SWF stands for Small Web Format. SWF is a file extension for a Shockwave Flash file format that was created by Macromedia and is now owned by Adobe. SWF is an Adobe Flash file format that is used for multimedia, vector graphics, and ActionScript. They are specifically designed to be small, compressed files that can be published on the web.
SWF files can contain both video and vector-based animations along with the audio effects that are designed for effective delivery of the multimedia file over the web. They can be viewed in a web browser using the Flash plug-in. These SWF files may contain animations, bitmap and vector graphics, components, and digital video.
File extension: .swf
SWF files can contain both video and vector-based animations along with the audio effects that are designed for effective delivery of the multimedia file over the web. They can be viewed in a web browser using the Flash plug-in. These SWF files may contain animations, bitmap and vector graphics, components, and digital video. application/x-shockwave-flash, application/x-shockwave-flash2-preview, application/futuresplash, image/vnd.rn-realflash
Features of SWF files
- SWF files can be easily encapsulated within a media player by creating a self-running SWF movie called a projector.
- They can contain animations and applets with varying degrees of interactivity and function.
- SWF files can also be used to play files in the FLV (Flash video file) format.
- Includes some interface items like buttons for interactivity in order to perform various functions.
Originally, SWF files were designed to contain only animated graphics but now, the SWF format has been modified for audio and video. It is a fully open repository used for multimedia and vector graphics while the ActionScript scripting language used in SWF files is not.
Tools with which SWF files can be built:
Adobe tools: Flash, Adobe Flash Builder (an IDE), and the Adobe Flex SDK etc.
Other open source tools: Motion-Twin ActionScript 2 Compiler (MTASC), Ming library, SWiSH Max2
Third party programs: Multimedia Fusion 2, Captivate, SWiSH Max or BannerSnack
Advantages of SWF Format
- Vector based:
- Faster loading:
- Easy and smooth compression:
- Transparency support:
This means that the graphics can be scaled easily, hence even if they are zoomed in or fit onto different-sized screens, the SWF file will still look very clear and play very smoothly.
It was intentionally created to be small and light. This is to display all the animations clearly, to be reused by a player running on any system, and to make it work even with slower network connections.
Like PNG format, SWF uses a non-patented lossless data compression method known as DEFLATE, that con compress the files with any loss of data.
SWF offers a variety of transparency options. With the help of truecolor and greyscale images, transparency levels can be varied and declared as needed. That means either a single pixel value or single pixel with an added alpha channel can be can be declared as transparent. This enables any percentage of partial transparency to be used.
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The Decline of SWF
The use of the SWF format began to decline in 2010 as browsers moved on to other media formats such as HTML 5 and WebM. In comparison to the new formats, SWF had poor security and was criticized for its vulnerabilities and its dependency on the Flash plugin (the Flash plugin was later discontinued in 2020). SWF files can be seen in some applications and games.
