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Flash - The Next Generation Integrated Development Environment

Flash is an integrated development environment (IDE) that refers to the Flash Player, a virtual machine used to run or parse the Flash files, and the multimedia authoring program used to create the image, video, etc. Flash files are traditionally called "Flash movies" or "Flash games,” having .swf as a file extension and may be an object of a web page, a standalone Flash Player, or a self-executing Flash movie.

A Flash Player includes the ActionScript Virtual Machine (AVM), a virtual machine for scripting interactivity at run-time, support for video, audio, and bitmap graphics. The latest version is Flash Player 8 the main quality of this version are the two video codecs: On2 Technologies VP6 and Sorenson Spark, and run-time support for JPEG, Progressive JPEG, PNG, and GIF.

Initially focused primarily on creating animation, earlier versions of Flash offered a small amount of interactivity features and thus had very limited scripting capability. However, recent versions include vector and raster graphics, bi-directional streaming of audio and video and ActionScript, a scripting language that can be used to create almost all of the interactivity (buttons, text entry fields, pick lists) seen in many Flash applications. Thanks to the recent additions to Flash that it has become a widely popular method for adding an element of interactivity to web pages, software products, or displays. The latest version of Flash also allows development of rich Internet applications (RIA).

Today, Flash libraries are being used with the XML capabilities of browsers to render rich content on the web. Today, Flash is considered as a viable addition to the capabilities of a browser for its comprehensive support for vector graphics than browsers and since it provides a scripting language geared towards interactive animations. However, Flash libraries are yet to reach its potential as it is still in a nascent stage. However, once functional, it is bound to be another feather in Adobe’s cap.