Radu Luchian(ov): Portfolio: CHI
Fast Prototyping in Flash

Intro

Present myself and my (2 current academic) interests: MonDoc and MneMonic

• Hands-up
• A bit of terminology
  • stage,timeline,property sheets,library([un]used),movie explorer
  • real prototyping: OO(D,D,E,P),encapsulation,inheritance,properties,methods/actions,class vs. instance

Since:

• there's no time in one session for an in-depth Flash tutorial,
• I see no reason to do such a tutorial since it would only muddy up your Director experience,
• the Flash online reference and samples are rather good at teaching the neophite,

... I'd be happy if by the end of this session you have an idea about What should you expect from Flash? Even the comparison between Flash and Director on the Macromedia web site seems to suggest Flash as better for fast prototyping. "Macromedia Flash is often used to create fast-loading graphics, animations and application interfaces for the web and devices. Macromedia Director Shockwave Studio is used to create extensible multimedia content (including 3D) deployable across the web and fixed media." When Director was already a robust prototyping tool, Flash -and the Internet- were not even ideas, but scifi novel material. Over time, Macromedia has developed Flash and Director in the same direction, standardizing the two interfaces, adding features to Flash, until I can make only two plain disctinctions:

• Lingo vs. JavaScript (in favor of Flash if you also do DHTML, in favor of Director if you prefer a predominantly drag-and-drop approach to programming) and
• bitmap AND video AND 3D vs. bitmap AND vectorial (depends on what's prototyped)
• Mac/PC/Unix vs. Mac/PC/Unix/set-top/handheld/wireless

Ultimately, though, it's a matter of how comfortable one is with each of the interfaces and quirks. Of course you could include Flash elements in Director movies if you really liked Lingo over JavaScript, but why bother to learn two applications and two macro languages?

The environment

There's nothing inherently bitmap-oriented about the WIMP paradigm, but the use of icons and "buttons" as an alternative to menus, has led to the use of bitmaps in most implementations. In Flash, you can choose your ways. (1)swashbang smoke: bitmap frame stuffing, (2) real prototyping or (3) any combination thereof (incrementally going from (1) to (2))