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Hello everyone,

I am in the process of developing a crossword puzzle website at

I want to start adding Flash crossword puzzles to the site. However, I am no Flash developer. Is there any software available that would allow me to easily create Flash Crossword Puzzles for my site without having to use the Adobe Flash program.

Thanks

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by JasonHippy

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— the short answer is: don’t build new crossword deliverables in Flash. What looked practical in 2009 (and what suggested about using non‑Adobe tooling) made sense then, but Adobe stopped distributing Flash Player on December 31, 2020 and major browsers have removed or blocked plugin support — building new SWF content today will break for most visitors and is a security risk. ()

Practical alternatives that let you add interactive puzzles without Flash:

  • For a lightweight, single‑file player you can embed or iframe, use Exolve (vanilla JS) — it supports .puz/.ipuz and is designed for publishing puzzles as web pages.
  • For modern apps, drop in a React crossword component (several maintained packages exist) so the puzzle is part of your site’s DOM and works on mobile.
    Both approaches keep puzzles accessible, indexable, and easy to style/reskin. (github.com)

If you already have SWF puzzles and need a stopgap: use an emulator like Ruffle or archive/playback with Flashpoint so users can still access content while you migrate. Test every puzzle — emulators don’t guarantee 100% compatibility (especially complex ActionScript). Treat these as temporary fixes, not long‑term delivery methods. (ruffle.rs)

Migration checklist (quick, actionable)

  1. If you have source files (.fla/.as), export/rebuild to HTML5 Canvas (or re‑author interactive bits in CreateJS/Canvas/Phaser).
  2. If you only have puzzle data, export to IPUZ/PUZ or JSON and use a JS player (Exolve or a React component).
  3. Automate layouts with available libraries and keep solved state in localStorage so users can resume. Prioritize plain text for clues (SEO, accessibility) and mobile testing.

This preserves the site long‑term and avoids repeating the Flash maintenance problems that drove its deprecation.

Member Avatar for JasonHippy

Hello everyone,

I am in the process of developing a crossword puzzle website at

I want to start adding Flash crossword puzzles to the site. However, I am no Flash developer. Is there any software available that would allow me to easily create Flash Crossword Puzzles for my site without having to use the Adobe Flash program.

Thanks

If you are asking whether there are any programs out there that will allow you to create a crossword puzzle and export it as a flash file...Then I'm afraid I can't help you... I don't know of any software that does this..

But if you want to have a go at creating the flash content yourself without having to spend shedloads of cash purchasing Adobe Flash, then you could try downloading FlashDevelop from flashdevelop.org (http://www.flashdevelop.org) and the Flex3 SDK (a free download from the Adobe website).

FlashDevelop is a free, open source IDE for the windows .NET platform which allows you to create Flash content for free...All you do is download and install the latest version from flashdevelop.org, then download the Flex3 SDK from adobe. Set Flashdevelop up to point to the Flex3 SDK and away you go! You can then develop your flash content in code using Actionscript 3.

Flashdevelop is only available for windows/PC at the moment (I think!), but there is also the Eclipse IDE (eclipse.org), which I believe is also available for mac. So if you're a mac user, Eclipse and the Flex3 SDK is probably the way to go....I've never tried using Eclipse though, so I don't know much about it. But Flashdevelop is a great program and packed with features!

On the AS3 coding side of things, if you've got any experience with any object oriented programming languages (C++, C#, Java or even Javascript) then you'll be able to pick up AS3 in no time...And in any case there are tons of tutorials online!

I've been meaning to do some more flash stuff recently, so I may have a go at a flash based crossword puzzle myself... If I manage to get something together I'll let you know!

NOTE TO ADMINS: Nothing in this message is advertising/spam..I'm nothing to do with flashdevelop.org, but I do use and highly rate their software...The URLS I've listed on the page link to sites relevant to the post...PLS don't snip 'em! :)

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