I’m showing my age here, but I remember a time where static, cold websites sat motionless in the simmering, shallow waters of webspace, twiddling their thumbs and not really doing a hell of a lot to entertain us. Then, like the crazy kid that shows up to the house party with too much alcohol and definitely too many drugs, Flash arrives on the scene. And for a few years, the internet embraced it with open arms. Websites danced and bounced and shouted and had giant flashing buttons they wanted you to click over and over and over again. It really was the internet’s ‘quit my job, travel the world and do my bucket list’ phase.
But in 2007 the iPhone arrived, and with it the blueprints for a responsive internet. In the coming years websites would learn to be fluid, scale and fit themselves to whatever size screen wished to view them. Oh, and above all else, they learned to calm the fuck down. The internet’s all singing, all dancing era was over.
It would be another ten years before Adobe finally dragged a worn down, burned out Flash from the house party it thought was still happening and onto the truck to be taken away for scrap. But despite its practicality for a responsive web setting sail a long time ago, Flash is still an awesome tool for understanding the fundamentals of animation and interactive experiences.
So, brew yourself a pot of fresh coffee, fire up an old version of Flash and get ready for a canter down nostalgia lane as, together, we learn how to use Flash in 3 simple steps.
1 – Animate a bouncing ball
2 – Animate an interactive button
3 – Build a very simple website
And remember, even though Flash is soon to be obsolete online, Adobe’s ‘Animate’ does give hope for a delve back into the fun, interactive days of the web.
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