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July 27, 2007
"SWF" stands for...?
"SWF" stands for...? Darrel Plant has some early SWF nomenclature history. (I'd comment there, but he's got enough to read. ;-) It's easiest to think of "SWF" as meaning "SWF" (pronounced "swiff"), rather than being an acronym. But there are historical links to the "Shockwave Flash" and "Small Web Format" monikers. Macromedia Shockwave was among the very first browser plugins, announced the same week in June 1995 as Netscape 2.0 and plugin extensibility, the same week as Java in the browser, VRML, and Adobe Acrobat for the browser were all announced. It was delivered in December of that year, when Netscape 2.0 shipped, and when LiveScript became JavaScript for the first scriptable browser. The "Shockwave" brand was then extended across the Macromedia product line -- Shockwave for Authorware for web learning, Shockwave for FreeHand for vector graphics, Shockwave for xRes for tileable and zoomable images (with a server component)... "Shockwave Audio" arrived a little later, and was an ability in the Shockwave plugin to play the new .MP3 files (which wouldn't take off under the "MP3" name until a few years later). The "shockwave" phrase was registered with the MIME types for these new content types. When Macromedia acquired FutureSplash the next year, "Flash" became the product name, and "Shockwave Flash" was the in-browser component. Macromedia later started a content site called shockwave.com, later renamed shockrave.com (remember raves? ;-) and later merged with Atom Films. Anyway, that's how the "Shockwave" got in the name... it was a wide identifier for interactive multimedia in the browser. But the "Small Web Format" naming did have some informal use in the late 1990s, semi-facetiously, about the same time as "SWF doesn't stand for anything" came about. My take: it's just "swiff" -- faster to say than "jay-peg" or "em-pee-three". Darrel's got a nice Edgar Allen Poe slant to his telling of the story, though, so if you've got a slow Friday morning, it's worth a read.... ;-)
Posted by JohnDowdell at July 27, 2007 09:48 AM
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Comments
Does former Flash PM Jeremy Clark still have the license plate "SWF"? Upon spying that in SF during the first Flashforward show, I knew I was in a whole different world. Of course, he may have gotten tired of people asking about his special interest in Single White Female. ;-)
Posted by: John Nack at July 27, 2007 10:11 AM
People not knowing about Shockwave and Future Splash? God, I feel so old.
How many people remember Gabocorp, raise your hand!
I still remeber how excited I was when Flash 3 introduced transparency. Kids these days with their fancy AS3 mumble mumble...
Posted by: Armand at July 27, 2007 11:17 AM
AIR? Pft, I don't need no stinkin' AIR. I got Shockmachine running in my system tray!
[jd sez: Now you're frightening me, Paul. ;-) ]
Posted by: PaulC at July 27, 2007 11:28 AM
Great post. I was writing an article for my syndicated column on Flash Technology and how it is being used today. I linked to your post.
Posted by: Dave Kaufman - Techlife at July 27, 2007 11:54 AM
Haha... you know you're a dork when it doesn't mean Single White Female anymore...even in a personals ad I'll see "swiff".
Posted by: Michael Kaufman at July 27, 2007 12:34 PM
One thing I've always wanted to verify is why the first three bytes of a SWF file are "FWS". My initial assumption was that it was some kind of reverse-byte-ordering thing. But then it occurred to me that it might have stood for "FutureWave Splash"--FutureWave was actually the name of Jon Gay's company before Macromedia acquired it, while FutureSplash was the original name of the product itself.
[jd sez: Howdy. The "FutureWave Splash" theory jibes with what I think I remember from older versions of the specs. But I don't see confirmation at Google or other engines. Sounds plausible to me too though.]
Posted by: Narciso (nj) Jaramillo at July 28, 2007 01:22 PM