Performance Testing Adobe Flash Apps

Notes on Adobe (formerly Adobe)'s Flash and Flex software to create animated interactive web sites that load slowly but work quickly.

Take the Brainbench certification test on Flash 4 and Flash 5.

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Why Flash?

Animated gifs are simply several image files shown in quick succession. Pixels which don't change from one image to another do not change because they are repeated in every file.

Flash loads quicker than animated gifs because Flash doesn't repeat pixels.

Flash can display colors beyond the 265 color limit of gif files.

Examples of what you can do: Sound effects, Bouncing ball

How is Flash different than Shockwave?

How is Flash different than Flex?

Competitors include OpenLaszlo, the first opensource RIA (Rich Internet Application).

The Adobe Flash product home page has examples of how the product is used.

Download a trial version of Flash or Flash MX.

Adobe Dreamweaver Mx 2004: Hands-On Training (Addison-Wesley, 22 December, 2003) by Garo Green, Lynda Weinman

Components of Flash

Web pages (html files) containing Flash use JavaScript to detect the browser, ensure the correct version of the Flash plug-in is installed.

Most Flash sites use a JavaScript library to detect the Flash version installed and nags the user to upgrade.

For the small percentaage of users who have JavaScript turned off but ActiveX turned on, between <noscript> and </noscript> tags is this object:

Users who have JavaScript disabled will need to click to activate content in the updated IE browser when they visit a page with code similar to the above.

External JavaScript for Browser Detection

In this script, the if statement ensures that the JavaScript library was properly loaded to make the function available.

If the library was not downloaded to the client properly, instead of an ugly JavaScript error, the script issues an alert.

<script language="javascript">
	if (AC_FL_RunContent == 0) {
		alert("Plese try again. This page requires AC_RunActiveContent.js, which was not downloaded properly.");
	} else {
		AC_FL_RunContent(
			'codebase', 'http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,0,0',
			'width', '665',
			'height', '385',
			'src', 'MyVideoShowcase',
			'quality', 'high',
			'pluginspage', 'http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer',
			'align', 'middle',
			'play', 'true',
			'loop', 'true',
			'scale', 'showall',
			'wmode', 'window',
			'devicefont', 'false',
			'id', 'MyVideoShowcase',
			'bgcolor', '#ffffff',
			'name', 'MyVideoShowcase',
			'menu', 'true',
			'allowFullScreen', 'false',
			'allowScriptAccess','sameDomain',
			'movie', 'MyVideoShowcase',
			'salign', ''
			); //end AC_FL_RunContent(
	}
</script>

version 9

There are several versions of the AC_FL_RunContent JavaScript library file developed by Adobe.
"AC" ia an abbreviation for "Active Content". "FL" ia a contraction of "Flash".

Workspace Navigation

It can be intimidating to see the Flash workspace anew. It doesn't help that help appears in another sliver of a panel instead of a floating window.

Minimize a panel by clicking the title.
Expand a panel by moving your mouse over the "grip" icon to the left of the Help panel name and drag it to the center of the workspace.
Undock a panel by clicking the upper left corner of the panel's Title bar, then drag the panel to another location in the work area.
Resize an undocked panel by dragging the lower right edge out to enlarge the panel.

The Flash screen is divided into several panes:

Toolbar on the left
Timeline for keyframes on each layer
Stage containing objects and symbols

The menu bar: File Edit View Insert Modify Text Commands Control Window Help

Operations

Open Courseware - Flash class at Utaw State U.

Bruce Hamilton's tutorial demonstrates Tweening by converting

Click an item on the toolbar.
Create the object on the stage.
On the toolbar, Click on the symbol button
Insert> Convert into Symbol (Press F8) for repetitive use
F6 insert keyframe
F12 publish

Designs By Mark.com

Flashbang 4

Flash Exchange and Dreamweaver Exchange

To embed flash movies in a webpage using a standards-compliant HTML coding, Drew McLellan in 2002 wrote Flash "satay": Embedding Flash While Supporting Standards

He observes that the GUID used in the classid attribute was specific to each browser�s ActiveX configuration, so it can be replaced with type="application/x-shockwave-flash".

IE/Windows doesn�t stream the movie, but waits for the whole movie to download before playing it. So, he creates a small container movie in the first frame loads the real movie the user should see.

Convert movies from MPG to SWF with Riva.

Invoking: SWFObject

Geoff Stearns, in his article JavaScript Flash Player Detection and Embedding with SWFObject offers (released under the MIT License) JavaScript library swfobject.js that is forward-compatible, search engine�friendly, gracefully degrades, unobtrusive (not inline HTML), and can be used for text/html HTML and XHTML 1.0 documents instead of application/xhtml+xml)

from Adobe

from Google

SWFObject 2 is the approach recommended for displaying YouTube

SWFObject 2 HTML and JavaScript generator is available in Adobe AIR and HTML versions.

SWFObject 2 integrates the UFO library from Bobby van der Sluis.

This library uses Dynamic publishing with JavaScript to avoid 'click-to-activate' mechanisms in Internet Explorer 6+ and Opera 9+.

The SWFfix Javascript library went public alpha July 25, 2007. | documentation| It promotes the use of standards compliant markup by resolving issues with non-compliant browsers. It also can be used to dynamically embed Flash content (similar like SWFObject and UFO).

Testing

Test SWFfix on browsers you use

Run this LoadRunner script.

Resources - Tutorials

echoecho.com
webassist.com offers coding to
- accept credit cards for processing by Paypal,
- produce reports for salespeople
- send emails using database content
- manage cookies
flashkit.com
kirupa.com
Actionscripts.org
Actionscript.net
Adobe's Actionscript dictionary

Adobe Labs

Flex Eclipse-based IDE

computerarts.co.uk, the digital counterpart of a print magazine, features news, product reviews, and extensive tutorials that cover all sorts of digital design programs, including a plethora of learning tools for Flash.

ultrashock.com has tutorials, user forums, downloadable FLA files, articles, games, and cartoons, all wrapped up in an incredibly cool interface.

EchoEcho.com has tutorials on almost practically any Web design subject, including JavaScript and Flash. Download tts archive of FLA files to see how each effect was created.

Ellen Finklestein, a fellow For Dummies author, offers Flash tutorials on easier drawing methods, changing the pace of tweened animation, creating hyperlinked text, and sculpting shapes.

swift3d.com contains tutorials for using this powerful desktop application for creating good-liking 3-D Flash animations.

actionscripts.org orders its tutorials for beginner, intermediate, to advanced scripters.

flash-creations.com by Helen Triolo features up-to-date tutorials on ActionScript syntax, code snippets, sound files, and sources, as well as a myriad of other invaluable online resources.

communitymx.com offers Flash information and tutorials. There is also a section devoted to Flash extensions.

flashstreamworks.com has lots of Flash information, including tutorials and links to cool Flash broadband sites.

were-here.com xis chock-full of tutorials for ActionScript and Swift3D, including tutorials that show you how to create mouse trails, arrays, drag-and-drop movie clips, and dynamic text, as well as how to control a movie clip with a slider. This is an excellent and well-respected source for free Flash tutorials.

flashkit.com has great Flash tutorials and sounds for your Flash movies.

lynda.com by web design rock-star Lynda is packed with Flash tips, downloads, links, and techniques, as well as many free resources, including articles about color, inspirational Web sites, tips, and resource links.

flzone.net features tutorials, extensions, Flash source files, and sounds, as well as demos and forums.

moock.org has answers to technical questions and Flash examples from the mundane to the obscure. In addition, you'll find helpful ActionScript tutorials on this site.

PowerPoint To/From Flash

Powerpoint files require a special program to read and edit. So convert PPT to Flash .swt files which internet browsers can read -- immediately thanks to Flash streaming technology. Flash files are compressed, so they are =smaller than PPT files. This scrambling also protects individual elements of the presentation from being pirated.

The OpenOffice freeware Powerpoint editor can save a powerpoint file as a flash file. But it doesn't export transitions nor animations, so there's not much point in converting, if you pardon the pun.

AJSoft's free PPT2SWT

Using a converter enables one to avoid having to learn Flash Actionscript programming, especially if you are already comfortable with Powerpoint.

However, there are several content development features Flash has over Powerpoint.

To bridge the features gap, the $198 (XP/2002 and 2003) PowerPoint menu add-in from knowledgedirectweb enables you to insert interactive quizzes and games as "learning objects". It also has a PPT2Flash utility.

$100 PowerPointForce (introduced 2006) both converts both PowerPoint and Word to WebCT LMS and SCORM as well as Flash.

Converters need to export vector images and graphics so that they are kept in their intended size and shape when imported into Flash.

Some converters create a separate SWF file for each Powerpoint slide rather than all slides in one SWF file.

Remoting

AMF (Action Message Format) a Adobe proprietary protocol that allows Flash Remoting binary data to be exchanged between a Flash application and an application server over HTTP.

Houses

Houses of Flash creativity:

Ted Pedowski

AIR (previously code named Mercury and then Apollo)

Functions

Data Driven Testing

Transition Testing

Sample Test

Rational Robot

Free Training!

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