Slashdot Mirror

It's working for me in Mozilla and Safari.

I'm not sure the above is just a troll, but Jobs' influence has dramtically changed the landscape of computing as we know it. Those fruity iMacs you mention not only changed the way we "look" at computers, but also consumables as well. After the iMac's debut, you couldn't swing a dead cat around your head without hitting something with translucent, colored plastic (sorry cat lovers).

What about OS X? How many web sites not only outright copy the look of Apple's own site? Or products that mimic the Aqua goodness? Maybe sites like Macromedia or desktop environments like KDE.

Big deal, right? What else has he done?

His Macintosh gave us a GUI, mouse and pointers. His NeXT machine gave us the World Wide Web. His iMac gave us a simple network appliance. His OS X now gives us a UNIX environment grandparents, moms and teenagers can use.

Quite a set of lifetime achievements.

The new IE will generate a warning when processing an OBJECT tag that references external data. The only exception to this will be OBJECT tags generated from within javascript

The warning will be a dialog box with a single choice "OK" after that the active-X component (flash, java, quicktime, etc..) will function normally

To see a good sample on how to use OBJECT tags in the new version of IE look here

• Active Content FAQ
• Preparing Websites with Active Content for Announced Browser Changes
• Summary of Solutions to Update Websites with Active Content

• Active Content FAQ
• Preparing Websites with Active Content for Announced Browser Changes
• Summary of Solutions to Update Websites with Active Content

• Active Content FAQ
• Preparing Websites with Active Content for Announced Browser Changes
• Summary of Solutions to Update Websites with Active Content

Actually, as I understand it, the latest versions of Flash have added many features centering on accessibility. That's not to say that XHTML isn't still *more* accessible, just that Flash is much better at this than it was.

The trouble with that is, Netscape mishandles basic inheritance (which puts the "cascading" in css.) On top of that, Netscape forgets all style information after a form element. So if you want all your content to display in the same font, you have to overload elements like p, ul, li, h1, h2, etc. to accomodate for Netscape instead of setting your font one time on the body and being done with it.

I would do everything you said, in reverse: Write the imported stylesheet first, to get the look you want in modern browsers. Netscape doesn't understand style, so it will ignore it; now make a copy of the css you just wrote, and link it. Fix the stuff that breaks in Netscape, but without overloading any elements - because styling those elements explicitly will take precedence over anything that is supposed to follow inheritance properly in your advanced, imported stylesheet.

Alternatively, depending on how big a sacrifice you are willing to make to the visual experience in older browsers, you could start from scratch in your linked stylesheet and only include very basic style info for Netscape. This is probably preferable if you are doing significantly complex things in your advanced stylesheet, thus making debugging it in NS a painful experience. Check out this article for more on this approach.

• Cocoon
• Dreamweaver Extentions
• TopStyle
• etc

They released the MX 2004 versions of all their tools a week or so ago.

http://www.macromedia.com/software/mx2004/

For example Dreamweaver now supports CSS Layout.

Jacksonyee said
"If Zope, ColdFusion, or J2EE had more availability or less cost, then I would try those as well"

First, ColdFusion is a free download that reverts to a single IP (developer version) in 30 days. Most people are on shared hosts and there isn't much difference between a CF hosted site and a PHP one.

Looking to write object oriented CF MX code try the free Mach-II (in beta) here.

If you want totally free then use NewAtlanta's BlueDragon server here . Granted it's a generation behind CF MX but I know a fellow who put together a Linux + MySQL + BlueDragon site on an AMD box for under $500 with the only cost being the hardware.

The dirty little secret about PHP as compared to CF, JSP or ASP is that it's not scalable. IMHO sometimes by paying a little you get a lot.

Man Holmes

Linux, Mac OS, and Windows can view 99.99% of all Flash websites by dowloading the latest version of the play available for their system at the following URL:
http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/alter nates/

Now, my question is: Why is the Slashdot community so against Flash?

Is it because some people used it exclusivly for intros on websites? This is bad website design and bad usability. This has nothing to do with Flash except for the fact that Flash was their choice as the tool to get the work done. They could have chosen to use animated gifs or DHTML; could this make you hate those 2 technologies just as much?

Is it because it took a while for Macromedia to come out with updated Flash plugins for the Linux community? It is not Macromedia's responsibility to support every platform, but they have done so, although it took them a while.

I think you guys do not realize the abilities and opportunities of what Flash can do. Animation is 1% of its abilities. Flash is currently an object oriented programming language that supports many web standards (including WSDL, SOAP, and XML), plus can be used to build almost any interface that can be imagined. It supports dynamic graphics and also supports most webcams so you can brodcast, record and playback audio and video.

Flash is a important part of the web that will help take us to the next level of web applications. When HTML came out, users had to take a step backward from modern software programs into a very limited interface and featureset. HTML and the App Servers that dynamically generate it have come a long way, but you still have many limitations that a traditional piece of software installed on a computer has been able to do for years. Flash allows us to start build applications that use the internet's many amazing benefits, without losing everything users are used to in their other pieces of software.

Bad user interface design is a problem, but will not be solved by erradicating Flash from the internet.

I challenge you to download the trial version of Flash and look into its abilities before flaming me with your response.

Name any closed source package that is far superior to all OSS equvilents. Can't, do it. Why? 'cause there are none.

Goldmine. I hate to have to say this about Goldmine, since it's a big piece of shit, but I've looked long and hard for an OSS solution that even comes close, and haven't found one.

Dreamweaver, arguably. In my experience, Dreamweaver is the best at what it does, and it's a big piece of shit. Just like Goldmine. Heh.

That said, I'm as much an OSS zealot as the next guy, and I would LOVE to see something come out that kicks the ass out of Goldmine. I've found alternatives to Dreamweaver that suit me fine, but I'm still looking for something to kick Goldmine into next year.

I think Macromedia has done a wonderful job with flash. Your bad experience with Flash might be from people who only use flash to do those lame start pages. If you want to see a good flash page why don't you go to macromedia.com

I think Macromedia has done a wonderful job with flash. Your bad experience with Flash might be from people who only use flash to do those lame start pages. If you want to see a good flash page why don't you go to macromedia.com

I've been reading Zeldman's book Designing for Web Standards at safari.oreilly.com and it addresses this quite well. Safari and Mac IE 5.2 are very compliant to standards moreso than any version of IE on Windows, so it's not as big a deal now as it once was during the browser war era. Yeesh what a mess that was.

If you can move away from using old pre-war coding practices you'll be a step ahead in the fight. Check out these sites for more info on coding pages that look good in any browser on any platform:

• The Web Standards Project

• Zeldman's site of course.

• A List Apart

• Netscape's DevEdge is a great source of info.

• Validate your source.

• Validate your CSS.

• Another html validator.

• Accessibility is not only a good thing it's the right thing, especially if you ever make a government site.

• Bluerobot has some pre-cooked layouts to cut your teeth on.

Designing with XHTML and CSS means not leaving anybody out. From Web-enabled phones to IE 6 to text only browsers like lynx or links you'll only need to write your code once. I say do away with javascript browser detection scripts and write once, run (almost) anywhere!

There is a last resort you can go to if you must. Macromedia Flash looks the same in any browser provided you have the proper plugin. :) Although that is not my recommended solution.

Voila. Seriously, just because you guys are all perl or PHP bigots...

See http://www.macromedia.com/

The effect this has on Microsoft will be almost nil.. What do they care about what people see in webpages?
The real people to worry should be Quicktime and, Macromedia.
See: the people who use/rely on this technology.

I used a variation of this guys LAMP install process. It worked first time. Also got to see how fast a 2.4 Ghz P4 compiles stuff like Apache. Very nice!

Have you looked into the Flash Communication Server from Macromedia? We use it here at the Univ of Akron for some minor teleconferencing and it works great. Since the Flash player is available for many platforms, it seems to be a good idea. There's no hardware needed except a server to put it on (which right now is Windows only) and mics/cameras for the clients.
The stress on the server with a dozen concurrent video and audio, including some over wireless connections, was negligible. With the computers over 100mbs connection and wireless at 11mbs shared, the video and audio quality was great. Even over dial-up, the quality was impressive.
The FCS comes with sample teleconferencing and whiteboard examples, so you could easily modify it to suit your purposes.

They think webmail is going to be more popular than imap, or pop3 mail boxes.

If Microsoft lets its market share for desktop-based e-mail clients slip, it could be short-sighted.

I use web-based mail at work (iPlanet/SIMS) and web-based mail (Yahoo) at home as my primary mail-reader. I have broadband in both locations and the responsiveness of web-based e-mail conpared to desktop e-mail clients is negligible.

My work-at-home CEO has satellite at home. He can't use the web-based product because the interactive sluggishness from delay and packet loss would kill his productivity. SSH-tunneled POP works great for him because his local e-mail client (Outlook) downloads new e-mail in the background and sends messages out in the background while he is composing/reading mail quickly in the foreground.

When I administered e-mail for a dialup ISP, the primary method our users preferred to access their e-mail was POP to Outlook Express or Netscape Messenger. It is painfully slow to browse through e-mail over a dialup connection. There are still millions of dialup users out there. They are the majority of users on the Internet.

If people use wireless devices in the future, their experience will be more similar to dialup/satellite than broadband, and they'll demand a product that isn't web-based-only. Some of the ideas brought to light by Central or similar technologies could satisfy both broadband/fixed and narrowband/mobile users.

Microsoft makes an excellent user interface for e-mail. They're good at that. Their enterprise/corporate customers may continue to pay for it. Other products like M2, Evolution, and Mozilla will help fill the consumer niche if they open it up. If it weren't for Microsoft's early monopoly bundling tactics vs Netscape Navigator (founded on a "beta/intro is free, production version costs money" business model), we might not have nor expect free browser and e-mail software. We're spoiled. If it weren't for security or playform supportissues, more of us Slashdotters might use Outlook Express.

-ez

PS: I lied. My primary mail reader is MH.

Getch'er beta here.

As far as I can tell, it works as well as the Windows version. A little too well, in fact, so I downloaded this helpful little extension.

Once it's installed, go ahead and test it out.

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe the HP-UX or AIX ports run on OpenUnix? I do see there there is a RedHat and SuSE release for cold fusion however (supported: HP-UX, IBM-AIX, Linux, Windows, Solaris, Apple OS X, even win98/ME; Just not you know who's OS >:-p ). Gee, I wonder what Macromedia's opinion is on this subject...

It's no wonder they would want to litigate for their money now. They don't even seem to trust their own products to maintain their, own PR or so it appears.

JavaScript nee ECMAScript became standard-ish around the 3rd generation browsers.

Well, download: IE3+, Netscape3+, Opera3+, Konkeror1+. They all have JavaScript.

Uh huh. Remember that if I tell you something, you don't need to tell me back. Download IE2 and Netscape2; you can still get Shockwave.

Natively. It is not an option of the installer, you just can't have one of these browsers without JavaScript.

Flash is in all of the installers too. And javascript can be turned off. This is a nonissue.

Since Flash doesn't even run on all of them,

Flash on Opera, Flash on Konqueror. So, what again? Or do you think it fails to run in IE or Netscape?

I don't know how you can find that Flash has a better deployment than JavaScript.

As I already told you, because Shockwave and Flash are circa 2nd generation browsers and Moreover, in legacy browsers, Javascript has notorious implementation problems . Moreover, any browser which can pick up netscape plugins - of which there are quite a few - can pick up flash; none of them can pick up exetrnal JS/ECMAS implementations. And if a browser doesn't have one, it doesn't have both, in general (lately, 6th gen browsers have begun to strip the machine down, so this is becoming less true. Still.)

For the sake of the example, let's focus on 99.5% of the browsers which are: Netscape4+, Opera5+, IE4+ and Konqueror

I can't understand this. They're not 99.5% of the user base, they're not 99.5% of the broswer list by a longshot.

Flash can run on any browser, if you choose to install it, while JavaScript runs natively on every one of them.

That said, Flash is enabled in essentially every deployment, whereas as any web master has learned the hard way, JavaScript is oftentimes turned off. Moreover, there are many legacy browsers which support shockwave, flash, or futuresplash which don't support JavaScript.

Ah, but here's the killer, which I also already told you: Gen 3 browsers won't help. Their JS/ECMAS implementations don't touch the DOM, so you can't use them to write VML or SVG.

Moreover, VML has no chance of making it into other browsers. If you're going to use a standard, use a W3C standard like SVG.

You just can't disable it or 50% of the websites out there doesn't work anymore,

Nonetheless, many people do indeed have it disabled, just like cookies. You strike me as the sort of person that used the marquee tag and got angry when some of the web didn't use IE.

so you re-enable it very quickly.

You'll find that most people which go to the effort of turning off parts of their browser aren't clueless and are aware of the ramifications of their actions. That is to say, "nuh-uh."

So I hope the JavaScript question is settled. And please, even with the bugs that are out there, the common denominator of all the JavaScript engine deployed is still a good enough language to animate a bar/pie chart.

When you're writing browser select clauses for your DOM touching, just remember, someone warned you.

Now for VML, the computation is simple:
Netscape4+: 2%
Opera5+: 1.5%
Konqueror: ??% (most likely below 1)
IE4: 0.5%
Leaves the winner: IE5+: 94%

Something tells me you made these numbers up. For example, this shows netscape holding about 11% of the market (IE holds 84; other parties, 5.)

Even so, there's something mildly infuriating about people which rebuke perfectly good cross platform standards just because 5% of the market can't see them. What's wrong with using the standards that get to everyone? Why do you feed Microsloth's market dom

Flash Player 6 is bundled with Netscape 7 and AOL 8

Flash Player 5 is bundled with WinXP, IE 6.0, Netscape 4.79, and AOL 7

Flash Player 4 is bundled with WinME, IE 5.5, Netscape 4.6, and AOL 6

Flash Player 3 is bundled with Win98, IE 5.0, Netscape 4.06, and AOl 4

Not on any site I've seen, and not with any version of the Flash plugin I've used (I'm using 6.0 r79, which is the latest released version, according to Macromedia). Care to provide a URL where I can see this is action?

resizing text works

Nope. Zooming is not the same as resizing. It is also waaaay to clumsy to be useful on a regular basis. It's far easier to just give up on the site and go somewhere else.

cutting and pasting text works

Again, not in any version of Flash I've used. Care to provide some examples? I've just tried going to http://www.macromedia.com, to see if I could do it, but no joy. Can you explain what I'd need to do to cut and paste some of the text from the flash presentation on the front page?

I just want to point out that Flash is an open format - you can download the specs from Macromedia.

reading the Specification License Agreement it does not seem so "open" to me

Have you seen Macromedia's Central? Soon to be released, Central allows Flash applications to run offline and outside IE/Mozilla. It sounds sorta like the Flash-based, Macromedia browser you're talking about..?

After all, the Internet is a text-based medium at its core.

Tell that to Macromedia

macromedia needs to work on security of flash

That's a laugh. Macromedia's in bed with Doubleclick if you didn't know. Since nobody is paying for their Flash plugin, it's apparently in Macromedia's best interest to keep their (figurative) partners in crime happy. Macromedia can bite my shiny metal ass. I mourn Allaire.

Micah Alpern raises some good points about MS's attention to vector based ui's. I think though that he's completely offbase when saying that Macromedia's announcement of Royal will ilicit any response from Redmond.

Flash won't be a threat to Microsoft as a "full platform". The primary reason is that Macromedia is great at marketing their products - but architecutally their product line lacks consistancy of vision and execution. Flash for example has, over the past three versions proved time and time again that it lacks a reliable, and easy to use programming environment, an absolute necessity for building truly sophisticated ui's and functionality.

Don't get me wrong - there is some amazing flash work out there. Kudo's to the design/developers that were able to produce such things. The road to such accomplishments however is frought with errors, head scratching and mysteries.

This is primarily because Macromedia seems to think that it's OK to produce API level functions that don't behave as expected so long as they are documented. See Macromedia 'Technotes' for further ammo er info. I think somewhere along the way someone at Macromedia misread "Test and Deploy" as "Deploy and Test". Most have to do with I/O such as load movie, getUrl, and loadVariables. Solid multi source I/O is an absolute necessity for building fully featured "rich client" applications. JavaScript is also not an acceptable language for building real applications. Especailly Macromedia's implementation which has a very loose object based approach to dealing with items in the movie. Flash is also slow. On machines who are not as "swift" as their high speed grand children - high complexity movies are sluggish and don't respond well.

What this all comes down to is the fact that from a technology perspective, Macromedia lacks a coherent architecture for accomplishing complex tasks that will be required to build "Royale" and there is a good chance that developers first taste of Royale will be a bitter one.

I've seen Macromedia presentations touting the amazing compression qualities of Flash, using uncompressed AVI file sizes as a comparison instead of comparing to other modern codecs.

Not long after Flash 6 (MX) came out, there were issues with video and audio sync for files over 3MB, preventing me from using long clips at higher qualities. Have these been solved?

I've seen hundreds of database driven Flash sites. It's fairly simple to do.

I agree that Flash is evil, but that doesn't justify skewing facts.

Question: What would you substitute for Powerpoint?

Much like HTML can lead to web development languages and later more powerful programming lanuages, Macromedia Flash has the potential to draw kids into programming.

I'd love to. Perhaps you could provide a link to a vector drawing package that is as good as Corel Draw?

Try this or perhapsthis. Not so many features, but a lot more quality.

Judging by this Homesite/Dreamweaver MX FAQ it really isn't a feature.

I use a lot of PNGs with client's websites.

The proplem is the non-existant Alpha support on MSIE. Every other [modern] browser reads the alpha beautifully.

For creating PNGs, outside of using GD in PHP, I use Fireworks which so far does the trick as long as you use the Export Preview function, not the native 'save as..' function. WAY better than GIFs by far!

Personally, you have to individual check on each image that comes into your browser to know who's using what. PNG is used more than you think. But I still wish MSIE would wise up to the alpha problem.

(If i'm wrong and anyone knows how to do this in dreamweaver, let me know!)

my personal fav is the ipaq 5455, but the sony clie nx series is very hot. for developers and designers i wrote an article that's on macromedia. overall it's the best palm based pda out there.

article

cheers,
pt

Much as I hate all Macromedia products (grr!), there is a Flash plugin for Netscape-compatible browsers that is for Linux. Go here.

Technically speaking, Macromedia chose PNG (which stands for Portable Network Graphics) as the native file format for Fireworks because the format has both open source and proprietary characteristics. In most applications, the default file format is proprietary, meaning other applications can't open it. PNG, however, is an open source file format. Some graphic applications and browsers can open PNGs too. However, they can only read the graphical portion of a PNG's file information. Fireworks PNG files contain a second "chunk" of data that other applications can't read, which contains proprietary information about things like slicing, interactivity, and any Live Effects that may have been applied.

Here are a few examples:

• Opera 6.0
  I can't get my hands on a license without downloading the software :(
• RealPlayer
  The same thing. They obviously don't want us to read it unecessarily :)
• Flash
  You may not alter, merge, modify, adapt or translate the Software, or decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble, or otherwise reduce the Software to a human-perceivable form. That's more clear cut, and straight out said than in most licenses :)
  ...
  You may not modify the Software or create derivative works based upon the Software.
  ...
  You may not export the Software into any country prohibited by the United States Export Administration Act and the regulations thereunder.
  Which I guess means that Cubans, Lybians, Iranians, North Koreans, Syrians and some others can't use the software, but I may well be wrong as for which nationalities this is.
• Java
  Except as specifically authorized in any Supplemental License Terms, you may not make copies of Software, other than a single copy of Software for archival purposes. Unless enforcement is prohibited by applicable law, you may not modify, decompile, or reverse engineer Software.
  ...
  You may not modify the Java Platform Interface ("JPI", identified as classes contained within the "java" package or any subpackages of the "java" package), by creating additional classes within the JPI or otherwise causing the addition to or modification of the classes in the JPI.
  ...
  You acknowledge that the Software may automatically download, install, and execute applets, applications, software extensions, and updated versions of the Software from Sun ("Software Updates")
• NVidia drivers
  ... SOFTWARE designed exclusively for use on the Linux operating system may be copied and redistributed, provided that the binary files thereof are not modified in any way (except for unzipping of compressed files).
  ...
  Customer may not reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the SOFTWARE, nor attempt in any other manner to obtain the source code.

As you see, the licenses limit the terms of use , modification and redistribuation of the software in ways which are to me not acceptable.

Since they'll probably do this crap with flash..

How to Uninstall Flash Manually (for Linux users)

Direct link to Win32 Uninstaller

Since they'll probably do this crap with flash..

How to Uninstall Flash Manually (for Linux users)

Direct link to Win32 Uninstaller

First, I agree to move to something else, but I won't say my preference here. Some wank will find a way to blame my choice on my family tree, and sidetrack the discussion into the gutter.

That said, if you insist on using MDB's, hook to them with a front end...check out Cold Fusion, formerly from Allaire, now in Macromedia's hands.

You shouldn't allow anyone but your DB Admin to tap directly into your Access files. Building an interactive, browser based front-end is not that hard, and it provides many of things you are either looking for now, or will be seeking in the future. I worked for a bank, and found them pushing MS solutions. While we pushed something mo' betta, we also worked to get the data they already had into the hands of the users, via MS Access and CF.

Ton's of examples out there...get started now, and relax sooner than later.

You defend Flash because you say it has it's uses, and I won't argue there. Personally, I can live without Flashvertisements and animated Flash intros. My problem with Flash is thus:

Flash has a user-hostile interface. Since it's a third party product, there are no options within the browser to control it. Animated GIFs and annoying Javascript may be problematic at times, but those can be easily disabled for the offending site, then re-enabled later. How do you temporarily disable Flash? Right click on the abomination and you get a menu that contains a single item, "About Flash..".

If Macromedia would include a user interface for Flash so that the user may choose to disable or enable it at any time, then I would not have a problem with it. To my point of view, Flash is a Trojan horse. You want it on your computer to view Flash movies, play Flash games, ect. But make no mistake, the real purpose of Flash is advertising.

Yes, yes, yes.

Just look at the movie icons for Central and Sherlock.

Where are Apple's Cease and Desist letters when you need them?

Stats on Flash penetration from macromedia