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Flash Reference Guide

Aug 22, 2003

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It seems like just yesterday I was downloading a plug-in for the Netscape 2.0 Web browser that allowed me to watch these slick little animations. The plug-in was FutureSplash, and the year was 1996. FutureSplash was the original name for a product that we now know as Flash, which is installed on more devices than any other piece of software in the world—more than Microsoft Windows, DOS, and Minesweep (doesn't that piece of software pop up everywhere?). Take a walk down memory lane with me, won't you?

The Dawn of a New Age

Flash was created in response to a need, the need to make animation on the Web a more enjoyable experience. At the dawn of the Web in those fuzzy, distant days of 1995, the only format for adding animation to a Web page was the notorious animated GIF. An animated GIF is essentially just a series of bitmap images sequenced together. The final file is large, less than spectacular in experience, and NOT interactive.

FutureWave, a small company of six people, sought to change this with a new product called FutureSplash. The following image is a screen shot from the very first release of FutureSplash.

Figure 1

The strengths of this new tool were based on a single technology: Vector graphics. By using vectors—as 3D CAD artists had been doing for years—FutureSplash designers could create complex animation sequences and package them as very small files. (Interestingly, you'll see that the overall design layout for FutureSplash has not changed much in the last 10 years—there is the toolbox on the left side and the Timeline and the Stage for adding drawings.)

FutureSplash was an instant hit. Sites, such as the original MSN homepage, used it extensively. In fact, you could only get to the MSN homepage if you had the FutureSplash plug-in installed. It was FutureWave's relationship with Disney, however, that brought the company to Macromedia's attention. At the time, Disney was using both Macromedia's ShockWave and FutureSplash to build content for its Web sites. It was only a matter of time before Macromedia acquired FutureWave and Flash 1.0 was born.

The next noteworthy Flash release was Flash 3.0. Flash 3.0 introduced a concept called FSCommands, which are simple ways to add limited, programmable functionality to your Flash movies. FSCommands proved very popular, prompting Macromedia to up the ante with Flash 4 by incorporating a more complete scripting language into Flash. The language that was introduced was called ActionScript. And then things got really big for Flash.

Coupling vector animation with scripting tools hit a chord with Web designers and Flash's growth and popularity soared. Execs at Macromedia quickly realized that this was their chance to change the way the world uses the Web. At first, it was thought that Flash would replace HTML for creating entire Web sites, but this was quickly deemed impractical and Macromedia set to work transforming Flash into a more robust Web development tool.

The introduction of Flash 5 is still, in my mind, one of the most important Flash releases of all time. Macromedia made a bold move—it re-tooled ActionScript. This could have backfired on Macromedia in a big way, after all, Flash 4 was hugely popular because of its easy-to-use scripting language. But Macromedia made a smart move by retooling ActionScript around the scripting structure of ECMA scripting, better known as JavaScript. The claim that came from Macromedia was this—if you know JavaScript, then you can quickly start programming and using ActionScript.

Flash 6 improved on ActionScript and introduced new technologies—the two most important being Components and Video. Components had appeared in Flash 5 as SmartClips, but were thankfully retooled. Video, however, was the big winner. Today, you see Flash video all over the Web—even more than Real Player, Windows Media, and QuickTime. The biggest consumer is Google, but you'll also find video on sites such as News.com and Weather.com all the time.

Flash 7 upgraded ActionScript to version 2.0 and made the language truly object-oriented. The next big push for Flash is already here with Flex 2.0. ActionScript is now on version 3.0 and has been re-written to execute at almost the same speed as a native application running on your operating system. The Flash 9 authoring tool will allow you to build solutions using ActionScript 3.0.

In 2005, Adobe bought Macromedia and consumed its entire product line. Flash, however, is a survivor. After some nine releases and three companies, it lives on as core Web design and development tool under the Adobe brand.

Why Is Flash So Popular?

There is only one reason Flash is so popular: the Flash Player. The Flash Player has always been under 1 Mb in file size. In today's broadband world, a 1Mb file is nothing, but back in the mid-90's when most people were connecting to the Internet with dial-up modems running at speeds of 14.4 and 28.8Kbps, size was everything. Macromedia's goal was to create a player that could be downloaded in less than one minute and it has always met that goal.

Today, 700 million people have the Flash Player installed on their computers. That accounts for 97.8% of all the people in the world who are connected to the Internet and includes Windows, Mac, and Linux users.

Unless I'm mistaken, the brains behind Flash got it right.

The Future of Flash

The world is waking up to a new kind of Web experience—one that's been dubbed "Web 2.0." As you might expect, Flash is in the center of this new landscape. But, unlike the past, Flash now has competition. Microsoft is introducing as part of Windows Vista and .NET 3.0 a new presentation technology called Windows Presentation Foundation and a mobile version called Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere. This is not the first time that Microsoft has gone after Flash, but it seems like the folks at Redmond may have gotten it right this time.

Competition begets innovation. The next 10 years could well be a very innovative time for designers as we watch Adobe and Microsoft duke it out in the Web 2.0 world.

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