So what is the deal with adobe flash?

[Zerocool Djx]

Hello everyone,..

I recently launched a business and I want to make a really kick *** website... I would ideally would like to do the whole thing in flash cause I seen some crazy 3D - Morphing stuff going on. Is this a good idea or bad idea? and why? I know ipad-iphones has issues with flash, but are they being resolved? The product I would be typically selling isn't something your going to order over an Iphone anyway, or atleast I think, lol... The price range of the products is in that questionable "I'll shop around kinda gray area".

UPDATE: upon installing Flash CS5, I noticed a package for the iphone... anyone know what that is about?

[hrhnick]

Stay away from flash. Stick with html5. you can do some amazing stuff, examaples:

http://9elements.com/io/projects/html5/canvas/

http://js-fireworks.appspot.com/

http://gyu.que.jp/jscloth/touch-wgl.html

http://www.benjoffe.com/code/demos/canvascape/textures

Be sure to be running Chrome/ium, Safari, or Opera. The latest firefox and IE beta should work too.

[Sean Moran]

Hello everyone,..

I recently launched a business and I want to make a really kick *** website... I would ideally would like to do the whole thing in flash cause I seen some crazy 3D - Morphing stuff going on. Is this a good idea or bad idea? and why? I know ipad-iphones has issues with flash, but are they being resolved? The product I would be typically selling isn't something your going to order over an Iphone anyway, or atleast I think, lol... The price range of the products is in that questionable "I'll shop around kinda gray area".

UPDATE: upon installing Flash CS5, I noticed a package for the iphone... anyone know what that is about?
Do it in HTML. If you need dynamics on the client side, use javascript. If you need to remember your clients, use PHP5. Flash is like trimming your nails with a 24oz hammer.

[MasterNetra]

Hello everyone,..

I recently launched a business and I want to make a really kick *** website... I would ideally would like to do the whole thing in flash cause I seen some crazy 3D - Morphing stuff going on. Is this a good idea or bad idea? and why? I know ipad-iphones has issues with flash, but are they being resolved? The product I would be typically selling isn't something your going to order over an Iphone anyway, or atleast I think, lol... The price range of the products is in that questionable "I'll shop around kinda gray area".

UPDATE: upon installing Flash CS5, I noticed a package for the iphone... anyone know what that is about?

1. The level of difficulty, fine if you love challenges but it won't be a quick build.

2. SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) a full flash site would be horrible for it. Search engines don't read into flash well if at all. Of course if you plan on doing a bunch of paid advertisements then I suppose you could live without SEO (which is a free way to help get customers to the site).

3. No good Interactive Flash Editors for Linux (that I'm aware of) there are some flash editors but from what I've seen they don't handle the interactive part of flash.

4. It will be evil to update content with. Having to dig into the flash file,f ind where you want to update, re-do the .swf then re-upload the entire thing.

If you still plan to do it. And you include a opening intro, PLEASE for the love of all that's good add a visible "Skip Intro" to it that's there throughout. Someone who isn't in a hurry might be fine watching it, but it does get old and people will want to skip it.

And also make sure the Navigation is labeled and that its extremely obvious that its a button, not some obscure items that has people moving their mouse around trying to figure what's a button and what's not.
The typical thing though isn't to do the entire thing in flash but parts (navigation, maybe some misc elements, intro (+skip please), and such. Your content, text and such should remain html, manipulated by CSS.

my 2 cents.


Stay away from flash. Stick with html5. you can do some amazing stuff, examaples:

http://9elements.com/io/projects/html5/canvas/

http://js-fireworks.appspot.com/

http://gyu.que.jp/jscloth/touch-wgl.html

http://www.benjoffe.com/code/demos/canvascape/textures

Be sure to be running Chrome/ium, Safari, or Opera. The latest firefox and IE beta should work too.

Problem with that is odds are his customers won't be running IE Beta but rather IE6-IE8 (Can ditch IE6 I suppose sense it is a nightmare, but at least make sure it works for IE8.) Its probably best wait to build with html 5 until a couple months after IE9 is released fully.

[Zerocool Djx]

Stay away from flash. Stick with html5. you can do some amazing stuff, examaples:

http://9elements.com/io/projects/html5/canvas/

http://js-fireworks.appspot.com/

http://gyu.que.jp/jscloth/touch-wgl.html

http://www.benjoffe.com/code/demos/canvascape/textures

Be sure to be running Chrome/ium, Safari, or Opera. The latest firefox and IE beta should work too.


I like the first one, that is pretty sweet, but the rest,.. eh I don't see the flair I am looking for. Who ever did the elements page is pretty creative. I didn't see what the big deal was till I moved the mouse around the screen.

I don't mind doing it in flash, I already use it and I already understand the action-script for it. I guess what I am really just wondering is if apple got there head out of their bum about using flash.

I am basing all the flash memory off the average computer you can buy at walmart. I mean. If walmart can support it I am assuming the rest of the world is far beyond that so, lol


Ohhh! if flash is working on i phones, what is the available memory for supporting flash?

[MasterNetra]

I like the first one, that is pretty sweet, but the rest,.. eh I don't see the flair I am looking for. Who ever did the elements page is pretty creative. I didn't see what the big deal was till I moved the mouse around the screen.

I don't mind doing it in flash, I already use it and I already understand the action-script for it. I guess what I am really just wondering is if apple got there head out of their bum about using flash.

I am basing all the flash memory off the average computer you can buy at walmart. I mean. If walmart can support it I am assuming the rest of the world is far beyond that so, lol


Ohhh! if flash is working on i phones, what is the available memory for supporting flash?

Its been supported still on their desktops & laptops, that hasn't changed at all. Its the Ipad and such that didn't get the support for Flash, you should be golden on that.

[Merk42]

Flash does not work on iOS (iPhone, iPod, iPad)
There are the aforementioned updating/SEO issues as well as accessibility issues to the seeing impared. Also depending on how carried away you may get with the site it may take a while to load and some viewers may just leave your site before waiting for it to finish.

Basically you asked if making an all flash website is a good idea or bad idea, we all say it's a bad idea and you're going to do it anyway?

[beew]

Stay away from flash. Stick with html5. you can do some amazing stuff, examaples:

http://9elements.com/io/projects/html5/canvas/

http://js-fireworks.appspot.com/

http://gyu.que.jp/jscloth/touch-wgl.html

http://www.benjoffe.com/code/demos/canvascape/textures

Be sure to be running Chrome/ium, Safari, or Opera. The latest firefox and IE beta should work too.

Why did I open the gyu.que link in Chromium and there was a message saying that the browser did not support 3D canvas? Do I have to install something?

[Merk42]

Why did I open the gyu.que link in Chromium and there was a message saying that the browser did not support 3D canvas? Do I have to install something?I got the same thing on Chrome 8. If I clicked on demo2 then back to demo3 it worked though.

[beew]

I got the same thing on Chrome 8. If I clicked on demo2 then back to demo3 it worked though.

Yeah, it works now, thanks.

[blueturtl]

I like the first one, that is pretty sweet, but the rest,.. eh I don't see the flair I am looking for. Who ever did the elements page is pretty creative. I didn't see what the big deal was till I moved the mouse around the screen.

I don't mind doing it in flash, I already use it and I already understand the action-script for it. I guess what I am really just wondering is if apple got there head out of their bum about using flash.

I am basing all the flash memory off the average computer you can buy at walmart. I mean. If walmart can support it I am assuming the rest of the world is far beyond that so, lol


Ohhh! if flash is working on i phones, what is the available memory for supporting flash?

Let me give you some advice from a person who shops online: I avoid anything that has Flash in it. The sites look pretty but are terrible functionality-wise and bog down your system. Unless you trust all your potential clients to be running the latest and fastest desktop PCs with the latest display drivers and latest Flash plug-in it's not really worth the trouble. Studies show people won't tolerate much in the way of problems before they leave your site and never come back.

I'll give you practical example: The Mrs. and I were recently shopping for furniture online and the shop that we had in mind had a website built using Flash. On our living room computer the furniture model builder didn't work but just drew random gray blocks on screen. This turned out to be because the version of Flash we used was too new. If I wasn't a technically inclined person, we wouldn't have wasted time trying out another computer with another version of the plug-in. We would have just left and found another website that worked in a regular web browser.

Anything that requires a user extra trouble like playing with plug-ins is a bad idea when you're looking for maximum visibility. If it's HTML, it will work on a Raccoon. Go with HTML. /opinion

[tgalati4]

Go against all the advice given here.

Build your entire site with Flash. Post the link.

Then let us comment on how well it works.

Sorry, but to me, the most functional websites on the net (besides this forum) are:

http://www.google.com

and

http://craigslist.org

And I don't see any Flash at all.