Adobe professional is to create presentations, applications and loads of different other content that responds to the user basically.
Projects with flash animation are things such as simple animations,videos,complex user interfaces,applications once again.
SWF stands for shockwave flash
The reason why projects use flash is because vector graphics take up less memory and storage space.
Vector graphics in flash are created with the use of geometric primitives so in this case you would use anchor points, and many different lines and many different shapes.
A symbol in flash is basically either a movie clip and sometimes can include art work, once you have made a symbol it will appear in the library and can reuse the symbol over and over again.
One main part to flash is the stage like the canvas that defines the visible area during playback; you arrange  graphics, videos, buttons, and other elements on the Stage while authoring projects.the secound main part of flash is the timeline which controls the timing that specifies elements in the movie which once again appers in stages which goes back to the first stage. Onther main part of flash is tools panel which creates a select number of objects and shapes,propeties displays contextual info about many different shapes and stuff. The library for flash contains loads of elements and symbols that get stored from the last project.
An action script allows you to add elements to your doceument so you can also add in buttons to display images and many other objects.
When you have finished authoring your FLA file, you publish it by selecting File > Publish (or pressing Shift+F12). The publish operation generates a compressed version of your file with the extension .swf (known as a SWF file). Adobe Flash Player is used to play the SWF file in a web browser or as a stand-alone application.