When Macromedia Flash (Flash) is not installed on the computer and a file that uses Flash is opened, a jigsaw puzzle piece may be displayed or the resultant object will not be displayed.
Macromedia Flash is a standard for multimedia playback featuring vector-based images, keyframe animation, MP3-compressed audio, and a host of interactivity elements. It is one of the most popular multimedia plug-ins, and is shipped with versions of Internet Explorer and Netscape Communicator. The Flash client-side plug-in can perform streaming animation and audio playback. Flash media files are usually assigned the extension SWF and are stored on the server-side (similar to an embedded graphic). To allow run-time creation of flash animation files, Macromedia provides a server-based product named "Generator" which can produce dynamic animations from database or text file data.
Unfortunately, the Flash plug-in is non-W3C standard and there are currently no techniques to make it accessible. However, there is a solution to provide People With Disability an understanding of the page author’s intent. There are two scenarios:
Here is how Macromedia FLASH is currently coded in the document without JavaScript and where accessibility is not addressed:
For example, place these two files (HTML and SWF) in one directory and view the HTML file with in a browser with the Flash plug-in installed and you will see a red ball bouncing around the screen. View it without the Flash plug-in and you will see a text representation. Place these files test.htm and test.swf in the same directory.