Yes but

doren — Thu, 30 Nov 2000 02:51:44 +0000

I think Flash 5 will set you back about $300.

Small files, vector animation as mentioned, can create interactive prsentations with sound compressed with MP3, cross platform friendly.

Great stuff.

The Adobe version is not quite as powerful I think but since they are competing with Macromedia it's a bit cheaper.

Director was established before flash and is more pixel based for CD roms and not as cross platform friendly.

Thanks a lot

Nicoletta — Fri, 24 Nov 2000 14:54:15 +0000

Hy guys,

thanks a lot for your info. That'll do for a while. Bucks is common knowledge for me, since I lived in the States for 5 years - even though I'm back in Germany/Bavaria and miss my God Ole`USA! Schniief.

Anyways... thx. Hope to may bother you again someday?!

Nicoletta

Megan — Thu, 23 Nov 2000 21:22:20 +0000

To try to put it in simpler terms (maybe), Flash is a program does animation for the web and other applications. You need to buy the program from Macromedia (or download a free trial) to use it. Visitors to your site will need to have the flash plug-in to view Flash pages (most people have it).

As Mike said, It's vector- based (drawing shapes on the screen, rather than manipulating pixels like photo-editors do). Of course, you can always import pixel-based images to use in your Flash animation. It's fairly easy to use, and there are a lot of free tutorials out there on the web.

Flash is most commonly used for site intro pages, but also for interactive presentations and games (as Mike said). You can create entire sites with it, but it seems to be rather difficult to make full sites that are easy for people to use - check out this column from Usability expert Jacob Neilsen - he says that Flash is "99% bad":

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20001029.html

Some good Flash examples can be found at http://www.coolhomepages.com

I thought that Director was more intended for CD-ROMs rather than the web, and that it was created before Flash, but maybe I'm wrong about that?? Oh, and I assume Mike meant "a hundred bucks" USD too (in case you're not in the 'states)

Mike Fisher — Thu, 23 Nov 2000 16:01:29 +0000

Flash/Shockwave is a kind of animation format that utilizes Macromedia's .fla, .swf, and a few other extensions. It is a vector-based graphic tool, which means that it integrates well with Macromedia Freehand, Adobe Illustrator, and perhaps PSP 7+.

Shockwave/Flash has many uses, like Games, Opening Animations, or you could ever use it to produce presentations.

To begin production, you would need the basic Flash program. It runs around a hundred bucks. [That's what I bought it for, anyways.]

Similar programs are produced by the 'big boys,' Adobe has it's Livemotion program, while Macromedia has created another Flash-esque program called Director, which is used mainly for producing programs [using the Logos language.]

There is also the client-based SVG programming, although I don't believe it's animated without the use of DHTML, CSS properties, etc.

Hope this helps..