The Macromedia Flash program is an excellent way to create and add animation and interactivity to a Web page. It is a collection of tools for animating and drawing graphics, adding sound, creating interactive elements, and playing movies. It quickly is becoming a standard for Web animation. Objects within Flash are created using vector graphics. Recall from Project 2 that mathematical formulas are used to describe vector images and produce relatively small file sizes. By contrast, GIF and JPEG graphics use bitmap technology, which includes data for every pixel within an object. Bitmap technology therefore produces large file sizes. Thus, vector images are a more efficient method of delivering graphics over the Internet because they are displayed faster on a downloading Web page.

Creating Flash files (also called Flash movies) requires that the developer use the Flash program. Learning to use this program and developing Flash movies can be time-consuming. A search of the Internet, however, produces many Web sites with free and/or nominally-priced Flash animations that can be downloaded and added to your Dreamweaver Web page.

Most media objects require a helper program or plug-in before they can be displayed in the browser. For instance, the Flash player is required to view Flash files. Plug-ins are discussed in more detail later in this project. The Flash player is available as both a plug-in for Netscape Navigator and an ActiveX control for Microsoft
Internet Explorer, and it is incorporated in the latest versions of Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and America Online. Macromedia also provides this player as a free download at the Macromedia Web site. You will learn more about plug-ins and ActiveX controls later in this project.