Flash templates become very popular among website designers and Internet users nowadays. These are pre-designed semi-completed Flash web pages that require additional customization to suite your needs and preferences. This kind of Flash web templates harmoniously combines theme-based graphics, course-plotting scheme, action effects, tune and sound effects. They serve one of the best means of designing a professional quality animated website.

Nowadays, there are a great number of different ways for creation of web pages that have their positive and negative features. Usually each designer has his own preferences. But only with the help of the basic criteria we may objectively estimate how this or that decision is successful. These criteria are:

• The page loading speed;



• Attractive appearance;



• Universality, flexibility and adaptability;



• Simplicity of use and ease to navigate;



• Search engines optimization;



• Convenience in creation.

And one of the most optimal means that corresponds to all these given criteria is Flash. But let us compare Flash technology with the other means of web pages creation and define the main advantages and disadvantages of Flash websites.

HTML is a perfect method for static websites creation where the text and images have fixed positions. But it does not support dynamic websites, where the text, images and animation are moving around on the screen. Traditionally, these effects were achieved with animated GIF images or java applets. An animated GIF is actually many images saved in one, and it is remarkable bigger than a regular image and takes a lot of time to load. GIF images can be used for animation but the main point there is that they do not support interactivity as Flash images do. In Flash, you can control the animations. For example, you can make the animation stop and wait for the user to click a button. Another approach that has been used to add dynamic effect to web pages is java applet, small program that can be embedded into your HTML pages. Flash movies are in many ways similar to java applets, but it is fairly easy to create animations in Flash because java applets require programming skills. From the all mentioned above we may define the positive features of Flash sites compared to the sites based on java applets and GIF images. First of all Flash websites allow interactivity and load much faster than GIF; Flash movies are more stable in web browsers and easier to create than java applets.

Flash templates are available in considerable quantity through hundreds of websites. These website templates are in huge demand especially amongst the established online companies. Mostly Flash is used as an animated captivating introduction to the company. A web page built using Flash might have cool buttons, or menu bars that change as you make choices. It could let you play a game, or do a drawing. Many newspaper and magazine websites use Flash to make interactive maps of places that are in the news. You can even have fully interactive web pages that look more like video games than the web. But the main point here is to find a happy medium and not to overdo with all these visual effects. You may find a lot of sites that just use animations everywhere, until you start to feel a little giddy from seeing the whole page move all the time. But anyway, Flash template became a perfect method to create a presentation that is similar to a television. This type of presentation is dynamic and fully interactive; the user just sits back and enjoys the show as the Flash movie delivers the message to the client with animation, sound, and video. Flash site templates really grab visitors’ attention; they are vivid, captivating, appealing and eye-catching.

So, the Flash technology gains more and more popularity and meets approval all over the Internet. And there is no doubt that one of the simplest ways to integrate the Flash tool into a website is through Flash templates.