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Plug-ins, animated content and site navigation.
It used to be that any none HTML file accessed via the Web had to be first downloaded and then played using a separate software application. This was disruptive for the user of your website, slow and tedious and broke the flow of the session. Netscape, briliantly, pioneered the idea of plug-ins - that is pieces of software (players) that ship with the newer browser versions and allow you to insert non-html content and display it. This concept is described as extending the capability of HTML allowing us to view this non-HTML element as inline content.

QuickTime, Flash and RealPlayer are examples of commonly shipped Plug-ins. You need to be aware that even though the newer browsers include these plugins, the session is still often disrupted because there is a newer version of the plugin in release and the browser may ask the user to download it.

What is Flash?
Macromedia's Flash (makers of Dreamweaver) is software that creates dynamic (potentially interactive), animated content for a webpage. It is not HTML, as noted above. It can use vector graphics, bitmapped graphics and sound in concert. You need Flash authoring software to make Flash content and a Flash plugin to view it.

Click the button below for a lesson in navigation, given in Flash, that summarizes many of the concepts we have been discussing.