Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 1.1
The Adobe Flash Platform.
The
Adobe Flash Platform is an integrated set of technologies sur-
rounded by an established ecosystem of support programs, busi-
ness partners, and enthusiastic user communities.
The current short description on Adobe
'
s Web site states,
“
The site also
lists the technologies included in the Flash Platform as Flash
Player, Adobe AIR, Flex, Flash Builder, Flash Professional, Flash
Media Server, and LiveCycle Data Services ES. I
”
ll be touching on
some, but not all of these technologies in this topic.
We
'
'
re obviously going to be working with Flash, and if you
don
t already have it installed on your computer, you can get a
trial version from the Adobe Web site. I
'
'
ll also touch on Flash
Builder 4 a little, though it
'
s not a part of the Flash Platform, and
I
ll be using Photoshop as well. Each of these can be downloaded
from the following locations:
'
Flash
-
http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/
Flash Builder
-
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashbuilder/
Photoshop
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/
Okay, now that you
-
d like to continue with
some extremely brief descriptions of each one. If you
'
ve got your tools, I
'
re already
familiar with them, please feel free to skip ahead to the next
section.
'
Flash Professional
Flash (Fig. 1.2) is where this all started many years ago (under a dif-
ferent name) and it has come a long way over all those years. It
s
beenaroundforawhileandIbelieve(oratleasthope)thatitwill
continue to grow for many more years to come. After all, it has an
entire platform named after it, right? Flash, in the sense of this parti-
cular paragraph/section, is an IDE used to develop, animate, and
compile your work to usable files such as .swf files, executable (.exe)
files, Adobe AIR applications, and even more recently, iPhone apps.
'
