Is flash a good choice for building a site?
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I have been involved in a project in which a decision has to be made for if flash should be used primarily for the site construction since vidoes are a big part of it. There are a lot of noises on the internet talking about the incoming HTML 5 that could make the flash obsolete. Looking at the specification, it just provides a new Video tag. How could that replace the interactive flash?
TOMZ_KV
If you want the site visible on iPhone or iPad, then Flash is right out because it isn't and won't be supported on either platform.
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If you want the site visible on iPhone or iPad, then Flash is right out because it isn't and won't be supported on either platform.
You say not being usable from an iPhone or iPad like its a bad thing :-D
I know the language. I've read a book. - _Madmatt
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I have been involved in a project in which a decision has to be made for if flash should be used primarily for the site construction since vidoes are a big part of it. There are a lot of noises on the internet talking about the incoming HTML 5 that could make the flash obsolete. Looking at the specification, it just provides a new Video tag. How could that replace the interactive flash?
TOMZ_KV
Like many others here I don't think HTML5 will kill off Flash, Adobe has too much invested in it to let that happen. However, using Flash to build an entire site is a disaster. Flash should be used were appropriate, showing videos in your case, and html were appropriate, like showing content.
I know the language. I've read a book. - _Madmatt
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It might not be true any more, but when the company I work for redid their website several years ago totally in Flash (using an outside firm), no one could find it using search engines since they did not index Flash. I had to redo the entire thing using a combination of HTML & JavaScript :sigh:
Steve _________________ I C(++) therefore I am
Bingo, this is the biggest issue with flash / silverlight. Search engines just ignore the content presented in the flash / silverlight objects. Really annoying when trying to SEO. Right now the best option is to build html, and use object tags to run your various flash animations, and videos. Since actionscript ties into php / asp.net really well you can pass parameters call methods, and just about anything you want to do to the back end server, or just use the actionscript itself to do simple to medium tasks. Not to kick the bucket but you might want to look into silverlight if your doing a video intensive site, and your webserver supports IIS7+. Smooth streaming with Silverlight videos, really helps improve end user experience. Also silverlights built in privacy options are much much stronger than flash's as far as preventing copying of material. The main dislike I have with html5 is it's 100% insecure, you put it there the whole world knows about it. Think about this, all html5 video tags will quickly be indexed by google for their "video" search, and the whole world will know about every video posted on the web. Eh not a big deal right? well till a company training video ends up going viral cause of something stupid and costing the company tons of money in bandwidth charges, where as the video wouldn't been found by anyone outside of the company's clients viewable via a log in only option. Now you can code javascript to check for this or that log in status, and you can security setup your servers to only allow role based / logged in users to pull the video, but you still have to have a back end server to check against, server side coding, and such. So either you going to spend hours and hours coding security work arounds into your html5, or your going to be faced with Google causing your server to be spammable. Heck think about a simple script that runs google queries, finds the videos, and then opens and runs them all day long. Wouldn't take much time before things got slow on internet. I know cause we had a site in html5, public facing and someone sent out spam to all of his friends on facebook, to view this video. We usually had about 10 hits a month on the video. Next month we had 8,000 hits. Was a bandwidth nightmare for us to deal with. But to original question now my html5 security issue rant is getting long. If you build pure flash site forget any solid indexing with search engines, you can get some but not much. If you build half html and half flash, things will be pretty and you still get inde
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No idea why someone's voted you a 1 without leaving a comment. If you want hardly anyone to be able to view your site properly for a year or two, build it in HTML with your videos using the new HTML 5 stuff. If you want just about everyone to be able to view it as intended, build it in HTML and use flash for your videos. If you want to please everyone and are willing to do a bit more work, build it in HTML with your videos using the new HTML 5 stuff but with a fallback to flash videos for browsers that don't support HTML 5. If you want everyone to hate you, build the whole thing in flash.
Regards Nelviticus
Awesome summary :-D
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I have been involved in a project in which a decision has to be made for if flash should be used primarily for the site construction since vidoes are a big part of it. There are a lot of noises on the internet talking about the incoming HTML 5 that could make the flash obsolete. Looking at the specification, it just provides a new Video tag. How could that replace the interactive flash?
TOMZ_KV
We have a site written in flash. The user experience with the site isn't terrible, however on the maintenance side, an abomination would be a polite way to describe it. As an extra special bonus, adobe stopped supporting flash slides and forms in CS5 which the whole site was written in.
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I have been involved in a project in which a decision has to be made for if flash should be used primarily for the site construction since vidoes are a big part of it. There are a lot of noises on the internet talking about the incoming HTML 5 that could make the flash obsolete. Looking at the specification, it just provides a new Video tag. How could that replace the interactive flash?
TOMZ_KV
I first response was; "sure what kind of game or ad are you writing". Then I saw that you are actually trying to do something useful with it. In that case "OH GOD IT'S HORIBLE". As soon as you try to do anything “non-trival” you are going to hit problems. The client side memory foot print is absurd in that memory requirements grow no matter what you do (including deleting objects). Adobe support is “talking to a wall” (well not really that good, cause at least you can hear an echo from a wall). Flash/Flex is at best a “gun meet foot” option. HTML5 might be very good, who knows it isn’t really finished, and no one supports it fully. I believe it will become a powerful “player” but not this year or next. If it were me I’d look at other sites that serve up video and figure out what they use. I’m a big Netflix fan, they use Silverlight. All that said I see that the project has already started and flash has already been choosen. I truly wish you luck with that and hope that time to market isn't an issue.
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I have been involved in a project in which a decision has to be made for if flash should be used primarily for the site construction since vidoes are a big part of it. There are a lot of noises on the internet talking about the incoming HTML 5 that could make the flash obsolete. Looking at the specification, it just provides a new Video tag. How could that replace the interactive flash?
TOMZ_KV
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I first response was; "sure what kind of game or ad are you writing". Then I saw that you are actually trying to do something useful with it. In that case "OH GOD IT'S HORIBLE". As soon as you try to do anything “non-trival” you are going to hit problems. The client side memory foot print is absurd in that memory requirements grow no matter what you do (including deleting objects). Adobe support is “talking to a wall” (well not really that good, cause at least you can hear an echo from a wall). Flash/Flex is at best a “gun meet foot” option. HTML5 might be very good, who knows it isn’t really finished, and no one supports it fully. I believe it will become a powerful “player” but not this year or next. If it were me I’d look at other sites that serve up video and figure out what they use. I’m a big Netflix fan, they use Silverlight. All that said I see that the project has already started and flash has already been choosen. I truly wish you luck with that and hope that time to market isn't an issue.
Thanks for the invluable inputs from you and from all others. The Flash was not implemented. The selected approach is in fact very simple. All videos will be hosted by a provider. We'll build an asp.net app which renders embedded videos using javascript and streaming from the provider directly.
TOMZ_KV
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I think if you look at the dif page, HTML5 offers more than just a new video tag... http://www.w3.org/TR/html5-diff/[^] Go look at some of the stuff done at http://www.chromeexperiments.com/[^] I still like http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/[^] (its been mentioned on here a while back when it first appeared) its built on html5
Dave Find Me On: Web|Facebook|Twitter|LinkedIn CPRepWatcher now available as Packaged Chrome Extension, visit my articles for link.
Just keep in mind these critical facts when making your decision: 1. HTML5 is not a completed/signed off specification. It's MOSTLY done, but it could change between now and the year 2020-something when they "sign off" on it (which I take as meaning they've basically given up on getting it finalized) and moved onto HTML6. 2. Not all browsers support HTML5, and those that do have HTML5 support have incomplete support at this time due to the HTML5 spec not being completed and signed off or due to when that version of the browser was released (or a combination of both). 3. Flash and Silverlight will continue to be around for a long time, mostly because HTML5 doesn't offer the complete set of functionality that Flash and Silverlight do offer. Questions you need to ask yourself/your company/your customer: 1. What is it you're really trying to do and which option gives you the fullest implementation for the functionality that you're trying to achieve? 2. Is this an internal website where there is a standard browser that everyone uses and are not allowed to use another or is it an external website where any browser can use? I bring this part up because if it's an external site, and someone like my 70 year old mother were to go to it, she'd be angry if her default browser weren't supported and so had to install another browser just to go to your site. I'm sure there are other questions that also need answering, but those are the two big ones in my mind. Always use the right tool for the job, not "hey, this is new and cook so we must use it."
Mike Poz
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I have been involved in a project in which a decision has to be made for if flash should be used primarily for the site construction since vidoes are a big part of it. There are a lot of noises on the internet talking about the incoming HTML 5 that could make the flash obsolete. Looking at the specification, it just provides a new Video tag. How could that replace the interactive flash?
TOMZ_KV
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I have been involved in a project in which a decision has to be made for if flash should be used primarily for the site construction since vidoes are a big part of it. There are a lot of noises on the internet talking about the incoming HTML 5 that could make the flash obsolete. Looking at the specification, it just provides a new Video tag. How could that replace the interactive flash?
TOMZ_KV
Tomz_KV wrote:
if flash should be used primarily for the site construction
Use whatever reaches the largest percentage of your desired user base for playing the videos. Use ordinary HTML technologies to get to the videos. Whatever you do, don't use fancy crap like Flash for the basic web site. You'll only alienate that portion of potential users who don't have whatever version du jour your site requires -- if they can't get in far enough to see what the're missing by not upgrading, they'll usually leave and not bother to (ever) come back.
patbob
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I have been involved in a project in which a decision has to be made for if flash should be used primarily for the site construction since vidoes are a big part of it. There are a lot of noises on the internet talking about the incoming HTML 5 that could make the flash obsolete. Looking at the specification, it just provides a new Video tag. How could that replace the interactive flash?
TOMZ_KV
It really depends. Here is my advice. Try to use as much HTML and JS as you can possibly use. Then use Flash or Silverlight to fill out those portions not common among all browsers. If it is an intranet application, then go with what you want. You usually have complete control. However, when something is out in the wild, you have to cater to the lowest common denominator. This applies to any types of application.
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I have been involved in a project in which a decision has to be made for if flash should be used primarily for the site construction since vidoes are a big part of it. There are a lot of noises on the internet talking about the incoming HTML 5 that could make the flash obsolete. Looking at the specification, it just provides a new Video tag. How could that replace the interactive flash?
TOMZ_KV
If you are being told how to implement the site I would guess that they wouldn't listen to you anyway. Especially since it will be at least two years to completion of HTML 5. Personally, I think 90% of the sites using Flash are crap. But I have moderated how I view Flash overall. For instance, I have no problem with using Flash to display a video. I also have no problem with a real application in Flash that acts like an application. But most Flash is animated advertisement, or crappy implementation of a menu system that could be better done with CSS and perhaps some javascript. Another crappy use is to navigate without a complete refresh. I don't believe you should constrain yourself to a stateless web simply because that is where it all started. The browser can either evolve or be replaced. And state is a factor in some applications. But it should be used only in a context that demands state, not just for some preppy "cool" looking crap. The big thing is that developers should try to put content above presentation.