Most of you have visited web sites filled with video-like animation, sound effects and music synchronized to the animation, enhanced interactivity, and stunning graphics - all of which appear to load and play almost instantly.

These sites seem to have rocketed their develope to "another level" and youve surely wondered, "How did they do that?"

More than likely, you were experiencing a site designed using Flash or the SWF document format.

Flash (developed by Macromedia) is the leading vector graphics technology for designing high-impact, low-bandwidth web sites. SWF (ShockWave Flash) is the file format used by Macromedia Flash to deliver graphics, animation and sound over the Internet. These techniques are rapidly changing the way we play, work, or just browse online.

What are vector graphics? Vector graphics, which manipulate coordinates and mathematical formulas rather than pixel-by-pixel bitmaps, produce graphics files that are one-tenth the size of bitmaps. Additionally, SWF can deliver animation, rich colors, sound, and interactivity. Moreover, this approach downloads sooner, its scalable (more on this below), and it boasts higher quality than other graphics formats.

Well over 95% of Internet users might now view SWF content: over 300 million people have downloaded the Flash Player for their browser. Even better, if you already run at least a 4.0 browser, no plug-in is required - its already there.

Macromedia published the specifications for SWF in April 1998. It is now an open source format for development by third parties. The SWF document format is being integrated into web design and graphic applications more and more, and its becoming increasingly easier and faster for web designers and developers to learn and to make use of .

Still, some of us just dont have the necessary measure to learn (or the money to invest) in these high-finish applications. What to do?

A quick search online will bring up dozens of resource sites specializing in Flash and offering free ready-to-use SWF files for you to download and embed into your site. So take advantage of these generous offers and flash-up your web site too.

But if youve never worked with these newer SWF files, you might encounter a few initial problems -- or be unaware of some interesting capabilities. Heres an explanation that will make it quick, simple, and painless.

The SWF or Flash needs two basic ingredients. First, you positive need the SWF file itself -- which contains the animation and any sounds, all in one user friendly document . For our brief explanation here, lets call this file "super.swf".

Second, you need the HTML program to place in your web page. The HTML code contains simple directions (called parameters), and executes the SWF document in the area of your web document where you insert the code -- kind of like a Java Applet, but thats where any similarity ends.

Here is an example of the Flash HTML program that you would absolutely need to add to your page: