Quote:
Originally Posted by
tjw 
I agree banners suck and everything but the fact remains. There is no technology that matches flash for rich web content. If there is, you will explain how it is possible to currently make a website like
http://www.seecorridor.com/ without flash. This is what designers and brand managers use.
I do not have a vested interest in flash at all. I have never created any flash content in my life. I am just trying to be rational on this forum because most of you cult followers don't see the other side of the argument whatsoever.
perhaps there should not be websites like that in first place. The UI is horrible for corridor. Just because you have the freedom to make vertical text links, does not mean you should, especially for a site that is to be viewed horizontally. What is on that site, that could not be reproduced with jpgs, dhtml, css, and javascript? absolutely nothing, but guaranteed that flash file size dwarfs the html version. And for no added benefits other than the laziness to not have to css hack/optimize for the all the main browsers.
This is something no one talks about, but i am going to say it....Flash also allows talentless/hobbyist designers to create absolute foul stools and place them on the web to ruin the experience of the web for the rest of us. Design is more than flashy/crappy graphics and animation, 'cause you can. Though i will agree there is no competing program that can do what Flash does somewhat seamlessly, Actionscripting/javascripting was not originally designed/optimized to animate the horrendously large, complicated, algorithm-ed, multi-layed SVGs that non-professionals have atrociously used it for.
A professional "rich web content" experience is also about the limitations of your medium and becoming a master of the process, which includes design limitations relative to screen size, content delivery, and processing capabilities. Very few "flash" designers have every achieved this. Optimization is crucial, even with todays broadband and wifi accessible world. There is no substitution for proper planning, which also includes who will be able to access this content/how/at which speed, the lowest common denominators. The majority of the market of the personal/professional computer users are windows users with one thing in mind, price..which means cheap, which means configurations never even thought or considered. Which means Flash from a professional content designer's perspective leaves too many unknowns how it will run. Trust me, I have professional used, taught, and tutored flash since the beginning, i would test the same project on every computer I could get my hands on, offline and online and the experience was similar but different each time. There is no telling how it will run from computer to computer. Animation lag, is the best you can hope for.
Since Adobe has purchased macromedia, it has tried to merge the capabilities of Director and try to merge it with Flash...that was a bad idea from the start. Even before the purchase, trying to encode video? Seriously? Leave that to big boys, to dedicated professional video applications. Adobe has never gotten it right in that department either. Now the bulk of flash-designed content is annoying ads and porn, most professional designers abandoned it for websites a long time ago.
There I said...and with all that said, I hope to see the millions of poorly designed/optimized flash sites to quietly disappear into the night, so I can surf without the worry that flash is going to gain access or crash my browser/system