Flash Basics

Working with Flash is both fun and frustrating. Fun because it is a tool that offers so much potential in terms of animation, interaction, and user engagement. Frustrating because it is easy to paint yourself into a corner and find that you have made a real mess of things without really realizing it.

What is Flash?
Flash is a tool that started as a vector animation and interaction tool. Flash was first made available in 1997 and immediately began to take the world by storm. The popularity of Flash with both developers and audiences is only matched by the popularity of the world wide web itself. As such, Flash has seen a great deal of growth and development over the years.

Some history related articles:

http://www.flashmagazine.com/413.htm

http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/special/flashanniversary/ - very cool interactive interface for Flash's 10th anniversary

- source versus compiled files
- saving
- exporting
- timlines
- symbols & instances
- movieclips
- graphics
- buttons
- motion tweens
- shape tweens


Drawing in Flash
- smart pen

Importing into Flash
- raster
- vector

Animating in Flash

Scripting in Flash

Flash Video
- Youtube
- Dexter

Flash Reference Sites