Software tools we use:
Adobe Flash Actionscript
Who could possibly have predicted the growth of the web twenty
years ago. It is probably a fair comment that its growth is partly the
result of improvements in web technology like Flash from Adobe, the
makers of the portable document format (pdf).
Flash began as a means to produce simple animations in web
pages, then developed from these humble and perhaps irritating orgins
to something that has allowed developers to produce some of the most
outstanding web experiences of the millenium. It has grown into a fully
featured object oriented programming language with comprehensive event
handling, video support, xml support, database support, and of course
its celebrated animation capabilities.
Flash is used extensively to produce stunning and innovative
web sites. If you see an advertisement for a car with fades, video, it
was probably produced with Flash, but there are many reasons to use
Flash other than these:
Advantages of Flash ActionScript
Flash and the Flash plug-in have ensured that flash
applications can be experienced on the majority of computers be they
Mac, Linux, PC, regardless of the browser in use. This type of
portability has maximised the penetration of Flash applications, and
often makes Flash the obvious choice, where other languages (with less
coverage) may be technically better. At Meadowlark we have often found
that choosing Flash was an easy and safe decision to make in the light
of uncertain user demands.
Flash is powerful. Flash is a comprehensive program
development tool. It does what conventional languages do, it is object
oriented, is savvy with all the modern development tools and
techniques, and runs on any browser with the Flash plug-in.
Flash applications are compact. Create a comprehensive Flash
application and then take a look at the size of the program file. It is
easy to produce files with tiny footprints and this means short
download times for the user.
Flash addresses the needs of the typically pandered PC user
who expects an application to have a sophisticated user interface akin
to a Windows or Mac desktop application. It does this via its extensive
event handling and exceptional control of presentation. The user rolls the mouse over a button and the button
changes colour, re-sizes, or displays a list of outcomes of a button
press. This is altogether more complex than the type of interaction
that is typical of a web page using just HTML, and scripting. In fact Flash allow developers to exceed the expectations of users who have hitherto only been familiar with desktop applications and their standard (staid?) look and feel. The
JavaScript programmers amongst you may be saying, "but JavaScript does
all this", but JavaScript, unlike Flash, is in fact of series of
different languages (though similar) from different sources and cannot
be relied upon to behave identically as it executes in each browser.
Think of Flash (which is based on JavaScript) as a bigger better more powerful version of its older sibling.
What can you do with Flash that you cannot with other languages?
To produce the most stunning web based application with the best graphics, interactivity, animation, and sophistication, on the greatest number of web connected devices around the world, you have to use Flash.
What you can expect
from computer hardware in the future?
1. Smaller faster, cheaper, lighter computers for the desktop.
They will be no larger than a DVD drive. They will
be
silent, and run free software, and much of this will be web based.
They will use solid state disks, and large quantities of
cheap
memory.
2. More powerful mobile phones will largely replace
traditional PCs. The
screens of mobiles will occupy as much of the phone as physicallly
possible. "Soft buttons will have largely replaced mechanical
buttons in top of the range phones.
3. Sophisticated screen display technology will be available
that will allow us to
use bigger computer monitors in smaller less likely workplaces.
4. Micro-factories: places of work no bigger than a loft
extension, where budding entrepreneurs labour in their free time
"printing" products with 3D printers and selling their wares
by the internet.