What’s the difference between Flash and Captivate?

Question: can you briefly explain the advantage/difference between Captivate and Flash. I can't seem to find any one place that discusses this.

Well, I'm back from leave and the walls still seem to be standing, so I thought I'd return by responding to E-Learning Curve Blog reader Marvin Pyle’s query about Flash and Captivate. [As an aside, I assume you’re not the same Marvin who guided my wife and I around the Mayan site of Copán Ruinas in Honduras?]

I can see where the confusion surrounding Flash arises, and I also understand why you'd find it a little difficult to find a site that discusses this. More on the latter, later.

There are a number of facets to any discussion about Flash, Captivate, and why the tools and technologies are important to e-learning. To do justice to the subject, I will address these aspects of the subject over the next few blog posts:

• Background and Context
• Flash Player
• Flash Application
• Flash Platform
• Captivate
• Flash and E-Learning

Background and Context
Adobe Flash (previously Macromedia Flash) is a multimedia platform currently developed and distributed by Adobe Systems. Since its 1996 launch, it has become a very popular tool for adding animation and interactivity to the Web. Flash is the de facto standard tool used to:

• create Web-based animations & advertisements
• run various Web page components (i.e. menu items, drop-down lists)
• integrate streaming video into Web pages
• develop rich Internet applications
• deliver e-learning content over the Web

Flash can manipulate vector and raster graphics, and supports streaming audio and video media delivery. It is programmable via an interpreted scripting language called ActionScript (currently at v3). A range of software products can be used to create and to run Flash content. Examples include the Adobe Flash Player (which is available for most Web browsers, some mobile phones (though significantly not the Apple iPhone) as well as for other electronic devices.

Adobe Flash Player
The Adobe Flash Player is a near-ubiquitous software client used to view animations and movies, either in via Web browser or as a stand-alone player. Typically, the Flash Player runs ShockWave Flash (SWF) and Flash Video (FLV) files that are created and compiled in the Flash authoring tool, in Adobe Flex, and by using a range of third party tools and applications. And herein lies the confusion I alluded to earlier: strictly speaking, Adobe Flash is the authoring environment and Flash Player is the virtual machine used to run the Flash files: these terms have become mixed over time, and "Flash" can now mean either the authoring environment, the player, or the application files.

Flash Player supports for an interpreted scripting language called ActionScript, which is based on ECMAScript. Now in version 3, ActionScript has matured from a pretty loose script syntax to a language that supports object-oriented code.

While originally designed to display 2-dimensional vector animations, the Flash Player has become an environment for running rich internet applications (RIAs), and streaming video and audio. It uses vector graphics to minimize file size and create files that save bandwidth and loading time. Flash is a common format for games, animations, and GUIs embedded into Web pages.

The Flash Player is available as a plugin for recent versions of browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari and Internet Explorer on a number of platforms.

Next time: The Flash Platform

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