362 Chapter 21 – InteractivityFlash
Web Design in a Nutshell, eMatter EditionProprietary format
Although Macromedia is working to get Flash established as an open vector
format for the Web, as of this writing it is a proprietary format controlled by
Macromedia.Creating Flash Content for the Web
You need to purchase Macromedia’s Flash 3 software to create Flash files. You can
download a free demo from the Macromedia site athttp://www.flash.com/.Obvi-
ously, it is beyond the scope of this book to teach the Flash software interface, so
I recommend using the tutorials that come with the software as well as support
documents provided by Macromedia (http://www.macromedia.com/support/flash/).
Flash is comprised of a full set of vector drawing tools (like Freehand or Illus-
trator) and animation tools. Note that although Flash is vector-based, it supports
bitmap image information in JPEG, GIF, or PNG form (using bitmaps greatly
increases file size, however).
Even if you have no animation experience, Flash makes it easy to create motion
and morphing effects because it can generate “in-between” frames automatically.
Flash 3.0 adds some basic sound-editing capabilities, so you can make your sound
files as compact and efficient as possible.
When your Flash image or movie is done, choose FileÝExportÝShockwave
Flash to create a Flash file (be sure to name it with the suffix.swf) to make it opti-
mized for file size and data streaming over the Web. In order to update an existing
Flash file, edit the original Flash movie file (FLA file) and re-export it.Configuring the Server
Although no special server software is necessary to serve standard Flash files, you
will need to configure your server to recognize a new MIME type. The specific
syntax for configuration varies for different servers, so coordinate with your system
administrator and see Macromedia’s site for further support information. The
following information will suit the needs of most servers:
Type/subtype
application/x-shockwave-flash
File extension for Flash
.swfAdding Flash to an HTML Document
Flash images and movies are placed in HTML documents using the<embed>or
<object>placement tags.<embed>was developed by Netscape and works with
Netscape 2.0 and later, Internet Explorer 3.0+ for the Mac, and other plug-in
compatible browsers.
Internet Explorer versions 3 and higher use the<object>tag, which enables them
to automatically download the ActiveX controls for playing Flash media.
To code your page so it is accessible to the maximum number of users, use a
combination of the<embed>and<object>tags. Explanations of each of these