Flash Technology -- Advantages and Features
The production and delivery cycle:

Authoring environment
(Flash 2004 or Flash 8):

A compiled file
embedded in a html page:


Your mathlet running
in a Flash-enabled browser:

  • Very easy to master.
  • Highly visual and intuitive.
  • Compiling and testing done in one click.
  • Incredibly small file sizes! Perfect for delivery over the web. Compiled files of all of the mathlets presented range from 18KB to 50KB, total!
  • swf files can run in a browser as well as in a stand-alone Flash Player.
  • Almost all browsers are Flash-enabled; that is, contain Flash Player! Flash Player 7 penetration among web-browsing public is 92% in the US, even higher in Europe. Flash Player 8 released a few months ago is already reaching 80% penetration level.
  • Flash Player remains light-weight, Flash Player 8 is about 800KB depending on the platform. It downloads and installs automatically in seconds.
  • Flash Player performs consistently and realiably on all platforms and all browsers.
  • The Flash platform can have server-side components: Flash Media Server 2, Breeze, and others. They are not relevant or needed for creating mathlets but should you ever get interested in developing applications involving the server-side, the authoring environment is the same and everything still runs in the Flash Player.

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