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There are quite a few developers out there that will say that Flash designers and developers should never manually use the timeline – basing this rule on the claim that they will have less control over it in a project. The other extreme are those designers that will use minimum ActionScript to manipulate the timeline playhead, and try to accomplish complex interactivity manually.

I’m going to give a slight nod to the designers on this one because less and less of them seem to be practicing the latter, albeit, because of the influence of the former group. The position I take on the matter is this: The timeline is great aspect of Flash that should never be discounted as an archaic tool left over from the application’s early days.

The claim that everything should be placed on the stage using ActionScript sounds great in theory, but in practice falls short on several points. There are certain artistic attributes that simply cannot be reproduced efficiently and effectively with ActionScript. I’m not going to go into all of the specifics here, but by using the timeline for artwork, positioning, and certain animation techniques designers and developers can free themselves of trying to accomplish the same things (unsuccessfully on many occasion) through code.

It seems like some people have forgotten or maybe never realized that Flash (or FutureSplash for those of us who have been around long enough) began as a vector animation tool. The timeline has always been essential to the application. If there is anything that Macromedia and now Adobe have fallen short on regarding the IDE, it’s that they haven’t continued to enhance the timeline capabilities enough with subsequent releases.

This doesn’t mean that people should always forgo ActionScript for use of the timeline either. As a matter of fact the more complex, dynamic and intriguing interactive pieces can only be achieved by using ActionScript. Flash expands the interactive capabilities exponentially with each version of the language, and ActionScript 3.0 with Flash Player 9 has been a huge leap forward in further expanding those capabilities.

In the end most work that relies solely on ActionScript will have dynamics and smart interaction, but can usually feel cold and hard. Work that relies completely on the timeline can be incredibly artistic and the motion inspiring, but the shelf life isn’t very long. Repeat visits don’t have the same impact because the results are already known and even expected – the initial luster fizzles.

Browsing around the web today shows countless examples of inspiring interactive Flash work. More often than not the great pieces that leave an impact on their audience are combining the two aspects of Flash harmoniously.

Both designers and developers should be using a thoughtful, creative combination of both the timeline and ActionScript to accomplish things that even Adobe themselves couldn’t have imagined.