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SteveFLA
Participant
November 30, 2020
Answered

AS1 FLA's and SWF's - Where to from here for 2021

  • November 30, 2020
  • 1 reply
  • 1309 views

Hi all,

 

It has been close to 20 years since I've done any Flash development, which is evidenced by the fact that all of my FLA's were done in AS1. This was to produce a series of interactive electrical circuit animations for teaching purposes. 

 

The SWF's have been satisfactory for all of that time, but now that Flash is no longer to be supported I'm wondering what we need to do to be able to embed these animations in a web page to continue their use.

 

I still have the original FLA's which I have tried to open in Adobe Animate. The graphics are all fine but the ActionScript is not longer there.

 

I have read that we need to convert to HTML5? Will this still allow interactivity?

 

Any advice would be appreciated to allow us to update these files and get the original SWFs replaced on our web pages.

 

Thanks in advance.

Steve

      This topic has been closed for replies.
      Correct answer jeromiec83223024

      Animate CC doesn't support AS1 or AS2.  You should be able to open the FLA, but it's not going to interpret any of the script logic.  If you're looking to export timeline animations or something simple, you should be good.  If you're doing a bunch of interaction or script logic, you'd need to recreate it.  

       

      We're still maintaining all of the AS1 and AS2 test suites (because Flash Player is bug-for-bug backwards compatible), so I still fire up Flash Pro CS 5.5 on a regular basis.  I run it in a Win7 VM.  I haven't done much content migration personally (we have something like 30k tests in our test suite), because we have similar-but-separate sets of tests that target both the VM that services AS1 and AS2 content, and the VM that services AS3 content... and I have a really weird perspective on writing Flash content, since my focus from a quality and security perspective is largely focused on breaking Flash Player, not using it to do things that are reasonable.

       

      The community over in the Animate forums is much better equipped to help you on migration topics, should you need more advice on that front.

      1 reply

      jeromiec83223024
      Community Manager
      jeromiec83223024Community Manager
      Community Manager
      November 30, 2020

      There's no simple way to do a one-click conversion.  If you want interactive content that lasts for another 10-20 years, recreating that interactivity in JavaScript is the way to go. This was the motification for announced the EOL plan back in 2017.   The Animate CC community is best equipped to help you navigate that process.  

       

      If you need the code, the easiest way to get it is to either open your .FLA with an old copy of Flash Authoring (they dropped AS1/AS2 support in either CS6 or CS5.5), or if you don't have ready access to one of those, it might just be easier to use a SWF decompiler (I like SWFWire Inspector -- it's free and cross-platform, but there are a few other options).

       

      If the interactive Flash content would be reasonably useful in video form, you might think about demoing the content with a screen recorder.  It's a fairly low-effort way to keep the content available and fairly future-proof.

      S
      SteveFLAAuthor
      Participant
      December 1, 2020

      I still have a copy of Macromedia Flash MX (2004) but wasn't sure if it would install under WIndows 10. If it does, will it allow me to export/convert to a file that Animate 2020 can read?

       

      Video is not an output option as users must be able to click on switches in a circuit and have the circuit change state. In other animations, users need to be able to drag and drop labels onto a background and then submit to have their selections checked.

       

      I could upload a SWF so you can get an idea of what I'm talking about, but I'm new to this community so not sure of the best way to share files for comment.

      jeromiec83223024
      Community Manager
      jeromiec83223024Community ManagerCorrect answer
      Community Manager
      January 13, 2021

      Animate CC doesn't support AS1 or AS2.  You should be able to open the FLA, but it's not going to interpret any of the script logic.  If you're looking to export timeline animations or something simple, you should be good.  If you're doing a bunch of interaction or script logic, you'd need to recreate it.  

       

      We're still maintaining all of the AS1 and AS2 test suites (because Flash Player is bug-for-bug backwards compatible), so I still fire up Flash Pro CS 5.5 on a regular basis.  I run it in a Win7 VM.  I haven't done much content migration personally (we have something like 30k tests in our test suite), because we have similar-but-separate sets of tests that target both the VM that services AS1 and AS2 content, and the VM that services AS3 content... and I have a really weird perspective on writing Flash content, since my focus from a quality and security perspective is largely focused on breaking Flash Player, not using it to do things that are reasonable.

       

      The community over in the Animate forums is much better equipped to help you on migration topics, should you need more advice on that front.

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