ). . Retrieved 2010-02-23. [31] "Microsoft Wins The 2010 Olympics For Silverlight" (http:/ / www. businessinsider. com/ microsoft-wins-the-2010-olympics-for-silverlight-2009-3). . Retrieved 2010-02-23. [32] "Microsoft Working to Make Political Conventions Unconventional" (http:/ / www. microsoft. com/ presspass/ features/ 2008/ aug08/ 08-19conventions. mspx). . Retrieved 2010-02-23. [33] "Netflix Begins Roll-Out of 2nd Generation Media Player for Instant Streaming on Windows PCs and Intel Macs" (http:/ / netflix. mediaroom. com/ index. php?s=43& item=288). . Retrieved 2010-02-23. [34] XML.com: Picture Perfect (http:/ / www. xml. com/ pub/ a/ 2001/ 09/ 12/ svg. html) [35] "Adobe to Discontinue Adobe SVG Viewer" (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ svg/ eol. html). Adobe Systems. . Retrieved 2007-06-18. [36] "Adobe, Rich Internet Applications and Standards" (http:/ / www. webstandards. org/ 2005/ 04/ 19/ adobe-rich-internet-applications-and-standards/ ). Web Standards Project. April 19, 2005. . Retrieved 2010-02-25. [37] "Opera" (http:/ / wiki. svg. org/ Opera). Svg wiki. Svg.org. 2006-12-27. . Retrieved 2007-06-18. [38] Quint, Antoine (2006-07-13). "First Firefox 2.0 Beta Released" (http:/ / svg. org/ story/ 2006/ 7/ 13/ 85643/ 0175). Svg.org. . Retrieved 2007-06-18. [39] "SVG improvements in Firefox 3" (https:/ / developer. mozilla. org/ en/ docs/ SVG_improvements_in_Firefox_3). Mozilla Developer Center. Mozilla. 2008-06-17. . Retrieved 2008-07-20. [40] "UIRA, Unfreeze" (http:/ / www. unfreeze. net/ ?page_id=52). unfreeze.net. 2008-04-20. . Retrieved 2008-04-21. [41] "Adobe File Format Specification FAQ" (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ licensing/ developer/ fileformat/ faq/ ). Adobe Systems. . Retrieved 2007-11-15. [42] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ openscreenproject/ faq/ [43] "Free Flash community reacts to Adobe Open Screen Project" (http:/ / www. openmedianow. org/ ?q=node/ 21). . Retrieved 2008-11-29. [44] http:/ / www. macromedia. com/ software/ flash/ open/ licensing/ [45] Hudson, Paul (July 2008). "Quick as a Gnash". Linux Format (107): 4849. "What happened is this little thing called "software patents". When you use MP3 or FLV, they're proprietary. And although we use FFMPEG and Gstreamer - we actually support all these codecs - we can't distribute Gnash that way. ...of course the OLPC project cannot legally redistribute the codecs. ...Gnash fully supports patent-free codecs such as Ogg Vorbis and Theora and Direc and stuff Rob Savoye.". [46] "Gnash Introduction" (http:/ / www. gnu. org/ software/ gnash/ ). Free Software Foundation, Inc.. 2008-06-26. . Retrieved 2008-07-20. [47] Rob Savoye, Ann Barcomb (June 2007). "Gnash Manual version 0.4.0" (http:/ / www. gnu. org/ software/ gnash/ manual/ gnash. html#flashsupport). Free Software Foundation. . Retrieved 2007-08-15. [48] http:/ / rtmpdump. mplayerhq. hu/ [49] "Adobe requests rtmpdump removed from Sourceforge" (http:/ / www. chillingeffects. org/ anticircumvention/ notice. cgi?NoticeID=25159). 2009-05-08. . Retrieved 2009-11-20. [50] http:/ / savannah. nongnu. org/ projects/ flvstreamer [51] http:/ / news. cnet. com/ 8301-27080_3-20002879-245. html [52] "Security bulletins and advisories" (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ support/ security/ #flashplayer). . Retrieved 2010-03-27. [53] "Expert says Adobe Flash policy is risky" (http:/ / news. cnet. com/ 8301-27080_3-10396326-245. html). 2009-11-12. . Retrieved 2010-03-27. [54] "Securing Your Web Browser" (http:/ / www. us-cert. gov/ reading_room/ securing_browser/ ). . Retrieved 2010-03-27. [55] "Pwn2Own 2010: interview with Charlie Miller" (http:/ / www. oneitsecurity. it/ 01/ 03/ 2010/ interview-with-charlie-miller-pwn2own/ ). 2010-03-01. . Retrieved 2010-03-27. [56] "SecurityFocus search results for Adobe Flash Player Vulnerabilities" (http:/ / www. securityfocus. com/ cgi-bin/ index. cgi?o=0& l=100& c=12& op=display_list& vendor=Adobe& title=Flash Player). . Retrieved 2010-03-27. [57] "Flash Bug Report" (http:/ / blogs. adobe. com/ emmy/ archives/ 2010/ 02/ flash_bug_repor. html). 2010-02-06. . Retrieved 2010-03-27. [58] "Internet Security Threat Report: Volume XV: April 2010" (http:/ / www4. symantec. com/ Vrt/ wl?tu_id=SUKX1271711282503126202). Symantec. April 2010. pp. 37,40,42. . Retrieved 2010-05-09. [59] "Adobe Acrobat, Reader, and Flash Player Remote Code Execution Vulnerability" (http:/ / www. securityfocus. com/ bid/ 35759). 2009-10-15. . Retrieved 2010-05-09.

12

Adobe Flash
[60] "2010 Threat Predictions" (http:/ / mcafee. com/ us/ local_content/ reports/ 7985rpt_labs_threat-predict_0110_fnl_lores. pdf). McAfee Labs. December 2009. p. 2. . Retrieved 2010-05-09. [61] "McAfee Threats Report: Fourth Quarter 2009" (http:/ / mcafee. com/ us/ local_content/ reports/ threats_2009Q4_final. pdf). McAfee Avert Labs. February 2010. p. 16. . Retrieved 2010-05-09. [62] "Soltani, Ashkan, Canty, Shannon, Mayo, Quentin, Thomas, Lauren and Hoofnagle, Chris Jay: Flash Cookies and Privacy" (http:/ / papers. ssrn. com/ sol3/ papers. cfm?abstract_id=1446862). 2009-08-10. . Retrieved 2009-08-18. [63] "Local Shared Objects -- "Flash Cookies"" (http:/ / epic. org/ privacy/ cookies/ flash. html). Electronic Privacy Information Center. 2005-07-21. . Retrieved 2010-03-08. [64] http:/ / www. macromedia. com/ support/ documentation/ en/ flashplayer/ help/ settings_manager07. html [65] http:/ / www. macromedia. com/ support/ documentation/ en/ flashplayer/ help/ settings_manager. html [66] "How to manage and disable Local Shared Objects" (http:/ / kb2. adobe. com/ cps/ 526/ 52697ee8. html). Adobe Systems Inc.. 2005-09-09. . Retrieved 2010-03-08. [67] http:/ / blogs. adobe. com/ penguin. swf/ 2010/ 01/ solving_different_problems. html [68] "Flash benchmarks on different operating systems" (http:/ / arstechnica. com/ software/ news/ 2008/ 10/ benchmarking-flash-player-10. ars). . [69] http:/ / arstechnica. com/ media/ news/ 2009/ 10/ hands-on-hulu-desktop-for-linux-beta-a-big-resource-hog. ars [70] Scrolling and Scrollbars (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox) (http:/ / www. useit. com/ alertbox/ 20050711. html) [71] Nielsen, Jakob (2000-10-29). "Flash: 99% Bad" (http:/ / www. useit. com/ alertbox/ 20001029. html). . Retrieved 2009-02-21. [72] "Provide text equivalents for graphics - in Flash" (http:/ / www. skillsforaccess. org. uk/ howto. php?id=101). Skills for Access How To. . Retrieved 2007-06-18. [73] Cynthia D. Waddell, JD. "Applying the ADA to the Internet: A Web Accessibility Standard" (http:/ / www. icdri. org/ CynthiaW/ applying_the_ada_to_the_internet. htm). . Retrieved 2010-04-11. [74] Meyer, David (2008-04-30). "Mozilla warns of Flash and Silverlight 'agenda'" (http:/ / news. zdnet. com/ 2424-3515_22-199508. html). ZDNet. . Retrieved 2009-01-11. "Companies building websites should beware of proprietary rich-media technologies like Adobe's Flash and Microsoft's Silverlight, the founder of Mozilla Europe has warned." [75] "Richard Stallman on The free software movement and its challenges" (http:/ / video. google. com/ videoplay?docid=-1647626314188526128& ei=LkqgSbfhIYva2gLUotGRDg& hl=un). Australian National University, Canberra, Australia: Google Video. . Retrieved 2009-02-21. [76] High Priority Free Software Projects (http:/ / www. fsf. org/ campaigns/ priority. html), Free Software Foundation, , retrieved 2009-07-09 [77] "AIR passes 100 million installations" (http:/ / blogs. adobe. com/ air/ 2009/ 01/ air_passes_100_million_install. html?sdid=EENCL). . Retrieved 3 February 2009. [78] "Adobe unveils Flash video control" (http:/ / news. bbc. co. uk/ 1/ hi/ business/ 6558979. stm). BBC News. BBC. 2007-04-16. . Retrieved 2007-06-18. [79] "Palm Latest Mobile Industry Leader to Join Open Screen Project" (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ aboutadobe/ pressroom/ pressreleases/ 200902/ 021609AdobePalmOSP. html). 2009-02-16. . Retrieved 2009-02-20. [80] "Adobe and Industry Leaders Establish Open Screen Project" (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ aboutadobe/ pressroom/ pressreleases/ 200805/ 050108AdobeOSP. html). 2008-05-01. . Retrieved 2009-02-20. [81] Murarka, Anup. "Inside the Open Screen Project" (http:/ / www. uiresourcecenter. com/ rich-internet-applications/ articles/ inside-the-open-screen-project. html?s=2_1). . Retrieved 2009-02-21. [82] "Open Screen Project partners" (http:/ / www. openscreenproject. org/ partners/ current_partners. html). . Retrieved 2009-02-20. [83] "Adobe and Nokia Announce $10 Million Open Screen Project Fund" (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ aboutadobe/ pressroom/ pressreleases/ 200902/ 021609AdobeNokia. html). 2009-02-16. . Retrieved 2009-02-20. [84] http:/ / blogs. adobe. com/ flashplatform/ [85] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ products/ flash/ [86] http:/ / kb2. adobe. com/ cps/ 406/ kb406791. html [87] http:/ / forums. adobe. com/ community/ flash [88] http:/ / www. flexflashforum. com [89] http:/ / www. actionscript. org

13

Action Message Format

14

Action Message Format

Action Message Format (AMF) is a binary format used to serialize ActionScript objects. It is used primarily to exchange data between an Adobe Flash application and a remote service, usually over the internet. Typical usage from Adobe Flash Player, consists of an ActionScript program which: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Connects to a specific "gateway" URL on a web server Accesses the service which handles AMF communication Calls a method on the service, mentioning a "callback" method Arguments passed are serialized to AMF and deserialized at the receiving end The service processes the input, and optionally returns data via AMF The callback method is invoked by the platform, and returned data is passed

Protocol
AMF was introduced with Flash Player 6, and this version is referred to as AMF 0. It was unchanged until the release of Flash Player 9 and ActionScript 3.0, when new data types and language features prompted an update, called AMF 3.[1] Adobe Systems published the AMF binary data protocol specification[2] on December 13, 2007 and announced that it will support the developer community to make this protocol available for every major server platform.

Support for AMF

The various AMF Protocols are supported by many server-side languages and technologies, in the form of libraries and services that must be installed and integrated by the application developer. Platforms: Java - Adobe BlazeDS [3], Adobe LiveCycle Data Services (formerly known as Flex Data Services) [4], RED 5 [5], Cinnamon [6], OpenAMF [7], Pimento [8], Granite [9], WebORB for Java [10] .NET - WebORB for .NET [11], FluorineFx [12] (LGPL), AMF.NET [13] (development stopped) PHP - AMFPHP [14], SabreAMF [15], WebORB for PHP [16], Zend_Amf [17] Python - PyAMF [18], Flashticle [19], amfast [20], Plasma [21] Perl - AMF::Perl [22] Curl - Curl Data Services [23] Ruby - RubyAMF [24], WebORB for Rails [25] Erlang - Erlang-AMF [26] Frameworks: Ruby on Rails - RubyAMF [27] Zend Framework - Zend_AMF [17] OSGi Framework - AMF3 for OSGi [28] Django - Django AMF [29] CakePHP - CakeAMFPHP [30] Grails (framework) - BlazeDS [3]

Action Message Format

15

See also
SWX Format (arguably faster alternative)

References
[1] AMF 0 Specification (http:/ / opensource. adobe. com/ wiki/ download/ attachments/ 1114283/ amf0_spec_121207. pdf) [2] AMF 3 Specification (http:/ / opensource. adobe. com/ wiki/ download/ attachments/ 1114283/ amf3_spec_05_05_08. pdf) [3] http:/ / opensource. adobe. com/ wiki/ display/ blazeds [4] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ products/ livecycle/ dataservices/ [5] http:/ / www. osflash. org/ red5 [6] http:/ / www. spicefactory. org/ cinnamon/ [7] http:/ / osflash. org/ openamf [8] http:/ / www. spicefactory. org/ pimento/ [9] http:/ / www. graniteds. org/ [10] http:/ / www. themidnightcoders. com/ products/ weborb-for-java [11] http:/ / www. themidnightcoders. com/ products/ weborb-for-net [12] http:/ / fluorine. thesilentgroup. com/ [13] http:/ / osflash. org/ amf. net [14] http:/ / www. amfphp. org [15] http:/ / osflash. org/ sabreamf [16] http:/ / www. themidnightcoders. com/ products/ weborb-for-php [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] http:/ / framework. zend. com/ manual/ en/ zend. amf. html http:/ / pyamf. org/ http:/ / osflash. org/ flashticle http:/ / code. google. com/ p/ amfast/ http:/ / plasmads. org/ http:/ / osflash. org/ flap http:/ / www. curl. com/ company_news010609. php http:/ / osflash. org/ projects/ rubyamf http:/ / www. themidnightcoders. com/ products/ weborb-for-rails http:/ / github. com/ mujaheed/ erlang-amf http:/ / code. google. com/ p/ rubyamf/ http:/ / arum. co. uk/ amf3osgi. php http:/ / djangoamf. sourceforge. jp/ index. php?DjangoAMF_en http:/ / cakeforge. org/ projects/ cakeamfphp/

ActionScript

16

ActionScript

Paradigm Appeared in Designed by Developer Stable release Typing discipline

Multi-paradigm: prototype-based, functional, imperative, scripting 1998 Gary Grossman Macromedia (now Adobe Systems) 3.0 (June 27, 2006) strong, static

Major implementations Adobe Flash, Adobe Flex Influenced by OS JavaScript, Java Cross-platform

Filename extension .as Internet media type application/ecmascript

[1]

ActionScript is a scripting language owned by Adobe. It is based on ECMAScript, and is used primarily for the development of websites and software using the Adobe Flash Player platform (in the form of SWF files embedded into Web pages), but is also used in some database applications (such as Alpha Five), and in basic robotics, as with the Make Controller Kit. Originally developed by Macromedia, the language is now owned by Adobe (which acquired Macromedia in 2005). ActionScript was initially designed for controlling simple 2D vector animations made in Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash). Later versions added functionality allowing for the creation of Web-based games and rich Internet applications with streaming media (such as video and audio). Initially focused on animation, early versions of Flash content offered few interactivity features and thus had very limited scripting capability. More recent versions include ActionScript, an implementation of the ECMAScript standard which therefore has the same syntax as JavaScript, but in a different programming framework with a different associated set of class libraries. ActionScript is used to create almost all of the interactivity (buttons, text entry fields, drop down menus) seen in many Flash applications. Flash MX 2004 introduced ActionScript 2.0, a scripting programming language more suited to the development of Flash applications. It is often possible to save time by scripting something rather than animating it, which usually also enables a higher level of flexibility when editing. Since the arrival of the Flash Player 9 alpha (in 2006) a newer version of ActionScript has been released, ActionScript 3.0. ActionScript 3.0 is an object oriented programming language allowing for more control and code reusability when building complex Flash applications. Of late, the Flash libraries are being used with the XML capabilities of the browser to render rich content in the browser. This technology is known as Asynchronous Flash and XML, much like AJAX. This technology of Asynchronous Flash and XML has pushed for a more formal approach of this technology called Adobe Flex, which uses the Flash runtime to build Rich Internet Applications.

ActionScript This technology can be used in players like those on MySpace and YouTube, to provide protection for the content that the Flash calls, like MP3s and videos. The content called is streamed through the Flash files, making downloading for storage a difficult task for most people. Programs such as Real Player Downloader and browser extensions like Firebug can trace the XML files. Browser extensions like Video DownloadHelper can intercept the requests and download the streamed video.

17

History
ActionScript started as a scripting language for Macromedia's Flash authoring tool, now developed by Adobe Systems as Adobe Flash. The first three versions of the Flash authoring tool provided limited interactivity features. Early Flash developers could attach a simple command, called an "action", to a button or a frame. The set of actions was basic navigation controls, with commands such as "play", "stop", "getURL", and "gotoAndPlay". With the release of Flash 4 in 1999, this simple set of actions became a small scripting language. New capabilities introduced for Flash 4 included variables, expressions, operators, if statements, and loops. Although referred to internally as "ActionScript", the Flash 4 user manual and marketing documents continued to use the term "actions" to describe this set of commands .

Timeline by player version

Flash Player 2: The first version with scripting support. Actions included gotoAndPlay, gotoAndStop, nextFrame and nextScene for timeline control. Flash Player 3: Expanded basic scripting support with the ability to load external SWFs (loadMovie). Flash Player 4: First player with a full scripting implementation (called Actions). The scripting was a flash based syntax and contained support for loops, conditionals, variables and other basic language constructs. Flash Player 5: Included the first version of ActionScript. Used prototype-based programming based on ECMAScript [2], and allowed full procedural programming and object-oriented programming. Flash Player 6: Added an event handling model, accessibility controls and support for switch. The first version with support for the AMF and RTMP protocols which allowed for on demand audio/video streaming. Flash Player 7: Additions include CSS styling for text and support for ActionScript 2.0, a programming language based on the ECMAScript 4 Netscape Proposal [3] with class-based inheritance. However, ActionScript 2.0 can cross compile to ActionScript 1.0 byte-code, so that it can run in Flash Player 6. Flash Player 8: Further extended ActionScript 1/ActionScript 2 by adding new class libraries with APIs for controlling bitmap data at run-time, file uploads and live filters for blur and dropshadow. Flash Player 9 (initially called 8.5): Added ActionScript 3.0 with the advent of a new virtual machine, called AVM2 (ActionScript Virtual Machine 2), which coexists with the previous AVM1 needed to support legacy content. Performance increases were a major objective for this release of the player including a new JIT compiler. Support for binary sockets, E4X XML parsing, TR1 = LIXO full-screen mode and Regular Expressions were added. This is the first release of the player to be titled Adobe Flash Player [4].

Example of ActionScript 2.0 running on Macromedia Flash 8.

Flash Player 10 (initially called Astro): Added basic 3D manipulation, such as rotating on the X, Y, and Z axis, and a 3D drawing API. Ability to create custom filters using Adobe Pixel Bender. Several visual processing tasks are now offloaded to the GPU which gives a noticeable decrease to rendering time for each frame, resulting in higher frame rates, especially with H.264 video. There is a new sound API which allows for custom creation of audio in flash, something that has never been possible before.[5] Furthermore, Flash Player 10 supports Peer to

ActionScript Peer (P2P) communication with Real Time Media Flow Protocol (RTMFP).

18

Timeline by ActionScript version

20002003: ActionScript "1.0" With the release of Flash 5 in September 2000, the "actions" from Flash 4 were enhanced once more and named "ActionScript" for the first time.[6] This was the first version of ActionScript with influences from JavaScript and the ECMA-262 (Third Edition) standard, supporting the said standard's object model and many of its core data types. Local variables may be declared with the var statement, and user-defined functions with parameter passing and return values can also be created. Notably, ActionScript could now also be typed with a text editor rather than being assembled by choosing actions from drop-down lists and dialog box controls. With the next release of its authoring tool, Flash MX, and its corresponding player, Flash Player 6, the language remained essentially unchanged; there were only minor changes, such as the addition of the switch statement and the "strict equality" (===) operator, which brought it closer to being ECMA-262-compliant. Two important features of ActionScript that distinguish it from later versions are its loose type system and its reliance on prototype-based inheritance. Loose typing refers to the ability of a variable to hold any type of data. This allows for rapid script development and is particularly well-suited for small-scale scripting projects. Prototype-based inheritance is the ActionScript 1.0 mechanism for code reuse and object-oriented programming. Instead of a class keyword that defines common characteristics of a class, ActionScript 1.0 uses a special object that serves as a "prototype" for a class of objects. All common characteristics of a class are defined in the class's prototype object and every instance of that class contains a link to that prototype object. 20032006: ActionScript 2.0 The next major revision of the language, ActionScript 2.0, was introduced in September 2003 with the release of Flash MX 2004 and its corresponding player, Flash Player 7. In response to user demand for a language better equipped for larger and more complex applications, ActionScript 2.0 featured compile-time type checking and class-based syntax, such as the keywords class and extends. (While this allowed for a more structured object-oriented programming approach, the code would still be compiled to ActionScript 1.0 bytecode, allowing it to be used on the preceding Flash Player 6 as well. In other words, the class-based inheritance syntax was a layer on top of the existing prototype-based system.) With ActionScript 2.0, developers could constrain variables to a specific type by adding a type annotation so that type mismatch errors could be found at compile-time. ActionScript 2.0 also introduced class-based inheritance syntax so that developers could create classes and interfaces, much as they would in class-based languages such as Java and C++. This version conformed partially to the ECMAScript Fourth Edition draft specification. 2006today: ActionScript 3.0 In June 2006, ActionScript 3.0 debuted with Adobe Flex 2.0 and its corresponding player, Flash Player 9. ActionScript 3.0 was a fundamental restructuring of the language, so much so that it uses an entirely different virtual machine. Flash Player 9 contains two virtual machines, AVM1 for code written in ActionScript 1.0 and 2.0, and AVM2 for content written in ActionScript 3.0. Actionscript 3.0 added limited support for hardware acceleration (DirectX, OpenGL). The update to the language introduced several new features: Compile-time and runtime type checkingtype information exists at both compile-time and runtime. Improved performance from a class-based inheritance system separate from the prototype-based inheritance system. Support for packages, namespaces, and regular expressions. Compiles to an entirely new type of bytecode, incompatible with ActionScript 1.0 and 2.0 bytecode. Revised Flash Player API, organized into packages. Unified event handling system based on the DOM event handling standard. Integration of ECMAScript for XML (E4X) for purposes of XML processing. Direct access to the Flash runtime display list for complete control of what gets displayed at runtime. Completely conforming implementation of the ECMAScript fourth edition draft specification.

ActionScript

19

Flash Lite
Flash Lite 1.0: Flash Lite is the Flash technology specifically developed for mobile phones and consumer electronics devices. Supports Flash 4 ActionScript. Flash Lite 1.1: Flash 4 ActionScript support and additional device APIs added. Flash Lite 2.0 and 2.1: Added support for Flash 7 ActionScript 2.0 and some additional fscommand2 API. Flash Lite 3: Added support for Flash 8 ActionScript 2.0 and also FLV video playback. Flash Lite 4: Added support for Flash 10 ActionScript 3.0 as a browser plugin and also hardware graphics acceleration.

Syntax
ActionScript code is free form and thus may be created with whichever amount or style of whitespace that the author desires. The basic syntax is derived from ECMAScript. ActionScript 2.0 The following code, which works in any compliant player, creates a text field at depth 0, at position (0, 0) on the screen (measured in pixels), that is 100 pixels wide and high. Then the text parameter is set to the "Hello, world" string, and it is automatically displayed in the player: createTextField("greet", 0, 0, 0, 100, 100); greet.text = "Hello, world"; When writing external ActionScript 2.0 class files the above example could be written in a file named Greeter.as as following. class com.example.Greeter extends MovieClip { public function Greeter() {} public function onLoad() :Void { var txtHello:TextField = this.createTextField("txtHello", 0, 0, 0, 100, 100); txtHello.text = "Hello, world"; } } ActionScript 3.0 ActionScript 3.0 has a similar syntax to ActionScript 2.0 but a different set of APIs for creating objects. Compare the script below to the previous ActionScript 2.0 version: var greet:TextField = new TextField(); greet.text = "Hello World"; this.addChild(greet); Minimal ActionScript 3.0 programs may be somewhat larger and more complicated due to the increased separation of the programming language and the Flash IDE. Presume the following file to be Greeter.as: package com.example {

ActionScript import flash.text.TextField; import flash.display.Sprite; public class Greeter extends Sprite { public function Greeter() { var txtHello:TextField = new TextField(); txtHello.text = "Hello World"; addChild(txtHello); } } } (See also: Sprite) Finally, an example of using ActionScript when developing Flex applications, again presuming the following content to be in a file named Greeter.as: package { public class Greeter { public static function sayHello():String { var greet:String = "Hello, world!"; return greet; } } } This code will work with the following MXML application file:

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" xmlns="*" layout="vertical" creationComplete="initApp()"> <mx:Script> <![CDATA[ public function initApp():void { // Prints our "Hello, world!" message into "mainTxt". mainTxt.text = Greeter.sayHello(); } ]]> </mx:Script> <mx:Label id="title" fontSize="24" fontStyle="bold" text='"Hello, world!" Example'/> <mx:TextArea id="mainTxt" width="250"/>

ActionScript </mx:Application>

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Data structures
Data types
ActionScript primarily consists of "fundamental" or "simple" data types which are used to create other data types. These data types are very similar to Java data types. Since ActionScript 3 was a complete rewrite of ActionScript 2, the data types and their inheritances have changed. ActionScript 2 top level data types String - A list of characters such as "Hello World" Number - Any Numeric value Boolean - A simple binary storage that can only be "true" or "false". Object - Object is the data type all complex data types inherit from. It allows for the grouping of methods, functions, parameters, and other objects.

ActionScript 2 complex data types There are additional "complex" data types. These are more processor and memory intensive and consist of many "simple" data types. For AS2, some of these data types are: MovieClip - An ActionScript creation that allows easy usage of visible objects. TextField - A simple dynamic or input text field. Inherits the Movieclip type. Button - A simple button with 4 frames (states): Up, Over, Down and Hit. Inherits the MovieClip type. Date - Allows access to information about a specific point in time. Array - Allows linear storage of data. XML - An XML object XMLNode - An XML node LoadVars - A Load Variables object allows for the storing and send of HTTP POST and HTTP GET variables Sound NetStream NetConnection MovieClipLoader EventListener

ActionScript 3 primitive (prime) data types (see Data type descriptions [7]) Boolean - The Boolean data type has only two possible values: true and false or 1 and 0. No other values are valid. int - The int data type is a 32-bit integer between -2,147,483,648 and 2,147,483,647. Null - The Null data type contains only one value, null. This is the default value for the String data type and all classes that define complex data types, including the Object class. Number - The Number data type can represent integers, unsigned integers, and floating-point numbers. The Number data type uses the 64-bit double-precision format as specified by the IEEE Standard for Binary Floating-Point Arithmetic (IEEE-754). String - The String data type represents a sequence of 16-bit characters. Strings are stored internally as Unicode characters, using the UTF-16 format. Previous versions of Flash used the UTF-8 format. uint - The uint (Unsigned Integer) data type is a 32-bit unsigned integer between 0 and 4,294,967,295. void - The void data type contains only one value, undefined. In previous versions of ActionScript, undefined was the default value for instances of the Object class. In ActionScript 3.0, the default value for Object instances is null.

ActionScript ActionScript 3 some complex data types (see Data type descriptions [7]) Object - The Object data type is defined by the Object class. The Object class serves as the base class for all class definitions in ActionScript. Objects in their basic form can be used as associative arrays that contain key-value pairs, where keys are Strings and values may be any type. Array - Contains a list of data. Though ActionScript 3 is a strongly typed language, the contents of an Array may be of any type and values must be cast back to their original type after retrieval. (Support for typed Arrays has recently been added with the Vector class.) Vector - A variant of array supported only when publishing for Flash Player 10 or above. Vectors are typed, dense Arrays (values must be defined or null) which may be fixed-length, and are bounds-checked during retrieval. Vectors are not just more typesafe than Arrays but also perform faster. flash.utils:Dictionary - Dictionaries are a variant of Object that may contain keys of any data type (whereas Object always uses strings for its keys). flash.display:Sprite - A display object container without a timeline. flash.display:MovieClip - Animated movie clip display object; Flash timeline is, by default, a MovieClip. flash.display:Bitmap - A non-animated bitmap display object. flash.display:Shape - A non-animated vector shape object. flash.utils:ByteArray - Contains an array of binary byte data. flash.text:TextField - A dynamic, optionally interactive text field object. flash.display:SimpleButton - A simple interactive button type supporting "up", "over", and "down" states with an arbitrary hit area. Date - A date object containing the date/time digital representation. Error - A generic error object that allows runtime error reporting when thrown as an exception. Function - The core class for all Flash method definitions. RegExp - A regular expression object for strings. flash.media:Video - A video playback object supporting direct (progressive download) or streaming (RTMP) transports. As of Flash Player version 9.0.115.0, the H.264/MP4 high-definition video format is also supported along side standard Flash video (FLV) content. XML - A revised XML object based on the E4X (Standard ECMA-357); nodes and attributes are accessed differently than ActionScript 2.0 object (a legacy class named XMLDocument is provided for backwards compatibility). XMLList - An array-based object for various content lookups in the XML class.

22

Using data types

The basic syntax is: var yourVariableName:YourVariableType = new YourVariableType(Param1, Param2, ..., ParamN); So in order to make an empty Object: var myObject:Object = new Object(); Some types are automatically put in place: var myString:String = "Hello Wikipedia!"; // This would automatically set the variable as a string. var myNumber:Number = 5; // This would do the same for a number. var myObject:Object = {Param1:"Hi!", Param2:76}; //This creates an object with two variables.

ActionScript // Param1 is a string with the data of "Hi!", // and Param2 is a number with the data of 76. var myArray:Array = [5,"Hello!",{a:5, b:7}] //This is the syntax for automatically creating an Array. //It creates an Array with 3 variables. //The first (0) is a number with the value of 5, //the second (1) is a string with the value of "Hello!", //and the third (2) is an object with {a:5, b:7}. Unlike most object-oriented languages, ActionScript makes no distinction between primitive types and reference types. In ActionScript, all variables are reference types. However, objects that belong to the primitive data types, which includes Boolean, Number, int, uint, and String, have special operators that make them behave as if they were passed by value. [8] So if a variable of a supposedly primitive type, e.g. an integer is passed to a function, altering that variable inside the function will not alter the original variable (passed by value). If a variable of another (not primitive) datatype, e.g. XML is passed to a function, altering that variable inside the function will alter the original variable as well (passed by reference). Some data types can be assigned values with literals: var var var var var

23

item1:String="ABC"; item2:Boolean=true; item3:Number=12; item4:Array=["a","b","c"]; item5:XML = <node><child/></node>; //Note that the primitive XML is not quoted

A reference in ActionScript is a pointer to an instance of a class. This does not create a copy but accesses the same memory space. All objects in ActionScript are accessed as references instead of being copied. var item1:XML=new XML("<node><child/></node>"); var item2:XML=item1; item2.firstChild.attributes.value=13; //item1 now equals item2 since item2 simply points to what item1 points to. //Both are now: //<node><child value="13"/></node> Only references to an object may be removed by using the "delete" keyword. Removal of actual objects and data is done by the Flash Player garbage collector which checks for any existing references in the Flash memory space. If none are found (no other reference is made to the orphaned object), it is removed from memory. For this reason, memory management in ActionScript requires careful application development planning. var item1:XML=new XML("<node><child/></node>"); delete item1; //If no other reference to item1 is present anywhere else in the application, //it will be removed on the garbage collector's next pass

ActionScript

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ActionScript code protection

Often, Flash developers will decide that while they desire the advantages that Flash affords them in the areas of animation and interactivity, they do not wish to expose their code to the world. However, as with all intermediate language compiled code, once a .swf file is saved locally, it can be decompiled into its source code and assets. Some decompilers are capable of nearly full reconstruction of the original source file, down to the actual code that was used during creation (although results vary on a case-by-case basis).[9] [10] [11] In opposition to the decompilers, ActionScript obfuscators have been introduced to solve this problem. Higher-quality obfuscators implement lexical transformations such as identifier renaming, control flow transformation, and data abstraction transformation that make it harder for decompilers to generate output likely to be useful to a human. Less robust obfuscators insert traps for decompilers.

See also
ECMAScript The standardized scripting language upon which ActionScript is based. ActionScript code protection. Adobe Flash The program in which ActionScript debuted. Adobe Flash Player The official and most widely used SWF player. Adobe Flash Lite A miniature version of the Flash Player for mobile devices. Adobe AIR - Runtime for ActionScript/Flex Adobe Flex - SDK and IDE which uses ActionScript SWF File Format Tamarin (JIT) Macromedia Adobe Systems Gnash, a free Flash viewer Swfdec Adobe Flex Builder - IDE by Adobe to author ActionScript HaXe FlashDevelop - a free and open source code editor and alternative flex IDE

External links
Adobe documentation and references
ActionScript Technology Center [12] ActionScript 2.0 Language Reference [13] ActionScript 3.0 Language & Component Reference [14] Flex 3 LiveDocs: Programming ActionScript 3.0 [15]

Tutorials and references

Adobe - Flash Developer Center [16] Tutorial - Get Started with ActionScript 3 [17]

ActionScript

25

Developer tools
Adobe Flash Professional [18] (i.e. the Flash IDE) Adobe Flex SDK [19] FlashDevelop [20] - Popular open-source ActionScript IDE swftools' as3compile [21] - as3compile, a free compiler for ActionScript 3.0 Motion Twin ActionScript Compiler [22] - MTASC is an Open-source ActionScript 2 compiler

Actionscript Forum / Community

Adobe's Flash Forum [87] FlexFlashForum.com - Flash Forum [88] Actionscript.org - Community Resource / Tutorials [89] Wuup - Tutorials/Blog by ActionScript Programmer Bill Nunney [23]

References
[1] RFC 4329 (limit compatible with EcmaScript) [2] http:/ / www. ecma-international. org/ publications/ standards/ Ecma-262. htm [3] http:/ / www. ecmascript. org/ [4] [5] [6] [7] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ products/ flashplayer "Adobe Labs - Adobe Flash Player 10.1" (http:/ / labs. adobe. com/ technologies/ flashplayer10/ ). Labs.adobe.com. . Retrieved 2009-12-17. Note that the name "ActionScript 1.0" is a retronym, coined after the release of ActionScript 2.0. http:/ / livedocs. adobe. com/ flash/ 9. 0/ main/ wwhelp/ wwhimpl/ common/ html/ wwhelp. htm?context=LiveDocs_Parts& file=00000047. html [8] "Flex 3 - Function parameters" (http:/ / livedocs. adobe. com/ flex/ 3/ html/ 03_Language_and_Syntax_19. html). Livedocs.adobe.com. . Retrieved 2009-12-17. [9] Third party review of another decompiler (http:/ / www. flashmagazine. com/ reviews/ detail/ review_trillix_flash_decompiler_3/ ) [10] Customer comments on one Flash decompiler (http:/ / www. topshareware. com/ reviews/ 10386-1/ flash-decompiler. htm) [11] Customer comments on another Flash product (http:/ / www. macupdate. com/ reviews. php?id=11541) [12] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ devnet/ actionscript/ [13] http:/ / help. adobe. com/ en_US/ AS2LCR/ Flash_10. 0/ help. html?content=Part2_AS2_LangRef_1. html [14] http:/ / help. adobe. com/ en_US/ AS3LCR/ Flash_10. 0/ [15] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ go/ programmingAS3 [16] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ devnet/ flash/ [17] http:/ / www. flashcomponents. net/ articles/ from_flash_to_flex_moving_to_actionscript_3. html [18] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ downloads/ [19] http:/ / opensource. adobe. com/ wiki/ display/ flexsdk/ Download+ Flex+ 3 [20] http:/ / www. flashdevelop. org [21] http:/ / www. swftools. org [22] http:/ / www. mtasc. org/ [23] http:/ / www. wuup. co. uk/ category/ blog/ tutorials/ flash-tutorials/ actionscript-30

ActionScrip 3

26

ActionScrip 3
ActionScript 3.0 was a fundamental restructuring of the ActionScriptlanguage, so much so that it uses an entirely different virtual machine. Flash Player 9 contains two virtual machines, AVM1 for code written in ActionScript 1.0 and 2.0, and AVM2 for content written in ActionScript 3.0. Actionscript 3.0 added limited support for hardware acceleration (DirectX, OpenGL). The update to the language introduced several new features: Compile-time and runtime type checkingtype information exists at both compile-time and runtime. Improved performance from a class-based inheritance system separate from the prototype-based inheritance system. Support for packages, namespaces, and regular expressions. Compiles to an entirely new type of bytecode, incompatible with ActionScript 1.0 and 2.0 bytecode. Revised Flash Player API, organized into packages. Unified event handling system based on the DOM event handling standard. Integration of ECMAScript for XML (E4X) for purposes of XML processing. Direct access to the Flash runtime display list for complete control of what gets displayed at runtime. Completely conforming implementation of the ECMAScript fourth edition draft specification.

ActionScript code protection

ActionScript code protection. ActionScript is the main language for developing flash products. Code obfuscation is the process of transforming code into a form that is unintelligible to human readers while preserving the functionality and structure for computers. To make ActionScript code as safe as possible flash developers use a variety of code encryption and obfuscation methods. Most of the methods are kept in secret due to the fact that they are used in popular ActionScript obfuscators.

Overview
Obfuscation is the process of modifying ActionScript code. Obfuscation engineering makes it impossible to use the original code for programming by mixing up functions, arguments and variables names; however the SWF file with obfuscated code stays readable for Flash players. ActionScript obfuscation algorithms are aimed to resist Flash decompilation and protect development`s art work from stealing. Nowadays there are lots of different freeware and shareware tools that provides different obfuscation options. Some SWF Protectors implement lexical transformations - such as identifiers renaming, control flow transformation, and data abstraction transformation - that make it harder for decompilers to generate correct and usable output. Others - insert certain traps based on decompilers imperfections. Some decompilers manage to open protected files and maybe extract some of its resources (sounds, images, etc.), but they cannot read the ActionScript code correctly. It often happens that when protected SWF file is added to decompilation software, the latter may crash or quit unexpectedly.

ActionScript code protection

27

Examples
The easiest way to understand the benefit of SWF obfuscation is to compare a non-protected SWF ActionScript code with protected one. Please look at the examples below. ActionScript 2.0 Code before obfuscation: stop(); if (this.holder1 == Number (this.holder1)) { loadMovieNum ("jopeClipLoader5.swf", this.holder1); } else { this.holder1.loadMovie("jopeClipLoader5.swf"); } Code after obfuscation: do { if (false) { (() add ().holder1);// not popped if (true) { // unexpected jump do { stop(); } while (false); // unexpected jump if (false) { Set("\x0B\x1A\x13\x16", true); } while (true); do { if (true) { // unexpected jump // unexpected jump if (false) { } while (true); do { // unexpected jump } while (true); // swfAction0xAD hexdata 0x52,0x17,0x99,0x02,0x00,0x39,0x00,0x9A,0x01... // Unknown action } (() add ().holder1)[(!"holder1".holder1()).holder1].loadMovie(); // unexpected jump /* Error1016 */ // unexpected jump do { (this);// not popped if (true) {

ActionScript code protection // unexpected jump } while (this); (this);// not popped // unexpected jump } } } if (false) { } while (true); do { // unexpected jump } while (true); // swfAction0xAD hexdata 0x52,0x17,0x99,0x02,0x00,0x39,0x00,0x9A,0x01,0x00,0x00,0x99... // Unknown action } "holder1".holder1.loadMovie(); // unexpected jump /* Error1016 */ // unexpected jump do { (this);// not popped if (true) { // unexpected jump } while (this); (this);// not popped // unexpected jump } } } Set("\x0B\x1A\x13\x16", true); } while (true); do { ( /* Error1010 */);// not popped if (true) { // unexpected jump // unexpected jump if (false) { } while (true); do { // unexpected jump } while (true); // swfAction0xAD hexdata 0x52,0x17,0x99,0x02,0x00,0x39,0x00,0x9A,0x01,0x00,0x00,0x99,0x02... // Unknown action }

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ActionScript code protection ActionScript 3.0 Code before obfuscation: private function getNeighbours(i:int, j:int):Array{ var a:Array = new Array(); for (var k = 0; k < 8; k++){ var ni = i + int(neighbour_map[k][0]); var nj = j + int(neighbour_map[k][1]) ; if (ni < 0 || ni >= xsize || nj < 0 || nj >= ysize) continue; a.push(Cell(cells[ni][nj])); } return a; } Code after obfuscation: private function getNeighbours(_arg1:int, _arg2:int):Array{ var _local3:Array = -(((null - !NULL!) % ~(undefined))); var _local4:*; var _local5:*; var _local6:*; _local3 = new Array(); _local4 = 0; for (;//unresolved jump , _arg2 < 8;_local4++) { _local5 = (_arg1 + int(!NULL!)); _local6 = (_arg2 + int(!NULL!)); if (true){ _arg1 = (((//unresolved nextvalue or nextname << !NULL!) + !NULL!) << undefined); _arg1 = (!(!NULL!) ^ !NULL!); (!NULL! instanceof !NULL!); var _local1 = (((!NULL! as !NULL!) + !NULL!) == this); if (!(!NULL! == !NULL!)){ -((true << !NULL!)).push(Cell(cells[_local5][_local6])); } } if (!true){ (_local6 < 0); (_local6 < 0); (_local5 < 0); } } return (_local3); }

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ActionScript code protection

30

See also
ActionScript ActionScript Foundry Adobe Flash Obfuscated code SWF

External links
Adobe documentation and references
ActionScript Technology Center [12] ActionScript 2.0 Language Reference [13] ActionScript 3.0 Language & Component Reference [14] Flex 3 LiveDocs: Programming ActionScript 3.0 [15]

Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder

31

Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder

Developer(s) Stable release Operating system Type License Website

Adobe Systems 3.0 / January 12, 2009 Windows Encoding Software Free
[1]

Flash Media Live Encoder (FMLE) a free live encoding software product from Adobe Systems. It is currently available for the Windows platform and Mac OS.

History
Version 1.0 was released on February 23, 2007. Version 2.0 was released on October 26, 2007, adding the following functionality: Encoding support for MP3 format Command-line execution Automatically start at operating system launch Automated maintenance restart Remote access Ability to set reconnect interval

Timecode support Version 2.5 was released on April 14, 2008 with the following added features: Encoding support for H.264/HE-AAC format Improvements to Quality of Service Auto-adjust functionality, which enabled dynamic downgrading of the outgoing stream quality if network connectivity was sub-optimal. Version 3.0 was released on January 12, 2009 with the following added features: An updated user interface and additional presets Multi-bitrate encoding (up to three different bitrates) File management improvements (save multiple files based on file size/duration, parameters in filenames) DVR functionality System timecode support (SMPTE, LTC, VITC or BITC timecodes could be used if supported by capture device; if not, the system timecode could be used) Multi-core processing capability for VP6 encoding Support for additional compatible devices

Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder

32

Usage
Stream live video from capture cards, webcams, Firewire, or USB devices to Flash Media Server (FMS) or a Flash Video Streaming Service (FVSS). (Device or driver must support Microsoft DirectShow filters to be recognized by FMLE.) Archive FLV or F4V file locally.

Function
FMLE is a desktop application that connects to a Flash Media Server (FMS) or a Flash Video Streaming Service (FVSS) via the Realtime Messaging Protocol (RTMP) to stream live video to connected clients. Clients connect to the FMS or FVSS server and view the stream through a Flash Player SWF. FMLE supports On2 VP6 or H.264 codecs for video and MP3 or Nellymoser for audio. Additionally, AAC and HE-AAC for audio is supported with a plug-in available from MainConcept[2] FMLE integrates directly with Flash Media Server functionality, including recording a readable-while-open live stream file that enables DVR-like seeking during playback of live events. It is also possible to encode multiple files at once at different bitrates to support Dynamic Streaming (adaptive bitrate streaming). In addition to encoding live events with finite start and end times, features such as command-line control, auto reconnect, and remote access enable efficient 24/7 encoding.

FMLE main interface

FMLE interface showing optional customizable metadata fields

FMLE interface showing live encodng log

See also
ActionScript Flash Player

References
[1] http:/ / www. adobe. com [2] http:/ / www. mainconcept. com/ site/ index. php?id=21580

Flash Media Live Encoder 2.5 Documentation (http://www.adobe.com/support/documentation/en/ flashmediaencoder/) Flash Media Live Encoder 3 Documentation (http://www.adobe.com/support/documentation/en/ flashmedialiveencoder/)

Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder

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External links
Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder product page (http://www.adobe.com/go/fmle) Adobe Flash Media Server product page (http://www.adobe.com/go/fms) Adobe Flash Media Server Developer Center (http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashmediaserver)

Adobe Shockwave

34

Adobe Shockwave

Developer(s) Stable release Operating system Platform Type Website

Adobe Systems 11.5.7.609

[1]

/ May 11, 2010

Microsoft Windows, Mac OS 9, Mac OS X (Universal) Web browsers Multimedia Player / MIME type: application/x-director Adobe Shockwave Player
[2]

Adobe Shockwave (formerly Macromedia Shockwave) is a multimedia player program, first developed by Macromedia, acquired by Adobe Systems in 2005. It allows Adobe Director applications to be published on the Internet and viewed in a web browser on any computer which has the Shockwave plug-in installed.

Description
Shockwave movies are authored in the Adobe Director environment. While there is support for including Flash movies inside Shockwave files, authors often choose the Shockwave Director combination over Flash because it offers more features and more powerful tools. Features not replicated by Flash include a much faster rendering engine, including hardware-accelerated 3D, and support for various network protocols, including Internet Relay Chat. Furthermore, Shockwave's functionality can be extended with so-called "Xtras".

Platform support
Unlike Flash, the Shockwave browser plugin is not available for Linux or Solaris despite intense lobbying efforts. However, the Shockwave Player can be installed on Linux with CrossOver or by running a Windows version of a supported browser in Wine (with varying degrees of success). Shockwave was available as a plug-in for both Mac OS and Windows for most of its history. However, there was a notable break in support for the Macintosh between January 2006 (when Apple Inc. released AppleIntel transition based on the Intel Core Duo) and March 2008 (when Adobe Systems released Shockwave 11, the first version to run natively on Intel Macs).

Adobe Shockwave

35

Applications
Although Shockwave was designed for making a wide variety of online movies and animations, its actual use has become concentrated in the area of game development. It is often used in online applications which require a very rich graphical environment. Online Learning tools which simulate real-world physics or involve significant graphing, charting, or calculation sometimes use Shockwave.

History
The Shockwave player was originally developed for the Netscape browser by Macromedia Director team members Harry Chesley, John Newlin, Sarah Allen, and Ken Day, influenced by a previous plug-in that Macromedia had created for Microsoft's Blackbird. Version 1.0 of Shockwave was released independent of Director 4 and its development schedule has since coincided with the release of Director since version 5. Its versioning also has since been tied to Director's and thus there were no Shockwave 2-4 releases.

Shockwave 1
The Shockwave plug-in for Netscape Navigator 2.0 was released in 1995, along with the standalone Afterburner utility to compress Director files for Shockwave playback. The first large-scale multimedia site to use Shockwave was Intel's 25th Anniversary of the Microprocessor [3]

Shockwave 5
Afterburner is integrated into the Director 5.0 authoring tool as an Xtra.

Shockwave 6
Added support for Shockwave Audio (swa) which consisted of the emerging MP3 file format with some additional headers.

Shockwave 7
Added support for linked media including images and casts Added support for Shockwave Multiuser Server

Shockwave 8.5
Added support for Intel's 3D technologies including rendering.

Shockwave 10
Last version to support Mac OS X 10.3 and lower, and Mac OS 9

Shockwave 11
Added support for Intel-based Macs.

Branding and name confusion

In an attempt to raise its brand profile all Macromedia players prefixed Shockwave to their names in the late 1990s. Although this campaign was very successful and helped establish Shockwave Flash as a dominant multimedia plugin, Shockwave and Flash became more difficult to maintain as separate products. In 2005, Macromedia marketed three distinct browser player plugins under the brand names Macromedia Authorware, Macromedia Shockwave and Macromedia Flash.

Adobe Shockwave Macromedia also released a web browser plug-in for viewing Macromedia FreeHand files online. It was branded Macromedia Shockwave for FreeHand and displayed specially compressed .fhc Freehand files. [4] Later, with the acquisition of Macromedia, Adobe Systems slowly began to rebrand all products related to Shockwave.

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Market penetration
According to Adobe Systems, Shockwave Player is available on 56 % of Internet-enabled PCs.[5] It uses .DCR (a Director Compressed Resource) files created using the authoring tool Adobe Director.

External links
Adobe Shockwave Player [2] Adobe.com/shockwave/welcome [6] - Test your Shockwave and Flash plugins Adobe.com/Technote [7] - What's the difference between Shockwave and Flash? (dated 2004) How Stuff Works - The Difference Between Flash and Shockwave [8] Shockwave.com [9], games website created as an independent company in 1999 by Macromedia[10] and merged with AtomFilms in 2001.[11]

Shockwave3d.com [12] - hundreds of examples of Shockwave's 3D capabilities Dean's Shockwave Hall of Fame [13]
[1] [2] [3] [4] "Shockwave Player Technical Details" (http:/ / www. filehippo. com/ download_shockwave/ tech/ ). . Retrieved 19 January 2010. http:/ / www. adobe. com/ products/ shockwaveplayer/ http:/ / web. archive. org/ web/ 19970103021015/ www1. intel. com/ intel/ museum/ 25anniv/ index. htm Perry Board, Rick Luna and Derek O'Dell (1996). Creating Shockwave Web Pages - Chapter 20 Shockwave for Freehand (http:/ / www4. dogus. edu. tr/ bim/ bil_kay/ pak_prog/ shockwave/ ch20. htm). Que Corporation. ISBN0-7897-0903-1. . Retrieved 2008-03-30. [5] Brown, Millward. "Shockwave Player Adoption Statistics" (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ products/ player_census/ shockwaveplayer/ ). Adobe Systems. . Retrieved 2009-01-20. [6] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ shockwave/ welcome/ [7] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ support/ general/ ts/ documents/ sw_flash_differences. htm [8] http:/ / www. howstuffworks. com/ web-animation6. htm [9] http:/ / www. shockwave. com [10] The Shockwave.com Of The Future - Forbes.com (http:/ / www. forbes. com/ 2000/ 04/ 25/ feat2. html) [11] AtomFilms to Merge with Shockwave.com (http:/ / www. internetnews. com/ bus-news/ article. php/ 3851_537931) [12] http:/ / www. shockwave3d. com/ [13] http:/ / www. deansdirectortutorials. com/ resources/ cool. htm

Sandro Corsaro

37

Sandro Corsaro
Sandro Corsaro serves as Creative Director for Disney Online, a unit of Disney Interactive Media Group. He oversees innovative online initiatives, such as the newly updated flagship web site, www.Disney.com. Prior to joining Disney in 2006, Sandro worked in creative development for a number of other leading entertainment companies, such as Warner Bros. Animation, MTV Networks, and Sony Pictures. Specializing in Flash animation, Sandro has created projects for Fortune 500 clients such as Intel, Mattel, and Universal. He served as Creative Director at Crest Digital, a worldwide leader in CD/DVD production and manufacturing, he was instrumental in implementing Flash into the production pipeline and generated new services to produce games for DVD, Web, and Mobile content delivery. Corsaro is an author. In his books, he shares his distinctive techniques for applying traditional animation principles in the Flash environment. Sandro has spoken at Siggraph, NAB, Flashforward, and on G4Tech TV. He also served as an Adobe Systems Flash consultant.[1] Sandro earned degrees in both Fine Arts and Animation from the University of Southern California.

Partial bibliography
Corsaro, S. (2002). The Flash animator. Indianapolis, Ind: New Riders. ISBN 0735712824 Corsaro, S., & Parrott, C. J. (2004). Hollywood 2D digital animation: the new Flash production revolution. Boston, Mass: Thomson Course Technology. ISBN 159200170X Corsaro, S. (2003). Flash MX: animacin. Diseo y creatividad. Madrid: Anaya Multimedia. ISBN 8441515484 He recently made an animated television show, Kick Buttowski, which airs on Disney XD.

External links
Official website [2] TV Show Published Papers for Siggraph [3]

References
[1] "Podcast: Sandro Corsaro interview" (http:/ / blog. flashforwardconference. com/ 2006/ 06/ 13/ podcast-sandro-corsaro-interview/ ). flashforwardconference.com. 2006-06-13. . Retrieved 2008-02-19. [2] http:/ / www. sandrocorsaro. com/ [3] http:/ / portal. acm. org/ author_page. cfm?id=81100570853& coll=GUIDE& dl=GUIDE& trk=0/

FHTML

38

FHTML
FHTML (Fluid Hyper Text Markup Language) or FluidHtml is an interpreted markup language[1] that renders in Adobe Flash. [2] Rich Internet applications are globally popular, but most are not easy to learn, and generate pages that are not amenable to search engine optimization;[3] FHTML was created to deal with these issues. FHTML can be used with with server-side web technologies such as Java, .NET Framework and PHP, and includes a layout engine that is more flexible than CSS.[3] FHTML is compatible in all major web browsers,[3] and allows web developers to create rich web functionality using easy HTML-like code.[4] Development of the language is currently in private beta testing,[5] but is planned to be opened for beta testing sometime in 2010.[5]

Advantages
FHTML has the ease of use and search engine optimization of HTML,[6] and does not need to be compiled like Flex, Silverlight, and Flash.[1] Websites and schools can use the technology for free without support. FHTML runs on 95% of current browsers with no additional plug-ins or download required.[4] It supports 3D computer animation natively, and reduces total cost of ownership for a business.[4] .NET, Python, Java, PHP, and Ruby developers can all write FHTML in their original language.[1]

Criticism
As search engines like Google and Yahoo gradually become more proficient at indexing the content of Flash files, a critic wonders, "does FluidHTML really fix anything that isnt already steadily improving?" [7]

Examples
Auction house Sotheby's uses FHTML for its online retail catalog.[8]

External links
Official site [9] FluidHtml [10] on Twitter

References
[1] "TC50: FluidHTML Wants To Rewrite The Web With Flash-like HTML" (http:/ / techcrunch. com/ 2009/ 09/ 14/ tc50-fluidhtml-wants-to-rewrite-the-web-with-flash-like-html/ ). TechCrunch. 2009-09-14. . [2] "FluidHtml" (http:/ / www. fluidhtml. com/ main/ #/ r=index. php). FHTML, Inc.. . [3] "Fluid HTML" (http:/ / www. crunchbase. com/ company/ fluidhtml). CrunchBase. 2010. . [4] "FHTML Launches New Markup Language for Rich Media at TechCrunch 50 2009" (http:/ / eon. businesswire. com/ portal/ site/ eon/ permalink?ndmViewId=news_view& newsId=20090914006382& newsLang=en). Enhanced Online News. . [5] "FluidHtml / Get" (http:/ / www. fluidhtml. com/ main/ #/ r=index. php). fluidhtml. . [6] "FHTML Selected to Present Its Groundbreaking FluidHtml Programming Language at the 12th Annual MIT Venture Capital Conference" (http:/ / www. businesswire. com/ portal/ site/ home/ permalink/ ?ndmViewId=news_view& newsId=20091202005646& newsLang=en). business wire. . [7] "FluidHTML: A Markup Language That Generates Flash Content" (http:/ / flashspeaksactionscript. com/ fluidhtml-a-markup-language-that-generates-flash-content/ ). flashspeaksactionscript.com. 2009-09-16. . [8] Ariel Schwartz (http:/ / www. fastcompany. com/ user/ 153941) (2009-09-14). "Can FluidHTML Make Flash Popular Again?" (http:/ / www. fastcompany. com/ blog/ ariel-schwartz/ sustainability/ can-fluidhtml-make-flash-popular-again). FastCompany. . [9] http:/ / www. fluidhtml. com/ [10] http:/ / twitter. com/ FluidHtml

Fdb

39

Fdb
Font Definition Block (abbreviation: FDB, filename extension .fdb) is a file format for computer fonts used by the Ming library. An FDB file is a wrapper containing an SWF DefineFont2 block which describes a font.

Flash Chart
A Flash chart is nothing but a Flash movie that depicts a standard statistical chart (e.g. bar chart, pie chart etc). Flash charts are generated using a Flash Charting tool and they can be incorporated in websites or in desktop applications.[1] Flash charts can be viewed on all computers that have Adobe Flash player installed on them. This makes Flash charts widely accessible as Adobe Flash player is installed on almost 99% of computers worldwide. [2] Flash charts offer a wide range of features which help in optimizing the data visualization experience. Drill-down is a prominent feature of Flash charts which helps in building charts that are sensitive to mouse clicks. Using drill-down it is possible view additional data associated with each of the plots displayed on the chart. Flash charts also support tooltips, animation and offer many other types of interactive and aesthetic features. Flash charts are also capable of dynamic update. This means that the chart generator component can be linked to a dynamic data source. Dynamically updated charts are widely used on stock market websites to show current values of stocks. In most cases dynamic update is facilitated with the help of server side scripting languages like PHP, ASP.NET, ColdFusion, JSP etc.[1]

History
The concept of Flash charting originated around 2002. Prior to that Adobe Flash (then Macromedia Flash) was primarily used for creation of animated intros for websites. It was even used for development of standalone gaming applications however, its potential to be used for something as intense as charting was not realized until Flash charting products like FusionCharts came onto the scene.[3] Flash Charting tools are now offered by numerous vendors and Flash based data visualization has become a thriving industry in itself.

Types of Flash Charting Tools

Flash charting tools/software can be classified into following two types: 1. SWF Generation Tool: SWF Generation tools helps in creating an SWF file (Flash movie) that depicts an animated and interactive chart. Essentially, these tools provide an authoring environment through which a chart is configured and an SWF file is generated. Although these tools generate aesthetically-pleasing charts, they can only be used for creation of static charts (where data remains constant).
[1]

1. Data Driven Flash Charting Tools: Data driven Flash charting tools are widely deployed in websites and web applications. Essentially, a data driven Flash charting tool comprises of a collection of SWF files which are responsible for generating charts. The SWF files generate charts with the help of data and configuration provided through XML or JSON. Data driven Flash charting tools support dynamic data and can be integrated with server-side technologies like ASP.NET, PHP, ColdFusion etc.[1]

Flash Chart

40

External Links
The FusionCharts Blog [4] Smashing Magazine [5] ZingChart [6]

References
[1] Charts And Graphs: Modern Solutions Smashing Magazine (http:/ / www. smashingmagazine. com/ 2007/ 10/ 18/ charts-and-graphs-modern-solutions/ ) [2] Adobe Flash Player Version Penetration (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ products/ player_census/ flashplayer/ version_penetration. html) [3] Happy sixth anniversary FusionCharts The FusionCharts Blog (http:/ / blog. fusioncharts. com/ 2008/ 10/ fusioncharts-turns-6. html) [4] http:/ / blog. fusioncharts. com/ 2008/ 10/ fusioncharts-turns-6. html [5] http:/ / www. smashingmagazine. com/ 2007/ 10/ 18/ charts-and-graphs-modern-solutions/ [6] http:/ / www. zingchart. com/

Flash Gallery

41

Flash Gallery

Developer(s) Initial release Written in Operating system

Reality Software May 20, 2008 Flash, PHP, XML Cross Platform

Development status Active Type License Website web application Creative Commons Attribution Flash Gallery homepage
[1]

Flash Gallery is a web application that allows users to create a slideshow on their websites. It is based on Flash and PHP, but it can be installed without any programming skills. Users are required to embed a piece of HTML code into their site, and the application automatically generates a slideshow using local images or a Flickr photostream. The look of the application is customizable via an XML file.

Features
Easy installation. Forms slideshow automatically. Supports Flickr photostream. Customizable design. Fully resizable. Fullscreen and autostart options.

Flash Gallery

42

See also
Photo gallery comparison

External links
Flash Gallery main site [1] Flash Gallery on Flickr [2]

References
[1] http:/ / www. flash-gallery. org/ [2] http:/ / www. flickr. com/ services/ apps/ 72157623124944067/

Adobe Flash Lite

Adobe Flash Lite is a lightweight version of Adobe Flash Player, a software application published by Adobe Systems. This version is intended for mobile phones and other portable electronic devices like Chumby and iRiver, and allows users of these devices to view multimedia content and applications developed using Adobe's Flash tools, which had previously been available only on personal computers.

Technical overview
Flash Lite is a development technology implemented at the client-side, or user interface layer. Recent changes to ActionScript allow Flash Lite to better integrate with and even compete with device-layer technologies like Java ME and BREW. Flash Lite should not be considered a mobile operating system like Symbian OS, Windows Mobile, iPhone OS, or Android: it is a technology for developing applications that run on a mobile operating system. Flash Lite 1.1 supports Flash 4 ActionScript. Flash Lite 2.0, based on Flash Player 7, supports Flash 7's newer ActionScript 2.0. Both versions also support the World Wide Web Consortium's Standard SVG Tiny, a mobile profile of the consortium's Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) recommendation. Unlike SVG, Flash Lite can add audio and interactive elements without the use of other technologies such as JavaScript. As with Flash, Flash Lite is able to read and redraw external XML content. Flash Lite 3 is based on Flash 8, which brings closer the gap between mobile and desktop content by supporting H.264 video standard, as well as On2 VP6 and Sorenson video codecs. It also introduces the support to FLV video content. Flash Lite 4.0 supports ActionScript 3, and will be a browser plugin, not a standalone player.

History
In 2005 Adobe Systems completed its acquisition of Macromedia, the original developers of Flash. At that time, Flash Lite had been available to mobile users in Japan and Europe for some time prior to its availability in the United States. NTT DoCoMo was the first carriers to adopt Flash Lite in May 2003. As a promotion for Flash Lite in February 2005, Macromedia conducted its first Mobile Flash Content Contest. From the over 150 applications submitted, nine winners were selected in areas of Best Business and Productivity Application, Most Innovative use of Flash Lite, Best Animation, Best Business Application, Best Educational Content, Best Game, Best Interactive Content, Best Productivity Application, and Best Overall Use of Flash Lite.[1] In May 2006, the iriver U10 (later re-branded as the iriver clix) was released, which supported Flash Lite content in a landscape page orientation. The U10 was the first digital audio player to support Flash Lite.

Adobe Flash Lite In 2005, almost 100% of Flash Lite enabled devices were found in Japan. In February 2007, Adobe claimed that over 70% of Flash Lite devices were shipped outside of Japan [2] . In October 2006, Verizon Wireless announced support for Flash Lite [3] , making it the first operator in the USA to adopt the technology. Flash Lite was initially available on four handset models (Motorola RAZR V3c and V3m, Samsung SCH-a950 and LG The V (VX9800)) as a BREW extension. This allows users to download Flash Lite applications from Verizon's "Get It Now" service, but it does not allow users to view Flash objects from their web browser. In February 2007, Adobe announced at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona that the next release of Flash Lite (version 3) would support video, including streaming video [4] . In October 2007, Adobe announced the release of Flash Lite 3[5] . At Adobe's 2007 Financial Analyst Meeting, Al Ramadan, then senior vice-president of Adobe's Mobile and Voice Solutions Business Unit, announced that by December 2006, 220M Flash Lite devices had been shipped. He also noted Adobe's acquisition of certain vector rendering technology by Actimagine, intended to reduce the Flash Lite player's memory footprint in future versions[6] [7] . As of March 2008, neither Adobe nor Verizon Wireless have announced the availability of Adobe Flash Cast, per the February 2007 press release for availability by the end of calendar year 2007. In September 2009, Opera Software integrated Flash Lite 3.1 in the Internet Channel application for the Wii gaming console.

43

Versions
Macromedia Flash Lite 1.0 and 1.1 Based on Flash Player 4 Macromedia Flash Lite 2.0 (December 2005) Released in 2005, which brought its capabilities in line with Flash Player 7. Adobe Flash Lite 2.1 (December 2006) Running on the BREW platform Adobe Flash Lite 3 (Announced on February 2007) Support for FLV transcoding Adobe Flash Lite 3.1 (February 2009)[8]

Flash Lite compared to similar development platforms

Flash Lite is a mobile development platform that can either be used in place of Java ME or run on top of Java ME in a Flash Lite Player. Other platforms include BREW, Symbian, and Windows Mobile. In 2006 Qualcomm announced a partnership with Adobe to bring the Flash Lite player to the BREW runtime. Flash Lite content may be viewed on handsets installed with the Flash Lite player in the same way that Java content may be viewed on phones with a Java ME runtime. Both of these technologies may be present on the same handset and do not compete directly. Applications, games and other content may be developed in either technology. Flash Lite has several advantages and several disadvantages when compared to Java ME. Advantages: Rapid development due to the Adobe Flash IDE makes iterative software prototyping and software testing relatively easy. Better support for the Write once, run anywhere (WORA) methodology that does not depend on specific APIs being available. This results in little or no porting, which is a major cost in Java ME development.

Adobe Flash Lite Graphics are vector based (bitmap support is also included) which allows for scaling, rotation and other transformations without loss of graphic quality. Ability to pack more animation and graphics into the same file size provided by the use of vector graphics. Ability to convert web-based (desktop) Flash content to mobile and vice versa, with minimal effort. Flash development skillsunderstanding of the IDE and of the scripting languagereadily ports from the desktop IDE to the mobile development environment. Disadvantages: As of 2 October 2008, only a 361 phones offer support for Flash Lite[9] . However this is changing rapidly in North America and Europe with carriers like Verizon and manufacturers like Nokia, Sony Ericsson and LG having announced Flash Lite devices in 2006 and 2007. Its limited availability means a limited audience compared with that of Java ME, Symbian, or BREW. Relatively poor graphical performance (due to the more complex processing required for vector graphics). Poor handling of sound compared to other programs.

44

Project Capuchin
On April 30, 2008, Sony Ericsson announced Project Capuchin [10] , a bridge that allows Flash Lite to run as a front-end to Java ME and in this way, combine Java's APIs and direct communication with the mobile phone's hardware (bluetooth, WiFi and others) with Flash's graphical interface.[11]

See also
SWF file format, the files generated by the Flash application.

External links
Official Flash Lite information [12] Bill Perry - Flash Lite Evangelist for Asia, Japan and the Americas [13] Mark Doherty - Flash Lite Evangelist for Europe, Middle East and Africa [14] Adobe article on Developing Flash Lite for BREW applications for Verizon Wireless [15]

References
[1] Adobe Mobile Flash Content Contest Winners (http:/ / www. macromedia. com/ devnet/ devices/ articles/ flashlite_winners. html) [2] "Adobes Mobile Flash Technology Now Seeing Growth in Europe and North America" (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ aboutadobe/ pressroom/ pressreleases/ 200702/ 0212073GSM. html). Adobe Systems. 2007-02-12. . [3] "Verizon Wireless Customers Can Now Flash-Enable Their Phones With New Get It Now Applications" (http:/ / investor. verizon. com/ news/ view. aspx?NewsID=782). Verizon. 2006-10-25. . [4] "Upcoming Release of Flash Lite to Integrate Video Playback Capabilities" (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ aboutadobe/ pressroom/ pressreleases/ 200702/ 021207FlashVideo. html). Adobe Systems. 2007-02-12. . [5] "Flash Player for Mobile Devices Delivers High-Impact Video and Dynamic Web Content" (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ aboutadobe/ pressroom/ pressreleases/ 200709/ 100107FlashLite3. html). Adobe Systems. 2007-10-01. . [6] "Adobe Presentation on business opportunities in mobile" (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ aboutadobe/ invrelations/ 2007_analyst_mtg/ pdfs/ Al_Ramadan. pdf). Adobe Systems. . [7] "2007 Financial Analyst Meeting" (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ aboutadobe/ invrelations/ 2007_analyst_mtg/ 2007analystmeeting. html). . [8] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ aboutadobe/ pressroom/ pressreleases/ 200902/ 021609FlashLiteDistr. html [9] http:/ / 192. 150. 8. 60/ mobile/ supported_devices/ handsets. html#toshiba [10] Sony Ericsson's new Project Capuchin bridges Java ME and Flash Lite (http:/ / developer. sonyericsson. com/ site/ global/ newsandevents/ latestnews/ newsapr08/ p_project_capuchin_announcement. jsp) [11] Macworld | Sony Ericsson combines Java and Flash (http:/ / www. macworld. com/ article/ 133226/ 2008/ 04/ sonyeric. html) [12] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ products/ flashlite/ [13] http:/ / www. flashdevices. net [14] http:/ / www. flashmobileblog. com

Adobe Flash Lite

[15] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ devnet/ devices/ articles/ developing_for_brew. html

45

Flash MP3 Player

Developer(s) Initial release Written in Operating system

Reality Software March 11, 2008 Flash, PHP, XML Cross Platform

Development status Active Type License Website web application Creative Commons Attribution Flash MP3 Player homepage
[1]

Flash MP3 Player is a web application that allows users to create a music player on their website. It is based on Flash and PHP, but it can be installed without any programming skills. Users are simply required to embed a piece of HTML code into their website and application automatically generates a playlist by scanning a specified folder for MP3 files and using ID3 tags for naming. The looks of the application is customizable via XML file.

Features
Easy installation. Forms playlist automatically. Customizable design. Fully resizable. Autoplay and autoresume options.

Flash MP3 Player

46

See also
Comparison of media players

External links
Flash MP3 Player main site [1] Flash MP3 Player demo [2] Flash MP3 Player download [3]

References
[1] http:/ / www. flashmp3player. org/ [2] http:/ / www. flashmp3player. org/ demo. html [3] http:/ / www. flashmp3player. org/ download. html

Adobe Flash Player

47

Adobe Flash Player

Developer(s) Initial release Stable release Preview release Operating system Platform Available in Type License Website

Adobe Systems (formerly by Macromedia) 1996 10.0.45.2

[1] (February 11, 2010) [2] [1]
[ +/ [ +/ ]

10.1.53.38 RC 4

(May 6, 2010)

[2]
]

Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris and Pocket PC Web browsers Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Spanish, Korean Interpreter, Media Player Proprietary freeware EULA Adobe Flash Player Homepage
[4] [3]

The Adobe Flash Player is software for viewing animations and movies using computer programs such as a web browser. Flash player is a widely distributed proprietary multimedia and application player created by Macromedia and now developed and distributed by Adobe after its acquisition. Flash Player runs SWF files that can be created by the Adobe Flash authoring tool, by Adobe Flex or by a number of other Macromedia and third party tools. Adobe Flash, or simply Flash, refers to both a multimedia authoring program and the Adobe Flash Player, written and distributed by Adobe, that uses vector and raster graphics, a native scripting language called ActionScript and bidirectional streaming of video and audio. Strictly speaking, Adobe Flash is the authoring environment and Flash Player is the virtual machine used to run the Flash files, but in colloquial language these have become mixed: "Flash" can mean either the authoring environment, the player, or the application files. Flash Player has support for an embedded scripting language called ActionScript (AS), which is based on ECMAScript. Since its inception, ActionScript has matured from a script syntax without variables to one that supports object-oriented code, and may now be compared in capability to JavaScript (another ECMAScript-based scripting language). The Flash Player was originally designed to display 2-dimensional vector animation, but has since become suitable for creating rich Internet applications and streaming video and audio. It uses vector graphics to minimize file size and create files that save bandwidth and loading time. Flash is a common format for games, animations, and GUIs embedded into web pages. The Flash Player is available as a plugin for recent versions of web browsers (such as Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari and Internet Explorer) on selected platforms. Adobe states that each version of the plugin is backwards-compatible, with the exception of security changes introduced in Version 10.[5]

Adobe Flash Player

48

Supported platforms
The latest version of Flash Player, Version 10, is available for Windows 2000 and newer, Linux, Solaris and Mac OS X. Version 9 is the most recent official version currently available for the Linux/ARM-based Nokia 770/N800/N810 Internet Tablets running Maemo OS2008, classic Mac OS and Windows 95/NT.[6] [7] Version 10 can be run under Win9x using KernelEx [8]. HP offers Version 6 of the player for HP-UX.[9] Other versions of the player have been available at some point for OS/2, Symbian OS, Palm OS, BeOS and IRIX.[10] The Kodak Easyshare One includes Flash Play. The Flash Player SDK was used to develop its on-screen menus, which are rendered and displayed using the included Flash Player.[11] Among other devices, LeapFrog Enterprises provides Flash Player with their Leapster Multimedia Learning System and extended the Flash Player with touch-screen support.[12] Sony has integrated Flash Player 6 into the PlayStation Portable's web browser via firmware version 2.70 and Flash Player 9 into the PlayStation 3's web browser in firmware version 2.50[13] . Nintendo has integrated Flash Lite 3.1, equivalent to Flash 8, in the Internet Channel on the Wii. Adobe released an alpha version of Flash Player 10 for x86-64 Linux on the 17th November 2008. Adobe engineers have stated that 64-bit editions for all supported platforms are in development; alpha releases for Mac and Windows will come in future pre releases.[14] Adobe said it will optimize Flash for use on ARM architecture (ARMv6 and ARMv7 architectures used in the ARM11 family and the Cortex-A series of processors) and release it in the second half of 2009. The company also stated it wants to enable Flash on NVIDIA Tegra, Texas Instruments OMAP 3 and Samsung ARMs.[15] [16] Beginning 2009, it was announced that Adobe would be bringing Flash to TV sets via Intel Media Processor CE 3100 before mid-2009.[17] Later on, ARM Holdings said it welcomes the move of Flash, because "it will transform mobile applications and it removes the claim that the desktop controls the Internet."[18] However, as of May 2009, the expected ARM/Linux netbook devices had poor support for Web video and fragmented software base.[19] Although SWF has recently become an open format again, Adobe has not been willing to make complete source code available for free software development. The source code for the ActionScript Virtual Machine has been released as a project named Tamarin[20] under the terms of an MPL/GPL/LGPL tri-license. It includes the specification for the ActionScript byte code format. This project is jointly managed by Mozilla and Adobe. The full specification of the SWF format is available without restriction by Adobe. The free software players Gnash and Swfdec are quite incomplete at this time. However, because SWF is now an open format, the free players should achieve higher quality going forward as developers implement the official SWF specifications.

Mobile operating systems

Following table shows Flash Player support for mobile operating systems:
Mobile OS Windows Mobile/Pocket PC Symbian OS iPhone OS Palm WebOS Palm OS BlackBerry OS PS3 Internet Browser PSP Internet Browser Latest Adobe Flash version 7 (stand-alone apps v6) [21] [22] and Lite 3.1 [23]

[24] Adobe Flash Lite 3.1 N/A N/A 5 (no web browser integration) N/A [26] [27] [25]

9.1(update 3) 6 [28]

Adobe Flash Player

[29] [30]

49
Android Maemo

10

9.4

Internet Privacy/Persistent Identification Elements

Flash Player is an application that, while running on a computer that is connected to the Internet, is designed to contemporaneously interact with websites containing Flash content that are being visited online. As such, under certain configurations the application has the potential to silently compromise its users' Internet privacy, and do so without their knowledge. By default, Flash Player is configured to permit small, otherwise invisible "tracking" files, known as Persistent Identification Elements (PIEs)[31] or Local Shared Object files, to be stored on the hard drive of a user's computer. Sent in the background over the Internet from websites to which a user is connected, these files work much the way "cookies" do with Internet browsers. When stored on a user's computer, PIE (.sol) files are capable of sending personally sensitive data back out over the Internet without the user's knowledge to one or more third parties. In addition, Flash Player is also capable of accessing and retrieving audio and video data from any microphone and/or webcams that might be either built in or connected to a user's computer and transmitting it in realtime over the Internet (also potentially without the user's knowledge) to one or more third parties. While these capabilities can all be affirmatively blocked and/or disabled by the user, the Flash Player application does not provide an internally accessible "preferences" panel to accomplish this. Instead access to the various settings panels necessary to manage the application's "Privacy," "Storage," "Security," and "Notifications" settings can be achieved through a web-based "Settings Manager" [65] page located on the "support" section of the Adobe.com website, or by third party tools (see Local Shared Object). Each of the functions can be enabled/disabled either "globally" to cover all websites, or set differently for individual websites depending on how the user desires Flash Player to be able to interact with each one. Although Flash Control Panel Settings in theory allow users to protect their privacy, they should also be aware that suitably crafted Visual Basic Script or similar code can overwrite any user defined settings before the Flash Player Plug-in is called by a webpage. In addition to cookies, many banks and other financial institutions also routinely install Persistent Identification Elements using Flash Player on users' hard drives when they establish and access their accounts, as do other interactive sites such as YouTube.

History
Macromedia Flash Player 2 (1997) Mostly vectors and motion, some bitmaps, limited audio Support of stereo sound, enhanced bitmap integration, buttons, the Library, and the capability to tween color changes. Macromedia Flash Player 3 (1998) Added alpha transparency, licensed MP3 compression Brought improvements to animation, playback, and publishing, as well as the introduction of simple script commands for interactivity. Macromedia Flash Player 4 (May 1999) Saw the introduction of streaming MP3s and the Motion Tween. Initially, the Flash Player plug-in was not bundled with popular web browsers and users had to visit Macromedia website to download it; As of 2000, however, 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. The install-base of the Flash Player reached 92 percent of all Internet users.

Adobe Flash Player Macromedia Flash Player 5 (August 2000) A major leap forward in capability, with the evolution of Flash's scripting capabilities as released as ActionScript. Saw the ability to customize the authoring environment's interface. Macromedia Generator was the first initiative from Macromedia to separate design from content in Flash files. Generator 2.0 was released in April 2001 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 [32]". (Macromedia later hired Nielsen to help them improve Flash usability.) Macromedia Flash Player 6 (version 6.0.21.0, codenamed Exorcist) (March 2002) Support for the consuming Flash Remoting (AMF) and Web Service (SOAP) Supports ondemand/live audio and video streaming (RTMP) Support for screenreaders via Microsoft Active Accessibility Added Sorenson Spark video codec for Flash Video[33] Support for video, application components, shared libraries, and accessibility.

50

Macromedia Flash Communication Server MX, also released in 2002, allowed video to be streamed to Flash Player 6 (otherwise the video could be embedded into the Flash movie). Macromedia Flash Player 7 (version 7.0.14.0, codenamed Mojo) (September 2003) Supports progressive audio and video streaming (HTTP) Supports ActionScript 2.0, an Object-Oriented Programming Language for developers 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. ActionScript 2.0 was also introduced, giving developers a formal Object-Oriented approach to ActionScript. V2 Components replaced Flash MX's components, being rewritten from the ground up to take advantage of ActionScript 2.0 and Object-Oriented principles. In 2004, the "Flash Platform" was introduced. This expanded Flash to more than the Flash authoring tool. Flex 1.0 and Breeze 1.0 were released, both of which utilized the Flash Player as a delivery method but relied on tools other than the Flash authoring program to create Flash applications and presentations. Flash Lite 1.1 was also released, enabling mobile phones to play Flash content. Macromedia Flash Player 8 (version 8.0.22.0, codenamed Maelstrom) (August 2005) Support for runtime loading of GIF and PNG images New video codec (On2 VP6) Improved runtime performance and runtime bitmap caching Live filters and blendmodes File upload and download capabilities New text-rendering engine, the Saffron Type System ExternalAPI subsystem introduced to replace fscommand() On December 3, 2005, Adobe Systems acquired Macromedia and its product portfolio (including Flash).[34] Adobe Flash Player 9 (version 9.0.15.0, codenamed Zaphod) (June 2006) previously named Flash Player 8.5 New ECMAScript scripting engine, ActionScript Virtual Machine AVM2. AVM1 retained for compatibility. Actionscript 3 via AVM2. E4X, which is a new approach to parsing XML. Support for binary sockets.

Support for Regular Expressions and namespaces. ECMAScript 4 virtual machine donated to Mozilla Foundation and named Tamarin.

Adobe Flash Player Adobe Flash Player 9 Update 1 (version 9.0.28.0, codenamed Marvin) (November 2006[35] ) Support for full-screen mode.[36] Adobe Flash Player 9 Update 2 (version Mac/Windows 9.0.47.0 and Linux 9.0.48.0, codenamed Hotblack) (July 2007) Security Update Adobe Flash Player 9 Update 3 (version 9.0.115.0, codenamed Moviestar or Frogstar) (December 2007)[37] [38] H.264 AAC (HE-AAC, AAC Main Profile, and AAC-LC) New Flash Video file format F4V based on the ISO Base Media File Format (MPEG-4 Part 12) Support for container formats based on the ISO base media file format[38] Adobe Flash Player 10 (version 10.0.12.36, codenamed Astro) (October 2008) New Features 3D object transformations Custom filters via Pixel Bender Advanced text support Speex audio codec

51

Real Time Media Flow Protocol (RTMFP) Dynamic sound generation Vector data type Enhanced Features Larger bitmap support Graphics drawing API Context menu Hardware acceleration Anti-aliasing engine (Saffron 3.1) Read/write clipboard access WMODE

Criticism
In April 2010, Steve Jobs CEO of Apple Inc. published an open letter claiming why Apple wouldn't allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. One of the six reasons mentioned was security. Jobs wrote "Symantec recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009."[39] Steve Jobs openly criticised the stability of the Flash Player, claiming that when one of Apple's Macintosh computers crashes, "more often than not" the cause can be attributed to Flash. Additionally, he labeled Flash as "buggy".[40] Adobe's CEO Shantanu Narayen responded by saying, "If Flash [is] the number one reason that Macs crash, which I'm not aware of, it has as much to do with the Apple operating system."[41]

Adobe Flash Player

52

See also
Adobe Flash Player Adobe Flash Lite, a lightweight version of Flash Player for devices that lack the resources to run regular Flash movies. Flash Video Local Shared Object Real Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) Saffron Type System, the anti-aliased text-rendering engine used in version 8 onwards. SWF file format, the files generated by the Flash application and played by Flash Player. SWFObject, a JavaScript library used to embed Flash content into webpages. Other SWF2EXE Software Gnash, a free software Flash player Swfdec, a free software Flash player Adobe Shockwave Player Microsoft Silverlight

External links
Adobe Flash Player [42]

References
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] http:/ / en. wikipedia. org/ wiki/ Template%3Alatest_stable_software_release%2Fadobe_flash_player http:/ / en. wikipedia. org/ wiki/ Template%3Alatest_preview_software_release%2Fadobe_flash_player Flash Player Download Center (http:/ / get. adobe. com/ flashplayer/ ) http:/ / www. adobe. com/ products/ flashplayer/ Understanding the security changes in Flash Player 10 - Setting data on the system Clipboard requires user interaction (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ devnet/ flashplayer/ articles/ fplayer10_security_changes_02. html), Abobe Developer Center [6] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ shockwave/ download/ alternates/ [7] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ cfusion/ knowledgebase/ index. cfm?id=d9c2fe33 [8] http:/ / sourceforge. net/ projects/ kernelex/ [9] http:/ / www. hp. com/ support/ macromedia_software/ [10] http:/ / www. allbusiness. com/ technology/ computer-software/ 300738-1. html/ [11] Macromedia - Flash Player SDK http:/ / www. adobe. com/ products/ flashplayer_sdk/ (Taken 7 July 2006) [12] Adobe Success Story: LeapFrog Enterprises http:/ / www. adobe. com/ cfusion/ showcase/ index. cfm?event=casestudydetail& casestudyid=21019& loc=en_us (Taken 7 July 2006) [13] "New info on the firmware updates for PS3 and PSP" (http:/ / threespeech. com/ blog/ 2008/ 10/ new-info-on-the-firmware-updates-for-ps3-and-psp/ ). ThreeSpeech. 2008-10-14. . [14] "Upcoming versions of 64-bit Windows and Mac versions of Flash Player" (http:/ / labs. adobe. com/ technologies/ flashplayer10/ faq. html#flashplayer10FAQ_64-bit01). Adobe FAQ. 2008-11-21. . [15] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ aboutadobe/ pressroom/ pressreleases/ 200811/ 111708ARMAdobeFlash. html [16] http:/ / www. electronista. com/ articles/ 08/ 11/ 17/ adobe. flash. for. arm. in. 2k9/ [17] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ aboutadobe/ pressroom/ pressreleases/ 200901/ 010509IntelAdobePR. html [18] http:/ / www. electronicsweekly. com/ Articles/ 2008/ 05/ 02/ 43661/ arm-welcomes-adobes-mobile-flash-move. htm [19] http:/ / www. eetimes. com/ news/ latest/ showArticle. jhtml?articleID=216500372 [20] http:/ / www. mozilla. org/ projects/ tamarin/ [21] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ products/ flashplayer_pocketpc/ [22] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ mobile/ supported_devices/ pda. html [23] http:/ / www. 1800pocketpc. com/ 2008/ 09/ 07/ flash-lite-31-and-opera-mobile-95-build-1938-for-wm61. html [24] http:/ / news. digitaltrends. com/ news-article/ 19244/ adobe-flash-lite-3-1-hits-symbian-wimo [25] http:/ / www. wired. com/ gadgetlab/ 2008/ 11/ adobe-flash-on/ [26] http:/ / apcmag. com/ adobe_explains_why_theres_no_flash_on_iphone_or_blackberry. htm

Adobe Flash Player

[27] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ devnet/ devices/ psp. html [28] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ devnet/ devices/ psp. html [29] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ aboutadobe/ pressroom/ pressreleases/ 200906/ 062409AdobeandHTCBringFlashPlatformtoAndroid. html [30] http:/ / maemo. nokia. com/ features/ maemo-browser/ [31] "Persistent Identification Elements (PIE) and Internet Privacy" (http:/ / vlaurie. com/ computers2/ Articles/ pie. htm). . [32] http:/ / www. useit. com/ alertbox/ 20001029. html [33] Macromedia, Inc. (2002-03-04) Macromedia and Sorenson Media bring video to Macromedia Flash content and applications (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ macromedia/ proom/ pr/ 2002/ flash_mx_video. html), Retrieved on 2009-08-09 [34] "Adobe Completes Acquisition of Macromedia" (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ aboutadobe/ pressroom/ pressreleases/ 200512/ 120505AdobeAcquiresMacromedia. html). Adobe Systems. 2005-12-05. . Retrieved 2007-06-18. [35] Emmy Huang: Flash Player 9 Update (9.0.28.0) release now available for Windows and Macintosh (http:/ / weblogs. macromedia. com/ emmy/ archives/ 2006/ 11/ flash_player_9_4. cfm) [36] Adobe - Developer Center : Exploring full-screen mode in Flash Player 9 (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ devnet/ flashplayer/ articles/ full_screen_mode. html) [37] Adobe press release: http:/ / www. adobe. com/ aboutadobe/ pressroom/ pressreleases/ 200712/ 120407adobemoviestar. html. Blog post from Emmy Huang, the Product Manager for Adobe Flash Player: http:/ / weblogs. macromedia. com/ emmy/ archives/ 2007/ 12/ flash_player_9_10. cfm [38] Adobe Systems Incorporated (2007-12-03) List of codecs supported by Adobe Flash Player (http:/ / kb2. adobe. com/ cps/ 402/ kb402866. html), Retrieved on 2009-08-05 [39] Steve Jobs (2010-04-29). "Thoughts on Flash" (http:/ / www. apple. com/ hotnews/ thoughts-on-flash/ ). Apple. . Retrieved 2010-05-09. [40] Cassella, Dena (2010-02-01). "Steve Jobs Unleashes His Fury During Town Hall Meeting" (http:/ / www. digitaltrends. com/ computing/ steve-jobs-unleashes-his-fury-during-town-hall-meeting/ ). . Retrieved 2010-02-22. [41] http:/ / blogs. telegraph. co. uk/ technology/ shanerichmond/ 100005034/ adobe-hits-back-at-apples-smokescreen/ [42] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ products/ flash/ about/

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Flash Video

54

Flash Video

Filename extension .flv, .f4v, .f4p, .f4a, .f4b Internet media type Developed by Type of format Container for video/x-flv, video/mp4, video/x-m4v, audio/mp4a-latm, video/3gpp, video/quicktime, audio/mp4 Adobe Systems (originally developed by Macromedia) Media container Audio, video, text, data

Flash Video is a container file format used to deliver video over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player (initially produced by Macromedia) versions 610. Flash Video content may also be embedded within SWF files. There are two different video file formats defined by Adobe Systems and supported in Adobe Flash Player: FLV and F4V. The audio and video data within FLV files are encoded in the same way as they are within SWF files. The latter F4V file format is based on the ISO base media file format and is supported starting with Flash Player 9 update 3.[1] [2] The format has quickly established itself as the format of choice for embedded video on the web. Notable users of the Flash Video format include YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo! Video, metacafe, Reuters.com, and many other news providers. The standards documentation for BBC Online states that the BBC now preferentially accepts Flash videos for submission, to the disadvantage of other formats previously in use on its sites[3] such as RealVideo or WMV. Though the Flash Video container format itself is published, most of the compression formats used with it are patented. Flash Video FLV files usually contain material encoded with codecs following the Sorenson Spark or VP6 video compression formats. The most recent public releases of Flash Player also support H.264 video and HE-AAC audio. Flash Video is viewable on most operating systems, via the widely available Adobe Flash Player and web browser plugin, or one of several third-party programs.

Flash Player
The Adobe Flash Player is a multimedia and application player originally developed by Macromedia and acquired by Adobe Systems. It plays SWF files which can be created by the Adobe Flash authoring tool, Adobe Flex, or a number of other Adobe Systems and third party tools. It has support for a scripting language called ActionScript, which can be used to display Flash Video from an SWF file. Because the Flash Player runs as a browser plug-in, it is possible to embed Flash Video in web pages and view the video within a web browser.

Format details
Commonly, Flash Video FLV files contain video bit streams which are a proprietary variant of the H.263 video standard,[4] under the name of Sorenson Spark (FourCC FLV1).[5] [6] Sorenson Spark is an older codec for FLV files but it is also a widely available and compatible one, because it was the first video codec supported in Flash Player.[7] It is the required video compression format for Flash Player 6 and 7.[8] Flash Player 8 and newer revisions also support the playback of On2 TrueMotion VP6 video bit streams (FourCC VP6F or FLV4). On2 VP6 is the preferred video compression format for use with Flash Player 8 and higher.[5] [9] On2 VP6 can provide a higher visual quality than Sorenson Spark, especially when using lower bit rates. On the other hand it is computationally more complex

Flash Video and therefore will not run as well on certain older system configurations.[8] [10] Flash Player 9 Update 3, released on December 3, 2007,[11] also includes support for the new Flash Video file format F4V and H.264 video standard (also known as MPEG-4 part 10, or AVC) which is even more computationally demanding, but offers significantly better quality/bitrate ratio.[12] Specifically, Flash Player now supports video compressed in H.264 (MPEG-4 Part 10), audio compressed using AAC (MPEG-4 Part 3), the F4V, MP4 (MPEG-4 Part 14), M4V, M4A, 3GP and MOV multimedia container formats, 3GPP Timed Text specification (MPEG-4 Part 17) which is a standardized subtitle format and partial parsing support for the 'ilst' atom which is the ID3 equivalent iTunes uses to store metadata. MPEG-4 Part 2 video (e.g. created with DivX or Xvid) is not supported.[13] The Flash Video FLV file format supports two versions of a so called 'screenshare' (Screen video) codec which is an encoding format designed for screencasts. Both these formats are bitmap tile based, can be lossy by reducing color depths and are compressed using zlib. The second version is only playable in Flash Player 8 and newer. Audio in Flash Video files is usually encoded as MP3. However, audio in Flash Video FLV files recorded from the user's microphone use the proprietary Nellymoser Asao Codec.[14] (Flash Player 10 released in 2008 also supports the open source Speex codec.[15] ) FLV files also support uncompressed audio or ADPCM format audio. Recent versions of Flash Player 9 support AAC (HE-AAC/AAC SBR, AAC Main Profile, and AAC-LC).[16] Support for encoding Flash Video files is provided by an encoding tool included with Adobe's Flash Professional and Creative Suite products, On2's Flix encoding tools, Sorenson Squeeze, FFmpeg and other third party tools.

55

File formats
Support for video in SWF file format was added in Flash Player 6, released in 2002. In 2003, Flash Player 7 added direct support for FLV file format. Because of restrictions in the FLV file format, Adobe Systems has created in 2007 new file formats listed below, based on the ISO base media file format (MPEG-4 Part 12). Flash Player does not check the extension of the file, but rather looks inside the file to detect which format it is.[13] [17] The new file formats are completely different from the older FLV file format. For example, F4V does not support Screen video, Sorenson Spark, VP6 video compression formats and ADPCM, Nellymoser audio compression formats.[1] [17] Authors of Flash Player strongly encourage everyone to embrace the new standard file format F4V (ISO base media file format). There are functional limits with the FLV structure when streaming H.264 or AAC which could not be overcome without a redesign of the file format. This is one reason why Adobe Systems is moving away from the traditional FLV file structure.[17]
File Extension .f4v .f4p Mime Type video/mp4 video/mp4 Description

Video for Adobe Flash Player Protected Video for Adobe Flash Player Audio for Adobe Flash Player Audio Book for Adobe Flash Player

.f4a .f4b

audio/mp4 audio/mp4

SWF files published for Flash Player 6 and later versions are able to exchange audio, video, and data over RTMP connections with the Adobe Flash Media Server. One way to feed data to Flash Media Server is from files in the FLV file format. Starting with SWF files created for Flash Player 7, Flash Player can play FLV file format directly (MIME type video/x-flv). Starting with SWF files created for Flash Player 9 Update 3, Flash Player can also play the new F4V file format.[1]

Flash Video

56

Codec support
Supported media types in FLV file format:[1] Video: On2 VP6, Sorenson Spark (Sorenson H.263), Screen video, H.264 Audio: MP3, ADPCM, Linear PCM, Nellymoser, Speex, AAC, G.711 (reserved for internal use) Supported media types in F4V file format:[1] Video: H.264 Images (still frame of video data): GIF, PNG, JPEG Audio: AAC, HE-AAC, MP3

Support for audio and video compression formats in Flash Player and in Flash Video[1] [9] [14]
[16] [18] Flash Player version 6 7 8 Released File format Video compression formats Audio compression formats

2002 2003 2005

SWF SWF, FLV SWF, FLV

Sorenson Spark, Screen video Sorenson Spark, Screen video On2 VP6, Sorenson Spark, Screen video, Screen video 2 On2 VP6, Sorenson Spark, Screen video, Screen video 2, H.264[*] H.264

MP3, ADPCM, Nellymoser MP3, ADPCM, Nellymoser MP3, ADPCM, Nellymoser

9.0.115.0

2007

SWF, FLV

MP3, ADPCM, Nellymoser, AAC[*] AAC, MP3

SWF, F4V, ISO base media file format 10 2008 SWF, FLV

On2 VP6, Sorenson Spark, Screen video, Screen video 2, H.264[*] H.264

MP3, ADPCM, Nellymoser, Speex, AAC[*] AAC, MP3

SWF, F4V, ISO base media file format

Use of the H.264 and AAC compression formats in the FLV file format has some limitations and authors of Flash Player strongly encourage everyone to embrace the new standard F4V file format.[17]

FLV players
A FLV player is a type of media player that is used for playing Flash video from PC as well as from Internet websites. A FLV player can be used standalone, without the need of the Adobe Flash authoring or developmental tools. It can also be embedded in the website using Flash component or embeddable version of FLV player. The following players support FLV files in their default installations:

Desktop-based
Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux-based Adobe Media Player (freeware) Media Player Classic (free software) MPlayer (free software) RealPlayer (freeware) VLC media player (free software)

Flash Video

57

Delivery options
Flash Video files can be delivered in several different ways: As a standalone .FLV file. Although Flash Video files are normally delivered using a Flash player for control, the .FLV file itself is only playable with an FLV player. There are several third party players available. Embedded in an SWF file using the Flash authoring tool (supported in Flash Player 6 and later). The entire file must be transferred before playback can begin. Changing the video requires rebuilding the SWF file. Progressive download via HTTP (supported in Flash Player 7 and later). This method uses ActionScript to include an externally hosted Flash Video file client-side for playback. Progressive download has several advantages, including buffering, use of generic HTTP servers, and the ability to reuse a single SWF player for multiple Flash Video sources. Flash Player 8 includes support for random access within video files using the partial download functionality of HTTP, sometimes this is referred to as streaming. However, unlike streaming using RTMP, HTTP "streaming" does not support real-time broadcasting. Streaming via HTTP requires a custom player and the injection of specific Flash Video metadata containing the exact starting position in bytes and timecode of each keyframe. Using this specific information, a custom Flash Video player can request any part of the Flash Video file starting at a specified keyframe. For example, Google Video, Youtube, and BitGravity support progressive downloading and can seek to any part of the video before buffering is complete. The server-side part of this "HTTP pseudo-streaming" method is fairly simple to implement, for example in PHP, as an Apache module, or using lighttpd. Streamed via RTMP to the Flash Player using the Flash Media Server (formerly called Flash Communication Server), VCS, ElectroServer, Wowza Pro, WebORB for .NET, WebORB for Java or the open source Red5 server. As of April 2008, there are stream recorders available for this protocol, re-encoding screencast software excluded.

Flash video recording

It is possible to record online flash videos using Stream recorders and Screen video capture software. The former gives lossless results, while the latter allows recording any video even when anti-leeching measures are used.

See also
Local Shared Object SWFObject Comparison of media players MPEG transport stream Open source codecs Adobe Flash Player Stream recorder Screen video capture software

Flash Video

58

External links
Flash Developer Center - Flash Video Articles [19] Flash Video (FLV) File Format Specification [20] (adobe.com) List of codecs supported by Adobe Flash Player [21] versions from 6 to 9 (adobe.com) Macromedia Flash FLV Video File Format [22] (Library of Congress)

References
[1] Adobe Systems Incorporated (November 2008) (PDF). Video File Format Specification, Version 10 (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ devnet/ flv/ pdf/ video_file_format_spec_v10. pdf). Adobe Systems Incorporated. . Retrieved 2009-08-03. [2] Knol (December 7, 2008) What is the difference between Flash Video (FLV), F4V and H.264. (http:/ / knol. google. com/ k/ nina-king/ what-is-the-difference-flash-video-flv/ 1zvmlr765y0hs/ 30#), Retrieved on 2009-08-03 [3] Future Media Standards & Guidelines - AV Addendum v1.5 (http:/ / www. bbc. co. uk/ guidelines/ futuremedia/ technical/ av_addendum. shtml#flash) BBC [4] Benjamin Larsson (2009-03-17). "h263-svq3 optimizations" (http:/ / lists. mplayerhq. hu/ pipermail/ ffmpeg-devel/ 2009-March/ 065410. html). FFmpeg-devel mailing list. . Retrieved 2009-08-09. [5] "The quest for a new video codec in Flash 8" (http:/ / www. kaourantin. net/ 2005/ 08/ quest-for-new-video-codec-in-flash-8. html). Kaourantin.net. 2005-08-13. . Retrieved 2009-08-10. [6] "Sorenson Spark" (http:/ / wiki. multimedia. cx/ index. php?title=Sorenson_Spark). MultimediaWiki. . Retrieved 2009-11-03. [7] Sorenson Media Difference Between Flash 6 and Flash 8 video (http:/ / forum. sorensonmedia. com/ f/ viewtopic. php?f=11& t=20& start=0& st=0& sk=t& sd=a), Retrieved on 2009-08-09 [8] Adobe LiveDocs (2005) Flash 8 Documentation - About the On2 VP6 and Sorenson Spark video codecs (http:/ / livedocs. adobe. com/ flash/ 8/ main/ 00000646. html), Retrieved on 2009-08-09 [9] Adobe Flash CS4 Professional Documentation - Digital video and Flash (http:/ / help. adobe. com/ en_US/ Flash/ 10. 0_UsingFlash/ WS9222D73A-676D-41cd-9222-A4884858BBA3. html#WSB70FA3A6-7C5C-4aea-9F63-25EC5C73F873), Retrieved on 2009-08-09 [10] Adobe LiveDocs (2005) Flash 8 Documentation - Comparing the On2 VP6 and Sorenson Spark video codecs (http:/ / livedocs. adobe. com/ flash/ 8/ main/ 00000647. html), Retrieved on 2009-08-09 [11] "Adobe Flash Player 9 Downloads" (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ support/ flashplayer/ downloads. html#fp9). Adobe. 2007-12-03. . Retrieved 2008-01-31. [12] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ devnet/ flv/ pdf/ video_file_format_spec_v10. pdf [13] Kaourantin.net (2007-08-20). "What just happened to video on the web" (http:/ / www. kaourantin. net/ 2007/ 08/ what-just-happened-to-video-on-web_20. html). . Retrieved 2009-08-12. [14] MultimediaWiki Nelly Moser (http:/ / wiki. multimedia. cx/ index. php?title=Nelly_Moser), Retrieved on 2009-08-11 [15] AskMeFlash.com (2009-05-10) Speex vs Nellymoser (http:/ / askmeflash. com/ article_m. php?p=article& id=2), Retrieved on 2009-08-12 [16] OSFlash (2008-10-07). "Flash Video (FLV) Open Source Flash" (http:/ / osflash. org/ flv). . Retrieved 2009-08-12. [17] Kaourantin.net (October 31, 2007) Tinic Uro New File Extensions and MIME Types (http:/ / www. kaourantin. net/ 2007/ 10/ new-file-extensions-and-mime-types. html), Retrieved on 2009-08-03 [18] Adobe (2007-12-03) List of codecs supported by Adobe Flash Player (http:/ / kb2. adobe. com/ cps/ 402/ kb402866. html), Retrieved on 2009-08-10 [19] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ devnet/ flash/ video. html [20] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ devnet/ flv/ [21] http:/ / kb2. adobe. com/ cps/ 402/ kb402866. html [22] http:/ / www. digitalpreservation. gov/ formats/ fdd/ fdd000131. shtml

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Flash animation
A Flash animation or Flash cartoon is an animated film which is created using Adobe Flash or similar animation software and often distributed in the .swf file format. The term Flash animation not only refers to the file format but to a certain kind of movement and visual style which, in many circles, is seen as simplistic or unpolished. However, with dozens of Flash animated television series, countless more Flash animated television commercials, and award-winning online shorts in circulation, Flash animation is enjoying a renaissance. In the late 1990s, when for most Internet Simple animation in Flash MX; a square moving across the screen in a motion users, bandwidth was still at 56 kbit/s, many tween, one of the basic functions of Flash. Onion skinning is used to show the apparent motion of the square. Flash animation artists employed limited animation or cutout animation when creating projects intended for web distribution. This allowed artists to release shorts and interactive experiences well under 1 MB, which could stream both audio and high-end animation. One example is the first episode of The Goddamn George Liquor Program released in 1999, rendered at only 628kB. Some hallmarks of poorly-produced Flash animation are jerky natural movements (seen in walk-cycles and gestures), auto-tweened character movements, lip-sync without interpolation, and abrupt changes from front to profile view. Although Flash is able to integrate bitmaps and other raster-based art, as well as video, most Flash films are created using only vector-based drawings which often result in a somewhat clean graphic appearance. Flash animations are typically distributed by way of the World Wide Web, in which case they are often referred to as Internet cartoons, online cartoons, or webtoons. Web Flash animations may be interactive and are often created in a series. A Flash animation is distinguished from a Webcomic, which is a comic strip distributed via the Web, rather than an animated cartoon. Flash animation is now taught in schools throughout the UK and can be taken as a GCSE and, and o level.

History
Developed by Macromedia, Flash (along with Macromedia's other programs) was acquired by software giant Adobe in April 2005. The first prominent use of the Flash animation format was by Ren & Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi. On October 15, 1997, he launched The Goddamn George Liquor Program, the first cartoon series produced specifically for the Internet[1] . The series starred George Liquor (a fictional character rumored to have ended Kricfalusi's employment on Ren & Stimpy) and his dim-witted nephew Jimmy The Hapless Idiot Boy. Later, Kricfalusi produced more animated projects with Flash including several online shorts for Icebox.com, television commercials, and a music video. Soon after that, web cartoons began appearing on the internet with much more regularity. On February 26, 1999,[2] in a major milestone for Flash animation, the popular web series WhirlGirl became the first regularly scheduled Flash animated web series when it premiered on the premium cable channel Showtime in an unprecedented telecast and simultaneous release on the Showtime website.[3] Created by David B. Williams and

Flash animation produced by Visionary Media, the studio he founded, WhirlGirl follows the adventures of a young superheroine fighting for freedom in a future ruled by an all-powerful "mediatech empire." The series originally launched in the Spring of 1997 as a web comic with limited animation and sound.[4] After gaining online syndication partners including Lycos.com and WebTV, the series first adopted Flash animation in July 1998.[5] Following her Showtime debut, the titular heroine appeared in over 50 Flash webisodes on the Showtime website[6] and starred in a million dollar multimedia Showtime marketing campaign.[7] About the same time, Joe Cartoon launched the interactive animation "Frog in a Blender" to become one of the very first true "Viral Hits" on the internet gaining more than 90 million views since its release in 1999. The Von Ghouls went live in November 1999, featuring the first music group with cartoon episodes online including original songs, in the vein of Saturday morning cartoons of the 1970s. A number of popular portal sites featured Flash animation during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, including Icebox, MondoMedia, CampChaos, MediaTrip, Bogbeast and AtomFilms. Stan Lee of Marvel Comics launched an animated comics site. The Internet also saw the proliferation of many adult-only Flash cartoon sites. Some of the shows from that period made the transition to traditional media, including Queer Duck, Gary the Rat, Happy Tree Friends, and the politically-minded JibJab shorts. Occasionally, the trend has been reversed: after being canceled from both ABC and Fox, Atom Films created net-only episodes of The Critic in 2000-2001. In another instance, Flash almost made the transition to the big screen. In 2001, production began on what would have been the first Flash-animated feature film, the ill-fated "Lil' Pimp," which also began life as an Internet series. As potentially controversial as its subject matter was, it had a relatively large budget, a number of well-known actors (including William Shatner, Bernie Mac, and Lil Kim), a full crew, and a running time of nearly 80 minutes. Although Sony Pictures decided not to release the film, it was eventually released on DVD by Lion's Gate. Several recording companies experimented with releasing animated music videos to promote their artists' releases online, including Madonna, the Beastie Boys and Tenacious D, however none became the hit that allowed for the expansion of Flash animated music videos. Adam Sandler and Tim Burton among others, released original Internet-only animated works, but were not able to devise successful financial models and the trend dissipated, largely as a result of a lack of viable micropayment systems. Several popular online series are currently produced in Flash, such as the Emmy Award-winning Off-Mikes, produced by ESPN and Animax Entertainment; Gotham Girls, produced by Warner Brothers; Crime Time, produced by Future Thought Productions and HomestarRunner produced by Mike and Matt Chapman. Many animated television series are produced using Macromedia Flash, inspired by both the comparatively low cost of production and the unique style that can be achieved with the software, including Metalocalypse, Being Ian, Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends, Kappa Mikey, Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, Happy Tree Friends, Odd Job Jack, Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!, the BBC Three show Monkey Dust, the Channel Four show Modern Toss, Yin Yang Yo, Aaagh! It's the Mr. Hell Show, Cinemax's Eli's Dirty Jokes, Queer Duck from Showtime, and Shorties Watching Shorties on Comedy Central. Other television series, such as Home Movies and Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, both broadcast on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block, have switched to Flash from other animation technology. Many animation film festivals have responded to the popularity of Flash animation by adding separate categories in competition for "web cartoons" or "Internet cartoons." Additionally, several exclusively web-based Flash competitions have been established. It is speculated that only the category "made for Internet" will survive, as competitions at animation film festivals are typically arranged in categories defined by film length and distribution channel, rather than by animation techniques or tools used to create the films.

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Flash animation

61

Timeline - First flash projects on television

Year Project Notes When the first regularly scheduled Flash animated series, WhirlGirl, made its Showtime premiere, the premium cable network marked the occasion with an unprecedented telecast that ran simultaneously with the release of the [3] episode on the company's website. For the 2000 and 2001 seasons, the show opens were created by Bullseye Art, which has spun off into a company called Magic Butter. These titles were nominated for a daytime Emmy for 'Main Title Design.' This aired on the Oxygen Network in March 2000 as part of the "X-Chromosome" block a sort of female Liquid Television overseen by Kit Laybourne and Machi Tantillo. This was a half-hour special on Teletoon in March, which eventually spawned the series now known as Olliver's Adventures. Two short films were made for Channel4's Mesh Scheme in the UK, Stephen Cavalier's 'daddy' and Ed Holdsworths 'King Pylon', animated in Flash and were broadcast on Channel4 in September, 2001. In November 2001, this series launched on Australia's Special Broadcasting Service network. The title sequence for this BBC program was produced in Flash by Elephant Egg. Originally a web cartoon, later created as a 30 min series, animated by Nick Digital Studios East for Spike TV. One hundred minutes of a series of Public Service Announcements (PSA's) for the project by Future Thought Productions. These episodes of The Proud Family were animated at Hyperion Pictures under the Animobile label. Two episodes were animated by Animax Entertainment (The Beach and The Picnic). The second season of this series was produced in Flash. One of the first US network Flash series. Canadas first broadcast Flash production. On BBC Two Wales. A web cartoon that also showed on MTV2 UK. A stickfigure animation shown on MTV Canceled Adult Swim series.

1999 WhirlGirl - Showtime Premiere

2000 The Rosie O'Donnell Show - Opening Titles 2000 Breakup Girl

2001 Ollie's Under The Bed Adventures 2001 daddy / King Pylon

2001 Quads! 2001 TV Warehouse 2002 Gary the Rat 2002 Meena [8] 2002 The Proud Family Shorties 2002 Home Movies 2002 Mucha Lucha! 2002 The Mr. Dink Show 2002 Bobinogs 2002 Weebl and Bob 200? Xiao Xiao #3 2005 Stroker and Hoop

Timeline - Other flash animated TV series

Year Project Notes Launched on CBC Television, this became one of the first Flash productions to make the move from online "webisodes" to national TV. Launched on Cartoon Network. [9]

2003 Chilly Beach

2004 Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends 2004 Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi 2004 Atomic Betty 2005 The Buzz on Maggie 2005 Disney's Little Einsteins

Launched on Cartoon Network. Launched on Cartoon Network in the US. Canceled Disney Channel series that ran for only one season. Multimedia pre-school show, used Flash for all principal character animation in conjunction with video, photo collage, Maya 3-D animation and After Effects. The Second Disney series made entirely in Flash. Series on Adult Swim.

2006 Yin Yang Yo 2006 Metalocalypse

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A Flash series based on a series of online shorts produced by VOOZ in South Korea. The TV series is produced by Studio B in Canada. A Flash series based on the story of the original Chaotic Trading Card Game. A very popular flash animated cartoon that started out as an internet cartoon around 1999 and it quickly became an internet phenomenon. In 2006, it became a full half-hour TV series on the channel G4. Launched on Teletoon in Canada and on Cartoon Network in the US. A flash animation developed in Ireland that has been running since 2007. A popular flash cartoon by Future Thought Productions that is broadcast to television in Japan, Australia, Brazil, Russia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Ukraine. Launched on Nickelodeon. Based on the internet flash series. A television show based on books by Roger Hargreaves. A short-form comedy webseries picked up by Cinemax and broadcast as interstitial content between feature films. Features an elderly accountant who tells classic jokes brought to life by Flash animation. A Dutch sketch show which airs weekly on TMF's Kijk dit nou! Launched by Comedy Central. Created by Augenblick Studios, the creators of Superjail.

2006 Pucca

2006 Chaotic 2006 Happy Tree Friends

2007 Total Drama Island 2007 Skunk Fu! 2008 Crime Time

2008 Making Fiends 2008 The Mr. Men Show 2008 Eli's Dirty Jokes

2009

Kud

2010 Ugly Americans

Timeline - First Flash feature film projects (theatrically released)

Year Project Notes Directed by Bryon E. Carson, starring the voices of Blair Underwood and Michael Clarke Duncan, had a limited theatrical run making it the first flash animated film to be released on the big screen.

2005 The Golden Blaze

2005 Xuxinha e Guto Directed by Clewerson Saremba e Andr Passos, produced at Labocine, in Rio de Janeiro, released in 2005 Contra os Monstros do Christmas, was a big success in Brazil. Espao 2006 Romeo & Juliet: Sealed with a Kiss 2006 That Darn Jesus Former Disney animator Phil Nibbelink took 4 1/2 years to make it and he drew 112,000 frames with a Wacom tablet directly into Flash 4, in combination with Moho. An animated segment of nineteen minutes produced at an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and HD 1080 (1920 px X 1080 px) [10] for the movie Universal Remote by Future Thought Productions. Directed by Mauricio de Sousa, produced at Labocine, in Rio de Janeiro, is biggest box office in Brazilian animation history

2007 Turma da Mnica: Uma Aventura no Tempo 2007 Chilly Beach [9]: The World is Hot Enough" 2008 Mickey the Squirrel 2008 The Secret of Kells

A spin off from the televised animated series Chilly Beach, as featured by http:/ / www. ilaugh. com Produced by March Entertainment. Directed by Chaz Bottoms, a 76 minute feature animated on a Wacom Graphire Tablet with 6,500 frames. Feature-length hand-drawn animated film produced by Irish studio Cartoon Saloon, co-produced in France and Belgium. Uses Flash for several sequences, though the majority of the film is traditionally animated. Directed and Produced by Nina Paley. An 83 minute feature film created independently and entirely in Flash Directed by Ari Folman, with David Polonsky as director of animation. A 89 minute feature film created using a combination of hand-drawing and flash animation based on video footage. Won a Golden Globe award, and was nominated for the best foreign language film in the Academy Awards. First Argentinian animated movie done integrally with Adobe Flash. Directed by Ayar Blasco.

2008 Sita Sings the Blues 2008 Waltz with Bashir

2010 El sol

Flash animation

63

Flash Animation distribution

While the creation of animation using Flash can be easier and less expensive than traditional animation techniques, the amount of time, money, and skill required to produce a project using the software depends on the chosen content and style. Internet distribution is considerably easier and less expensive than television broadcasting, and websites such as Newgrounds provide free hosting. Many Flash animations are created by individual or amateur artists, although it does require some amount of technical knowledge to create a notable work with the software. Many Flash animations first distributed on the web became popular enough to be broadcast on television, particularly on such networks as MTV and G4TV.

Flash Animation in professional studios

Flash animation production is enjoying considerable popularity in major animation studios around the world, as animators take advantage of the software's ability to organize a large number of assets (such as characters, scenes, movements, and props) for later re-use. Because Flash files are in vector file format, they can be used to transfer animation to 35mm film without any compromise in image quality. This feature is used by several independent animators worldwide, including Phil Nibbelink, who saw his 77-minute feature film Romeo & Juliet: Sealed with a Kiss released in theaters in 2006. For Disneyland's 50 Magical Years film featuring Live action Steve Martin interacting with Donald Duck, the hand drawn animation of Donald Duck was cleaned up and colored in Flash. The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie!, a straight-to-DVD feature of the animated series Drawn Together, produced by Comedy Central and released in April 2010, discarded the series' traditional animation and used Flash animation instead.

Creating Flash animation from other software

There are a number of other software packages available that can create output in the .swf format. Among these are Toon Boom, Toufee, KoolMoves, Express Animator and Anime Studio. These front-ends often provide additional support 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 .

See also
CSS Animations SVG animation

External links
Flash animation [11] at the Open Directory Project

References
[1] "John Ks Guide to Surviving the End of Television" (http:/ / coldhardflash. com/ 2007/ 04/ john-ks-guide-to-surviving-end-of. html). ColdHardFlash. . Retrieved 2007-04-23. [2] Animation World Network - 2/3/1999 (http:/ / news. awn. com/ index. php?ltype=top& newsitem_no=506) [3] Animation World Network - 1/1/2000 (http:/ / mag. awn. com/ index. php?& article_no=1079& page=8) [4] Brandweek - 3/15/1999 (http:/ / findarticles. com/ p/ articles/ mi_m0BDW/ is_11_40/ ai_54148182) [5] Adweek - 7/13/1998 (http:/ / www. allbusiness. com/ marketing-advertising/ 4172771-1. html) [6] Broadcasting & Cable - 9/4/2000 (http:/ / findarticles. com/ p/ articles/ mi_hb5053/ is_200009/ ai_n18379803) [7] Animation World Network - 8/8/1999 (http:/ / news. awn. com/ index. php?ltype=top& newsitem_no=1173) [8] http:/ / www. unicef. org/ meena/ [9] http:/ / www. ilaugh. com

Flash animation
[10] http:/ / www. universalremotemovie. com/ [11] http:/ / www. dmoz. org/ Computers/ Multimedia/ Software/ Macromedia_Flash/ Animations/ /

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Flash intro
A Flash intro is a piece of animated content displayed at the beginning of a presentation, such as a website, that is specifically prepared using Adobe Systems Flash. Often, the main content is loading in the background, while the animated content is displayed in the foreground. The intent is to captivate the user's attention so that he or she does not stray from the site, although it may do the opposite as it slows the user from accessing the actual site and can be tedious for users with slow internet connections. The quality of content is usually marketing-centric. Often a "skip" or "skip intro" button is prepared to allow more immediate access to the site's homepage. Many elaborate Flash-based introductions appeared in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Today such productions, particularly the lengthier ones, are considered old hat amongst the web design community. From a usability perspective, the intros are regarded as more of a time-consuming distraction toward reaching the more valuable homepage content. A Flash intro also renders the entire website invisible to users of iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch who enter via the homepage, as these devices do not support Flash and the user cannot skip past the intro page. Despite the disadvantages, there are several online vendors providing simplified intro builder services for those with no Flash authoring skills.

FusionCharts
FusionCharts is a data visualization component for generating dynamic Flash charts that can be embedded in web and desktop applications. Built using ActionScript, FusionCharts is essentially a collection of SWF files that automatically generate charts based on data and configuration settings provided in custom XML format.[1] FusionCharts is the product of InfoSoft Global (P) Ltd. - an ISV headquartered in Kolkata, India. InfoSoft Global is the licensor of the FusionCharts Suite and all other data visualization solutions that are distributed under the FusionCharts brand.[2]

History
The first commercial version of FusionCharts - FusionCharts v1, was single-handedly developed by Pallav Nadhani, the co-founder of InfoSoft Global (P) Ltd.[3] FusionCharts was introduced at a time when the true potential of the Flash technology was still unrealized by a vast majority of the development community, and Flash was chiefly used for creating website intros. Nadhani, who was then a high-school student, stumbled upon the idea of using Flash for data visualization upon being offered an opportunity to author an article on information technology. The article that Nadhani authored presented a unique concept of amalgamating Flash with ASP.[4] It is the idea of infusing dynamicity into Flash applications with the help of ASP that inspired the development of FusionCharts v1, which was eventually released on October 22, 2002.[5]

FusionCharts

65

The FusionCharts Suite

The term FusionCharts Suite is used as a collective reference for FusionCharts and 3 other data visualization products, developed by InfoSoft Global.[6] Components of the FusionCharts Suite
FusionCharts is a charting component for generating animated charts. It supports 2D and 3D versions of standard plot types: column, line, bar, area [6] and pie. FusionWidgets is a data visualization component for generating real-time gauges and charts. It provides innovative KPI indicators such as dial gauge (speedometer chart), linear gauge and bullet graph. The component also provides real-time versions of standard charts in addition to the gantt [6] chart, funnel chart, Pyramid chart and sparklines. FusionMaps is a data-driven map builder used for depicting geographical distribution of quantitative data. The component offers world maps, [6] continental maps and maps of major countries. PowerCharts is a tool for advanced data visualization. It can be used for generating simulation models, plotting stock quotes and network planning. [6] The component supports organizational charts, logarithmic scale charts, network diagrams, inverse scale charts, financial analysis charts etc.

Vertical Solutions
InfoSoft Global has released several add-on components and plugins to facilitate implementation of the FusionCharts Suite in popular applications and various development platforms. Vertical solutions of FusionCharts are available for Adobe Flex, Adobe Dreamweaver, FileMaker, Joomla and Visual Basic.[4]

FusionCharts Free - Open Source

FusionCharts Free was released on March 19, 2007. The product is a stripped-down version of FusionCharts offering 22 types of basic charts. It provides support for cosmetic customization, drill-down and a number of other features.[7] On August 28, 2009 - FusionCharts Free was made open source under the GPL and MIT license. The license agreement allows un-restricted modification of the source code and permits the user to freely distribute the customized version of the product.[8]

External links
FusionCharts Website [9] InfoSoft Global Website [10] The FusionCharts Blog [11] ARTIO FusionCharts for Joomla Website [12]

References
[1] FusionCharts Website. Accessed September 2,2009 (http:/ / www. fusionCharts. com) [2] About InfoSoft. InfoSoft Global Website. Accessed September 2, 2009 (http:/ / www. infosoftglobal. com/ AboutUs. asp) [3] Pallav Nadhani, Founder - Entrepreneur, InfoSoft Global Pvt Ltd. Your Story, Accessed September 3, 2009 (http:/ / www. yourstory. in/ news/ 1063-frontpage/ 2494-pallav-nadhani-founder-entrepreneur-infosoft-global-pvt-ltd) [4] Nadhani Pallav. The FusionCharts Journey. slideshare. Accessed September 4, 2002 (http:/ / www. slideshare. net/ pallavn/ the-fusioncharts-journey) [5] Happy sixth anniversary FusionCharts (2007). The FusionCharts Blog. Accessed September 2, 2009 (http:/ / blog. fusioncharts. com/ 2008/ 10/ fusioncharts-turns-6. html) [6] Data Visualization Tools for web - An introduction to FusionCharts Suite. slideshare. Accessed September 2, 2009 (http:/ / www. slideshare. net/ FusionCharts/ data-visualization-tools-for-web-an-introduction-to-fusioncharts-suite-presentation) [7] Charts And Graphs: Modern Solutions (2007). Smashing Magazine. Accessed September 2, 2009 (http:/ / www. smashingmagazine. com/ 2007/ 10/ 18/ charts-and-graphs-modern-solutions|)

FusionCharts
[8] FusionCharts Free now Open Source (2009). The FusionCharts Blog. Accessed September 2, 2009 (http:/ / blog. fusioncharts. com/ 2009/ 08/ fusioncharts-free-now-open-source. html) [9] http:/ / www. fusioncharts. com/ [10] http:/ / www. infosoftglobal. com/ [11] http:/ / blog. fusioncharts. com/ [12] http:/ / www. artio. net/ joomla-extensions/ fusioncharts

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FutureSplash Animator
FutureSplash Animator was a software product for creating vector-based animations, the predecessor of Flash. It was developed by FutureWave Software, a small software company whose first product, SmartSketch, was initially a vector-based drawing program for pen-based computers. With the implosion of the pen-oriented operated systems, it was ported to Microsoft Windows as well as Apple's MacOS. In 1995, the company decided that they should add animation capabilities to their product and deploy it over the burgeoning World Wide Web. The only way to create such animations on the web at the time was through the use of Java, but this was quickly replaced with the debut of Netscape's plug-in architecture. The product was released as FutureSplash Animator in May 1996. The technology was used on several big-name websites such as Microsoft's MSN, Fox's official The Simpsons website and Disney's Disney Daily Blast. At this point, the company consisted of six people. As Disney also used Macromedia's Shockwave player, this provided a connection to Macromedia, which approached FutureWave Software about working together. In December 1996 Macromedia bought FutureWave, and FutureSplash Animator became Macromedia Flash 1.0. Macromedia Flash later (2005) became Adobe Flash -- see the Adobe Flash article for further history and information. The file format was SPL and FutureSplash animations can be viewed with new versions of Adobe Flash Player.

External links
The History of Flash [1] by Jonathan Gay Download FutureSplash Animator [2] Demo from FutureSplash [3]

See also
Adobe Flash Flash animation

References
[1] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ macromedia/ events/ john_gay/ [2] http:/ / flash-ascript. blogspot. com/ 2007/ 06/ first-steps-of-flash-futuresplash. html [3] http:/ / www. 4dm. com/ files/ tech/ blue. htm

FutureWave Software

67

FutureWave Software
FutureWave Software was a software developer and publisher based in San Diego, CA. The company was founded by Charlie Jackson and Jonathan Gay in early 1993. VP of Marketing was Michelle Welsh who also came from Silicon Beach Software, then Aldus. The company's first product was SmartSketch, a drawing program for the PenPoint OS and EO tablet computer. When Pen computing did not take off, SmartSketch was moved to the Windows and Macintosh platforms. The company's second product was FutureSplash Animator, a cell-based animation editor. In December 1996, FutureWave was acquired by Macromedia, who renamed the animation editor Flash.

GameSWF

68

GameSWF
Written in Operating system Type License Website C++ Linux, Windows, Mac OS X Library Public domain
[1]

GameSWF (pronounced "game swiff") is an open source public domain library for parsing and rendering SWF movies, using 3D hardware APIs for rendering. It is designed to be used as a UI library for computer and console games. It is written in C++, and compiles under Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, using GCC and MSVC. It includes code for rendering with OpenGL. The rendering module is factored out so that the code can ported to other APIs. GameSWF is used by other open source projects such as Gnash. It is also used in Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath to display user interface screens such as the player's inventory[2].

External links
GameSWF project homepage [1] Realtime video compositing software using gameswf [3]

References
[1] http:/ / www. tulrich. com/ geekstuff/ gameswf. html [2] http:/ / www. tulrich. com/ geekstuff/ gameswf_stranger_postmortem. html [3] http:/ / www. mxwendler. net

Gnash

69

Gnash

Screenshot of Gnash 0.8.0 GTK+ GUI with test SWF file Developer(s) Stable release Written in Operating system Type License Website Rob Savoye, Sandro Santilli, Bastiaan Jacques, Benjamin Wolsey, Zou Lunkai, Tomas Groth, Udo Giacomozzi, Hannes Mayr, John Gilmore, Markus Gothe. 0.8.7
[1]

/ February 15, 2010

C++, GTK+ / Qt Cross-platform Interpreter, Media player GNU General Public License gnashdev.org
[2]

Gnash is the GNU SWF movie player, which can be run standalone on a computer or an embedded device, as well as a plugin for several browsers.[3] It is a part of the GNU Project that aims to create a free software player and browser plugin for the Adobe Flash file format. It was developed from the GPLFlash project. Gnash was first announced in late 2005[4] by software developer John Gilmore. The current maintainer is Rob Savoye.

History
Writing a free software Flash player has been a priority of the GNU Project for some time.[5] Prior to the launch of Gnash, the GNU Project had asked for people to assist the GPLFlash project. The majority of the previous GPLFlash developers have now moved to the Gnash project and the existing GPLFlash codebase will be refocused towards supporting embedded systems.[6] The primary distribution terms for Gnash are those of the GNU GPL. However since Gnash was started using the codebase of the GameSWF project, which is in the public domain, code developed by the Gnash project which might be useful in GameSWF is placed in the public domain.[7]

Technical details
Adobe provides an official player for GNU/Linux on x86 in a binary-only form,[8] as well as an alpha player for x86-64 in a binary-only form.[9] Gnash, however, can be compiled and executed on many architectures, including x86, AMD64, MIPS/IRIX, and PowerPC. It also supports BSD-based operating systems. An early port for RISC OS, which has never had Macromedia/Adobe Flash support beyond Flash 3,[10] does exist, as well as an early port for BeOS, where Flash support terminated at Version 4.[11] Development of a port to AmigaOS 4.1 has also recently begun.[12] A port to the Haiku Operating System also exists.[13]

Gnash Currently, Gnash can play SWF files up to version 7, as well as some features of the new version 8,9 and 10 files. Gnash supports playback of FLV videos and allows playing some FLV files from YouTube, MySpace, ShowMeDo and other similar websites (older files with sound newer files without playing sound). FLV support requires FFmpeg or GStreamer to be installed on the system.[14] Some other free-software programs, such as MPlayer,[15] VLC media player[16] or players for Windows based on the ffdshow DirectShow codecs can play back the FLV format if the file is specially downloaded or piped to it. The goal of the Gnash developers is to be as compatible as possible with the proprietary player (including behavior on bad ActionScript code). However, Gnash offers some special features not available in the Adobe player, such as the possibility to extend the ActionScript classes via shared libraries: sample extensions include MySQL support, file system access and more. For security reasons the extension mechanism must be compiled-in explicitly and enabled via configuration files. Gnash requires one of AGG, Cairo, or OpenGL for rendering. In contrast to most GNU projects, which are typically written in C, Gnash is written in the C++ programming language because of its GameSWF heritage.[17]

70

See also
Flash for Linux MTASC Ming library Qflash Swfdec swfmill

External links
Primary Gnash website [2] Gnash at GNU Project [18] Gnash's Savannah Page [19] FSF/GNU Press Release: FSF announces GNU Gnash - Flash Movie Player [20] An interview with Gnash project leader about the future of the product [21]

References
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] http:/ / ftp. gnu. org/ pub/ gnu/ gnash/ 0. 8. 7/ http:/ / gnashdev. org/ http:/ / www. gnashdev. org/ http:/ / lists. gnu. org/ archive/ html/ gnash/ 2005-12/ msg00000. html "High Priority Free Software Projects" (http:/ / www. fsf. org/ campaigns/ priority. html). . Retrieved 2008-08-05. "GPLFlash homepage" (http:/ / gplflash. sourceforge. net/ ). . Retrieved 2007-04-17. Gilmore, John (20 December 2005). "Welcome to the Gnash project!" (http:/ / lists. gnu. org/ archive/ html/ gnash/ 2005-12/ msg00000. html). Gnash mailing list. . Retrieved 2006-12-28. [8] "Adobe TechNote: Flash Player support on 64-bit operating systems" (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ cfusion/ knowledgebase/ index. cfm?id=6b3af6c9). Adobe. . Retrieved 2007-04-22. [9] "Adobe Labs" (http:/ / labs. adobe. com/ downloads/ flashplayer10. html). Adobe. . Retrieved 2009-08-05. [10] "RISC OS To Get Flash, Word Support" (http:/ / osnews. com/ story. php?news_id=16552). Thom Holwerda, osnews.com. . Retrieved 2007-04-22. [11] "Gnash for BeOS (Take 2)" (http:/ / joomla. iscomputeron. com/ index. php?option=com_content& task=view& id=924). DaaT, joomla.iscomputeron.com. . Retrieved 2007-04-22. [12] "Gnash - The GNU SWF movie player" (http:/ / www. amigasoft. net/ pages/ gnash/ gnash. asp). Amigasoft.net. . Retrieved 2009-06-15. [13] "Gnash 0.8.6" (http:/ / www. haikuware. com/ directory/ view-details/ multimedia/ video/ playback/ gnash-086). Haikuware.com. . Retrieved 2009-11-28. [14] "Task #5930 on GNU Gnash Savannah Site" (http:/ / savannah. gnu. org/ task/ ?5930). Gnash Developers. . Retrieved 2007-04-22.

Gnash
[15] "FFmpeg Documentation - Supported Video Formats" (http:/ / ffmpeg. mplayerhq. hu/ ffmpeg-doc. html#SEC24). MPlayer Developers. . Retrieved 2007-04-22. [16] "VideoLAN Client Features List" (http:/ / www. videolan. org/ vlc/ features. html). VideoLAN Developers. . Retrieved 2007-04-22. [17] "Why do you use C++ and not C? FAQ entry" (http:/ / www. gnashdev. org/ ?q=node/ 25#c+ + ). Gnash Project. . Retrieved 2008-07-14. [18] http:/ / www. gnu. org/ software/ gnash/ [19] http:/ / savannah. gnu. org/ projects/ gnash/ [20] http:/ / lwn. net/ Articles/ 166992/ [21] http:/ / blogs. zdnet. com/ Stewart/ index. php?p=177

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JStart

72

JStart
Developer(s) Stable release Operating system Type Website
[1]

3rd Eye Solutions JStart 2.0 Windows

Flash tool and Adobe Flash JStart 2.0

[2]

JStart is a Flash tool which allows users to launch any file, and it will open up in the program which they had specified with that file without having to distribute the program as well. JStart is a very small program and it runs on the parameters the Projector file sends it. The FSCommand Exec of Flash allows you to run almost any program you wish but there is not much more power to that command. JStart enhances the power of the Exec command allowing the execution of programs, parameters and the opening of files with their default editors or programs. This opens up new opportunities into the operations users can control by the Flash file. JStart only works with PC projector files and SWF files that use the LOADMOVIE command from a projector file. This tool supports Adobe Flash 3/4/5/MX/MX 2004/8/CS3 and works with Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista.

References
[1] http:/ / www. 3rdeye. co. uk/ [2] http:/ / www. flashjester. com/ ?section=tricks_jtools_jstart2

Joe Paradise

73

Joe Paradise
Joe Paradise is the title of a Flash cartoon written, created and directed by Roque Ballesteros. It was produced by Earwax Productions and distributed in 2000 over the web by Wild Brain. The cartoon tells the story of Joe Paradise, a stranger with a dark past full of hit men, spies and shady figures, who arrives in Some City to find work, only to be pulled back into a web of intrigues. The cartoon acclaimed popularity for its distinctive style (exaggerated figures mostly in black, white and red), its Noir story and cinematic shots, as well as its professional voice acting. Joe Paradise was published in two seasons. In 2002, the Earwax Productions news archive reported that the rights for this show were sold to Sony[1] . The show was briefly available on Sony's ScreenBlast website, then unavailable online for several years. In February 2006, Wildbrain began making individual episodes available via YouTube. There are 24 episodes in total over two seasons. 1. 2. 3. 4. One Way Ticket Out of Step Welcome Joe Joe Co Door Play

5. Cup of Conspiracy 6. Major Hang Ups 7. Bait 8. Gold and Lead 9. Don't Bring Me Flowers 10. Into the Fire 11. Take a Number 12. Paradise Lost (End of first season) 13. Harry's Confession 14. 15. 16. The Stranger 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. -

Joe Paradise

74

External links
Multiple Joe Paradise videos on YouTube [2], 2000, running times vary between 2 minutes and 5. (Adobe Flash)

References
[1] "Joe Paradise and Sony" (http:/ / www. earwaxproductions. com/ latestnewsarchive. html). Earwax Productions. January,2002. . Retrieved 2007-02-14. [2] http:/ / www. youtube. com/ profile?user=WildbrainAnimation

Jugglor

75

Jugglor
Developer(s) Stable release Operating system Type Website 3rd Eye Solutions Jugglor 3.1 Windows Flash tool and Presentation software
[1] [1]

Jugglor is software that turns the user's Flash files into stand-alone programs. Jugglor provides the user with the flash tools the user needs to make Projector files. With this software the user can create animated intros, e-cards, portfolios, slideshows, tutorials, multimedia games and applications and much more. Jugglor is a tool that uses the Projector file as the Flash player, while the other software uses the OCX control. It means the user doesn't have to distribute anything else with your app, since the Flash player is built-in. Using Jugglor and the projector is safe as no matter what Flash player users have, the Juggled file will not interface with their system settings. There are now two Jugglor products available, Pro and Standard. The Pro version gives you more comprehensive collection of features plus many more tools for free. The last version of Jugglor software is 3.1. It supports all versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7. It also supports the new updated Flash Player 10. Jugglor 3.1 allows you auto creation of MX, MX 2004, Flash 8 and CS4 Projector files from a SWF file.

References
[1] http:/ / www. flashjester. com/ ?section=tricks_jugglor3

Local Shared Object

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Local Shared Object

Local Shared Objects (LSO), commonly called flash cookies, are collections of cookie-like data stored as a file on a user's computer. LSOs are used by all versions of Adobe Flash Player and Version 6 and above of Macromedia's now-obsolete Flash MX Player.[1]

Storage
Flash Players use a sandbox security model. With the default settings, Adobe Flash Player does not seek the user's permission to store LSO files on the hard disk. LSOs contain cookie-like data stored by individual web sites or domains. Indeed, as with cookies, online banks, merchants or advertisers may use LSOs for tracking purposes.[2] The current version of Flash does not allow LSOs to be shared across domains. For example, an LSO from "www.example.com" cannot read an LSO created by the domain "www.example2.com".[3]

Privacy concerns
LSOs can be used by web sites to collect information on how people navigate those web sites even if people believe they've restricted the data collection.[4] More than half of the internets top websites use LSOs to track users and store information about them.[5] There is relatively little public awareness of LSOs, and they can usually not be deleted by the cookie privacy controls in a web browser.[5] This may lead a web user to believe a computer is cleared of tracking objects, when it is not.[5] Several services even use LSOs as surreptitious data storage to reinstate traditional cookies that a user deleted, which is called "re-spawning" in homage to video games where adversaries come back to life even after being "killed", the report found. So even if a user gets rid of a websites tracking cookie, that cookies unique ID will be assigned back to a new cookie again using the Flash data as the "backup." [6] In certain countries it is illegal to track users without their knowledge and consent. For example, in the UK customers must consent to use of cookies/LSOs as defined in "Guidance on the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003" [7]... "Cookies or similar devices must not be used unless the subscriber or user of the relevant terminal equipment: is provided with clear and comprehensive information about the purposes of the storage of, or access to, that information; and is given the opportunity to refuse the storage of, or access to, that information."

User control
Local Shared Objects are not temporary files. Users can only opt-out of Local Shared Objects globally by using the Global Storage Settings panel[8] of the online Settings Manager at Adobe's website. Users can also opt-out of them on a per-site basis by right-clicking the Flash player and selecting 'Settings'. Adobe's online-only Website Storage Settings panel was created to let users view and delete LSOs on a per-domain basis. It is also possible to completely disallow LSOs from a specific domain by setting the storage space to "0 KB",[9] however, although no data is stored, empty directories with the name of the domain are nonetheless created. Add-on extensions have also been created for the Firefox Web browser, called Click&Clean[10] , Objection[11] and BetterPrivacy[12] that allow the user to view and delete LSOs.[12]

Local Shared Object

77

File locations
The default storage location for LSO files is operating system-dependent. LSO files are typically stored with a ".SOL" extension, within each User's directory. Note that for self-executing flash applications run on the local machine will show up as being run on a website, in the folder localhost. Windows XP: For Web sites: %APPDATA%\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\<random code>\<domain>\<path maybe>\<object name>.sol And Also: %APPDATA%\Macromedia\Flash Player\macromedia.com\support\flashplayer\sys Other Directories Where Flash LSO (*.SOL) Files Are Found in Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\macromedia.com\support\flashplayer\sys\filename.sol C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\[alpha-numeric folder name]\filename.sol C:\Documents and Settings\NetworkService\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\macromedia.com\support\flashplayer\sys\filename.sol C:\Documents and Settings\NetworkService\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\[alpha-numeric folder name]\filename.sol C:\Documents and Settings\Owner.[Your_Owner_Name]\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\[alpha-numeric folder name]\filename.sol C:\Documents and Settings\Owner.[Your_Owner_Name]\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\macromedia.com\support\flashplayer\sys\filename.sol C:\WINDOWS\system32\Macromed\[subdirectories]\filename.sol For AIR Applications: %APPDATA%\<AIR Application Reverse Domain Name>\Local Store\#SharedObjects\<flash filename>.swf\<object name>.sol Windows Vista and later: For Web sites: %APPDATA%\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\<random code>\<domain>\<path maybe>\<object name>.sol For AIR Applications: unknown, likely similar to the above Mac OS X: For Web sites: ~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/#SharedObjects/<random code>/<domain>/<path - maybe>/<object name>.sol and ~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/macromedia.com/support/flashplayer/sys/<object name>.sol For AIR Applications: ~/Library/Preferences/<AIR Application Name>/Local Store/#SharedObjects/<flash filename>.swf/<object name>.sol Linux/Unix: ~/.macromedia/Flash_Player/#SharedObjects/<random id>/<domain>/<path - maybe>/<flash filename>.swf/<object name>.sol - Flash player can save the file in any path specified by the SWF developer, relative to the current domain.

Local Shared Object

78

Programming
The Flash Player allows Web content to read and write LSO data to the computer's local drive on a per-domain basis;[13] such data may preserve session state and record user data and behavior.[14] By default, a Flash application may store up to 100kb of data to user's hard drive (browser cookies have a limit of just 4kb).[13] The defined storage sizes are 0kb, 10kb, 100kb, 1Mb, 10Mb, and Unlimited.[15] If the current limit is exceeded, the user is shown a dialog requesting storage space of the next size. The user may override the amount manually by clicking the Flash application with right mouse button and selecting Settings; however, this applies only to the domain of the Flash movie. If the selected setting is smaller than the current data size, the data is deleted. Global LSO settings are not under the direct control of the user, and can only be amended through Adobe's online "Global Settings Manager" control panel.[15] [16]

Editors and toolkits

Software Website Developer First public release 2004-09 Latest stable version 0.2 (2004-10-15) 1.1.0.1 (2005-02-21) 1.3.2 (2009-7-16) 3.2 (2009-02-02) 0.5 (2009-09-07) ? ? 3.0.0 (2010-01-07) Cost (USD) Free Open source Yes License Programming language Java

SolVE

SolVE

[17]

Darron Schall

CPL

.sol Editor

.sol Editor

[18]

Alexis Isaac

2005-02

Free

Yes

MPL

ActionScript, Delphi/Kylix JavaScript

Dojo Toolkit

Dojo Toolkit

[19]

Dojo Foundation Maxa [21] Research Nick Joyce

2004

Free Non-free 35 Free

Yes

BSD, AFL

MAXA Cookie Manager PyAMF

MAXA Cookie [20] Manager PyAMF [22]

? 2007-10-07

No MIT

proprietary ? Python

Yes

SOLReader

SOLReader [25]

[23]

Alessandro Crugnola Aral Balkan Gabriel Mariani

? ? ?

Free Free Free

No Yes Yes

? ? ?

C#, PHP

[24]

s2x .minerva

s2x

Python

[26]

coursevector.com [27]

AIR

Operating system support

Software Windows Mac OS X Yes No Yes No Yes Linux BSD Unix

SolVE .sol Editor Dojo Toolkit MAXA Cookie Manager PyAMF

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

No No Yes No Yes

No No Yes No Yes

No No Yes No Yes

Local Shared Object

79

External links
"New Technique for Tracking Web Site Visitors" [28]. Slashdot. 2005-04-04. Retrieved 2007-12-05. "Tracking with Flash Cookies" [29]. InformIT. 2007-10-05. Retrieved 2007-12-05. How to block Flash cookies [30] Electronic Privacy Information Center on "Local Shared Objects" [31]

References
[1] "What are local shared objects?" (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ products/ flashplayer/ articles/ lso/ ). Adobe. . Retrieved 2007-12-05. [2] "Flash Player Worries Privacy Advocates" (http:/ / www. informationweek. com/ news/ showArticle. jhtml?articleID=160901743). InformationWeek. . Retrieved 2007-12-05. [3] "Flash Player : What Is a Local Shared Object?" (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ products/ flashplayer/ articles/ lso/ ). Adobe. . Retrieved 2009-03-27. [4] "Adobe Flash cookies pose vexing privacy questions" (http:/ / www. networkworld. com/ news/ 2009/ 081109-study-adobe-flash-cookies-pose. html). Networkworld. . Retrieved 2009-04-10. [5] "You Deleted Your Cookies? Think Again" (http:/ / www. wired. com/ epicenter/ 2009/ 08/ you-deleted-your-cookies-think-again/ ). Wired. . Retrieved 2009-08-22. [6] Bruce Schneier http:/ / www. schneier. com/ blog/ archives/ 2009/ 08/ flash_cookies. html#comments [7] http:/ / www. ico. gov. uk/ upload/ documents/ library/ [8] "Adobe - Flash Player : Settings Manager - Global Storage Settings Panel" (http:/ / www. macromedia. com/ support/ documentation/ en/ flashplayer/ help/ settings_manager03. html). Macromedia.com. . Retrieved 2009-03-27. [9] "Adobe - Flash Player : Settings Manager - Website Storage Settings panel" (http:/ / www. macromedia. com/ support/ documentation/ en/ flashplayer/ help/ settings_manager07. html). Macromedia.com. . Retrieved 2009-03-27. [10] "Click and Clean web site" (https:/ / addons. mozilla. org/ en-US/ firefox/ addon/ 3100). . Retrieved 2010-02-05. [11] "Objection web site" (http:/ / objection. mozdev. org/ ). . Retrieved 2007-12-05. [12] "Better Privacy web site" (https:/ / addons. mozilla. org/ en-US/ firefox/ addon/ 6623). . Retrieved 2009-08-26. [13] "Macromedia Flash MX Security" (http:/ / download. macromedia. com/ pub/ flash/ whitepapers/ security. pdf). Adobe. 2002-03-01. . Retrieved 2007-12-05. [14] "Local Shared Objects -Flash Cookies" (http:/ / www. epic. org/ privacy/ cookies/ flash. html). Electronic Privacy Information Center. 2005-07-21. . Retrieved 2007-12-05. [15] "Global settings manager" (http:/ / www. macromedia. com/ support/ documentation/ en/ flashplayer/ help/ settings_manager. html). Adobe. . Retrieved 2007-12-05. [16] "TechNote: How to manage and delete local shared objects?" (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ go/ 52697ee8). Adobe. . Retrieved 2007-12-05. [17] http:/ / solve. sourceforge. net [18] http:/ / sourceforge. net/ projects/ soleditor/ [19] http:/ / dojotoolkit. org [20] http:/ / www. maxa-tools. com/ cookie. htm [21] http:/ / www. maxa-host. net [22] http:/ / pyamf. org [23] http:/ / www. sephiroth. it/ python/ solreader. php [24] "PHP example with source code" (http:/ / www. sephiroth. it/ assets/ utils/ SolReader. phps). Alessandro Crugnola. . Retrieved 2007-12-18. [25] http:/ / osflash. org/ s2x [26] "Web demo written in Python" (http:/ / icube. freezope. org/ temp/ util/ s2x). Aral Balkan. . Retrieved 2007-12-18. [27] http:/ / blog. coursevector. com/ minerva [28] http:/ / yro. slashdot. org/ article. pl?sid=05/ 04/ 04/ 177238 [29] http:/ / www. informit. com/ guides/ content. aspx?g=security& seqNum=276 [30] http:/ / tips. webdesign10. com/ flash-cookies-privacy [31] http:/ / epic. org/ privacy/ cookies/ flash. html

MTASC

80

MTASC
MTASC (Motion-Twin ActionScript 2 Compiler) is an ActionScript 2.0 compiler written in the Objective Caml (OCaml) programming language by the company Motion-Twin. It is free software[1] and can be used alone or with other tools like swfmill to produce SWF files, which contain interactive multimedia content playable with the Flash Player. MTASC is also much faster than the Adobe Flash ActionScript compiler. MTASC is built with optimizing OCaml compilers, and thus provides a speed improvement over the Macromedia Compiler (MMC). MTASC corrects several safety problems that occur when using MMC.[2] } The MTASC compiler is stricter than MMC and can detect more errors than MMC; because of this strictness, there are some differences between MMC and MTASC.

See also
Ming library swfmill

External links
The MTASC page [3] Extension:Flashlets.php at OrganicDesign Wiki - integrating SWF with MediaWiki using MTASC

References
[1] MTASC LICENSE file, available via cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs.motion-twin.com:/cvsroot checkout ocaml/mtasc/LICENSE [2] http:/ / www. mtasc. org/ #comparison [3] http:/ / www. mtasc. org

Magic gopher

81

Magic gopher
The magic gopher[1] is an interactive Adobe Flash game published online by British Council.

The trick
The trick to the game is that the gopher uses the same symbol for every multiple of 9, from 0 through 81 (it is impossible to get a higher number using only two digits). The gopher assigns the same symbol to the multiples of 9 as to other non-multiples of 9 in order to cover up the trick; the symbol picked for each game is randomized. No matter which two-digit integer the player chooses, when the subtraction is done, the resulting number will always be a multiple of 9. In fact, no matter which (nonnegative) integer the player chooses, the result will always be a multiple of 9. The former can be proven using elementary algebra. Be aware that the proofs for n digits rely on that the digits of the number are indexed with the rightmost digit being assigned position 0, with the adjacent digits (to the left) having an index increasing by one each time. For example, for the number '261', the digit '1' is in position 0, '6' is in position 1, and '2' is in position 2.

Proof for 2 digits

Let n be a 2-digit integer. Additionally, let a be the first digit of n and b be the second digit of n. Finally, let c equal the sum of the digits of n, so c=a+b.. An equivalent form for n, by virtue of using a decimal numeral system, is n = 10a+b. The resulting number, z, is given by z = nc=(10a+b)(a+b)=9a. Hence, z is always a multiple of 9. Q.E.D.

Proof for n digits

Proving that no matter how large is (and how many digits The following proof makes use of modular arithmetic: Let Thus, Let Since Hence Q.E.D. Alternative proof for n digits This alternative proof is less mathematically rigorous, relying on some common sense and intuition, but it is still sufficient to demonstrate the same as the above. Again, let n be an integer with m digits and let nm represent the mth digit of n. Thus, so the resulting number be the sum of the digits of . So, be an integer with digits and let represent the . . . is a multiple of 9. has), it is always a multiple of 9 is slightly trickier. digit of .

Let c be the sum of the digits of n. So

Now, let

This can be written as

Magic gopher By factoring, we obtain

82

Now,

will give a number with

nines, hence, each individual digit of n is being multiplied by a are implicitly multiples of 9. Since the sum of any number of

multiple of 9 as the numbers given by

multiples of 9 is always divisible by 9, we conclude that whichever number is picked for n, it will always be a multiple of 9. If we use the resulting formula for z assuming that n will only be 2 digits in length, we obtain the same formula as with the proof for a 2 digit n: where

External links
Original Magic Gopher site [1] Very Simple Explanation [2]

References
[1] http:/ / www. britishcouncil. org/ learnenglish-central-games-magic-gopher. htm [2] http:/ / jeffki. blogspot. com/ 2007/ 05/ magic-gopher-explained. html

Ming library
Ming is a C library for creating Adobe Flash (.swf) files. It is often packaged as a PHP module that allows for the dynamic generation of Flash animations. In addition to PHP, the library can also be used in the programming languages C++, Perl, Python, and Ruby. Ming's core library is distributed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, and its makeswf command-line tool is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License, thus making Ming free software.[1]

See also
Gnash, a free Flash viewer OpenLaszlo, another free tool to create SWF files SWFTools, another free tool to programmatically create SWF files MTASC - another free open-source SWF compiler

External links
Development Site [2] Ming official documentation site [3] Cool Ming Examples [4] The PHP Manual's section on Ming [5] Websites using Ming [6]

Ming library

83

References
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] "Ming FAQ" (http:/ / www. libming. net/ moin. cgi/ MingFAQ). . http:/ / www. libming. org/ http:/ / www. libming. net/ http:/ / www. gazbming. com/ http:/ / www. php. net/ ming http:/ / www. libming. net/ moin. cgi/ Websites_using_Ming

Open Dialect
Open Dialect is an open source Flash IDE based on Adobe Flex and distributed under the GPL. Its goals are to allow system dynamics modelers to create and publish online interfaces to their work. Open Dialect allows for the creation of adobe AIR executables as well as Flash 9 swfs. Open Dialect is written in C# using the .NET Framework and has been ported via Mono and GTK+ to Linux and partially Mac OS X.

Supported platforms
The latest version of Open Dialect, version 0.6.0 supports Windows (no extra effort), Linux (tiny bit of effort) and OSX (must compile from source).

References
Open Dialect Updates [1] - from Open Dialect Open Dialect Wiki [2] - from Open Dialect Open Dialect [3] - from osflash.org Open Dialect, The future of open source flash IDE [4] - Sunil's Blog The "Policy Resistance" example game, tutorial and ILE [5] - from Open Dialect

References
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] http:/ / dialect. openmodeling. net http:/ / dialect. openmodeling. net/ wiki/ OpenDialect http:/ / osflash. org/ projects/ opendialect http:/ / sunil-gupta. blogspot. com/ 2008/ 07/ open-dialect-future-of-open-source. html https:/ / dialect. openmodeling. net/ downloads/ 4

Real Time Messaging Protocol

84

Real Time Messaging Protocol

Real Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) is a proprietary protocol developed by Adobe Systems for streaming audio, video and data over the Internet, between a Flash player and a server. The RTMP protocol has three variations: 1. The "plain" protocol which works on top of TCP and uses port number 1935 2. RTMPT which is encapsulated within HTTP requests to traverse firewalls 3. RTMPS which is RTMP, but over a secure HTTPS connection. While the primary motivation for RTMP was a persistent protocol for Flash, it is also used in some other applications, such as the Adobe LiveCycle Data Services ES. On 20 January 2009 Adobe announced it will publish the RTMP specification.[1] On 21 May 2009 Adobe filed a DMCA removal request on a Sourceforge-hosted implementation of the protocol.[2] [3] On Monday, June 15, 2009 Adobe released the RTMP Specification [4]

Operation
The raw TCP-based RTMP maintains a single persistent connection and allows real-time communication. To guarantee smooth delivery of video and audio streams, while still maintaining the ability to transmit bigger chunks of information, the protocol may split video and data into fragments. The size of the fragments used can be negotiated dynamically between the client and server, and even disabled completely if desired, although the default fragment sizes are 128 bytes for video and most other data types, and 64-bytes for audio data. Fragments from different streams may then be interleaved and multiplexed over a single connection. With longer data chunks, the protocol would then only carry a one-byte header per fragment, thus incurring very little overhead. In practice however, individual fragments are not typically interleaved. Instead, the interleaving and multiplexing is done at the packet level, with RTMP packets across several different active channels being interleaved in such a way to ensure that each channel meets its bandwidth, latency, and other quality of service requirements. Packets interleaved in this fashion are treated as indivisible, and are not interleaved on the fragment level. The RTMP defines several channels on which packets may be sent/received, and which operate independently of each other. For example, there is a channel dedicated for handling RPC requests and responses, a channel for video stream data, a channel for audio stream data, a channel for out-of-band control messages (fragment size negotiation, etc.), and so on. During a typical RTMP session, several channels may be active simultaneously at any given time. When RTMP data is packetized, a packet header is generated. The packet header specifies, among other things, the id of the channel that it is to be sent on, the timestamp at which is was generated (if necessary), and the size of the packet payload. This is then followed by the packet payload, which is fragmented according to the currently agreed-upon fragment size before it is serialized over the connection. The packet header itself is never fragmented, and its size does not count towards the data in the packet's first fragment. In other words, only the actual packet payload data is subject to fragmentation. At a higher level, the RTMP encapsulates MP3 and Flash Video multimedia streams, and can make remote procedure calls (RPCs) using the Action Message Format. Other RPC services are made asynchronously with a single client/server request/response model, so real-time communication is not necessary.[5]

Real Time Messaging Protocol

85

HTTP tunneling
RTMP packets can be exchanged via two HTTP tunneling protocols: In RTMP Tunneled (RTMPT), RTMP data is encapsulated and exchanged via HTTP, and messages from the client (the media player, in this case) are addressed to port 80 (the default for HTTP) on the server. In RTMP Secure (RTMPS), RTMP data is encapsulated and exchanged via HTTPS, and messages from the client are addressed to port 443 (the default for HTTPS) on the server. This also has a non-RTMPT mode 'native' in which the data is not encapsulated for transmission over HTTPS, but in which the data is simply encrypted with SSL. While the messages in RTMPT and RTMPS are larger than the equivalent non-tunneled RTMP messages due to HTTP and HTTPS headers, RTMPT and RTMPS may facilitate the use of RTMP in scenarios where the use of non-tunneled RTMP would otherwise not be possible, such as when the client is behind a firewall that blocks non-HTTP and non-HTTPS outbound traffic.

RTMP client software

The most well-known RTMP client is Adobe's Flash player which has full support for streaming video and audio from RTMP servers. Other third-party players have partial support for RTMP, such as the open source media player XBMC which has acquired preliminary support for playing RTMP streams in its SVN version. rtmpdump [48] is an open-source command-line tool that is designed to dump the full RTMP stream. It implements the RTMPE protocol, which Adobe believes to be an encryption and copyright protection scheme: however analysis of RTMPE [6] shows that RTMPE is nothing of the kind. rtmpdump was removed from its original SourceForge page due to Adobe issuing a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notice, which Sourceforge did not have the resources to contest, and could not place any other sourceforge projects at risk. flvstreamer [7] is a fork of rtmpdump which removes all the code that Adobe believed was in violation of the DMCA (due to the belief by Adobe that RTMPE is an encryption mechanism). flvstreamer still allows users to download a stream of audio or video content from all RTMP servers, as long as RTMPE is not enabled on the server. rtmpdump development was restarted in October 2009 and is hosted at the MPlayer site[8] . It has much improved functionality and has been rewritten in C (was C++). Gnash, an open source replacement for Adobe's Flash player, aims to support RTMP and is currently seeking donations for funding the necessary development[9] .

RTMP server software

Currently, the only full implementation RTMP servers are: Adobe Flash Media Server, Adobe LiveCycle Data Services Amazon S3 & Amazon Cloudfront can stream using RTMP haXeVideo is a multithread FLV streaming server entirely written using the haXe programming language. Onlinelib VCS Video Communication Server (including iPhone Support) Red5 Media Server is a reverse engineered open source project which aims to produce a feature-complete implementation written in Java Erlyvideo[10] which has rather wide functionality: not only file streaming, but restreaming of MPEG-TS or Shoutcast to flash clients by RTMP Unreal Media Server supports live RTMP streaming, in real-time and buffered modes. Wowza Media Server WebORB Integration Server (available for .NET, Java, PHP, and Rails) both commercial and free (some open source) implementations.

Real Time Messaging Protocol OneTeam Media Server has been announced on ProcessOne[11] . A C++ implementation called crtmpserver[12] is also available.

86

RTMP Specification
Adobe has opened the Specification for the RTMP Protocol on June 15 of 2009 http:/ / www. adobe. com/ devnet/ rtmp/ [4] Licence, under which this specification is distributed, requires to implement RTMP server only by this specification. RTMP server, implemented by mentioned specification will not be able to stream H.264 content, because it requires special crypto-signed handshake.

RTMFP Specification
People at crtmpserver [13] are reverse engineering the rtmfp protocol. Work is in progress. Blue5 [14] Project created for open source versions of RTMPE and RTMFP.

See also
Orbit Downloader Protected Streaming Info about RTMPS and RTMPE Real Time Media Flow Protocol (RTMFP), based on UDP

References
Using RPC services in Flex Data Services 2 [15] - Adobe Flex Article HTTP Tunneling protocols [16] - Adobe TechNote RTMP Specification [4] - Adobe Developer Connection Site RTMFP unofficial specification [17] - www.rtmpd.com [13]

[1] Adobe to Open Flash Platform Messaging Protocol (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ aboutadobe/ pressroom/ pressreleases/ 200901/ 012009RTMP. html). . Retrieved 2009-01-23. [2] "Adobe has issued a DMCA removal request for rtmpdump" (http:/ / linuxcentre. net/ adobe-has-issued-a-dmca-removal-request-for-rtmpdump/ ). Linuxcentre. . Retrieved 2009-05-22. [3] "Slashdot | Adobe Uses DMCA On Protocol It Promised To Open" (http:/ / yro. slashdot. org/ article. pl?sid=09/ 05/ 22/ 1254246). Yro.slashdot.org. . Retrieved 2009-05-22. [4] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ devnet/ rtmp/ [5] Using RPC services in Flex Data Services 2 (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ devnet/ flex/ articles/ rpc_service_02. html). . Retrieved 2007-04-16. [6] http:/ / lkcl. net/ rtmp/ RTMPE. txt [7] http:/ / savannah. nongnu. org/ projects/ flvstreamer/ [8] "Updates:2009-11-01" (http:/ / www. mplayerhq. hu/ design7/ news. html). . Retrieved 2009-11-01. [9] "Linux Funding" (http:/ / linuxfund. org/ projects/ gnash/ ). . Retrieved 2010-01-01. [10] erlyvideo website (http:/ / erlyvideo. org/ ) [11] Presentation in Erlang Factory conference in San Francisco - 30 april 2009 - available on ProcessOne website (http:/ / www. process-one. net/ en/ blogs/ article/ oneteam_media_server_presentation) and SlideShare (http:/ / www. slideshare. net/ mremond/ oneteam-media-server) [12] crtmpserver (http:/ / rtmpd. com/ ) [13] http:/ / www. rtmpd. com [14] http:/ / code. google. com/ p/ blue5/ [15] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ devnet/ flex/ articles/ rpc_service_05. html [16] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ cfusion/ knowledgebase/ index. cfm?id=tn_16631 [17] http:/ / rtmpd. com/ wiki/ rtmfp

Real Time Messaging Protocol

87

External links
OSFlash - RTMP Protocol (http://www.osflash.org/rtmp/protocol) crtmpserver - unofficial RTMFP specification (http://rtmpd.com/wiki/rtmfp) OSFlash - RTMP OS (http://www.osflash.org/rtmp_os)

SWF2EXE Software
SWF2EXE software is a type of software which enables the creation of executable files from SWF files. SWF files were originally designed for use in a web browser and required the Flash plugin to be installed for the browser it is running on. However SWF files can be played outside of a web browser using the Adobe Flash Player, provided that the user has the Flash Player installed. The Adobe Flash Player provides an option to wrap the SWF file into a standalone executable which does not require the Flash Player to be installed for it to run successfully. This can be done by running the Flash projector, and in the File menu select 'Create projector'. Using this description, the Flash Player can be thought of as an SWF2EXE program. Since the option to create standalone projectors (or self executing Flash movies) from Flash was introduced, there have been several SWF2EXE programs, available commercially and as freeware, which claim to be able to create standalone executables from SWF files and at the same time extend the functionality of Flash. For example, these programs offer access to the file system to save to a file - something which cannot be done with Flash alone.

Commercially Available SWF2EXE Programs

Listed Alphabetically
Janus from Spaghettisort. Enables the creation of Windows and Mac projectors from SWF files. Jugglor from FlashJester Enables the creation of Windows projectors from SWF and Projector file. mProjector from ScreenTime Media. Enables the creation of Windows and Mac projectors from SWF files. SWFKit from TopCMM Technologies. Enables the creation of Windows projectors from SWF files. SWF Studio v3 from Northcode Inc. Enables the creation of Windows projectors and Screensavers from SWF files. Zinc 3.0 from Multidmedia Limited. Enables the creation of Windows, Mac and Linux projectors from SWF files.

Opensource SWF2EXE Programs

Screenweaver OS from OSFlash. Enables the creation of Windows projectors from SWF files.

See also
Adobe Flash Adobe Flash Player

External links
FlashJester - 3rd Eye Solutions Limited [1] Multidmedia Limited [2] Northcode Inc [3] OSFlash - Screenweaver [4]

SWF2EXE Software ScreenTime Media [5] SWFKit [6] www.swf-to-exe.com - Free online converter that enables creation of Windows projectors from SWF files [7]

88

References
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] http:/ / www. flashjester. com http:/ / www. multidmedia. com/ software/ zinc/ http:/ / www. northcode. com/ http:/ / osflash. org/ screenweaver/ http:/ / www. screentime. com/ software/ mprojector/ http:/ / www. swfkit. com/ http:/ / www. swf-to-exe. com/

SWFFit

89

SWFFit

Developer(s) Initial release Stable release Written in Platform Size Available in

Miller Medeiros July 2006

[1]

2.3.2 / August 5, 2009 JavaScript Web browser 3.62 KB (output JS file) English

Development status Stable Type License Website JavaScript library MIT License
[2]

SWFFit (formerly know as FitFlash) is a JavaScript library used to resize Adobe Flash movies according to the browser window size keeping it accessible independent of the screen resolution. It is used together with SWFObject. SWFFit was created because each user uses a different screen resolution and resizes the browser window to custom sizes and if the content is set to 100% width and/or height (full bleed) the browser don't generate scrollbars and maybe an important content will be hidden for the user if the window dimensions are smaller than the content. It can also be used to dynamically resize the Adobe Flash movie size.

External links
SWFFit website [3] SWFFit at Google Code [2]

References
[1] http:/ / www. millermedeiros. com/ [2] http:/ / code. google. com/ p/ swffit/ [3] http:/ / swffit. millermedeiros. com/

SWFObject

90

SWFObject

Developer(s) Initial release Stable release Written in Platform Size Available in

Geoff Stearns January 2006

[1]

with Toby Boudreaux

[2]

and Bobby van der Sluis

[3]

2.2 / June 12, 2009 JavaScript Web browser 10 KB (output JS file) English

Development status Stable Type License Website JavaScript library MIT License
[4]

SWFObject (originally FlashObject[5] ) is an open-source JavaScript library used to embed Adobe Flash content onto Web pages, which is supplied as one small JavaScript file.[6] The library can also detect the installed Adobe Flash Player plug-in in all major web browsers, on all major operating systems (OS), and can redirect the visitor to another webpage or show alternate HTML content if the installed plug-in is not suitable.[7] The library is independent, although related external libraries often integrate with it, such as SWFAddress and SWFFit. SWFObject is used by over 13% of the websites detected to be utilizing any form of JavaScript[8] , amounting to thousands of modern websites such as Ask.com [9], Windows.com [10], Time.com [11], Skype.com [12], Discovery.com [13] and YouTube.[14] [15]

Embedding
SWFObject provides the most reliable method of embedding Flash content into a webpage[16] by internally handling the various practices that one must follow in order for different web browsers to display Flash content correctly, and isolating them from the web designer. The developer may interface with the library in a standardized manner, the minimum being a single line of JavaScript code.[17] Therefore even inexperienced web designers without knowledge of the ideal HTML code to embed Flash content, can easily insert Flash content into web pages, and have them reliably work for the widest possible audience (excepting those with JavaScript disabled). Flash content inserted using SWFObject will also work on devices that support JavaScript execution (and Flash Player), such as the Wii, PlayStation 3 and Nokia N800, unlike the PlayStation Portable.[18]

Limitation
The biggest disadvantage of relying on SWFObject to embed Flash content without using any compatible HTML markup, is that visitors with JavaScript disabled in their web browsers will not be able to view the Flash content, and will instead see alternate HTML content provided by the web page. For websites that aim to reach the widest possible audience an alternate method is available, by using standards-compliant HTML markup to embed the Flash movie (typically using the <object> tags for the best browser compatibility[19] ), and using the registerObject() function within the library's API[20] to register the Flash content enabling usage of the other features that the library provides.

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Extras
SWFObject also includes a few utility functions within its API to retrieve Flash Player related information, such as checking whether a specific version of Flash Player is installed,[21] and a few DHTML utilities to help work with the DOM.[22] Because of this, the most common reasons Flash Website developers turn to external JavaScript frameworks such as jQuery or Prototype are satisfied internally, giving developers fewer reasons to add additional JavaScript libraries to their website. The library can also be used to integrate Flash Player Express Install into the webpage, allowing users to install the latest Flash Player without leaving the site, although this requires a browser restart.[23]

See also
Adobe Flash, the design and development program in which Flash websites, animations and intros are created. Adobe Flash Player, and its file-format SWF

External links
SWFObject 1.5 SWFObject 1.5 Homepage, deconcept [24], overview and usage of an older version of SWFObject SWFObject 1.5 released, deconcept Blog [25] SWFObject 2 swfobject 2, Google Code [4], freely download SWFObject for usage on a website SWFObject 2 FAQ [26] SWFObject Documentation, Google Code [27], the What, Why and How, of SWFObject 2 General Methods of embedding Flash onto a webpage [28], internally used by SWFObject to maximize compatibility. Embed Multiple Web FLV Players in One Web page [29], using SWFObject or Flashvars code Flash Embedding Cage Match, A List Apart [30], compares the Flash embedding methods. swfobject.js vs Embed HTML [31], advantages of SWFObject over traditional HTML tags

References
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] http:/ / www. geoffstearns. com/ http:/ / www. tobyjoe. com/ http:/ / www. bobbyvandersluis. com/ http:/ / code. google. com/ p/ swfobject/ Internet Web Technology Trends and Usage for FlashObject (http:/ / trends. builtwith. com/ ?tag=javascript& tech=37920601-3ac9-40a7-96a2-7efd5edb1934), BuiltWith [6] Source Checkout, swfobject - Google Code (http:/ / code. google. com/ p/ swfobject/ source/ checkout), Page Header, overview of SWFObject [7] SWFObject 1.5 Homepage (http:/ / blog. deconcept. com/ swfobject/ ), deconcept [8] Internet JavaScript Technology Trends and Top Providers (http:/ / trends. builtwith. com/ ?tag=javascript), BuiltWith [9] http:/ / builtwith. com/ ?ask. com [10] http:/ / www. windows. com/ [11] http:/ / www. time. com [12] http:/ / www. skype. com/ [13] http:/ / www. discovery. com [14] Internet Web Technology Trends and Usage for SWFObject (http:/ / trends. builtwith. com/ ?tag=javascript& tech=b9f773e8-12b1-46ee-ab08-bafa6c8d0c6f), BuiltWith [15] Who uses SWFObject? (http:/ / blog. deconcept. com/ swfobject/ #faq), SWFObject FAQ [16] Adobe Developer Network (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ devnet/ flashplayer/ articles/ swfobject. html)

SWFObject
[17] Embedding Adobe Flash Player content using SWFObject 2 - Documentation - Google Code (http:/ / code. google. com/ p/ swfobject/ wiki/ documentation) [18] Do SWFs embedded with SWFObject 2 display in the Sony PS3 or Nintendo Wii web browsers? (http:/ / code. google. com/ p/ swfobject/ wiki/ faq#12. _Do_SWFs_embedded_with_SWFObject_2_display_in_the_Sony_PS3_or), SWFObject FAQ [19] Bobby van der Sluis > Flash embed test suite (http:/ / www. bobbyvandersluis. com/ flashembed/ testsuite/ ), HTML embed element compatibility [20] Function swfobject.registerObject, SWFObject JavaScript API documentation - Google Code (http:/ / code. google. com/ p/ swfobject/ wiki/ api#SWFObject_API_documentation) [21] Function swfobject.hasFlashPlayerVersion, SWFObject JavaScript API documentation - Google Code (http:/ / code. google. com/ p/ swfobject/ wiki/ api#swfobject. hasFlashPlayerVersion(versionStr)) [22] Function swfobject.add(Dom)LoadEvent, SWFObject JavaScript API documentation - Google Code (http:/ / code. google. com/ p/ swfobject/ wiki/ api#swfobject. addLoadEvent(fn)) [23] SWFObject 2.2 - What's new? (http:/ / code. google. com/ p/ swfobject/ wiki/ whats_new), Google Code [24] http:/ / blog. deconcept. com/ swfobject/ [25] http:/ / blog. deconcept. com/ 2007/ 02/ 28/ swfobject-1-5-released/ [26] http:/ / code. google. com/ p/ swfobject/ wiki/ faq [27] http:/ / code. google. com/ p/ swfobject/ wiki/ documentation [28] http:/ / www. bobbyvandersluis. com/ flashembed/ testsuite/ [29] http:/ / www. playerdiy. com/ blog/ how-to-add-multiple-flash-video-players-in-one-webpage/ [30] http:/ / www. alistapart. com/ articles/ flashembedcagematch/ [31] http:/ / www. longtailvideo. com/ support/ forum/ General-Chat/ 15974/ swfobject-js-vs-Embed-HTML

92

SWFTools
SWFTools is a suite of software tools to create and manipulate SWF files. SWF is the file format used by Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash) animation software. SWFTools runs on Windows, Mac OS X, AmigaOS, Linux and several other Unix-like systems. SWFTools is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License and is thus free software. The central tool is swfc which takes as input a description of a Flash animation in a simple language and creates as output an SWF file. It is possible to include ActionScript scripts into the generated SWF file. SWFTools also includes the RFXSWF Library which allows to write programs that generate SWF. In addition SWFTools includes a number of tools to convert content in the PDF, JPEG, GIF, WAV and AVI formats to SWF, and others to extract information and content from existing SWF files. It's also possible to embed other SWF files, which may be useful for animating static pictures (for example, the static SWF files generated by OpenOffice.org Impress and Draw).

See also
Gnash, a free Flash viewer Ming, a free library to create SWF files, used by SWFTools Flasm MTASC Comparison of screencasting software

SWFTools

93

External links
swftools.org [1] Official site, with documentation and changelog

References
[1] http:/ / www. swftools. org/

SWX Format
The SWX Format (or simply SWX) is an open-source data format that Adobe Flash Player can interpret, as if it were a standard SWF.[1] Since SWX is a subset of the SWF format, data is stored as SWF bytecode which is automatically interpreted by any version of Adobe Flash Player requiring no additional installation by the end user.[2] An ActionScript API is also provided by the developers aiding integration of the SWX Format into Flash Websites and Rich Internet Applications.

Usage
SWX data files can be loaded into Flash movies that use: ActionScript 2, using the internal Flash function loadMovie(). This function is available in every active version of Adobe Flash Player, meaning developers may utilize this functionality without any additional source code. ActionScript 3, using an SWX API function. When data is received, SWX sends a custom event to the Flash movie that requested the data, enabling the program to react or utilize the data the moment it is downloaded and available for use.

External links
SWX: SWF Data Format [3], official website swx-format - Data Format [4], Google Code How to use SWX ActionScript API [5], wiki, Google Code How to get SWX up and running [6], wiki, Google Code SWX Support Group [7], Google Groups SWX Java [8], official website swxjava - SWX RPC implementation in Java [9], Google Code

References
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] SWX: SWF Data Format (http:/ / swxformat. org/ ), official website swx-format - Data Format (http:/ / code. google. com/ p/ swx-format/ ), Google Code http:/ / swxformat. org/ http:/ / code. google. com/ p/ swx-format/ http:/ / code. google. com/ p/ swx-format/ wiki/ Using_SWX http:/ / code. google. com/ p/ swx-format/ wiki/ Installing_SWX http:/ / groups. google. com/ group/ swx-format http:/ / swxjava. org/ http:/ / code. google. com/ p/ swxjava/

Scalable Inman Flash Replacement

94

Scalable Inman Flash Replacement

Scalable Inman Flash Replacement (sIFR) is an open source JavaScript and Adobe Flash dynamic web fonts implementation, enabling the replacement of text elements on HTML web pages with Flash equivalents. It was initially developed by Mike Davidson and improved by Mark Wubben. It is a scalable variety of HTML text-to-flash replacement pioneered by Shaun Inman.

Overview
CSS support in web browsers did not, at the time of sIFR's creation, allow webpages to dynamically include web fonts, so there was no guarantee that fonts specified in CSS or HTML would show as intended, as the browsing user may or may not have had the specified font installed in their system. sIFR embeds a font in a Flash element that displays the text, preempting the need for a font to have been manually pre-installed on a user's system. A common technique is to use raster graphics to display text in a font that cannot be trusted to be available on most computers. Text created this way pixelates when scaled and cannot be partially selected. In contrast, sIFR text elements mimic normal HTML text they are relatively resizeable and copyable. sIFR requires JavaScript to be enabled and the Flash plugin installed in the reading browser. If either condition is not met, the reader's browser will automatically display traditional CSS based styling instead of the sIFR rendering. sIFR is not designed for body copy text as rendering greater bodies of text with Flash place formidable demands on the computer. Due to this restriction, Mike Davidson himself admitted that[1]

Criticism

While sIFR gives us better typography today, it is clearly not the solution for the next 20 years.

sIFR has been used on a variety of well-known web pages, such as those of GE, Nike and Red Hat. As of December 2008, the current sIFR release is version 2.0.7. Version 3 is in beta.[2]

Although accessibility can be preserved using this technique, users should be aware that sIFR affects page loading time (from the multiple requests required for the Flash, JavaScript and CSS files used by sIFR). Also, the growing popularity of browser ad blocker plugins may decorate Flash content with a "block" button and thereby obscure the text.

Alternatives
Since the creation of sIFR, dynamic web fonts support in browsers has been renewed, with at least the latest versions of the four most popular browsers supporting them. Facelift Image Replacement (FLIR) is a similar software to sIFR. But instead of using flash, it embeds plain images, that are generated automatically from the text on the webpage. So even if user does not have flash plugin installed, he will see the text replaced by FLIR. However, FLIR requires that the website host is capable of running PHP, and it is even less accessible than sIFR. Cufn [3] is an alternative that converts font paths to VML paths stored in JSON and then renders the fonts using a JavaScript rendering engine.

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95

Trivia
The name of the original technique was derived from an anagram of the acronym for the CSS image-replacement technique it was designed to replace, Fahrner Image Replacement.

See also
Web typography

External links
sIFR 3 [4] Wiki.Novemberborn, sIFR Documentation & FAQ [5] Introducing sIFR: The Healthy Alternative to Browser Text [6] by *Mike Davidson [7] FLIR - Facelift Image Replacement software [8] Online sIFR Generator [9] Another Online sIFR Generator [10] A Library of sIFR fonts [11] Official Google Webmaster Central Blog [12] Google prefers sIFR as announced during SMX Advanced 2008

This is how you get sIFR to work [13], a guide for implementing sIFR (using sIFR3) jQuery sIFR plugin [14], a jQuery-flavored version of sIFR

References
[1] "Type online". (Oct. 2005). Computer Arts Projects, p. 64. [2] Wubben, Mark. "sIFR Documentation & FAQ" (http:/ / wiki. novemberborn. net/ sifr/ ). . Retrieved 2007-07-20. [3] http:/ / wiki. github. com/ sorccu/ cufon/ about [4] http:/ / novemberborn. net/ sifr3 [5] http:/ / wiki. novemberborn. net/ sifr [6] http:/ / www. mikeindustries. com/ blog/ archive/ 2004/ 08/ sifr [7] http:/ / www. mikeindustries. com/ blog/ sifr/ [8] http:/ / facelift. mawhorter. net/ [9] http:/ / www. sifrgenerator. com/ [10] http:/ / www. ianpurton. com/ sifr/ [11] http:/ / www. sifrvault. com/ [12] http:/ / googlewebmastercentral. blogspot. com/ 2007/ 07/ best-uses-of-flash. html [13] http:/ / designintellection. com/ 2008/ this-is-how-you-get-sifr-to-work/ [14] http:/ / jquery. thewikies. com/ sifr/

Screensaver Creator

96

Screensaver Creator
Developer(s) Stable release Operating system Type Website
[1]

3rd Eye Solutions Creator 1.3 Windows

Flash tool and Screen saver software Creator

[1]

Creator is a Flash screen saver creating software which takes a Flash Projector file and turns it into a screen saver. This tool offers users the possibility to do customization on most parameters of the screen saver. Users take full control of the interaction and sound with features like fill effects, bitmaps, on/off sound option, header and footer text with effects. Creator is a whole suite of different programs, all in one which produce and package a screen saver so it's ready for distribution. Creator is compatible with Adobe Flash 3, 4, 5, MX, MX 2005 and 8. It is also compatible with Adobe LiveMotion so users can create screen savers no matter which package they use to create SWFs. Creator does not require any plugins. The finished file contains everything that is needed to view the screen saver.

References
[1] http:/ / www. flashjester. com/ ?section=tricks_creator

SWF

97

SWF

Filename extension .swf Internet media type Developed by application/x-shockwave-flash FutureWave Software, later taken over by Macromedia and Adobe Systems Vector graphic animation

Type of format

The file format[1] SWF, has variably stood for "Small Web Format" or "Shockwave Flash". It is a partially open repository for multimedia and vector graphics, originating with FutureWave Software and then coming under the control of Adobe. Intended to be small enough for publication on the web, SWF files can contain animations or applets of varying degrees of interactivity and function. SWF currently functions as the dominant format for displaying "animated" vector graphics on the Web. It may also be used for programs, commonly games, using ActionScript. SWF files can be generated from within several Adobe products: Flash, Flex Builder (an IDE), as well as through MXMLC, a command line application compiler which is part of the freely available Flex SDK. Other than Adobe products, SWFs can be built with open source Motion-Twin ActionScript 2 Compiler (MTASC), the open source Ming library, the free software suite SWFTools, the proprietary SWiSH Max2 and the web-based application BannerSnack. There are also various third party programs that can produce files in this format, such as Multimedia Fusion 2.

History
FutureWave Software, a small company later acquired by Macromedia, originally defined the file format with one primary objective: to create small files for displaying entertaining animations.[2] The idea was to have a format which could be reused by a player running on any system and which would work with slower network connections. Adobe acquired Macromedia in 2005. On May 1, 2008, Adobe dropped its licensing restrictions on the SWF format specifications, as part of the Open Screen Project. However, Rob Savoye, a member of the Gnash development team, has pointed to some parts of the Flash format which remain closed.[3] On July 1, 2008, Adobe released code which allowed the Google and Yahoo search-engines to crawl and index SWF files.[4]

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98

Description
Originally limited to presenting vector-based objects and images in a simple sequential manner, the format in its later versions allows audio (since Flash 3), video (since Flash 6) and many different possible forms of interaction with the end-user. Once created, SWF files can be played by the Adobe Flash Player, working either as a browser plugin or as a standalone player. SWF files can also be encapsulated with the player, creating a self-running SWF movie called a "projector". Adobe makes available plugins to play SWF files in web browsers on many desktop operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X, and Linux on the x86 architecture. As of 2007 intensive development had taken place on Gnash, a free-software implementation of a SWF player. Another FOSS implementation is Swfdec. Based on an independent study conducted by Millward Brown, over 99% of Web users now have an SWF plugin installed, with around 90% having the latest version of the Flash Player. Sony PlayStation Portable consoles can play limited SWF files in Sony's web browser, beginning with firmware version 2.71. Both the Nintendo Wii [5] and the Sony PS3 [6] consoles can run SWF files through their Internet browsers. Also many mobile phones support flash as standard, such as Nokia.

Licensing
Adobe makes available a partial specification of SWF.[7] The document is claimed to be missing "huge amounts" of information needed to completely implement SWF, omitting specifications for RTMP and Sorenson Spark.[8] However, the RTMP specification[9] was released publicly in June 2009, and the Sorenson Spark codec is not Adobe's property. Until May 1, 2008, implementing software that plays SWF was disallowed by the specification's license.[10] On that date, as part of its Open Screen Project, Adobe dropped all such restrictions on the SWF and FLV formats.[11] However, the SWF specification was released under a very restrictive license:[12] This manual may not be copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated, or converted to any electronic or machine-readable form in whole or in part without written approval from Adobe Systems Incorporated. As a result, some believe that coordinating with developers of an SWF implementation is made more difficult because the document cannot be easily shared. However, because the document can be directly downloaded from the Adobe web site by anyone wishing to read it, the impact of that restriction may be inconsequential. Implementing software which creates SWF files has always been permitted, on the condition that the resulting files render "error free in the latest publicly available version of Adobe Flash Player."[13] GNU has started developing a free software SWF player called Gnash under the GNU General Public License (GPL). Another player is the GNU LGPL Swfdec. However, GNU does not provide financial support for either project. Scaleform GFx is a commercial alternative SWF player that features full hardware acceleration using the GPU and has high conformance up to Flash 8 and AS2. Scaleform GFx is licensed as a game middleware solution and used by many PC and console 3D games for user interfaces, HUDs, mini games, and video playback.

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99

See also
Adobe Flash ActionScript ActionScript code protection Adobe Flash Player, the runtime that executes and plays back Flash movies. Adobe Flash Lite, a lightweight version of Flash Player for devices that lack the resources to run regular Flash movies. Flash Video Ming library Saffron Type System, the anti-aliased text-rendering engine used in version 8 onwards. Local Shared Object SWFObject, a JavaScript library used to embed Flash content into webpages.

Other OpenLaszlo Personal video recorders can record and play swf files SWF2EXE Software FutureSplash Animator SWFTools SWiSH Max

External links
Adobe Systems Flash SWF reference [14] SWF File Format Specification [15] (Version 10)

References
[1] Open Screen Project (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ openscreenproject) [2] "The History of Flash: The Dawn of Web Animation" (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ macromedia/ events/ john_gay/ page04. html). Adobe Systems. . Retrieved 2008-01-21. [3] Free Flash community reacts to Adobe Open Screen Project (http:/ / www. openmedianow. org/ ?q=node/ 21) [4] Streamingmedia.com: Google and Yahoo Roll out Flash Search (http:/ / www. streamingmedia. com/ article. asp?id=10523) [5] "Wii Internet Channel" (http:/ / www. nintendo. com/ wii/ channels/ internetchannel). . [6] Eric Lempel. "PS3 Firmware (v2.53) Update" (http:/ / blog. us. playstation. com/ 2008/ 12/ 01/ ps3-firmware-v253-update). Playstation.Blog. . Retrieved 2009-03-12. [7] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ devnet/ swf/ [8] "Free Flash community reacts to Adobe Open Screen Project" (http:/ / www. openmedianow. org/ ?q=node/ 21). . Retrieved 2008-11-29. [9] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ devnet/ rtmp/ [10] "SWF and FLV File Format Specification License Agreement" (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ licensing/ developer/ fileformat/ license/ ). Adobe Systems. 2007-06-27. . Retrieved 2008-01-05. "You may not use the Specification in any way to create or develop a runtime, client, player, executable or other program that reads or renders SWF files." [11] "Open Screen Project Press Release" (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ aboutadobe/ pressroom/ pressreleases/ 200804/ 050108AdobeOSP. html). Adobe Systems. 2008-05-01. . Retrieved 2008-05-01. [12] "SWF File Format Specification Version 10" (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ devnet/ swf/ pdf/ swf_file_format_spec_v10. pdf). . Retrieved 2008-11-29. [13] "Adobe Player Licensing: Flash Player Developer SDKs" (http:/ / www. adobe. com/ licensing/ developer). Adobe Systems. . Retrieved 2008-01-21. [14] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ devnet/ swf/ [15] http:/ / www. adobe. com/ devnet/ swf/ pdf/ swf_file_format_spec_v10. pdf

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100

Swfdec
Developer(s) Discontinued Preview release Operating system Benjamin Otte 0.8.4 / December 21, 2008 0.9.2 / November 11, 2008 GNU/Linux / FreeBSD / OpenBSD, MorphOS

Development status Unmaintained Type License Website Interpreters, Media player GNU Lesser General Public License swfdec.freedesktop.org
[1]

Swfdec is a free/open source replacement of Adobe Flash Player. It is currently compatible with GNU/Linux and FreeBSD and is distributed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). Swfdec is a library that can be used to play Flash files. There is a standalone player and a Mozilla plugin that uses the library. Swfdec supports Flash through version 4, and most features of Flash through version 9. The player was routinely updated to support the latest features demanded by video players, resulting in most (including YouTube, Google Video, Lulu.tv, AOL video, and CNN video) working at any given time. Swfdec has been chosen as the Flash player for Fedora,[2] and it has been ported to DirectFB for embedded use alongside its X11 and GTK+ bindings. It uses the Cairo graphics library for rendering, GStreamer for decoding audio and video[3] and PulseAudio, OSS, or ALSA for audio playback. Development of Swfdec is almost stopped. In year 2009, only 9 commits were done in the git repository.

See also
Gnash

External links
Swfdec Homepage [1] Swfdec developer blog [4]

References
[1] [2] [3] [4] http:/ / swfdec. freedesktop. org/ Fedora 9 Swfdec Feature Page (http:/ / fedoraproject. org/ wiki/ Features/ Swfdec) Jonathan Corbet (2007-04-04). "Two approaches to Flash" (http:/ / lwn. net/ Articles/ 228637/ ). LWN.net. . http:/ / blogs. gnome. org/ otte/

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101

swfmill
swfmill is a free software command line tool that generates SWF files. It is an XML to SWF to XML processor using SWFML, an XML dialect closely modeled after the SWF format. It comes with XSLT capabilities, and a more accessible dialect of SWFML to generate SWF files. swfmill may be used to generate SWF files that contain library assets for use with MTASC. Currently, it imports images (JPEG, PNG), fonts (TrueType), SVG and other SWF files. It may also place assets on the stage, create movieclips with multiple frames, textfields, among other things.

See also
ActionScript Gnash, a free Flash viewer under construction SWFTools, tools to create and manipulate SWF files Ming, a library to create SWF files

External links
Official web site [1] Open Source Flash Community [2]

References
[1] http:/ / swfmill. org/ [2] http:/ / osflash. org/

Toufee

102

Toufee

Developer(s) Stable release Operating system Type License Website

Sanchit Bhatnagar Navneet Rai 1.02 / October 26, 2006 Website Flash Animation Subscription www.toufee.com
[1]

Toufee is flash movie creating/editing software that is distributed online. It is an online software which runs inside the browser, so it is compatible with Windows, GNU/Linux and Macintosh operating systems. It contains features such as text effects, image transitions, audio/video support, and timeline editing.

Layout
Toufees layout is similar to Microsoft Powerpoint. At the top there is menu bar. Beneath the menu bar there are two columns. The column of frames on the left is the "filmstrip". The bigger column, on the right, is the "stage". The stage is similar to a big painting canvas where users add text, photos, videos, etc. The filmstrip is a panorama of the stage (allowing the preview of different frames).

Making flash movies

To create flash movies in Toufee one does not require knowledge of programming, or Actionscript. It is instead a straightforward process, allowing anyone to create movies with ease. Frames, text, images, videos, notes, sounds and buttons can be added to the movies by clicking the buttons on the menu bar. Double-clicking on any item opens a properties window for the selected item. This can be used to change the appearance of the selected item, add sounds effects, change timing, and so on. The finished movie can be published online as an SWF file. It can only be viewed online, however, unless converted to a video file format with a third-party utility.

Editing, effects and transitions

There are over 50 text effects, and 25 image transitions. These are applied using a drag and drop interface from the "effects" or "transitions" folders. Sound clips, and masks, can be added to any items on the stage by dragging those effects onto the items.

Features
Toufee is web-based software, and does not require any software installation. A Toufee movie consists of Text, Images, Videos, and Sounds. Any number of these can be used in each movie. There are more than fifty Text Effects and around 25 Image Effects available. Included are five nearly-human text-to-speech voices which can convert user-provided text to dictated text instantly. Toufee supports PNG and GIF image files.

Toufee Import of all popular video formats, including: WMV, MPEG, AVI, and others. Supports download of images and videos directly from popular sites like Flickr and YouTube.

103

Restrictions
No one can create/edit movies without opening an account (Trial offer). The flash movies made with Toufee cannot be downloaded to a computer. If the movie needs further editing, it must be done at the site. Users of the Opera web browser have reported problems utilising Toufee's GUI.

Toufee In Education
Toufee is being used by educators for activity-based learning to help children who cannot afford flash or learn flash programming. It was recently featured on the Discovery Educator Network.

Versions
0.9 Toufee 0.9

1.02 Toufee 1.02

2.0a Toufee 2.0a (alpha, unreleased)

See also
Windows Movie Maker

External links
Toufee Website [1] Toufee Wiki [2] Techcrunch's article on toufee [3] Use in education [4] Discovery Education Website [5]

References
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] http:/ / www. toufee. com/ http:/ / www. toufee. com/ wiki/ http:/ / www. techcrunch. com/ 2006/ 10/ 25/ toufee-launches-fast-flash-movie-making/ http:/ / www. toufee. com/ moviemaker/ how-educators-use-toufee-for-activity-based-learning/ http:/ / www. discoveryeducation. com/ products. cfm/

Article Sources and Contributors

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Article Sources and Contributors

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Wuyanhuiyishi, XanderJ, Xtremerandomness, Yasaki, Z.babin, Zero sharp, ZeroOne, Zevensoft, Zidane2k1, 697 anonymous edits Flash animation Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=361158870 Contributors: 16@r, A little insignificant, Aasimpy, Adam B, Aitias, Aokpub, Appraiser, Asittingducktv, Atomicon, Audacity, Bender235, BernardM, Bestkittycool, Bewildebeast, Bibliomaniac15, Blackroo1967, Blanius, Blogwonder, Bogods, Brandon, Buzkyy, Calamarain, Calvin 1998, CanadianCaesar, Canadiana, Carl.bunderson, Cerebralpayne, Chazzy88, Cocoma, ComedyLiker23, Comme le Lapin, Daftart, Darkwind, Delldot, Dina, Dolemite15, Dreftymac, Ehheh, Elkman, Elole, EugeneWei, Flashzombies, Flowanda, Foochar, Fratrep, Freakofnurture, Furrykef, Garfwog, Gdo01, Ground, Gurch, Gyrobo, Hazzlim, Hongooi, Hu12, Icep, J.delanoy, J04n, JIP, JQF, Jackscarab, Janke, Jayzaveri, Jinf22, Jmlk17, John of Reading, Karenjc, Karl Dickman, Kausill, Kidlittle, Kitty the Random, Kubigula, Kuos, Kvdveer, Liberlogos, Lightmouse, LilHelpa, Littleteddy, MIBlackburn d6, Madifjeld1516, Marasmusine, Martarius, Martinwguy, Masaruemoto, Mattbr, McGeddon, MegX, Mel Etitis, MrOllie, Muppet Pro, Mybighead3, Natvvgal, Naught101, NawlinWiki, Noahcs, Nuiop729, Parrothead1983, Perelian, Philip Trueman, Physicistjedi, Pieguy48, Pjoef, Prolog, Quaguy, Quarl, Quintote, RFerreira, RedCoat1510, Rjwilmsi, RoryS89, Rush2009, Salvio giuliano, Saxbryn, Scipio Carthage, Skyb953, Slowtiger, Smalljim, Stephenchou0722, Superasn, Superstooge, Th1rt3en, The Jeff Killer, Thecavster, Tomjenkins52, Tommy2010, Transity, Tree Biting Conspiracy, Tregoweth, User86654, Vegaswikian, Vigorousjammer, Visor, WhyBeNormal, Worlder, Wtfmate123, Yamaguchi, YellowSnowRecords2, YesIAmAnIdiot, Ytny, Zacjam, Zellfaze, ZillurRehman, 300 anonymous edits Flash intro Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=360476716 Contributors: Anthony Appleyard, JLaTondre, Jareha, M1cr0s3rf06, Mike Rosoft, Pablo180, Ventriloquist, 9 anonymous edits FusionCharts Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=355344941 Contributors: CommonsDelinker, Hjohar, Tassedethe, 5 anonymous edits FutureSplash Animator Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=341486470 Contributors: AppleMacReporter, Artlung, Chealer, Dreftymac, Ehheh, Eleo87, Fractions, Fuzzie, Happenstance, Itai, Jetstar888, Jonny-mt, KingpinE7, Rictus, Rjwilmsi, Rror, Rubenwills, Seifip, Tadams2, The High Magus, Tree Biting Conspiracy, Tregoweth, 17 anonymous edits FutureWave Software Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=355685304 Contributors: AVRS, Biasoli, Cander0000, Fiftyquid, Kksf, QaBobAllah, Rjwilmsi, Tadams2, Wiredcoach, 1 anonymous edits GameSWF Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=320158570 Contributors: Apyule, Chealer, DFRussia, DesertPanther, Frap, Free Software Knight, Jeremy Visser, Kathleen.wright5, Malcolma, Pahajoki, Widefox, 7 anonymous edits Gnash Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=360023561 Contributors: A305w, AThing, Antimatter15, Audriusa, AxelBoldt, BD2412, Bachrach44, Bakken, Benjamin Mako Hill, Bluemoose, Cander0000, Centrx, Chealer, Creek23, Creidieki, Danhuby, Dark Apostrophe, David Gerard, Dthomsen8, Eagleal, Eric Wester, Ewlyahoocom, Fast.ch, Fiftyquid, Frankie0607, Frap, Free Software Knight, Geronimooo, Grandscribe, Gronky, Guthrie, Guyjohnston, Imz, Intgr, Jamie S, Jleedev, Joeblakesley, Johndrinkwater, Jrrs, Jynus, KDesk, Khalid hassani, Kirils, Kl4m-AWB, Kocio, Kozuch, Laurusnobilis, Marudubshinki, Mattst88, Mckyj57, Mike92591, Mikelima, Mild Bill Hiccup, Nad, Neurocod, Nguoimay, NoseNuggets, Oicumayberight, Ossian Hanning, Paxcoder, Phanton, Phr, Reedy, Richard nixon, Saoshyant, Sarah, Simba B, StephenHeuer, Stikonas, SupremeCorrector, The-mart, Thumperward, Tolmaion, Toussaint, Tulcod, Vincentt, Widefox, Witchinghour, Wondigoma, WulfTheSaxon, Yugsdrawkcabeht, Yworo, Zeth, 101 anonymous edits JStart Source: 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Scientus, Skrim, Splibubay, Thape, The Anome, Tomjenkins52, Torc2, Tree Biting Conspiracy, Tregoweth, WikiLaurent, Xs4-guy, 60 anonymous edits MTASC Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=344745069 Contributors: Amine Brikci N, AnOddName, AxelBoldt, Brilliantnut, Gronky, Gurchzilla, Isilanes, Kl4m-AWB, Logiphile, Marcotulio, Mariolina, Mbac, Mdd4696, Nad, Robodoggy, Saoshyant, Viktoria c, 10 anonymous edits Magic gopher Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=331252401 Contributors: Academic Challenger, Chickencha, David Gerard, Etotheipi, HokieRNB, Iridescent, John Reaves, Marasmusine, Michael Hardy, Nekohakase, Oddharmonic, RDBury, Snowolf, Wigren, Willking1979, 25 anonymous edits Ming library Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=349302839 Contributors: -Xen-, Alison9, AxelBoldt, CapitalSasha, Cesdep, Damian Yerrick, DevelCuy, Djmckee1, Free Software Knight, Gronky, Isilanes, Kl4m-AWB, Laurusnobilis, Ledona delano, Minghong, Nad, Neilc, Nigosh, Pieguy48, Serenity-Fr, Thue, Zeus, Zven, 6 anonymous edits Open Dialect Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=286749956 Contributors: CharlotteWebb, Grutness, Leolaursen, Siwel Ziva, Sunil gupta20801, 3 anonymous edits Real Time Messaging Protocol Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=361499478 Contributors: Adammw, Amolshah, Arichnad, Armando82, Atama, Black Falcon, Cerebellum, Creek23, Derek.munneke, Desmondcsmith, Esa101, Falcon8765, Fifo, Fridolin, Full Decent, Hairy Dude, Intgr, InvertedSaint, JLaTondre, Jasonbronx, Johann Wolfgang, Johnteslade, Kinema, Lkesteloot, Loevborg, Mahanga, Martarius, Maxlapshin, Mcavalletto, Mcoderkat, Mondainx, Nelson50, Nopetro, Nyco, Olof26, Pdedecker, Pgr94, Phatom87, Pieguy48, Rich Farmbrough, Rlorenzo, SJP, Scientus, Shiretu, SixSix, StephenTech, StreamRecorder, Sunil gupta20801, Swartz1999, Taber, Tabletop, Toussaint, Uzume, VitriolUK, WikiLaurent, Wowzamedia, Wwwwolf, 109 anonymous edits SWF2EXE Software Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=347482959 Contributors: Arichnad, CoJaBo, Coldacid, Dark Vip3r, Mentifisto, Micheli, Seanhess, Stacrd, 27 anonymous edits SWFFit Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=328510545 Contributors: Millermedeiros, Pdcook, Tedickey SWFObject Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=353820485 Contributors: Bitbit, Davidhorman, Jtw90210, Just64helpin, Mabdul, Millermedeiros, Nono64, Notedgrant, Tedickey, Tomjenkins52, Wevah, Woohookitty, 8 anonymous edits SWFTools Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=329427078 Contributors: Albmont, AxelBoldt, Devon Fyson, Gronky, Isilanes, Khalid hassani, Kl4m-AWB, Laurusnobilis, Raffaele Megabyte, Silencer01, Waldir, Walter Grlitz, Woohookitty, Zingus, 4 anonymous edits SWX Format Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=289433673 Contributors: PamD, Rich Farmbrough, Tomjenkins52 Scalable Inman Flash Replacement Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=346670983 Contributors: Andrew c, AxelBoldt, Barf73, Calorus, Cubathy, Ephraim33, Ghettoblaster, Halsteadk, IanManka, Jacek FH, Jaygirig, Jeffrey-nichols, JonathanFreed, Lyso, Mabdul, Manywindows, Molodzianowski132, Obeattie, Paddyez, Reisio, Rschmertz, Seattlenow, SimonDeDanser, Smith120bh, Tkgd2007, Twinkling, UnitedStatesian, Yamamoto Ichiro, Zinjixmaggir, Zquack, Zzgavin, 40 anonymous edits Screensaver Creator Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=281942649 Contributors: Cander0000, Endlessdan, Katharineamy, Kozuch, Pixy84, Rockfang SWF Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=359319747 Contributors: 16@r, 81120906713, ABF, AFBorchert, AVRS, Ahoerstemeier, Alex Nadtoka, Aparicio99, Astor14, Awildman, Bakken, Bomarrow1, Boud, Brianhe, Bsadowski1, Camw, Captain-tucker, Celestianpower, Cenarium, Chalondidier@skynet.be, Charles Matthews, CyberSkull, Danielfarrow, Dark Vip3r, Darkxsun, Darobin, Davidone, Desertfish08, Dicklyon, DivineAlpha, Doulos Christos, Drmistermaster, Dwaipayanc, EatMyShortz, Emerson7, Emperorbma, Eric-Wester, Errickfoxy, Eternal Pink, Everyking, Flantus, Fotoshop, Fox, Francs2000, Frap, Ft1, Fudoreaper, Furrykef, GREAT0897, Gerbrant, Ghettoblaster, Graft, Graham87, Gwernol, Haakon, Hede2000, Hervegirod, Hippy deluxe, Hoary, Imroy, Informedbanker, J. M., J.delanoy, Jclemens, Jcw69, Jeffrey O. Gustafson, Jeffthejiff, Jmgonzalez, John.anna43, Jonverve, Joshua Lutz, Josseke123, Joyous!, Judith6yu, Kedi the tramp, KevanP, KnightRider, Ktdreyer, LMB, Leuqarte, LinguistAtLarge, LuoShengli, Mac, Maikel, MarkKB, Mattl, Maximus Rex, Meisam, Merope, Mikco, Mike Rosoft, Minghong, Mortense, Movado73, MrOllie, Mun206, Mvandrie, Mydoghasworms, NE2, Nakon, NawlinWiki, Nifky?, Nigosh, Nopetro, Nsaa, NuShrike, On1ine, Ossguy, PGWG, Palfrey, Paradocks28, PaulBreadly, Pengo, Penubag, Perspectoff, Piano non troppo, Pieguy48, Pjrm, Prod, Psy guy, Qubed, Radon210, Rdsmith4, ReCover, Remember the dot, Remurmur, Rmanke, RobertG, Ronark, Rpenner, Rursus, Sakurambo, SavageWolf, Scratchaholiks, Seattlenow, Shape84, ShelleyAdams, Silencer01, Smyth, Splang, Stephenb, Stevertigo, Superm401, Surfingslovak, Syp, THEN WHO WAS PHONE?, Techdoode, The Kinslayer, TheOneMoleInBurnham, TigerDE2, Tim1988, Tkgd2007, Tomjenkins52, Toussaint, Tpg 2007, Tree Biting Conspiracy, Tregoweth, Utility Monster, Visor, WadeSimMiser, Weaselboy246, WestYork, White 720, Zeh, Ziggiz, ZillurRehman, 290 anonymous edits Swfdec Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=352350841 Contributors: Around Eve, Bruce89, Bryan Derksen, Claviola, Dar-Ape, Frap, Ghepeu, Gronky, Guyjohnston, Intgr, Inzy, Isilanes, J.delanoy, Jake Wartenberg, Jeffthejiff, Joy, KDesk, Kl4m-AWB, Krupaj, M412k, Mike92591, MikeRS, Newman.x, Nopetro, Oicumayberight, Omerta-ve, Psz, Raffaele Megabyte, Rich Farmbrough, Samuel Grant, Takunama, Tanguy Ortolo, Thumperward, Trevor MacInnis, Whollabilla, Widefox, WikiLeon, 50 anonymous edits swfmill Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=247404244 Contributors: AxelBoldt, Bobblehead, Isilanes, Kl4m-AWB, LilHelpa, Rob Burbidge, Saoshyant, 4 anonymous edits Toufee Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=282739998 Contributors: Brox, Gary King, Gioto, John, Pxma, Remember the dot, RobertG, Scatter98, Superasn, Toussaint, Waldir, 5 anonymous edits

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