How to Build a Flash Website

By Bennett Gavrish

Overview

With the release of Adobe Flash CS3 and CS4, computer users can build complex animations and then publish their designs as complete websites. Most websites use basic HTML programming to build a Web page's structure. However, Adobe Flash allows Web designers to create more interactive content with moving parts and animated links. Once published onto an active Web server, a site built with Flash can be viewed on any browser that has Adobe Flash Player installed.

Step 1

Open the Adobe Flash application from the Start menu for PC users or the Dock for Mac users.
Step 2

Go to "File" in the top menu bar and select "New." Then choose "Flash File" from the list of document types and click "OK."

Step 3

Select a pixel size for your website from the toolbar at the bottom of the screen. By default, the Flash site will be 550 by 400 pixels.
Step 4

Choose a background color for the site from the toolbar on the left side of the screen.
Step 5

Add any desired animation, graphics and text to the main page of the site by using the toolbar on the left side of the screen. The timeline above the design area measures how long animations will last.
Step 6

Go to "File" in the top menu bar and select "Publish Settings."
Step 7

Check the boxes next to "Flash" and "HTML" in the pop-up window to export both a .swf and a .html file to your active Web server. Click "OK" to save the settings.
Step 8

Go to "File" in the top menu bar and select "Publish." The flash file will be saved to your Web server and then transformed into an HTML file that can be viewed with any Web browser that has Flash Player installed on it.

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