Creating Web Sites Bible, Third Edition

Chapter 11. Adding Multimedia and Other Objects

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Adding audio

• Embedding video

• Animating with Adobe Flash

• Understanding the flash layout

• Creating objects

• Modifying objects

• Working with text

• Timelines

• Using advanced techniques

• Exporting and publishing movies

This chapter reviews some of the ways to be creative and expand the functionality of your Web site through the use of plug-ins and extensions.

While a browser's inherent capabilities are for displaying styled text and limited image styling, its capabilities can be extended by the use of newer technologies that allow streaming audio and video, enhanced interactivity for forms, easier development environments for Web designers, downloading and integration of greater security features, and improved data storage and retrieval methods. These technologies are often freely available and are more commonly known as plug-ins or extensions.

A plug-in, like an extension, is a program that extends the capabilities of a browser. These may be used within software development environments, with e-mail clients, with graphics software and media players and, most relevant to this chapter, Web browsers. Some popular Firefox customizable extensions (plug-ins) would be Acrobat Reader, Flash, Java, QuickTime, RealPlayer, and MediaPlayer.

Note

We will be discussing in great detail the use of the Flash plug-in as it is currently used in CS3.

Though the list is constantly shifting, some very useful extensions for Web development are FireFTP, WebDeveloper ...