What technical communicators
need to know about Flash
Sarah O'Keefe
DocTrain West, May 2008
Vancouver

About the presenter
Principal, Scriptorium Publishing
Expert in XML, XSL, and similar technologies
Not an expert in Flash!

Agenda
What is Flash?
Adding Flash to your workflow
Flash demo

What is Flash?
Vector-based format for moving images
Adobe technology via Macromedia
Proprietary
.FLA for Flash development files
.SWF for compressed files

Putting Flash in context
Flex
Captivate
Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR)
Camtasia
Silverlight

Where can I see Flash content?
98% of desktops and laptops have Flash Player
(says Adobe)
Web video
Web games
Gratuitous splash pages
Some mobile phones

Games
nickjr.com
luminosity.com
kongregate.com
and many, many more

Video
YouTube
Many major media sites

How might you use Flash in a
tech pubs workflow?
Quizzes
Video
Animation/simulation
e-Learning
Customized interface for content delivery

Quizzes
Polls
Reader feedback
e-Learning assessments
Branching support

Video
Talking head video
Instructional video

Animation/simulation
Explaining difficult concepts visually

Basic Flash concepts
Stage
Timeline
Keyframe
Symbols
Tweening
Publishing
ActionScript

Stage
The area on which your objects move around.

Timeline
The sequence in which events occur.

Keyframe
A frame where an object changes.

Symbols
Reusable objects.

Tweening
The process of generating the frames between
two object states to show a change.

Publishing
Generating output from the Flash development
environment, often as SWF.

ActionScript
The Flash scripting language, a variant of
JavaScript

Important notes
Flash is a time sink.
Animation can be surprisingly effective.
Consider localization costs.
Remember accessibility.
Captivate and similar tools offer limited
functionality but much faster development.

Are documentation and training
converging?
Classroom versus book
Interactive online training versus interactive
online documents

Visual communication
Difficult and time consuming
Effective
Will it displace text?

Challenges for Flash
Content silos
Integration with XML?
Proprietary
Mobile devices

Challenges for technical
communicators
Are you a visual thinker? (I'm not.)
Is Flash relevant to your content? Should it be?
How do you fit Flash development into the
project schedule?
What about localization?
What about accessibility?

Q&A

Contact information
Scriptorium Publishing
www.scriptorium.com
info@scriptorium.com
+919.481.2701 x105