Is Animate right for what I need?

Hi guys,

I have a couple of general questions for experienced Animate users. I used Flash back in day both Macromedia and Adobe but haven’t now for a couple and certainly not since the evolution into Animate, so im ultra behind the times!

I use Ps / Ae / Ai / Lr daily either at home or work so im very familiar with the products but what im wanting to do im not sure if Animate is the route I need to take.

So, is it possible to create and publish a standalone (maybe even distributable) file (swf or other, im really unsure) that can interact with and launch files and applications. Im on MacOS Mojave but I imagine if its possible its possible cross-platform.

I appreciate various coding languages and skills maybe involved but I guess my main question is “Can animate DO what I want”?

I have Googled this to death and multiple routes lead me back to AIR and Animate (I’ll save my questions about AIR for their board) and its very difficult to articulate this as a question to do a reliable search!

Happy to fire any other details over because im sure I have cheapened to process and glazed over lots of key things you may need so just let me know what you need.

Thanks for reading,

Phil