What Can Macromedia Flash Do?
Macromedia Flash started its life as a vector-based animation tool designed to give web developers the ability to embed fluid and compact animations in their web pages. That was a long time ago, however, and Macromedia Flash has changed immensely. Starting with Macromedia Flash 4, people began building user interfaces out of Macromedia Flash because of its platform independence, scripting support, and intuitive authoring environment. The most current version of Macromedia Flash, Macromedia Flash MX (analogous to version 6), is as different from Macromedia Flash 4 as Macromedia Flash 4 was from Macromedia Flash 1. Macromedia Flash MX is now a full-fledged application development environment which supports: • XML • Socket connections • Object-oriented ECMA compliant scripting language (ActionScript) • Component architecture for GUI elements • Styles to control look and feel • Event broadcasting • Object serialization • Local data storage • Remote method invocation through Flash Remoting