Flash development

Adobe Flash as a development environment for interactive and multimedia applications is a commonly used technology and in the form of browser plug-ins can be used in more than 95% of today's browsers.

Flash and Flex development technologies are used for complex animations or rich Internet applications (RIA). Many online banners, for example, use Flash, and videos are played with the Flash Player supplied directly in the browser (although this application is about to be replaced with integrated video players and HTML5).

During Flash development, source files are compiled into so-called SWF files which can then be played directly in the browser using the plug-in. This concept was originally used almost exclusively as a pure tool for Flash animations. However, with the introduction of ActionScript 3.0, Adobe Flash also obtained XML support which opened up completely new applications, even including complex, repository-based applications drawing on Flash technology.

Although many applications exist today for which there is no product equivalent to Flash in web development, it remains to be seen whether Flash will be able to keep its rank on the web. That this may no longer be the case is indicated by the increasing use of mobile devices which up to now use Flash technology on a downgraded level only, as well as announcements by certain manufacturers, including Apple, according to which support for Flash technology is to be phased out in the future.