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The basic concepts of Macromedia Flash and Director are very similar: both create linear and interactive movies organized in frames that play according to events defined in the movie. The workflow for creating movies is the same: create a new movie file, set the Stage properties, create and import artwork and other movie elements, arrange the elements on the Stage and in the Score (the Director Timeline), add scripts for interactivity and navigation, and publish your movie.

The Macromedia Flash and Director user interfaces share many of the same concepts, but use different terms to refer to them. The table below associates user interface and movie elements in Director to the corresponding elements in Macromedia Flash.

Macromedia Flash	Director
Stage	Stage
Timeline	Score
Actions panel	Script window
Movie Explorer	N/A
Library	Cast window
Library folders	Multiple casts in the movie
Shared libraries	Linked or external casts
Symbols	Cast members
Movie clip	Film loops are similar, but not the same
Instances	Sprites
Layers	Sprite channels
Panels	Property inspector, Text inspector
Keyframe	Keyframe
Frame label	Marker
Scene	N/A
ActionScript	Lingo
Smart clips	Behaviors (built-in)
FLA file	DIR file
SWF file	DCR file
Macromedia Flash extensions	Xtra extensions
Macromedia Flash Player	Adobe Shockwave Player