Macromedia Flash

Macromedia Flash, or simply Flash, refers to both a multimedia authoring program and the Macromedia Flash Player, written and distributed by Macromedia (recently targeted for acquisition by Adobe Systems), that utilizes vector and raster graphics, a native scripting language called ActionScript and bidirectional streaming of video and audio. Strictly speaking, Macromedia Flash is the authoring environment and Flash Player is the virtual machine application used to run the Flash files, but in colloquial language these have become mixed: "Flash" can mean either the authoring environment, the player or the application files.

Programming Language

Flash MX 2004 uses ActionScript 2.0, a derivative of ECMAScript 4, which has syntax similar to JavaScript, but a much different programming framework and set of class libraries. ActionScript 2.0 is a scripting programming language that lacks run-time strong types.

Related Topics:
ActionScript - ECMAScript - JavaScript - Scripting programming language - Run-time - Strong type

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Pre-2.0 ActionScript may be used alone or together with ActionScript 2.0 to access to the same objects and resources within Flash MX 2004. While ActionScript 2.0 offers a few object-oriented features, such as events, interfaces, and inheritance, most of Flash MX 2004's object-oriented capability lies solely within its compiler.

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ActionScript 2.0 may be compiled with the built-in compiler in the Flash IDE or with Motion Twin ActionScript2 Compiler (MTASC). See external links.

Related Topics:
IDE - External links

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Actionscript rules

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