Flash and Shockwave

Essential Reading

PowerPoint lecture slides Introduction to Flash (792k).

Flash arrives with a number of tutorials built into the package. It is probably a good idea to try these before looking at anything more demanding.

Flash resources for the lecture notes

Using <object> without <embed>

The HTML template produced by Flash to embed shockwave into web pages nests an <embed> tag inside an <object> tag in order to be compatible with all browsers. But the <embed> tag is deprecated in the XHTML 1.1 vocabulary.

This elementary example demonstrates how to embed shockwave into a web page that is XHTML 1.1, works in all popular browsers and is WCAG priority 3 compliant (even if Bobby says otherwise).

Working with PHP

There are a number of ways that Flash can interact with server resources. directory.html provides an example of data transfer between shockwave and MySQL using PHP for the server side scripting. Although this is a simple example it does demonstrate how shockwave can access server resources without having to reload the page. Although Flash developers have been creating asynchronous applications such as this for some years the idea has become incredibly popular in DHTML applications since J.J.Garrett published his AJAX paper in 2005. The expression 'patial page update pattern' is also used to describe such behaviour.

Flash resources

Macromedia

Other resources

Flash Examples

Mr Scruff provides an interesting example of an interactive Flash site in which he demonstrates that you don't need to be a skilled graphical artist to be creative

    What do you like /dislike about this site?
    What might someone else not like about this site?

Let no one elses work evade your eyes...
Sorry Scruffy but I pinched your idea for dance.html
Get the source dance.fla here

Wasting even more time at work

Sometimes the whole point of Flash is to entertain. These are some of my favourites...