Adobe Flash is an unused multimedia software platform used for animation production, rich Internet applications, desktop apps, mobile apps, mobile games, and embedded web browser video players. Flash displays text, vector graphics, and raster graphics to provide animations, video games and apps. It allows streaming audio and video, and can capture mouse input, keyboard, microphone and camera. The Adobe AIR-related development platform continues to be supported.
Artists can generate graphics and Flash animations using Adobe Animate. Software developers can generate apps and video games using Adobe Flash Builder, FlashDevelop, Flash Catalyst, or any text editor when used with the Apache Flex SDK.
End users can view Flash content via Flash Player (for web browsers), AIR (for desktop or mobile apps) or third party players like Scaleform (for video games). Adobe Flash Player (supported on Microsoft Windows, macOS and Linux) allows end users to view Flash content using a web browser. Adobe Flash Lite is enabled to view Flash content on older smartphones, but has been discontinued and replaced by Adobe AIR.
The ActionScript programming language enables the development of interactive animations, video games, web applications, desktop applications and mobile applications. Programmers can implement Flash software using IDEs such as Adobe Animate, Adobe Flash Builder, Adobe Director, FlashDevelop, and FDT Powerflasher. Adobe AIR enables full-featured desktop and mobile applications to be developed with Flash and published for Windows, MacOS, Android, iOS, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Wii U and Switch.
Although Flash was previously the dominant platform for online multimedia content, it was slowly abandoned because Adobe supports the transition to HTML5. Flash Player is outdated and has an official end date in 2020. However, Adobe will continue to develop Adobe AIR, related technologies for building stand-alone apps and games.
Video Adobe Flash
Apps
Website
In the early 2000s, Flash was widely installed on desktop computers, and was typically used to display interactive web pages, online games, and to play video and audio content. In 2005, YouTube was founded by former PayPal employees, and uses Flash Player as a means to display compressed video content on the web.
Between 2000 and 2010, many businesses used Flash-based websites to launch new products, or to create interactive enterprise portals. Leading users include Nike, Hewlett-Packard, Nokia, General Electric, World Wildlife Fund, HBO, Cartoon Network, Disney, and Motorola. After Adobe introduced hardware-accelerated 3D for Flash (Stage3D), the Flash website sees 3D content growth for product demonstrations and virtual tours.
In 2007, YouTube offered videos in HTML5 format to support iPhone and iPad, which did not support Flash Player. After the controversy with Apple, Adobe stopped developing Flash Player for Mobile, focusing efforts on Adobe AIR apps and HTML5 animations. In 2015, Google introduced Google Swiffy to convert Flash animations into HTML5, a tool that Google will use to automatically convert Flash web ads for mobile devices. By 2015, YouTube switches to HTML5 technology on all devices, but will retain the Flash-based video player for older web browsers.
RIAs
After Flash 5 introduced ActionScript in 2000, developers combine the visual and programming capabilities of Flash to generate interactive experiences and applications for the Web. Such web-based applications are finally known as "Rich Internet Applications" (RIAs).
In 2004, Macromedia Flex was released, and specifically targeted the application development market. Flex introduces new user interface components, advanced data visualization components, data remoting, and modern IDE (Flash Builder). Flex competed with Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) and Microsoft Silverlight during its tenure. Flex is enhanced to support integration with remote data sources, using AMF, BlazeDS, Adobe LiveCycle, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, and more. Starting in 2015, Flex apps can be published for desktop platforms using Adobe AIR.
Between 2006 and 2016, Speedtest.net's web service performed over 9.0 billion speed tests using RIA built with Adobe Flash. In 2016, the service shifts to HTML5 due to the reduced availability of Adobe Flash Player on PC.
In 2016, Web and RIA applications can be developed with Flash using the ActionScript 3.0 programming language and related tools such as Adobe Flash Builder. Third party IDEs such as FlashDevelop and FDT Powerflasher also allow developers to create games and Flash applications, and are generally similar to Microsoft Visual Studio. Flex applications are usually built using Flex frameworks such as PureMVC.
Video game
Flash video games are popular on the Internet, with portals like Newgrounds dedicated to hosting Flash-based games. Popular games developed with Flash include Angry Birds , Clash of Clans , Farmville , AdventureQuest , Machinarium , Hundred , N , QWOP and Solipskier .
Adobe introduced a variety of technologies to help build video games, including Adobe AIR (to release games for desktop or mobile platforms), Adobe Scout (to improve performance), CrossBridge (to convert C-based games to run on Flash), and Stage3D (to support video games with GPU acceleration). 3D templates like Away3D and Flare3D make it simpler to create 3D content for Flash.
Adobe AIR enables the creation of Flash-based mobile games, which can be published to Google Play and Apple app stores.
Flash is also used to build interfaces and HUD for 3D video games using Scaleform GFx, a technology that makes Flash content in non-Flash video games. Scaleform is supported by more than 10 major video game machines including Unreal Engine, UDK, CryEngine and PhyreEngine, and has been used to provide 3D interface for more than 150 major video game titles since its launch in 2003.
Movies and animations
Adobe Animate is one of the common animated programs for cheap 2D television and commercial animation, in competition with Anime Studio and Toon Boom Animation.
Leading Flash users include DHX Media Vancouver for production including Pound Puppies and My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic , Fresh TV for Total Drama, Nelvana for 6teen and Clone High , Williams Street for Metalocalypse and Squidbillies , Nickelodeon Animation Studios for Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! El Tigre: Manny Rivera Adventure , Danny Phantom , and more.
Flash is less commonly used for long animated movies; However, 2009 The Secret of Kells, an Irish film, is animated primarily in Adobe Flash, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animation Feature at the 82nd Academy Awards.
A number of popular online series are currently produced in Flash, such as Emmy Award-winning Off-Mikes, produced by ESPN and Animax Entertainment; Happy Tree Friends ; Gotham Girl , produced by Warner Brothers; Crime Time , produced by Future Thought Productions and Homestar Runner produced by Mike and Matt Chapman.
Third party software packages designed for traditionally trained cartoonists and animators can publish animations in SWF format.
Maps Adobe Flash
History
FutureWave
Precursor for Flash is a product called SmartSketch, published by FutureWave Software. The company was founded by Charlie Jackson, Jonathan Gay, and Michelle Welsh. SmartSketch is a vector drawing app for pen computers running PenPoint OS. When PenPoint fails on the market, SmartSketch is ported to Microsoft Windows and Mac OS.
As the Internet becomes more popular, FutureWave realizes the potential of vector-based web animation tools that may challenge Macromedia Shockwave technology. In 1995, FutureWave modified SmartSketch by adding a frame-by-frame animation feature and released this new product as FutureSplash Animator on Macintosh and PC.
FutureWave approached Adobe Systems by offering to sell FutureSplash in 1995, but Adobe declined the offer at the time. Microsoft wants to create an "online TV network" (MSN 2.0) and adopts FutureSplash animated content as its central part. Disney Online uses FutureSplash animation for its subscription-based services, Daily Blast Disney. Fox Broadcasting Company launched The Simpsons using FutureSplash.
Macromedia
In November 1996, FutureSplash was acquired by Macromedia, and Macromedia was re-branded and released FutureSplash Animator as Macromedia Flash 1.0 . Flash is a two-part system, graphics and animation editor known as Macromedia Flash, and a player known as Macromedia Flash Player.
FutureSplash Animator is an animation tool originally developed for pen-based computing devices. Due to the small size of FutureSplash Viewer , it is perfect for download on the Web. Macromedia distributes Flash Player as a free browser plugin to gain market share quickly. In 2005, more computers around the world had Flash Player installed than other Web media formats, including Java, QuickTime, RealNetworks, and Windows Media Player.
Macromedia upgraded the Flash system between 1996 and 1999 by adding MovieClips, Actions (precursor to ActionScript), Alpha transparency, and other features. As Flash matures, Macromedia's focus shifts from marketing it as a graphical and media tool to promote it as a Web application platform, adding scripting and data-access capabilities to players while trying to maintain its small footprint.
In 2000, the first major version of ActionScript was developed, and released with Flash 5 . Actionscript 2.0 was released with Flash MX 2004 and supported object-oriented programming, improved UI components and other programming features. The latest version of Flash released by Macromedia is Flash 8 , which focuses on improving graphics such as filters (blur, drop shadow, etc.), Mixed modes (similar to Adobe Photoshop), and advanced features to FLV Video.
Adobe
Macromedia was acquired by Adobe Systems in 2005, and the entire Macromedia product line includes Flash, Dreamweaver, Director/Shockwave, Fireworks (which has since been discontinued) and Authorware is now handled by Adobe.
In 2007, the first release of Adobe was Adobe Flash CS3 Professional , the ninth version of Flash. It introduces the ActionScript 3.0 programming language, which supports modern programming practices and enables business applications to be developed with Flash. Adobe Flex Builder (built on Eclipse) is targeting the enterprise application development market, and also released in the same year. Flex Builder includes the Flex SDK, a set of components that include diagrams, advanced interfaces, and data services ( Flex Data Services ).
In 2008, Adobe released its tenth version of Flash, Adobe Flash CS4 . Flash 10 enhances animation capabilities in Flash editors, adds motion editor panels (similar to Adobe After Effects), inverse kinematics (bones), basic 3D object animations, object-based animations, and other text and graphical features. Flash Player 10 includes a built-in 3D engine (no GPU acceleration) that allows basic object transformation in 3D space (position, rotation, scaling).
Also in 2008, Adobe released the first version of Adobe Integrated Runtime (later redesigned as Adobe AIR ), a runtime engine that replaces Flash Player, and provides additional capabilities for the ActionScript 3.0 language to build desktop and applications mobile. With AIR, developers can access file systems (user files and folders), and connected devices such as joysticks, gamepads and sensors for the first time.
In 2011, Adobe Flash Player 11 was released, and with it the first version of Stage3D, enables 3D rendering to accelerate GPUs for Flash and gaming applications on desktop platforms such as Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Adobe enhances more 3D capabilities continued from 2011 to 2013, adding support for 3D rendering on Android and iOS platforms, alpha-channel, compressed textures, texture atlas, and other features. Adobe AIR is upgraded to support 64-bit computers, and to allow developers to add additional functionality to the AIR runtime using AIR Native Extensions (ANE).
In 2014, Adobe AIR reached a milestone with over 100,000 unique applications built, and over 1 billion installations worldwide (May 2014). Adobe AIR was selected as the Best Mobile Application Development product at the Consumer Electronics Show for two consecutive years (CES 2014 and CES 2015). In 2016, Adobe changed its name to Flash Professional, the main author software for Flash content, to Adobe Animate to reflect its growing use to create HTML5 content that supports Flash content.
Open Screen Project
On May 1, 2008, Adobe announced the Open Screen Project , with the intent of providing consistent application interfaces across devices such as personal computers, mobile devices, and consumer electronics. When the project was announced, seven goals were outlined: the elimination of licensing fees for Adobe Flash Player and Adobe Integrated Runtime, deletion of restrictions on the use of Shockwave Flash (SWF) and Flash Video (FLV) file formats, the issuance of application programming interfaces to port Flash to new devices , and the issuance of the Flash Flash and Action Message Action (AMF) protocols, which allow Flash applications to receive information from a remote database.
In February 2009, the specification removing restrictions on the use of SWF and FLV/F4V specifications has been published. The Flash Cast protocol - now known as the Mobile Content Delivery Protocol - and the AMF protocol are also available, with AMF available as an open source implementation, BlazeDS.
The list of mobile device providers who have joined the project includes Palm, Motorola and Nokia, which, together with Adobe, has announced a $ 10 million Open Screen Project fund. As of 2012, the Open Screen Project no longer accepts new applications according to BSQuare partners. But paid licenses are still an option for device makers who want to use Adobe software.
End of life
Although Flash was previously the dominant platform for online multimedia content, it was slowly abandoned because Adobe supports the transition to HTML5 due to the inherent security weaknesses and significant resources needed to maintain the platform. Apple is limiting the use of Flash on iOS in 2010 due to concerns that it performs poorly on its mobile device, negatively impacting battery life, and is considered unnecessary for online content. As a result, it is not adopted by Apple for smartphone and tablet devices, which also reduces its user base and encourages the use of broader HTML5 features such as canvas and video elements, which can replace Flash without the need for plugins. In 2015, Adobe renamed its Flash editing environment as Adobe Animate to emphasize its expanded support for HTML5 creation, stating that it would "encourage creators to build with new web standards" rather than using Flash. In July 2017, Adobe announced that Flash would be expired in 2020, and would stop support, distribution, and security updates for Flash Player. After the announcement, developers have started a petition to turn Flash into an open-source project, leading to controversy.
The Flash platform will continue in the form of Adobe AIR, which will continue to be developed by Adobe, and OpenFL, a multi-target open-source implementation of the Flash API.
Format
FLA
Flash source files are in FLA format, and contain graphics and animations, as well as embedded assets such as bitmap images, audio files, and FLV video files. The Flash source file format is an ownership format and Adobe Animate is the only authoring tool available that can edit such files. Flash source files (.fla) can be compiled into Flash movie files (.swf) using Adobe Animate. Note that FLA files can be edited, but output files (.swf) can not.
SWF
Flash movie files are in the format of SWF , traditionally called " S hock W ave F lash" movie, "Movies Flash ", or" Flash Application ", usually has a.swf file extension, and can be used in plug-in web pages, strictly" played "in stand-alone Flash Player, or inserted into the projector's self-executing Film.exe extension in Microsoft Windows). Flash Video files have.flv file extensions and are used either from within.swf files or played via an flv-aware player, such as VLC, or QuickTime and Windows Media Player with external codecs added.
The use of vector graphs combined with program code allows Flash files to be smaller - and thus allows the stream to use less bandwidth - than the bitmap or the corresponding video clip. For content in one format (such as text, video, or audio only), other alternatives can provide better performance and consume less CPU power than appropriate Flash movies, for example when using transparencies or making large screen updates like photography or faded text.
In addition to the vector-rendering engine, Flash Player includes a virtual machine called ActionScript Virtual Machine (AVM) for script interactivity at run-time, with video, MP3-based audio, and bitmap graphics. In Flash Player 8, it offers two video codecs: On2 Technologies VP6 and Sorenson Spark, and run-time JPEG, Progressive JPEG, PNG, and GIF capabilities.
3D
Flash Player 11 introduces a full 3D shader API, called Stage3D, which is quite similar to WebGL. Stage3D enables 3D accelerated graphics rendering in Flash games and apps, and has been used to build Angry Birds, and some other important games.
Various 3D frameworks have been created for Flash using Stage3D, such as Away3D 4, CopperCube, Flare3D, Starling,. Professional game engines like Unreal Engine and Unity also export Flash versions that use Stage3D to create 3D graphics.
Flash Video
Almost all browser plugins for video are free and cross platform, including Adobe's Flash Video offering, which was introduced with Flash version 6. Flash Video has become a popular choice for websites because of its large installed user base and Flash programming capabilities. In 2010, Apple publicly criticized Adobe Flash, including the adoption of video playback because it did not take advantage of hardware acceleration, one reason Flash can not be found on Apple mobile devices. Immediately after Apple's critique, Adobe demonstrated and released a beta version of Flash 10.1, which uses GPU hardware acceleration available even on Macs. Flash 10.2 beta, released in December 2010, adds hardware acceleration to the entire video rendering channel.
Flash Player supports two different video playback modes, and the hardware accelerated video decoder can not be used for older video content. Such content causes excessive CPU usage compared to comparable content that is played with other players.
- Video Rendered Software Ã,: Flash Player supports video-provided software since version 6. The video supports vector animations that appear above the video content. This obligation may, depending on the graphical API exposed by the operating system, prohibit the use of video overlays, such as traditional multimedia players will be used, with the consequence that color space conversion and scaling must occur in the software.
- Hardware Accelerated Video Ã:: Flash Player supports hardware accelerated video playback since version 10.2, for H.264, F4V, and FLV video formats. The video is displayed above all Flash content, and takes advantage of the video codec chipset installed on the user's device. Developers must specifically use "StageVideo" technology in Flash Player to enable hardware decoding. Flash Player internally uses technologies such as DirectX Video Acceleration and OpenGL to do so.
In tests conducted by Ars Technica in 2008 and 2009, Adobe Flash Player performs better on Windows than Mac OS X and Linux with the same hardware. Performance was later upgraded for the latter two, on Mac OS X with Flash Player 10.1, and on Linux with Flash Player 11.
Audio Flash
Flash Audio is most often encoded in MP3 or AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) but can also use ADPCM, Nellymoser (Nellymoser Asao Codec) and Speex audio codec. Flash allows sample rates of 11, 22 and 44.1 kHz. Can not have 48 kHz audio sample rate, which is the standard TV and DVD sample level.
On August 20, 2007, Adobe announced on its blog that with Update 3 of Flash Player 9, Flash Video will also apply some parts of the MPEG-4 international standard. In particular, Flash Player will work with compressed video in H.264 (MPEG-4 Part 10), audio compressed using AAC (MPEG-4 Part 3), F4V, MP4 (MPEG-4 Part 14), M4V, M4A , 3GP and MOV multimedia container formats, 3GPP Text Format specification (MPEG-4 Part 17), which is a standard subtitle format and partial parsing capability for 'ilst' atoms, which is equivalent to ID3 used to store metadata. MPEG-4 Part 2 and H.263 will not work in the F4V file format. Adobe also announced that it will gradually move away from the FLV format to the standard ISO media file format (MPEG-4 Part 12) due to functional boundaries with the FLV structure when streaming H.264. The final release of Flash Player that implements some parts of the MPEG-4 standard is available in Autumn 2007.
Adobe Flash Player 10.1 does not have an acoustic echo cancellation, unlike VoIP offers from Skype and Google Voice, making this version of Flash and previous versions less suitable for group calls or meetings. Flash Player 10.3 Beta combines the acoustic echo cancellation.
Scripting languages ​​
ActionScript is the programming language used by Flash. This is an enhanced superset of the ECMAScript programming language, with a classic Java-style class model, rather than a JavaScript prototype model.
Specifications
In October 1998, Macromedia revealed Flash Specifications Version 3 on its website. This is done in response to many new and often semi-open formats that compete with SWF, such as Xara Flare and Extended Vector Animation Sharp formats. Some developers quickly create C libraries to generate SWFs. In February 1999, MorphInk 99 was introduced, the first third-party program to create SWF files. Macromedia also employs Middlesoft to create a freely available developer kit for the 3 to 5 versions of the SWF file format.
Macromedia created the Flash File specification for version 6 and was then only available under a confidentiality agreement, but they are widely available from various sites.
In April 2006, the Flash SWF file format specification was released with details on the latest version format (Flash 8). Although still lacks specific information about the compressed video formats included (On2, Sorenson Spark, etc.), this new Documentation includes all the new features offered in Flash v8 including new ActionScript commands, expressive filter controls, and so on. Document specification file formats are only offered to developers who agree on a license agreement that allows them to use specifications only to develop programs that can export to Flash file formats. Licenses do not allow the use of specifications to create programs that can be used to play Flash files. The Flash 9 specification is made available under the same restrictions.
In June 2009, Adobe launched the Open Screen Project (Adobe link), which makes the SWF specification available without restrictions. Previously, developers could not use the specifications to make players compatible with SWF, but only to create software authors who export SWF. The specification still removes information about codecs such as Sorenson Spark, however.
Animation tools
Official tools
The Adobe Animate authoring program is primarily used to design graphics and animations and publish them the same for websites, web apps, and video games. The program also offers limited support for embedding audio and video, and ActionScript scripting.
Adobe released Adobe LiveMotion, which is designed to create interactive animated content and export it to various formats, including SWF. LiveMotion failed to get an important user base.
In February 2003, Macromedia bought Presedia, which has developed a Flash authoring tool that automatically converts PowerPoint files into Flash. Macromedia then released a new product as Breeze, which includes many new enhancements.
Third party tools
A variety of free and commercial software packages can display animations into Flash SWF format, suitable for display on the web, including:
- SWiSH Max is an animation editor with preset animations, developed by former Macromedia employees, who can display Flash animations
- Toon Boom is a traditional animation tool that can display Flash animation
- Apple Keynote allows users to export the presentation to Flash SWF animation
- Photos of Xara & amp; Graphic Designer can display Flash animation
- Ajax Animator aims to create Flash development environment
- KToon can edit vector and generate SWF, but its interface is very different from Macromedia
- Screencast and Screencam, generate a demo or tutorial with screen capture and generate the same Flash animation
- GoAnimate is software as a service tool for creating animated videos.
- Anime Studio is a special 2D animation software package for character animation, which creates Flash animation
- The Author queries publish their quizzes to Flash animation
- OpenOffice Impress
- Toufee
- KoolMoves
- Express Animator
- CelAction2D
- Alligator Flash Designer
- Amara Web
- Clash
- Salasaga
- Synfig
The Flash 4 Linux project is an initiative to develop open source Linux applications as an alternative to Adobe Animate. The development plan includes the authoring capacity for 2D animation, and tweening, as well as the output of the SWF file format. F4L evolved into an editor capable of creating 2D animations and publishing SWF files. Flash 4 Linux was renamed to UIRA. UIRA is meant to combine resources and knowledge about F4L projects and Qflash projects, both of which are Open Source applications that aim to provide an exclusive alternative to Adobe Flash.
Programming tools
Official tools
Adobe provides a suite of tools for developing software applications and video games for Flash:
- Apache Flex SDK - free open source SDK to compile rich Flash-based Internet applications from source code. The Apache Flex ActionScript 3.0 compiler generates SWF files from ActionScript 3 files. Flex is the main compiler of ActionScript 3 and was developed actively by Adobe before it was donated to the Apache Software Foundation in 2011.
- Adobe Animate - primarily used for graphic design and animation, but supports ActionScript scripting and debugging.
- Adobe Flash Builder - enterprise & amp; debugging, contains Flex SDK with UI and mapping components.
- Adobe Scout - the visual profiler to optimize the performance of Flash content.
- CrossBridge - free SDK to compile cross C code to run in Flash Player.
Third party tools
Third-party development tools have been created to assist developers in creating software applications and video games with Flash.
- FlashDevelop is a free, open-source ActionScript Flash IDE, which includes project managers and debugger to create apps in Flash Player and Adobe AIR.
- Powerflasher FDT is a commercial ActionScript IDE that is similar to FlashDevelop.
- Haxe is an open source, high-level object-oriented programming language directed at creating web content that can compile SWF files from the Haxe program. In 2012, Haxe can create programs for Flash Player that work faster than the same applications created with Adobe Flex SDK compilers, due to additional supported compiler optimizations at Haxe.
- SWFTools (specially, swfc) is an open-source ActionScript 3.0 compiler that generates SWF files from script files, which include SVG tags.
- swfmill and MTASC also provide tools to create SWF files by compiling text, ActionScript or XML files into Flash animation
- The Ming Library, for creating programmed SWF files, has interfaces for C, PHP, C, Perl, Python, and Ruby. It is capable of importing and exporting graphics from XML to SWF.
Player
Ownership
Adobe Flash Player is a multimedia player and application originally developed by Macromedia and acquired by Adobe Systems. It plays SWF files, which can be created by Adobe Animate, Apache Flex, or any other Adobe System and third-party tools. It has support for a scripting language called ActionScript, which can be used to display Flash Video from SWF files.
Scaleform GFx is a commercial alternative Flash player featuring full 2D graphics rendering hardware using GPU. Scaleform has high compatibility with Flash 10 ActionScript 3 and Flash 8 ActionScript 2. Scaleform GFx is a game development middleware solution that helps create a graphical user interface or HUD in 3D video games. This does not work with a web browser.
IrfanView, the image viewer, uses Flash Player to display SWF files.
Open source
OpenFL is an open-source implementation of the Adobe Flash API. This allows developers to build a single application against the OpenFL API and simultaneously target multiple platforms including iOS, Android, HTML5 (Canvas, WebGL, SVG or DOM), Windows, MacOS, Linux, WebAssembly, Flash, AIR, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Xbox One, Wii U, TiVo, Raspberry Pi, and Node.js.
OpenFL reflects the Flash API for graphical operations. OpenFL applications can be written in Haxe, JavaScript (EcmaScript 5 or 6), or TypeScript.
Lightspark is a free and open source SWF player that supports most ActionScript 3.0 and has a compatible Mozilla plug-in. It will fall back on Gnash, a free SWF player that supports ActionScript code 1.0 and 2.0 (AVM1). Lightspark supports OpenGL-based rendering for 3D content. This player is also compatible with Flash H.264 video on YouTube.
Gnash aims to create a software player and browser plugin replacement for Adobe Flash Player. Gnash can play SWF files up to version 7, and 80% of ActionScript 2.0. Gnash runs on Windows, Linux, and other platforms for 32-bit, 64-bit, and other operating systems, but development has slowed significantly in recent years.
Shumway is an open source Flash Player released by Mozilla in November 2012. It's made in JavaScript and is compatible with modern web browsers. In early October 2013, Shumway is included by default in the Firefox night branch. Shumway translates Flash content by translating content inside Flash files into HTML5 elements, and running an ActionScript interpreter in JavaScript. It is supported both AVM1 and AVM2, and ActionScript versions 1, 2, and 3. Shumway development stopped in early 2016.
Adobe Flash Player can not be submitted as part of a pure open source, or completely free operating system, because its distribution is tied to the Macromedia Licensing Program and is subject to the first proposition of Adobe.
Availability
Desktop computer
Flash Player
Adobe Flash is no longer used. The latest version of Adobe Flash Player is available for three major desktop platforms, including Windows, macOS and Linux. On Linux, PPAPI plug-ins are available; the NPAPI version was not updated to the new primary version for a while until Adobe changed its mind to stop support and previous plans to stop "in 2017".
Adobe Flash Player is available in four flavors:
- Plug-in based on ActiveX
- NPAPI-based plug-ins
- PPAPI-based plug-ins
- Projector
The ActiveX version is an ActiveX control for use in Internet Explorer and other Windows applications that support ActiveX technology. The Plug-in version is available for browsers that support NPAPI or PPAPI plug-ins on Microsoft Windows, macOS and Linux. Version projector is a standalone player that can open SWF files directly.
The following table documents Flash Player and Adobe AIR support on desktop operating systems:
Adobe AIR
The latest version of Adobe AIR, version 18, contains Adobe Flash Player 18, and is available for Windows XP and later, and macOS. The official support for desktop Linux distribution stopped in June 2011 with version 2.6.
Mobile devices
Flash Player
Adobe Flash Player is available for various mobile operating systems, including Android (between versions 2.2 and 4.0.4), Pocket PC/Windows CE, QNX (eg on BlackBerry PlayBook), Symbian, Palm OS, and webOS (since version 2.0). Flash Player for smart phones made available for handset manufacturers by the end of 2009.
However, in November 2011, Adobe announced the withdrawal of support for Flash Player on mobile devices. Adobe continues to support the deployment of Flash-based content as a mobile app through Adobe AIR.
Adobe reaffirms its commitment to "contribute aggressively" to HTML5. Adobe announces the end of Flash for mobile or TV platforms instead of focusing on HTML5 for browser content and Adobe AIR for various mobile app stores and describing it as "the beginning of the end". BlackBerry LTD (formerly known as RIM) announced that it will continue developing Flash Player for Playbook.
No Adobe Flash Player for iOS devices (iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch). However, Flash content can be built to run on iOS devices in a variety of ways:
- Flash content can be bundled inside the Adobe AIR app, which will then run on iOS devices. (Apple did not allow this for a while, but they loosened those restrictions in September 2010.)
- As of March 8, 2011, Techradar reports that Adobe provides an experimental server-side tool (Wallaby) to convert Flash programs (as far as possible) to HTML5 code, enabling iOS devices to display content.
- If the content is a Flash video served by Adobe Flash Media Server 4.5, the server will translate and send the video as HTTP Dynamic Streaming or HTTP Live Stream, both of which can be played by iOS devices.
- Some specialized mobile browsers manage to accommodate Flash through streaming content from the cloud directly to the user's device. Some examples are Photon Browser and Puffin Web Browser.
The mobile version of Internet Explorer for Windows Phone can not play Flash content, but Flash support is still in the Windows tablet version.
Adobe AIR
Adobe AIR was released in 2008, and allows the creation of mobile apps and mobile games using Flash and ActionScript. Leading mobile games built with Flash include Angry Birds , Machinarium and Defend Your Castle .
Using AIR, developers can access full Adobe Flash functionality, including text, vector graphics, raster graphics, video, audio, cameras, and microphone capabilities. Adobe AIR also includes additional features such as file system integration, native client extensions, desktop integration and access to connected devices and sensors.
AIR apps can be published as native phone apps on certain mobile operating systems, such as Android (ARM Cortex-A8 and above) and Apple iOS.
The following table explains how far Adobe AIR can run on different mobile operating systems:
Portable electronic devices
Adobe Flash Lite is a lightweight version of Adobe Flash Player intended for mobile phones and other portable electronic devices such as Chumby and iRiver.
In the market of single-board fans that appear, because substantially popularized by Raspberry Pi, support from Adobe is still lacking. However, the Gnash open-source player has been ported and proven to be useful.
Alternative
OpenFL
OpenFL is an open-source implementation of Adobe Flash technology. This allows developers to build a single application against the OpenFL API, and simultaneously target multiple platforms including Flash/AIR, HTML5, Windows, Android, Tizen, Neko, BlackBerry and webOS. OpenFL reflects the Flash API for graphical operations. The OpenFL app is written in Haxe, a modern multi-platform programming language.
Over 500 video games have been developed with OpenFL, including award-winning games BAFTA Papers, Please , Rymdkapsel, Lightbot and Madden NFL Mobile.
HTML5
HTML5 is often cited as an alternative to the use of Adobe Flash technology in web pages. Adobe released a tool that converts Flash to HTML5, and in June 2011, Google released an experimental tool that does the same thing. In January 2015, YouTube failed to use the HTML5 player to support more devices better.
Flash to HTML5
The following tools enable running Flash content in web browsers using HTML5:
- Adobe Edge Animate is designed to generate HTML5 animations directly.
- Adobe Animate now allows Flash animations to be published directly into HTML5 content.
- Google Swiffy - A web-based tool developed by Google that converts SWF files to HTML5, uses SVG for graphics and JavaScript for animation
- Mozilla Shumway, a Flash virtual machine written in JavaScript.
- CreateJS is a library that temporarily available separately is also adopted by Adobe instead of Wallaby in CS6. Unlike Wallaby, which is a standalone program, "Toolkit for CreateJS" only serves as a plug-in in Flash Professional; this generates output for HTML5 canvas, animated with JavaScript. Around December 2013, the toolkit is integrated directly into Flash Professional CC.
Criticism
Mobile support
Websites created with Adobe Flash will not work on most modern mobile devices running Google Android or iOS (iPhone, iPad). The only alternative is to use HTML5 and responsive web design to build websites that support desktop and mobile devices.
However, Flash is still used to create mobile games using Adobe AIR. Such games will not work in the mobile web browser, but must be installed through the appropriate app store.
vendor dependency
Adobe's dependence on Flash decoding makes its use on the World Wide Web a concern - the completeness of the public specification is debatable, and no complete implementation of Flash is available to the public in the form of source code with licenses that allow reuse. In general, the public specification is what makes the format re-implemented (see future check-in data storage), and the reusable code base can be ported to a new platform without support from the format builder.
Adobe's limitation on the use of the SWF/FLV specification was revoked in February 2009 (see Adobe Open Screen Project). However, despite project attempts like Gnash, Swfdec, and Lightspark, the free Flash player is still not visible until September 2011. For example, Gnash can not yet use SWF v10. In particular, Gnash is listed on the Free Software Foundation's high priority list, from at least 2007, until its delisted deletion in January 2017.
Leading proponents of free software, open standards, and the World Wide Web have warned against the use of Flash:
Mozilla Europe founder Tristan Nitot stated in 2008:
Companies that build websites should be careful of proprietary rich media technologies like Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight. (...) You produce content for your users and there is someone in the middle deciding whether users should see your content.
Representing open standards, the inventor of CSS and co-authors of HTML5, HÃÆ'  ¥ kon Wium Lie explained in the 2007 Google technology talk, titled "the & lt; video & gt; element", Theora proposal as a format for HTML5 video:
I strongly believe that we need to agree on some basic video formats if [video elements] will work. Flash is currently the basic format on the web. The problem with Flash is that this is not an open standard.
Representing the free software movement, Richard Stallman stated in a speech in 2004 that: "The use of Flash on websites is a big problem for our community."
Accessibility
Usability Consultant Jakob Nielsen published Alertbox in 2000 titled, Flash: 99% Bad, stating that "Flash tends to bring down websites for three reasons: it encourages the misuse of design, it breaks with the basic principles of Web interaction , and it distracts from the core values ​​of the site. "Some issues have at least been partially corrected since Nielsen's complaint: Text size can be controlled using full-page zoom and has made it possible for writers to insert alternate text in Flash since Flash Player 6.
Flash Blocking in web browser
Flash content is usually embedded using HTML object or embed elements. Web browsers that do not fully implement one of these elements will display replacement text, if provided by the web page. Often, a plugin is required for browsers to fully implement these elements, although some users can not or will not install them.
Because Flash can be used to produce content (such as ads) that some users are annoying or take a lot of bandwidth for download, some web browsers, by default, do not play Flash content until the user clicks on it, e.g. Konqueror, K-Meleon.
Most browsers today have the feature to block plugins, playing one only when the user clicks on it. Opera version since 10.5 has original Flash blocking feature. Opera Turbo requires users to click to play Flash content, and the browser also allows users to activate this option permanently. Both Chrome and Firefox have the option to enable "click to play plugins". Extension "Flash blocker" extensions are also available for many popular browsers: Firefox has Flashblock and NoScript, Internet Explorer has Foxie, which contains a number of features, one named Flashblock. WebKit-based browsers under macOS, like Apple's Safari, have ClickToFlash. In June 2015, Google announced that Chrome would "pause" non-central "Flash ads and content" by default.
Firefox (from version 46) rewrote the old Flash-only YouTube encoding code to a modern, embedded YouTube player capable of using HTML5 or Flash. Such embed code is used by non-YouTube sites to embed YouTube videos, and can still be found, for example, on old blogs and forums.
Security
Over the years, the Adobe Flash Player security notes have made many security experts advise against installing players, or blocking Flash content. AS-CERT has recommended blocking Flash, and security researcher Charlie Miller recommends "not installing Flash"; however, for people who still use Flash, Intego recommends that users get trusted updates "only directly from the vendors who publish it." On February 12, 2015, Adobe Flash Player has over 400 CVE entries, of which more than 300 lead to the execution of arbitrary code, and past vulnerability has allowed spy via web cameras. Security experts have long foretold the loss of Flash, saying that with the advent of HTML5 "... the need for browser plugins like Flash is reduced", as only 7 to 10 percent of websites still use it.
Active moves by third parties to limit risk started with Steve Jobs in 2010 saying that Apple will not allow Flash on iPhone, iPod touch and iPad - citing poor security as one of the reasons. Flash frequently uses the ability to dynamically change part of the runtime on languages ​​in OSX to improve their own performance, but causes general instability. In July 2015, a series of newly discovered vulnerabilities caused Facebook's top security officer, Alex Stamos, to issue a call to Adobe to stop the full software and web browser Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Apple Safari to blacklist all previous versions of Flash Player..
As a result, "Adobe basically stopped trying to do something new and innovative with Flash."
Like HTTP cookies, flash cookies (also known as "Local Shared Object") can be used to store application data. Flash cookies are not shared across domains. An August 2009 study by Ashkan Soltani and a research team at UC Berkeley found that 50% of websites using Flash also use flash cookies, but privacy policies rarely disclose them, and user controls for privacy preferences are lacking. Most browser cache and history pressing or deleting functions do not affect the writing of Flash Player Local Shared Objects to their own caches in version 10.2 and earlier, at which time the user community is much less aware of the existence and functionality of Flash cookies than HTTP cookies. Thus, users with that version, after deleting HTTP cookies and deleting browser history and cache files, may believe they have cleared all tracking data from their computers when in fact Flash browsing history still exists. The Adobe Flash Website Storage Settings Panel itself, Adobe Flash Settings Manager web application submenu, and other editors and toolkits can manage settings for and remove Flash Local Shared Objects.
See also
- Adobe Creative Cloud
- List of 2D animation software
- OpenFL is an open-source implementation of the Flash platform
- Saffron Type System - an anti-alias text rendering engine used in version 8 and beyond
- SWFObject - JavaScript library used to embed Flash content into web pages
- Microsoft Silverlight
- JavaFX
- OpenLaszlo
- Synfig
Footnote
References
External links
- Official website
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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