Macromedia Flash is line-drawing graphics tool for creating animations and vector graphics for the Web or for other mediums like television and video. With Flash you can create smal more sophisticated files than animated GIFs. Because of this, it is becoming the software of choice for Web animation. In a Flash environment, you can create interactive, vector-based web sites and desktop applications. Flash allows you to create animations to publish on the Web or as stand-alone files.

With Flash You can cause objects to spin, grow, shrink, or blink, and stop. Do you need to explain how your product works? Use Flash to create an animated demonstration. Flash is bandwidth-friendly, and the proper plug-ins make it work with any browser.

Flash can create animated sequences using frame-by-frame and tweened animation. You can use it to add sound to movies. Flash's advanced ActionScript techniques create interactive forms. Flash evaluates the position of an object, and dynamically sets properties of an object. With its graphical user interface, code generating capability and drag-and-drop functionality, animation with Flash can be done "in a flash"!

With Flash MX you can import any standard video file supported by QuickTime or Windows Media Player, including MPEG, DV (Digital Video), MOV (QuickTime), and AVI. Manipulate, scale, rotate, skew, mask, and animate video objects, and make them interactive using scripting. Video is natively supported in Macromedia Flash Player 6 with the addition of the Sorenson Spark codec. Learn Macromedia Flash MX quickly with its familiar and flexible development environment. that contains a new Answers panel that connects the web to the development tool and provides useful information to designers and developers within the user interface.

Flash MX supports vertical text and Unicode for building multilingual content and applications. Flash MX comes with a core set of pre-built, customizable components for common application interfaces, including scrollbars, rich text fields, input buttons, radio buttons and check boxes, and list and combo boxes.

What is the Macromedia Flash Player?

As of November 2002, there are over 488 million people worldwide using Macromedia Flash Player. It's one of the most downloaded pieces of software in history! The low-bandwidth, animation, web application advanced-scripting darling has made the web more than static pages of content for many years. Developers have built navigation elements, e-commerce sites, online banks, MP3 players, animated content, TV commercials, and art work. Pretty much anything online that can display an image (moving or static) uses Macromedia Flash in some manner. The next time you interact with rich content on the web, there's a good chance it's Macromedia Flash content. The same holds true for mobile devices. While there are not as many mobile devices as desktop computers (yet), it's worth noting that 100 percent of the CLIÉ NX Series owners have Macromedia Flash Player installed. For content creators, this is key.

Macromedia Flash Player 6 now dynamically loads external JPEG and MP3 media files during runtime, which results in smaller file sizes. Macromedia Flash MX content can now be bookmarked, allowing for the use of the browser Back and Forward buttons. New Graphic Design Tools and Color Mixer Enhancements. New Free Transform tool and Pixel-Level Snapping Control provide enhanced creative freedom and control over graphic content. Persistent XML connectivity allows real-time information to be displayed. Use XML structured data to create sales forms, virtual shopping carts, customer surveys, and more. Flash Player 6 now also supports assistive technologies such as screen readers through support of Microsoft Active Accessibility. In addition, Macromedia Flash MX now integrates tools for creating accessible content.

In many cases, if you see something on the web that that uses Macromedia Flash, you'll be able to use it on your CLIÉ. Macromedia Flash is one of the few, perhaps the only format that allows you this flexibility. Later in this article, we'll go over ways you can get Macromedia Flash content for the CLIÉ.

How do I download the Macromedia Flash Player to my computer?

Good question! All you have to do to download the Macromedia Flash Player is click on this button:

www.macromedia.com/software/flash/