Flash and Open Source

Anders Schneiderman asks: "I'm involved in a project that's planning to create open source toys for educating people around complicated policy questions (e.g., policy on prescription drugs). We'd really like to use Flash as our main language, but we're concerned about the fact that the major Flash development tools cost $500--more than some of the community group folks we want to involve can afford. I took a look at Sourceforge, and while there are plenty of projects that offer ways to create Flash for free, there didn't seem to be any v.1 general development tools. Did I miss something? If you want to build Flash and you don't want to pay $500, how do you do it (aside from copying somebody else's, which as Bill Gates told us is just bad, bad, bad)? And if there aren't any powerful open source tools for it, any thoughts on why?"

Comments

where are the comments?

[dmarien]

I'm rather curious seeing as how i work in a MS flash desing firm.

This is ridiculous

[WildBeast]

Seems to me like your site will have plenty of information. Using Flash for that kind of site is a really bad idea. Flash is a usability nightmare.

Re:This is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

nope. flash is not a usability nightmare. it's very easy to make usable, and attractive sites based on flash.

the problem with flash is that it's a _functional_ nightmare. it's impossible to make information rich sites using flash, or deep link using flash.

if you find that certain sites rendered using flash are unusable, don't blame the hammer. blame the carpenter.

Re:This is ridiculous

[maelstrom]

I'll agree and add that how do you expect to have flash indexed by search engines like google? Many information sites get most of their hits from people searching for the information, it would be foolish to ignore these people. :)

Re:This is ridiculous

[Aerolith_alpha]

Untrue--flash is just like any other medium--the usability is based on how thoughtful your design process is.

Re:This is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

flash a usability nightmare??? bollocks! check out www.flash99good.com

Re:This is ridiculous

[W1BMW]

Um, when you exporet your flash and it's carrier HTML, all the text used in the presentation is buried in the HTML just so it can get indexed. Use the tool before you knock it.

Re:This is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash doesn't kill people. Webdesigners kill people.

Re:This is ridiculous

[Slurm-V]

When was the last time a search engine worth its salt indexed comments?

<!--sex,sex,sex,goats,mp3,mp3,mp3 -->

Re:This is ridiculous

[esonik]

I as a user hate flash sites because they take away power from me:

1) I can't use the BACK button to get back one step.

2) I can't search text with the browsers search function.

3) I can't resize the browser window to my comfort and have the content resized as well.

4) I have to learn how to use each and every site because everybody uses a different user interface (preferably using tiny fonts and tiny scrolling windows to display large amounts of text).

5) Murphy's Law: interesting sites always require the latest flash plugin, which unfortunately is not yet available for your platform.

6) Murphy's 2nd Law: if you have the required plugin version it will crash your browser.

Re:This is ridiculous

[letxa2000]

nope. flash is not a usability nightmare. it's very easy to make usable, and attractive sites based on flash.

I, as a user, almost always close the browser window if I arrive at a site that uses Flash.

1. I've found that most sites that use Flash do so to provide pretty colors and glitter to easily dazzled end-users, but usually don't have much in the way of real content.

2. Even on my DSL line, I can often click on "Back" and select the next website at google before the previous website was done loading and doing their silly animations.

3. I think Flash was developed near the end of the dot com boom when people were all thrilled about anything that looked cool on the Internet. Now, as mentioned by previous articles here and on CNN, the novelty of Internet is starting to wear off and it's becoming a tool to get a job done. Flash doesn't do anything to help you get the job done. It slows you down. Rather than waste my time I'll just move on to the next site.

the problem with flash is that it's a _functional_ nightmare

In other words, it's a nightmare for the visitors that will be using your site. Good idea.

if you find that certain sites rendered using flash are unusable, don't blame the hammer. blame the carpenter.

Right. The carpenter (web developer) is using the wrong tool (Flash). He should be using the right tool--HTML.

I can't think of many appropriate applications for Flash. HTML provides content, Java applets provide interactivity, when necessary. Flash is unnecessary bulk and fluf.

Re:This is ridiculous

[FyRE666]

I'm sorry but I feel compelled to respond to this. I'm not saying Flash is the best idea for this guy's site, I have no idea what he intends to do but:

1) I can't use the BACK button to get back one step.

Blame the author. It's simple to add the same functionality to the Flash movie (it can call javascript which in turn would call history.back()).

2) I can't search text with the browsers search function.

Again, there's nothing to stop a flash movie searching itself. There is a DOM, and scripting is always active (obviously).

3) I can't resize the browser window to my comfort and have the content resized as well.

This is just wrong. Depending upon the parameters used in the embed/object tags, a movie can be resizable, or of fixed dimensions (like java).

4) I have to learn how to use each and every site because everybody uses a different user interface (preferably using tiny fonts and tiny scrolling windows to display large amounts of text).

Hardly flash's fault! When I browse with my linux box I often come across html only sites with unreadable text, broken javascript and other multimedia elements that don't work. If anything, flash helps sites to be more accessable across platforms.

5) Murphy's Law: interesting sites always require the latest flash plugin, which unfortunately is not yet available for your platform.

Which platform do you use, exactly? I've yet to encounter a site I can't browse with Linux, Windows or even my Mac. I'm pretty sure I used to do just fine with a Solaris box too...

6) Murphy's 2nd Law: if you have the required plugin version it will crash your browser.

I've never seen flash crash my browser. It seems pretty stable on the 24hr a day information kiosks and set-top boxes I've used it on too.

It's true that flash isn't suitable for everything, although Flash MX has added a few very useful features, but it's not so bad really.

Java applets however, are my personal pet hate. I haven't had java enabled in a browser for years as it seemed to crash everything I ever tried it on, so now sites that STILL use lame java buttons for simple rollover effects are simply unusable to me.

Re:This is ridiculous

[FyRE666]

Right. The carpenter (web developer) is using the wrong tool (Flash). He should be using the right tool--HTML.

I can't think of many appropriate applications for Flash. HTML provides content, Java applets provide interactivity, when necessary. Flash is unnecessary bulk and fluf.

It depends on the site. A site showing animated cartoons is going to look a tad dull in HTML. A web application (Oddpost for instance) is much easier to make cross browser using flash than dHTML (I use both, BTW but I don't have the crash-happy Java runtime installed on any browser on any platform).

Obviously any art/design oriented site will benefit from Flash, as it's a creative outlet. An artist or designer will find it much easier and faster to put something together using a visual tool than learning Java or dHTML before fighting against a compiler or scripting engine.
Or maybe you think no-one should use Photoshop either, and instead learn how to poke hex values into the display RAM to create an image. Not everyone is just looking for grey pages full of facts you know...

Flash was designed to display animated vector graphics, and to allow client-side interfaces with XML sockets to act as applications. It does this very well. Sure it's been abused by many sites in the past, but the days of the "Skip Intro" wastage are hopefully numbered.

Re:This is ridiculous

[Wumpus]

Blame the author. It's simple to add the same functionality to the Flash movie (it can call javascript which in turn would call history.back()).

No, blame the tool. When you author in HTML, you don't need to do anything to get that functionality. In Flash, it's another item on the TODO list.

Again, there's nothing to stop a flash movie searching itself. There is a DOM, and scripting is always active (obviously).

See my previous point. It's not the default behavior, and nobody bothers to do it.

This is just wrong. Depending upon the parameters used in the embed/object tags, a movie can be resizable, or of fixed dimensions (like java).

Can you resize the text? Sure, you can zoom, but I've seen sites that disable most of the context menu functions. Some people can't read itsy bitsy teensy weensy fonts, you know.

Hardly flash's fault! When I browse with my linux box I often come across html only sites with unreadable text, broken javascript and other multimedia elements that don't work. If anything, flash helps sites to be more accessable across platforms.

Most browsers will allow you to work around those issues by overriding certain (poort) choices made by the HTML author. With Flash, you're just stuck with what they shovel your way. Now, Javascript... that's a whole other issue.

Re:This is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

not to be picky but here i am being picky anyway:

look at how that site which you have in yor profile uses frames? THAT is a usabilaty nightmare not to mention ridiculous in terms of functionality.

So why are you commenting on anything to do with web design?

Re:This is ridiculous

[FyRE666]

No, blame the tool. When you author in HTML, you don't need to do anything to get that functionality. In Flash, it's another item on the TODO list.

Riiight... Maybe I should throw out my computer too huh? Since it doesn't write the software for me, instead it's left it on the TODO list...

Can you resize the text? Sure, you can zoom, but I've seen sites that disable most of the context menu functions. Some people can't read itsy bitsy teensy weensy fonts, you know.

Hang on a minute! A few lines ago you were moaning about having to add a line of script to emulate the back button, yet NOW you're complaining that some authors take the time to add extra code to disable the context menu (which I've never seen anywhere, BTW and didn't think possible but haven't checked).

Most browsers will allow you to work around those issues by overriding certain (poort) choices made by the HTML author.

Yep, you can switch off stylesheets which often completely wreaks everything else on the page (in fact I remember that NS4 actually does this for you if you disable javascript!). If a font size has been set using CSS with IE4/5/6, you have to disable CSS to resize it as it won't respond to the fontsize menu.

However, I just leave an unreadable site - if the author can't be bothered to test the site out, I can't be bothered to jump through hoops to use it. This goes for Flash and HTML. Bad design is possible using either platform, but there's a hell of a lot more of it created in HTML, as any fool with a text editor can slap something up on Geocities.

Re:This is ridiculous

[uchian]

>No, blame the tool. When you author in HTML, you don't need to do anything to get that >functionality. In Flash, it's another item on the TODO list.

Riiight... Maybe I should throw out my computer too huh? Since it doesn't write the software for me, instead it's left it on the TODO list...

You obviously have no concept of Object Orientated coding, which is a shame because there is one important point to learn from it :

NEVER do something multiple times if you can do it once and forget about it.

Obviously, you have to do it once in the first place (you can't just "throw away the computer") but hey - the fact that your using a computer means you at least partly understand the concept - I mean, you don't use a seperate machine for email, web browsing text, web browsing flash, web browsing XML, web browsing pictures, web browsing hyperlinked sites, web browsing... (etc. etc. etc...) do you?

Put the functionality into flash ONCE, and forget about it. Rather than have EVERY SINGLE author who ever makes a flash movie have to WASTE HIS TIME putting it in.

Re:This is ridiculous

[zeno_2]

When I got a site, and it uses flash, i'll usually click on it to see what it looks like (im spoiled with fast connections so waiting ususally isn't an issue). If they can pull off the UI of their site just as good or better in flash then in html, id take flash over it, but ive only found a few sites that are like that.

Flash does have its places though, like another poster that replied to you, cartoons. You really can't touch how good a flash cartoon looks like with much else, and its fairly easy to create that cartoon. I guess it comes down to why flash was used on the site. Ive made some sites with flash, but it was just an experiment to mess around with it. I see too many of these 'experiments' make it onto normal websites, where its just a mess, but Ive also seen many HTML pages like that as well. Anyway, if the author decided to use flash because its *flashy* then id rather see the HTML version.. if he used it to make it easier to navigate, or something along those lines, id rather use the flash site.. Thats just me though.

Re:This is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash in itself isn't the culprit. Designers who use it to create huge .swf files full of difficult-to-navigate fluff are the culprits. Flash vector-compression technology actually enables you to create *smaller* files. Complex navigation bars, for example, can be published as 10Kb files. And such Flash navbars are actually more browser and OS neutral than the ton of Javascript you may have used for that navbar otherwise. In short: don't blame the technology; blame the people who make poor use of it.

Re:This is ridiculous

[logicnazi]

>No, blame the tool. When you author in HTML, you don't need to do anything to get that functionality. In Flash, it's another item on the TODO list.

Unfortunatly this is simply a limitation of any technology that gives this level of control to the developer. People use flash precisely because it lets them do things like run animations/programs in the web page. If you have some sort of fast changing graphic (for instance a game/educational software) what is "back." The programmer needs to explicitly tell flash how to go back precisely because it has that extra power (if you don't believe this ask the question "why doesn't x-windows have a back button". Flash gives you similar power to an x-windows app.

Searching is similar. Quite simply if you want to display graphic images (which are often buttons or words) you need to tell the program how to do a search otherwise it isn't very usefull.

Of course flash effects can be arbitrarily resizeable. This is the same reason x-windows programs can't simply be resized, it doesn't always make sense. Flash is meant to be used primarily for graphic intensive operations. Its strength is precisely the fact that it lets the author control precisely how the output looks on the computer.

Quite simply all of these are disadvatages of giving the author such a high degree of control over the output. I am not claiming flash is as well designed as possible (maybe it could have more features to encourage authors to add these userfriendly features) however these are all issues endemic to any tool which addresses flashes needs. In fact flash is remarkably good at replicating the same results on differnt platforms.

It mostly seems that your problem is that people often implement flash for the wrong purposes. HTML is better for informational content b/c it has search builtin (esp if you aren't going to bother to implement it yourself). This is no more flashes fault than it is perl's fault that your ray tracer written in perl is too slow.

It is really unfortunate that I know of no good free flash development tools

Re:This is ridiculous

[Xunker]

You obviously have no concept of Object Orientated coding, which is a shame because there is one important point to learn from it :

I don't see how this went from web site design to progamming, but whatever, it's your ballgame.

You obviously have no concept of Object Orientated coding, which is a shame because there is one important point to learn from it :

I'm sorry to say either you're mixing methaphors very bady or you have no concept of computer languages at all, otherwise you wouldn't have said this; But you did, and well, let me say this: Lets suppose you write a library for a program. You finish that program and are done with it. You start another -- do you really expect the compiler/IDE to do your job for you and load up your previous base codebase for you?

Saying behaviour should be default is one thing, but comparing Apples to Tree Sloths is another...

Re:This is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

no no, please guys, flash MX has anchor functions that u can add to use the back button in the browser.
i used to hate flash a lot too, but once u get to know it better, its a very nice tool and with the new version there is plenty of room for coders. action script is better then ever and we can really use shared libraries now.
if u hate flash cause u think its too visual, think again! its just a layer, plenty of coding underneath.

Re:This is ridiculous

[Wumpus]

Riiight... Maybe I should throw out my computer too huh? Since it doesn't write the software for me, instead it's left it on the TODO list...

That's not what I meant. The nicer development tools will choose sensible defaults for you. HTML, as an authoring environment, has at least one such sensible default: The back button works. People know, understand, and dearly love the back button. When a web design tool causes the back button to break by default, that's bad tool design.

So, if a tool forces you to repeatedly write code to do something that should have been the default behavior, is it still a good tool? Maybe, but If every single Flash site I've ever seen suffers from usability issues, I have to conclude that the tool used to create those sites encourages unusable design.

By way of analogy, you can look at Visual Basic. Many visual basic projects have business logic in widget callbacks. This is bad, because changing the UI involves moving and modifying code that has nothing to do with the UI, and just happens to be in the wrong place.

The primary reason for that is that Visual Basic's development environment encourages this design, because it's the most natural thing to do. Drag the pretty icon to the form, double click, spew out some code, done. Ship. Repeat.

Hang on a minute! A few lines ago you were moaning about having to add a line of script to emulate the back button, yet NOW you're complaining that some authors take the time to add extra code to disable the context menu (which I've never seen anywhere, BTW and didn't think possible but haven't checked).

I'm just trying to be consistent. I'm complaining about people designing unusable sites. In the first case, I point out that many people neglect to write some code that could have made their site a little more tolerable. In the second case, I complain about SOME people, who choose to waste their time writing code that specifically impairs usability.

However, I just leave an unreadable site - if the author can't be bothered to test the site out, I can't be bothered to jump through hoops to use it.

Of course. Bad design is only a problem for a web designer if she wants people to use her sites.

This goes for Flash and HTML. Bad design is possible using either platform, but there's a hell of a lot more of it created in HTML, as any fool with a text editor can slap something up on Geocities.

Lies, damn lies and statistics... Of course there is a lot more bad design that was done in HTML - the vast majority of web content today is still created in HTML! I still maintain that most Flash content is just plain bad, from a usability perspective. I can't remember seeing a single Flash site that I liked, but that could just be me being too critical, or just losing my memory.

Now, mostly as an illustration of how bad things can get with Flash, take a look at http://www.ysub.com - I know it doesn't prove anything, but just look at the blasted thing! There's actually some content on that page. Can anyone find it without looking at the .swf file with a hex editor? I sure can't.

If Flash can be used to create usable web sites, how come nobody uses it to create usable web sites? The only Flash application I've ever seen that came close was the one with the frog in the blender, and that was only because it used an established user interface metaphore (The Blender), and it had an on-screen animated character (the frog), that practically TOLD you what to do.

Re:This is ridiculous

[georgeb]

Java applets however, are my personal pet hate. I haven't had java enabled in a browser for years as it seemed to crash everything I ever tried it on, so now sites that STILL use lame java buttons for simple rollover effects are simply unusable to me.

I'm with you on this one :) I've never felt the need to enable java on my browsers. Except for the rare cases when I use IE to browse the web, I never enable JRE. So, if any of you readers ever get the idea to create a Java-based site -- think again ;)

Well, I'm being too harsh. Everybody's free to use whatever tools one wishes. If you like java and trust your audience likes java too and has the techincal capability to enjoy it... go ahead. It's just that Java's way less popular than Flash these days. I can't wait to get the SVG thing going though...

Re:This is ridiculous

[4130BMX_LoCal]

5) Murphy's Law: interesting sites always require the latest flash plugin, which unfortunately is not yet available for your platform. Which platform do you use, exactly? I've yet to encounter a site I can't browse with Linux, Windows or even my Mac. I'm pretty sure I used to do just fine with a Solaris box too... Well, on BeOS I have some flash-problems. Opera and mozilla are displaying most flash-pages fine, but there are some that can't be displayed. BeOS is a dead OS? Ehmm...well there are too many "lifesign" (read: entries in my webserver-log), so it can't be dead 6) Murphy's 2nd Law: if you have the required plugin version it will crash your browser. I've never seen flash crash my browser. It seems pretty stable on the 24hr a day information kiosks and set-top boxes I've used it on too. I've seen flash crashing broswers on ANY system. Flash-only sites are a much bigger sin than <blink>-Tag. In most cases flash is as useless as JavaScript. The server should be responsible to return "AnyBrowser"-code. It's a shame if a webmaster makes the user responsible for viewing content correctly. Imagine you want to buy a car. You go to the dealer and let him know that you want to buy the black Porsche 911. The dealer takes out a measuring tool to get your size and then saying:" Nope, you're 5 cm to small. The seats are fixed and can't get the care unless you buy some "increase your size" shoes. And for Java. It's not only because I'm a JavaProgrammer (k, makes me a little bit prejudged), but Java is the best technology for secure data transfer via the inet, i. e. for online banking. It's hard to crash a computer with java and Java is available for more plattforms than Flash, even on BeOS I have Java. LoCal

Re:This is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash doesn't kill people. Webdesigners doesn't kill people. Pointy haired managers do kill people.

On the other hand, Quevedo, a Spanish poet wrote once about him hating poets. He loved poetry, of course, but to his opinion all poets were bad poets, so he hated them. Actually, there must be good poets round there, he said, but it is so a uncommon chance you can just forget about them.

The same goes with Flash. I'm sure a good programmer, Flash knowledgeable, working on a project were Flash is sensible, and with sensible managers that don't stubbornly ask for more animations and pretty flashy colors *migth* do a good web.
It's just that web is sooo uncommon that one can just forget about them and simply say "Flash is Bad Thing".

(as a side note, I will add I've just seen *one* Flash site I liked. I'm not sure if just that one site pays for all the macromedia studio licenses bougth round there).

Re:This is ridiculous

[GRW]

>I've never seen flash crash my browser. It seems >pretty stable on the 24hr a day information kiosks >and set-top boxes I've used it on too. Mozilla bug 58937 - Flash crashes with exported X display. Actually a bug in Flash plugin not Mozilla.

Re:This is ridiculous

[Kalvos]

as a side note, I will add I've just seen *one* Flash site I liked

I thought that too, until I found this: http://www.soh.nsw.gov.au/virtual_tour/vrtour2.htm l

Dennis

Re:This is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

hmmm, so who's to blame?

The group that invented html or the stupid people that used to put blink tags in their documents.

Flash shouldn't be blamed for a bunch of asshole's that don't bother to read past day 3 in a for dummies book. HTML, Flash, Javascript, Java applets, etc. can all be used in such a way as to piss off the end user.

Re:This is ridiculous

[WizardWlf]

I'll Add A few,

7. It does not work in Lynx.

You may say "Who still uses Lynx", well it is the browser you have on your Linux box when X is broken all to hell and you need to find information. It is the only browser available to people with Shell accounts. It is the only browser blind users have on Linux currently. That is a lot of reason to make your site work with Lynx.

8. FLASH in any form is totally useless to the visually impaired.

Macromedia has ignored the visualy impaired population's request to add accessability features to FLASH since its inception. Now many sites like the one discussed which would provide informational content are not accessable to a visually impaired user. Does that serve the goals of the site owner? Does that serve the goes of the site advertisers? I say not, because it drives away a user base that is more willing to turn to technology for information and to spend there money. Everyone looses with FLASH!

Some of the web authors reading this will say "Well why not make an alternative site for the blind or low end browser?" That would be fine if that so called alternative site was kept just as current and provided all the content. But, they usually are lacking important current information that was added to the main site or at worst the data is not even the same. And now with Section 508 comming up web designers have evne more reason to make there content accessable for anyone with any browser.

That is just my opinion, I could be wrong.

what??

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would anyone make an Open-Source Flash equivalent? They would get their pants sued off (and their shorts as well) because Flash is PROPRIETARY and PATENTED.

Re:what??

[thenextpresident]

Actually, no they wouldn't get sued, and Flash rather open. In fact, there is Ming, an extension for PHP, and even FreeMovie, http://freemovie.sourceforge.net/, which is currently moving to support the following:

FreeMovie/C#
FreeMovie/Java
FreeMovie/Perl
FreeMovie/PHP
FreeMovie/Python
FreeMovie/Rebol
FreeMovie/Ruby
FreeMovie/Tcl
FreeMovie/VB
FreeMovie/VB.Net

So the real question is, "How do you want to flash today?"

Re:what??

[artymiak]

This is not true. Flash movies can include video or sound stream encoded using patented technology, but other than that it is not patented.

Visit this page for more information about on-line SWF resources.

Re:what??

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true fool. The swf format is open for anyone to write to. That's why Adobe can make LiveMotion and Swift3D and Swish can export their animations to swf files.

Macromedia knew that by making the swf an open format they would only be encouraging further use of their software - which they have.

Get the facts before you assume.

Re:what??

[Anonymous Coward]

The SWF file format is open for everybody to use. So I don't see how anyoe can be sued for making a tool that exports to SWF.

The FLA format, which is the source file for Flash, is proprietary. But the same is true for Adobe LiveMotion.

There are plenty of tools from small developers too that export to SWF, such as Swift 3D and Swish.

Re:what??

[Anonymous Coward]

So the real question is, "How do you want to flash today?"

No, the question is, "Who do you want to be flashed by?"

Re:what??

[Anonymous Coward]

SVG and SMIL are two alternatives.

Re:what??

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the Flash file format is open and avaliable at Macromedia.com (flash 5, flash 6 / mx is still being put together).

Using this, anyone who wants could create a tool that creates flash files. In fact, there are a large number of third party tools and programming libraries (adobe's livemotion being jsut one) that create SWF files.

Tool that creatse Flash based text effects.
http://www.swishzone.com

Java Based Flash library
http://www.flashgap.com

mike chambers

mesh@macromedia.com

Re:what??

[Anonymous Coward]

The main issue with Flash is that the protocol itself is closed and under Macromedia's exclusive control. Until that changes, your allusion to Microsoft is most appropriate. No technology that isn't open deserves to have the support that Flash does, never mind that it is also technologically less useful than vanilla HTML in a number of significant ways. Finally, it is also bulky and unwieldy, despite what the spin doctors at Macromedia say.

Re:Flash...

[substatica]

How did "...sucks" get a score at all?

DON'T DO IT!

[lessthan0]

Flash, tons of whirly-gig animated gifs, 1MB images. All of these are bad design. If my browser pops up a window and says I need a flash/shockwave/whatever doo-dad plugin, I move on. What a waste. There is a reason the BLINK tag is dead. Why not focus on your message instead?

Re:DON'T DO IT!

[the_2nd_coming]

dude
you can use flash to develope powerful clientside applications that load faster and look nice than Java and there is no need for serverside crap so no reloading the webpage.

Re:DON'T DO IT!

[Anonymous Coward]

they are only bad design if used incorrectly. Why do you guys always blame the tools rather than the craftsman? Flash allows for amazing interactions but it requires someone to think while using it. My boss always wants me to use javascript, java etc for our work and i tell him-"give me a tool that does all flash can, plays back as smoothly, and is as easy to code in and i will." I'm still using flash.

Re:DON'T DO IT!

[orangesquid]

The reason I, personally, blame the tools instead of the craftsmen is because for years I've been making coffee just fine with a drip percolator, and now someone has invented an instant coffee machine that's faster and everyone thinks everyone has one. I don't *want* my coffee to be made any faster. I just make it occasionally, and its never time-critical.
There's nothing wrong with instant coffee, I just don't want it in my life right now, regardless of how much better instant coffee supposedly is...
When I'm thirsty, I drink orange juice 99% of the time anyway. If coffee is the only option, I find a different restaurent.
(its an extended metaphor... bonus pts. if you can figure it all out, heh)

Re:DON'T DO IT!

[eean]

Your making the assumption that they're creating a webpage.

I personally don't have a problem with Flash - though it can certainly be abused.

The reason it hasn't been developed is because most people who really need Flash to the point of wanting to clone it are willing to pay $500 and use a different OS. People such as the poster who are wanting to create a whole project needing Flash are a minority - most folks would just give up with the idea of using Flash from the beginning and generally you never /have/ to use Flash.

Re:DON'T DO IT!

[Anonymous Coward]

"...There is a reason the BLINK tag is dead."

God, I miss those full pages of blinking text. ;)

Doesn't Netscape/Moz still support it?

Re:DON'T DO IT!

[dacarr]

AOL!!!!!!!!!!

Basically, I concur. My own web page uses stuff that loads fast. The slowest I have is a page (actually, several) of ~50 thumbnails that loads in something of 10-15 seconds on a 28.8 modem. Now, why the HELL would I want to sit for five minutes while some nifty spiffy flash demo loads, when I can just easily pass the important details in good old-fashioned HTML?!

Re:DON'T DO IT!

[dacarr]

I for one am more partial to content over form. The application according to the article here on /. is about policy on Rx drugs, among other things. Why do you need a high-falootin' flash POS to do a policy explanation?!

For a really good model, you can follow the same model as ESR's Jargon File website.

Re:DON'T DO IT!

[the_2nd_coming]

depends on what they are trying to do in that realm. if he wants to do a live query into a database and does not want to wait for the entire list to be completed on the server before it is displayed, but would rather like it to display as it comes, Flash would be great for that.

Re:DON'T DO IT!

[cebe]

There is a reason the BLINK tag is dead.

that is not an accurate or mature attitude towards flash. yes.. the blink tag is dead, and for good reason, but in case you haven't seen any promotional websites for things such as movies or events lately, you might be interested in knowing that your version of the future of the web is boring. Yes, a good website is one that offers dialup and text only browsers lusers an escape trap, but flash has some very entertaining possibilities on the web. Of course it has no place on a site like slashdot.. but fine.. move on from sites that use it.. you are seriously missing out.
I happened to have loved the recent E.T. website, completely done in flash. The sounds, images, and interactivity were very interesting.

Sorry about your connection, or browser, or lack of interest in web media. It must be boring where you live.
flaimbait? perhaps.

As for the slashdot question,
If you want to build Flash and you don't want to pay $500, how do you do it
you do it with swish.
it's not as fancy but it will do the basics.

Re:DON'T DO IT!

[Bedouin X]

Uhhh... I know that ASP does this. Displays data as it comes that is. Unless you have the response.buffer (or something like that) enabled.

Re:DON'T DO IT!

[EugeneK]

Being clientside, however, they do require a lot of bandwidth to download to the client before the client can see the flash movie. Not as much as Java, though, you're right.

Re:DON'T DO IT!

[ncc74656]

you can use flash to develope powerful clientside applications that load faster and look nice than Java and there is no need for serverside crap so no reloading the webpage.

Other than a slight increase in processor load, what's wrong with "serverside crap?" It allows you to remove most client dependencies, and it keeps your software on your machine...all that users will get are the results. (This might not be as much of a concern with open-source code, but not everything is open source.) With SSI and CGI, I can create a website that will render optimally in everything from IE to Lynx to a cell-phone browser or a text-to-speech program. It can even take Nutscrape's idiosyncracies into account and completely rewrite standards-compliant HTML so that it'll render properly. It enables the widest possible audience and minimizes bandwidth requirements. Instead of (for instance) sending a program down the pipe to calculate MPEG bitrates for SVCD mastering, I can put up a webpage that accepts needed inputs from the user and spits out the result.

As for "looking nice," while that isn't a Bad Thing, it isn't everything either. Maybe the fact that Flash is often abused is more a statement against the people who implement it than against the technology itself, but there is still something to be said against tools that at least appear to encourage form at the expense of function.

Re:DON'T DO IT!

[xmartinj]

Your comparison is just plain wrong. Flash cannot be compared to animated gifs, 1MB images and BLINK tags. Flash does not require the shockwave plugin, just the flash player, and it is in use by >90% of the web surfers today. These same people have hi-color, 800x600 or better displays and decent >= 56K Internet connections. Design is no longer about proper indentation in your HTML, it's about grabbing the attention of the MTV generation. And (un)fortunately style can have as much to do with that as substance. Style should never hurt the message... but clearly that has more to do with the designer than the tool.

Re:DON'T DO IT!

[ncc74656]

There's nothing wrong with instant coffee

You call yourself a geek, and you say "there's nothing wrong with instant coffee"? Heathen! :-) You're supposed to grind the beans right before use, and use a drip coffeemaker, espresso machine, or French press to brew your caffeine fix.

Re:DON'T DO IT!

[Anonymous Coward]

of course, this is due to bad design, and is not a flaw with the technology.

i could make an entire website in a 20 meg animated gif. that doesn't means that gifs are bad.

mike chambers

mesh@macromedia.com

Re:DON'T DO IT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, a good website is one that offers dialup and text only browsers lusers...

Have you considered just how many 'lusers' on this planet have dialup access?

'Yap, yap, yap...'

Re:DON'T DO IT!

[knorthern knight]

> Flash does not require the shockwave plugin, just the flash player, and it is in use by >90% of the web surfers today.
> These same people have hi-color, 800x600 or better displays and decent >= 56K Internet connections.

Huh ??? What parallel universe are you communicating from where these >90% of web surfers have >= 56K Internet connections ? Thanks to cheapness on the part of many "modem" manufacturers, the alleged "56K winmodems" will never get better than 40 kbits/sec *ON A VERY CLEAN LINE*. Anything other than that, and you're talking 33.6 or lower connection. For many people, Fuckwave/Slash is an absolute pain in the butt.

> Design is no longer about proper indentation in your HTML, it's about grabbing the attention of the MTV generation.

And how exactly do you *HOLD* the attention of the MTV generation while they're downloading the plugin and waiting for your splashy intro to download and finish on their "56K winmodem" at 28 kbits/sec ?

Re:DON'T DO IT!

[ShadowSystems]

Look, it's up to you what you use to build your site... If you're a private site, then do what you will... But if you're a business and are actually interested in DOING business, then don't use the things that completely alienate a considerable market force out there by using bits that may not be compatible with their online experience... It just goes without saying that it's a good idea to offer a text-only front-end to your site, and let the visitor decide if they want to continue browsing your site in "maximum compatability" mode, or "all the visual bells & whistles" mode - and then don't skimp on the text-only content, as that sends the clear message you consider such people so as beneath you... If, for *what-ever* reason someone can't access your site's flashier bits, then why turn them away with nothing at all? My site is 99% text, with "bells & whistles" options available *to those who want them*... If they don't want them, that doesn't make them substandard, it just means they don't want to spend the bandwidth on all the stuff they don't care to see at the moment... But you, Cebe, are a complete and utter Smeghead... You wrote "...text only browsers lusers..." I know this is a quick way to lose some MASSIVE Karma... (Heavy Sigh) May you be struck blind. Maybe THEN you'll find out just EXACTLY why those who are forced to use text-only browsers and screen reader programs like JAWS *loathe* the people who refuse to even give a passing nod to accessability... And it's not just private sites, which you can shrug off and go find something else to browse, but banks, credit card company "customer service" pages, library search sites, and a thousand other little resources that are made instantly *worthless* because they insist on writing in flash, frames, and ninety percent text-as-images-with-no-alt-tags so there's nothing FOR a program like JAWS to tell them about... (Steps down off his soapbox, and goes back to cuddling with his blind girlfriend who's a Special Education Teacher, and *damned* proud of her...)

Re:DON'T DO IT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, that site is fucking ugly. Apparently it's ugly in your world. Jebus. Someone needs to take some art classes.

Re:DON'T DO IT!

[Airline_Sickness_Bag]

>decent >= 56K Internet connections.

I wish we had a 56K connection. Our phonelines only support 28K, and this is a relatively new, upscale housing development. Too far for DSL, too.
Considering how well the DSL providers are doing, I would not be surprised if the average connection speed is lower today than last year

-asb

Re:DON'T DO IT!

[Arkan]

Now you're talking about promotional websites for movies or events. And he's talking about information, content, and usefullness. Internet and the web were not aimed at becoming TV v2.0. They were, and I hope still are aimed at communicating information at large, with a twist of redundancy in the media. All related tools are designed to improve and better the information, to reference it, and to archive it. Flash is just a way marketing have found to achieve "TV on da web" quickly and cheaply before they can enforce video streams at each page loading.

Don't take it too literally: I have plenty of fun with flash movies, but they're just that: movies. Now, maybe we should change the default port of http to another one so we can keep information on 80, and "enjoyable full-featured, media-rich, blazingly gliterring web" on the other, new default port of browsers.

To conclude, I'd say that a phrase like "Sorry about your connection, or browser(...)It must be boring where you live" isn't really the kind of state of mind I'd expect from an internet user. I even shouldn't be surprised that third and fourth worlds aren't really talkative terms to you. Maybe you should consider donating your fast connection and your blasing fast computer to an underdeveloped country?

Internet is worldwide, so should be the state of mind of it's denizens.

--
Arkan
War's best fought around a negociation table.

Re:DON'T DO IT!

[xmartinj]

They don't download the plugin. They have it. Holding people's attention requires talent on the part of the designer. I just had an idea: designers should put in a "skip intro" button for people who want to skip the intro.

Re:DON'T DO IT!

[xmartinj]

DSL is still alive and well despite recent shakeups. People's access to broadband is increasing dramatically. Not only is broadband at home spreading rapidly, but even more people have fast connections at work or school and can surf recreationally during certain times. The average connection speed is in fact increasing and you should have a conversation with whoever is running your upscale housing development. Web developers and marketers will continue to use Flash-y web designs because they target tech-friendly 19-40 year old people with disposable income. The kind of people who buy faster connections.

Re:DON'T DO IT!

[cebe]

if you're a business and are actually interested in DOING business, then don't use the things that completely alienate a considerable market force
I agree with that. I'm not really sure who in the heck this ask slashdot person was to begin with or how it got posted.. but his model seems flawed to begin with.

you, Cebe, are a complete and utter Smeghead
that is also true most days. That's why I'm here I think. :)

I know this is a quick way to lose some MASSIVE Karma... (Heavy Sigh) May you be struck blind.
Struck blind? I'm afraid I don't understand if you meant struck blind by moderators or actually struck *blind*. I know what I wrote about text only browsers was a very silly thing to write on slashdot of all places.. but karma is not something I am worried about. I've been even steven for years here... never lose or gain points, moderate very frequently, I thought no one even read anything I put on here... this is all very exciting for me. Wouldn't you know it.. I flame a bit and get points. (oh so *thats* how it works)

And it's not just private sites, which you can shrug off and go find something else to browse, but banks, credit card company "customer service" pages...
there are alot of sites made by massive corporations that wouldn't know their average surfer if they dropped out of the sky. It's a shame that this happening, yes, I know what you are talking about. remember, the web is still very young, and survival of the fittest will be very observable in a few decades. Maybe I'm too optimistic, but as average surfers become more educated (and the kids growing up these days.. yikes.. just wait till they are consumers)

yes, I'm a flash hugger. But I agree, there is something to be said for accessibility. Flash has it's place on the web, and shouldn't step out of that place. I don't think flash deserves to be bashed because it has no use for blind people.

I'm in the process of building a site for a friend who has had new found fame and stardom come knocking on her door. I like what I'm doing with flash but I also know that a large percentage of her fan base is probably on aol. (it seems like most of the USA is) It's hard to remember that sometimes up here in canada because everyone (almost) has broadband. so thank you for kicking *me* off *my* soapbox and opening my eyes. You probably have saved me from making a couple aweful mistakes.

Don't use flash

[pe1rxq]

And if there aren't any powerful open source tools for it, any thoughts on why?

Maybe because most open source people (me included) tend not to like flash?????
Seriously if you are going to use flash you will also need someway to view it right? That means you have to get a system capable of viewing flash.... Which means that your nice community effort is going to rely on commercial software.

Go with something completly free (the speach kind), it will safe you a lot of money!

Jeroen

Re:Don't use flash

[oozer]

It is regretable that Macromedia haven't either supported alternative OSs or even released an OSS flash player. However, if you wanted to produce multimedia content for the web, what other options are available? The only thing currently available thats even comparable is Shockwave and most Flash users wouldn't consider touching that.

Even when browser developers start supporting the open SVG standard the questioner will still find himself with the same problem because SVG just specifies a vector format to display static images. Animation can be achieved my means of Javascript (yeh, I know you probably don't like that either) manipulating the DOM. Even so, few multimedia authors want to write Javascript.

If you look at the huge number of projects listed on SourceForge or Freshmeat you will see very few that involve rich graphical user interfaces like the Flash developer environment. We all agree that free software developers are as smart as commercial developers (many of them are the same people just working in their spare time). The lack of multimedia development tools in the 'free' arena is really down to the fact that they are a bitch to write and people that are developing software for fun would rather write something that is useful to *them*.

Re:Don't use flash

[dragonfly_blue]

I agree that sometimes Flash is pretty annoying, but for certain types of applications I can understand why someone might want to use it. Don't flame this guy for investigating what might be appropriate options for his purposes, especially since there are tools such as Ming for PHP, which allow you to generate some pretty goddamned cool-looking Flash files without owning the Macromedia authoring program. Did I mention it's open source?

Re:Don't use flash

[Anonymous Coward]

we have players avaliable for a number of platforms / devices, including but not limited to:

windows platforms
mac os classis
mac osx
linux platforms
solaris
QNX
Symbian
Pocket PC
BeOS

where there any specific platforms that you had in mind?

mike chambers

mesh@macromedia.com

Re:Don't use flash

[zorander]

Keyword OSS in case you didn't know that's Open Source Software. Read the post before refuting it next time.

Brian

Re:Don't use flash

[nicomen]

Amiga 68k 3.x (sure there are plugins for Voyager, but...)
Amiga PCC 4.x
Amiga DE
Morphos

Re:Don't use flash

[wickidpisa]

Maybe because most open source people (me included) tend not to like flash?????

More importantly, the open source people with the technical skills to write a flash implementation are not interested in it. The Macromedia developers that developed Flash probably don't use it much either, but they were paid to do it. In the open source community people write things that will benefit them, and the people who want a free version of Flash tend to be the kind that are not able to write one, whereas the people who are able to write it are not that interested.

Re:Don't use flash

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash is not that bad. It is much much faster than java applet(actually, it kills java applet). It is also faster than animation gif when the picture is large. Do you people play any flash game? Is it fun? Writing little action game becomes much more easier. Some software even have their installer written in flash, like Lotus Notes and Crystal Report. I like them. At least you don't have a similar tools in the market at this moment. It is simple. It gets the job done.

Anyway, do you people hate Acrobat PDF?

Re:Don't use flash

[GRW]

But when are you going to fix the bug that causes browsers on exported X displays to crash (see Mozilla bugzilla #58937). This is really an annoying bug, since many sites have taken to showing flash advertisements. They cause the browser to crash every time, and affects all browsers on Linux.

Re:Don't use flash

[Richard_at_work]

riiiighhht. and im going to get so much traffic from these people! (before you flame, i help to run a irc network dedicated to amigans, so i know what percentage of people use it as their primary machine).
With IE having a good (80% last time i looked into it) market slice, id rather code for a browser that i at least have a chance of getting hit by, rather than other browsers that have no reasonable everyday use these days.
People who "insist" that every browser should be catered for are fools who have probably never coded in anger, if im coding my companies site, i will stick to standards used by the majority of the browsers, and if there are browsers out there that dont use these standards then they have my pity but not my sympathy

Nothing Found

[kerneljacabo]

This is a problem I've hit before. Unfortunately the open source community hasnt produced any Flash development tools since many users of OSS are anti-flash. This is mainly due to the fact that no matter how glitzy, Flash is still not supported by the W3C as an accepted internet standard. Plus PHP works wonders with graphics. Nevertheless, maybe it's time we asked Macromedia to help us out??

Re:Nothing Found

[pe1rxq]

I don't think its the W3Cs fault....
The problem is that 99.999999% of the flash you encounter on the web is waste of bandwith.
Most OSS users don't like 'glitzy' they like the actual content which is absend on nearly all flash sites.

Jeroen

Re:Nothing Found

[the_2nd_coming]

PHP is serverside though so when a calculation is done, it has to reload the page...if you want dynamic feadback. PHP is fine for plain old crap.

Re:Nothing Found

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention those goddamn ads that get in your face. Has anyone figured out how to uninstall Flash from Internet Explorer?

Re:Nothing Found

[dmarien]

Are you aware of the existence of Flash Turbine?

here

My company's site is developed using it, and it's fully dynamic....

Digitized Solutions

Re:Nothing Found

[the_2nd_coming]

and you are still using flash. the parent was saing you could get flash features by just using PHP. youhave just shown me that PHP still needs flash.

PHP is good for loading pages that are diffrent for each user, but it is not good for taking live data and spitting out an answer in the same page with out a reload.

Re:Nothing Found

[Technician]

As part of the intentionaly flash disabled, don't forget to put the content in a non flash format. A blank page is useless. I removed flash as it's a real drag on my modem connection and it's almost always for advertisements, not content. The signal to noise ratio is just too bad to justify re-installing flash.

Re:Nothing Found

[artymiak]

Nothing?

What about FreeMovie? Oh, you want a GUI tool. I'm available, and my rates are v. competitive. If anybody wants to pay me to write an OpenSource authoring tool, I'll do it.

Re:Nothing Found

[horza]

Have you checked out Ming which allows PHP to generate custom Flash movies on the fly?

Phillip.

Re:Nothing Found

[Anonymous Coward]

but... that site sucks!

Re:Nothing Found

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, give me a reason to pay you as opposed to a million other people.

Re:Nothing Found

[Aanallein]

Not to mention those goddamn ads that get in your face. Has anyone figured out how to uninstall Flash from Internet Explorer?

Switch to Mozilla and add a line saying
object { display: none; }
to your user stylesheet. - better than uninstalling since it let's you easily turn flash back on the extremely rare sites where it's actually used somewhat usefully.
And go and vote for bug 94035 and related (http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=94035 - copy/paste since bugzilla doesn't allow linking from slashdot) to see per site blocking of all types of content.

Or you could hope to someday see the same for IE, in which case I wish you happy waiting... :)

Re:Nothing Found

[Bert64]

Especially those "splash pages", even more so if theres no text link to bypass them, for example http://www.andromedatv.com/
I use linux on a non x86 architecture, there is no flash plugin for my system, and in the case of the above site, everything beyond the stupid intro (ie: the actual content) works perfectly in mozilla, the same is true for most sites, but it`s impossible to get past the bandwidth-wasting splash page. When there is a good cross-platform flash plugin that can be compiled alongside mozilla, i may change my mind..

Re:Nothing Found

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that 99.999999% of the flash you encounter on the web is waste of bandwith.

This may be due to the fact that 99.999999% of the "designers" (ugh - there's plenty of tutorials out there) using Flash don't know / don't care about trimming the fat off the finished work. FlashMX has some pretty killer compression algorithms going on. It's a lot easier to use a rocket launcher than a railgun; the learning curve is mucho different. In essence: Don't blame the car, blame the mechanic.

Re:Nothing Found

[Oliver Defacszio]

Or, contrary to the typical alarmist meathead response, one could actually turn off Flash in IE.

Tools > Internet Options > Security > Custom Level > Run Active-X Controls and Plug-ins ('disable' or 'prompt' if you'd like to remain selective)

Oh look, another zealot proven wrong. Is it that time of day already?

Re:Nothing Found

[56ker]

"The problem is that 99.999999% of the flash you encounter on the web is waste of bandwith."

replace the word flash with everything and you'd be on the mark!

Re:Nothing Found

[igrek]

Go to Tools->Internet Options->Security->Custom... to disable ActiveX/plugins.

If you want to uninstall Flash completely, see this:
How to remove the Macromedia Flash Player ActiveX control

Re:Nothing Found

[ErikZ]

Version .2a? Are you kidding me?

Re:Nothing Found

[Deluge]

"Has anyone figured out how to uninstall Flash from Internet Explorer"

The easiest way, aside from following the instructions on macromedia's website, is to simply delete everything in C:\WinNT\System32\Macromed. I think the macromedia method of uninstallation would actually let the system know that flash had been uninstalled, and so IE would ask you if you want to reinstall it on every flash page. When you just delete the macromed folder, flash never shows up and never asks to be installed either. Simply beautiful. Now if I could only figure out how to make QuickTime plugin stop asking to install, cuz I don't want it!

Re:Nothing Found

[Lemmy Caution]

Most of the references to open-source would-be work-alikes are made by people who never actually used either the tool or the tool it's imitating. Someone on this thread actually suggested xfig as a viable workalike for Visio! (Now I've actually used xfig *and* Visio *and* dia - dia is a viable Visio replacement, but *xfig*? Obviously, someone who hasn't used Visio, and may not have used xfig, made that recommendation.) People have recommended gimp as a workalike replacement for Photoshop - which I think would be OK for many uses *now*, but this was back in the pre-1.0 days - mrproject as a replacement for MS Project (no fucking way), and so on.

It's almost embarassing when I try to load up one of these pre-alpha putative workalikes and try to use it. Not that I hold it against the developers: at the very worst, they are using the project to learn something, very few make premature claims about their pet projects, and sometimes, as in the case of the Gimp, the projects grow up to be impressive, useable applications. But the peanut gallery here has no compunctions about premature recommendations without the benefit of experience.

Re:Nothing Found

[FattMattP]

The problem is that 99.999999% of the flash you encounter on the web is waste of bandwith.

Which is why I disabled Flash on my system. You can do it too:

http://www.macromedia.com/support/flash/ts/documen ts/playerfaq.htm#one_six

Re:Nothing Found

[nzhavok]

Actually the flash movies in howstuffworks are quite good for ther kids. I especially liked the WWII nuclear bombs.

Click to explode Little Boy

Click to explode Fat Man

Seriously thou, flash has uses, it's just too overused in most places.

Re:Nothing Found

[quintessent]

With my bandwidth, the ads don't hurt too much. But they can be really annoying when they distract you with too much movement. Even worse, it's often impossible to stop them. One day soon, I may join you at at the weekly Flash Recoverers meetings.

Re:Nothing Found

[satanami69]

I've found a more fun way to do it.

First, you need to mark your "C:\$WINDOWSVERSION\Downloaded Program Files" as a read only folder. This will keep the install box from appearing if IE doesn't find Flash installled. If you mark it as read only, any install on demand option for IE won't work. This isn't a bad thing at all. If you don't know what folder this is, open IE, go to Tools->Internet Options. Click on Settings. Click on View Objects and the folder that opens it the one you need to mark as read only.

Next, create two .BAT files. The first one you can call disbale_flash.bat, it should contain:
pause
c:
cd "c:\winnt\system32\macromed\flash"
del Flash.ocx

You can only use disable_flash.bat when IE has been closed, otherwise you get a sharing violation.

The next one requires that you made a backup of Flash.ocx with the name Flash.ocx.bak. I called this enable_flash.bat and it contains:
pause
c:
cd "c:\winnt\system32\macromed\flash"
copy Flash.ocx.bak Flash.ocx

This will re-enable flash. You can have IE open, but you will need to refresh the page.
I've only tested this on WinME and Win2k, but it should work.

why in the world...

[rtstyk]

would you mention Bill Gates in this context? This is getting ridicoulus. I almost finished reading the post and almost ignored it then the reference hit me and all I could say was WTF? Does it incrase the post's chance to be accepted if you bash Bill Gates? Geez... d.

Re:why in the world...

[TheGreenLantern]

That's exactly what Borg...er..Bill Gates would say.

Advice

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash? Why not use a real programming language instead? They have IDEs and all the other stuff you could ever want.

Don't

[tacocat]

Flash is just that -- Flash. It's not informative. It's heavy. It's a pain on my browser. I don't like Flash. It used to be a pretty good thing to see from time to time, but it's so annoying now with all the adverts that are FLASHING in your face all the time, I'm actually thinking of backing out of my browsers plug-ins. If you want something that delivers information, stick to HTML. But this is more opinion than useful information. I've never heard of any flash products that are open source.

Re:Don't

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash isn't heavy at ALL! For vector graphics and text it is VERY VERY small and crisp looking. When adding pictures yes it can get a bit large.

As for the use of dynamic Flash, I would use Ming or JGenerator if you can stop crying long enough to pony up a measly $500.00 and don't want take advantage of Flash 5 and MXs XML parser.

Re:Flash...

[Vinnster]

Flash may not be on everyone's computer, but it is a valuable tool for everyone that's using it. True, the development program costs Big Bucks, but for many uses, flash is really the only option, so what do you do? "I'm on the Brute Squad" "You are the Brute Squad"

Extra! Extra! Opensource advocates hate Flash

[substatica]

Apparently this is the reason.

SVG

[tburke]

SVG is a W3C approved vector graphic and animation XML language. Development tools for it are coming right along. There is a good series about SVG on XML.COM. The author demonstrates many flash features using SVG.

Re:SVG

[Aron S-T]

Well it's nice that SVG is an approved standard. But Flash just has huge market penetration so it's an uphill battle. What is cool is the built in support for SVG in Mozilla.

Re:SVG

[killthiskid]

I'm on the SVG band wagon myself. I'm using Cold Fusion to generate dynamic SVG pages from a USGS database... maps on the fly! SVG is open, easy, and with Adobe plug-in, decently supported.

Sorry I don't have an internet accessable example to show.

Re:SVG

[Anonymous Coward]

Whats not cool is the level of support in Mozilla. It doesn't support much.

Re:SVG

[Anonymous Coward]

of course, noone can view SVG content as yet without downloading a plugin. And there are no authoring tools for creating animated content. SVG may catch up, but this guy can't wait for that.

Get an educational license...

[wrinkledshirt]

If you need Flash, students or teachers can usually get a copy for a reduced amount (under $200 US). Just make sure that this isn't commercial development you're doing.

Flash for free

[liquidice5]

Well i know that you can download a free version of flash for 30 days

its not really a solution, but it could be a start to see if you wanted to actually use flash

Not just Gates...

[bokmann]

Not just Bill Gates, but US TOO... Copying is against the license agreement, and we are all about enforcing license agreements, right?

Non-Macromedia Flash tools

[Animats]

What is the state of non-Macromedia Flash tools?

Flash is a well-designed format, and the format is known and documented. It could be used for more things. I'd like to see a PowerPoint replacement that used Flash, for example. PowerPoint files are incredibly bulky; Flash is compact. Plus, you could put your presentations on web pages without much hassle.

Flash is also useful for user interface design. Many video games use Flash for the 2D API. That approach could help the open source community transition from bitmap-based to form-based APIs.

And just having a good open-source draw program for when you need a diagram on a web page would be a big help. It's annoying that Linux documentation seldom has useful diagrams. And if there are diagrams, they're raster images that can't be usefully edited. A good Flash-based lines-and-boxes program, like early Visio, would be valuable.

Macromedia's tools have a keyframe animation mindset, but that's not inherent in the Flash format. It's just a Macromedia bias. There are lots of interesting things to do with Flash and its object stream / event stream format.

Re:Non-Macromedia Flash tools

[NulDevice]

Flash is not a good user interface design tool.

There's really no such thing.

If you need to be redesigning a UI in order to get the job done, then you're probably missing something in your app design. You want your users to presented with something they immediately recognize - you don't want them to have to figure out where they have to click and what each funky abstract blinky thing does. It's a bit different with games - those are supposed to be playful, not necessarily usable. But if you're doing stuff for a non-entertainment purpose - stick to the standard widget sets.

Let's face it: a scrollbar is a scrollbar for a reason, and a bunch of graphic designers workign independently aren't especially likely to come up with a better replacement.

Flash: good for some things. Animation? Yep. AV syncing? Yep. Designing widgets for navigating your website? Nope.

Re:Non-Macromedia Flash tools

[Jordy]

I actually went to a presentation where they had a fully interactive presentation done in Macromedia Director (Flash's big brother.)

Director apparently has a feature to import PowerPoint presentations so they may be jazzed up with interactivity (a mock of an application in the presentation I was present at) and all the other neat Director features.

The only problem I could see is the ability to print out a presentation, something PowerPoint allows with ease, may prove difficult with Flash or Director.

Re:Non-Macromedia Flash tools

[jpc]

hmm, no, flash is not a well-designed format. And although there is some openness to the spec, there is not much (like Java, you never know where ti is going next, like adding the Sorenson video codec to the latest version).

WHat is wrong with it? Well, it doesnt have decent generic matrix transforms for a start. SVG is better from this point of view. And there is more once you start to look at it

Re:Non-Macromedia Flash tools

[daviddennis]

Despite all the opposition I see from others, I have to chime in to agree.

I was asked to do some PowerPoint presentations, and I said "How about Flash instead?"

Fortunately, my employer was open-minded enough to let me give it a try, and I must say it worked out quite well.

I am seriously thinking of redoing my main page in Flash, primarily because it would be compatible with Netscape 4.x and the latest spiffy browsers. Flash seems to be more cross-platform than anything. It's not perfect, but sadly neither is Dynamic HTML.

My only real problem has been a combination of lack of time and lack of Flash for MacOS X. The latter finally came out, so it may be about time for me to exercise my creativity a bit.

Unless someone can convince me otherwise ...

D

Re:Non-Macromedia Flash tools

[interiot]

Flash is definitely not compatible with text browsers, blind readers, cell phones, or many of the more obscure OS's. Do you really want to limit yourself that much?

Re:Non-Macromedia Flash tools

[4im]

A good Flash-based lines-and-boxes program, like early Visio, would be valuable.

What's wrong with xfig?

Not flash, but definitely a good and useful vector-based drawing program.

Re:Non-Macromedia Flash tools

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.swishzone.com

Re:Non-Macromedia Flash tools

[Lemmy Caution]

And HTML is not compatible with people who live in places without electricity or telephones, which is a substantially higher figure both in relative and absolute terms. Anyway, when you have a specific audience in mind, Flash is fine. And it is almost impossible to do what can be done in Flash in DHTML or its equivalents, with any kind of ease. Unless you want to actually link to a working alternative for that kind of interactive, dynamic multimedia format.

Re:Non-Macromedia Flash tools

[daviddennis]

Since my web pages contain enormous amounts of text and are largely based on my hobby photography, interests in video and the like, they are really best viewed with graphical browsers.

Most graphical interface designs, no matter how designed, have little to no mercy on text browsers. I would be better off having:

In a hurry? Text mode | Search [ ]

(flash page)

That might serve everyone effectively. I really need to put my sprawling pages in a database, but I just don't have the time. My other problem is that my pages are all formatted differently - there should be something that ties them together. But again, time's a huge problem.

I should consider server side includes, I suppose.

At any rate, I really should do something soon, since the only way to properly view my main page right now is Netscape 4 :-(. Oops.

D

Re:Non-Macromedia Flash tools

[Lemmy Caution]

You are assuming that the goal of the interface is an application that manipulates documents. Flash is a poor choice for that sort of application. If, however, the idea is to create a unified interactive multimedia presentation that can organize its interface using visual cues in order to communicate its point, that can smoothly script the interactions of a variety of media, then Flash is an excellent choice. The trouble is, most geeks think all learning is the adoption of propositions and the assignation of truth values to them, so they have no sense of how other modalities are used to communicate.

Re:Non-Macromedia Flash tools

[thomas.galvin]

The trouble is, most geeks think all learning is the adoption of propositions and the assignation of truth values to them, so they have no sense of how other modalities are used to communicate.

I don't think so...I am more concerned with collecting reasonsnable accurate facts, assigning them a context, and figuring out when they might apply in simmilar context. Very little of what I know or do is based on "if x, then y", and I doubt that that is the case for many people at all, geeks especially. One of our specialties is pattern matching/association.

Re:Non-Macromedia Flash tools

[Animats]

What's wrong with xfig [xfig.org]? The pop-under for Discover credit cards. Grrr.

Re:Non-Macromedia Flash tools

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Not unlike the problem some print authors have with the WWW. They want to control your access in a linear fashion. The idea of following hyperlinks is adverse to the concept of plot development. But we have the tools, and we process info differently now. Likewise, the web page as printed page model is stuck in many peoples minds. Hey, I love lynx. Don't get me wrong. But there really are more modes of presentation that those that use a scrollbar ;-)

Re:Non-Macromedia Flash tools

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to see a PowerPoint replacement that used Flash, for example.

The current version of Corel's Presentation program does this apparently. I just use Adobe Acrobat PDF files for this though. Not as fancy, but it works good.

Re:Flash...

[stray]

a "site" is not mentioned in the post. you can build very usable applications with flash, also standalone stuff for offline use. if your flash app "sucks", it might just be that the creator can't handle the software. i did a chat application and some tutorial movies (the latter to go on a cd) that went down very well with the end users, or so i was told.

Flash is bad. mmkay?

[bravehamster]

The most obvious reason is that from what I can tell, most geeks don't _like_ flash. There's several reasons why, but the most obvious to me is the name. Flash, flashing lights and glitter, style over substance. Most Flash sites on the web use it for absolutely no reason at all, other than to look cool. I really don't need to see every link I put my mouse over expand and fade away.

While there are some practical uses for Flash, these are few and far between, far outnumbered by the idiotic uses. This is why there's no opensource flash tools.

Re:Flash is bad. mmkay?

[Skidge]

While there are some practical uses for Flash, these are few and far between, far outnumbered by the idiotic uses. This is why there's no opensource flash tools.

Practical use for Flash: Getting the sales and marketing people to buy into your web site.

"Oooh, Shiney!" == "We'll pay for it!".

Re:Flash is bad. mmkay?

[realgone]

There's several reasons why, but the most obvious to me is the name. Flash, flashing lights and glitter, style over substance.

Might as well say you don't like GNOME because the name implies it's gonna be short on the usability front.

There are tons of good uses for Flash. (I say this as both a designer and coder who uses the app every day, mind you.) For those times when the experience is the content, rather than just the conduit for it, Flash provides a tidy, cross-platform (with obvious exceptions) and server-independent way to deliver exactly that. Just because the Geocities EULA mandates that all user must abuse the hell outta it doesn't necessarily make it bad.

*ZIP* Okay, there. All done pissing in the wind... =)

Re:Flash is bad. mmkay?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just two flash sites that are using flash for just a little bit more than glitter. Sheesh, I can't imagine what the net would be like if everyone dropped any style whatsoever.

Sure there are a lot of sites that have no content and try to make up for it with flash, but there are so many out there that just make you drool.

http://www.2advanced.com/
http://www.oddcast.com/

Re:Flash is bad. mmkay?

[Anonymous Coward]

How come this statement flies on SlashdoT?

"While there are some practical uses for Flash, these are few and far between, far outnumbered by the idiotic uses."

But not this one?

"While there are some practical uses for P2P sharing software, these are few and far between, far outnumbered by the illegal uses."

More and more I see that the core of the OSS community is made up of fucking morons.

Re:Flash is bad. mmkay?

[iamwoodyjones]

Yea, but some of us people are particularily keen to eye candy and plain text can be drabe for people with high speed connections and fast computers. Admit it, if we gave in to the god of efficiency we'd be using links/lynx with no X and there'd be no need for broad band/a computer with more than a 486. However, since a lot of us do have spare gigahertz cycles lying around and paid our $50+ for broad band, might as well put it to good use to make the internet more of a multimedia wonder that its become by having it be appeasing more to the eye than plain jane mono text. I have seen lots of educational sites use flash in a very informative and educational way that HTML just couldn't justify.

Re:Flash is bad. mmkay?

[mcjulio]

Not really. It's a UI tool that weighs heavily on the eye candy. However, it has a potent scripting back-end and can be used for some seriously useful projects that aren't really practical in any other medium.

Froguts is a great example.

Re:Flash is bad. mmkay?

[Beowulfto]

While I agree that Flash has been/can be/is overused, there are some great uses. A good friend of mine really likes Flash because he can create some amazing interfaces with very reasonable download times. His latest project is creating a StarTrek interface for an episode guide. (TrekVideos.com Warning: Flash player required) He is fairly artistic and the end product is more important than how he archives it. He also can code and is ecstatic about being able to control the output of Flash via PHP to create dynamic sites. I can't wait to see what he will do next! So there are specific uses that are acceptable, not just people abusing the medium with the HOW overpowering the WHY.

Re:Flash is bad. mmkay?

[Mr. Slippery]

"While there are some practical uses for Flash, these are few and far between, far outnumbered by the idiotic uses."...

... "While there are some practical uses for P2P sharing software, these are few and far between, far outnumbered by the illegal uses."

Because the first statement is true, while the second is false.

Further, no one is talking about throwing people who use Flash idiotically into jail.

See the difference?

Re:Flash is bad. mmkay?

[Compuser]

I do not mean to flame but it is exactly the
sites where "experience is the content" that
draw the ire of people like myself. You either
have info on your site or you don't. Many people
like the web design circa 1994 (grey background,
black text, blue links). The mere existence of sites
where "experience is the content" is why people
like me say that the web is in a state of decay,
if not already commecialized into oblivion.

Re:Flash is bad. mmkay?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh come one! Just because a bunch of idiots who don't know how to design properly with the software end up making terrible sites doesn't mean that Flash the program or the solution is bad. There are 100 million god-awful plain html sites out there but nobody is calling html a bad tool.

Re:Flash is bad. mmkay?

[Prior Restraint]

More and more I see that the core of the OSS community is made up of fucking morons.

I would like to issue two polite challenges to this statement:

1. I don't think /. posters represent the "core" of the OSS community (but what do I know?).
2. I think "hypocrite" is a better word than "moron" (not that they're mutually-exclusive).

Re:Flash is bad. mmkay?

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash is essentially dangling a shiny object in front of a bird-brain. So, if you want to make an advert, by all means use it.

However, if you base your *site* on it, you are screaming "THERE IS NOTHING OF ANY VALUE HERE. BUT PLEASE LOOK AT OUR PRETTY PICTURES AND PRETEND THERE IS". Which brings us back to the bird-brain thing...

Scythe

Re:Flash is bad. mmkay?

[Koredor]

The most obvious reason is that from what I can tell, most geeks don't _like_ flash.

You are absolutely correct. Geeks don't like Flash, it is a waste of bandwidth, resources and other precious things that geeks hold dear. Yet you fail to understand that Flash is not for geeks. Flash is a beautifully constructed tool that serves a purpose, to catch one's attention.

It is basic marketing, unfortunately most geeks don't spend enough time studying their target audience. That is why most Graphic Designers / UI Designers aren't hardcore geeks. They "usually" come from a marketing/advertising background. These are the people who excel at UI design.

Geeks focus on usability and functionality. Yet, that isn't enough to sell your product, if it was we would all be billionaires. The people who sign the checks decide who gets to suceed and who fails. This is where Flash becomes your best friend. In marketing the trick is getting your potential buyer to remember you. You might be the only one with a product, but be sure someone else will have a similar product soon. If they out market you, your losing money.

Most Flash sites on the web use it for absolutely no reason at all, other than to look cool. I really don't need to see every link I put my mouse over expand and fade away

This is true, any schmuck with a pirated version of Flash believes they are a Flash designer and needs Flash on their website. That is annoying, but there are also some truly talented people out there that use Flash for fun purposes such as cartoons, tools, presentations, and to generally spruce up a site. There is such a think as too much of a good thing, but you have to remember, that some people use flash like you might use C++ or Perl. It is a tool.

Bottom line is this: Flash is a useful tool that has many positive and negative attributes, but it sells. Like my dad always said, Money talks and BS walks.

-Kore

Re:Flash is bad. mmkay?

[Anonymous Coward]

>More and more I see that the core of the OSS community is made up of
>fucking morons.
>
>
Well, if you take a gun and blow your brains out you won't have to put up with us anymore.....

Re:Flash is bad. mmkay?

[Anonymous Coward]

2advanced.com - Designer gets mouse rollovers that beep. I get shitty little fonts that can't resize. The unstoppable music is currently driving me nuts.

oddcast.com - Site takes 30 seconds to load on DSL. Talking XEyes in Flash is not cool.

YHL. Any other examples of Flash that isn't used for "just glitter"?

Re:Flash is bad. mmkay?

[TooTallFourThinking]

But isn't that like saying, "I like my art the good old fashion way, on the walls of caves"? I understand there is an appeal to web design circa 1994, the focus is placed more on content. Actually, there wasn't much past the content. And that's how I like my webpages. ;)

Some people like their webpages simple and content driven and others like pretty animations with their content. I don't know if the latter is throwing the web in a state of decay. But you never know...

IMHO, a web page can be as powerful and moving as a classic novel. Or more like a Danielle Steel book, full of touchy feel crap.

Re:Flash is bad. mmkay?

[Anonymous Coward]

We had a customer like that -- gave us trouble over the bill for all the catalog database stuff that moved product for them, but paid us something like $30K for an extra flash animation, so it all worked out.

Re:Flash is bad. mmkay?

[kz45]

Most Flash sites on the web use it for absolutely no reason at all, other than to look cool.

Exactly. It's to draw a crowd to your site. For any site wanting to make any kind of money, it's a must.

Why doesn't KDE or GNOME look like the orginal X-windows? Because it doesn't look cool! Looking cool does matter.

This is why there's no opensource flash tools

No, the reason there is no open-source flash, is because anyone with the experience to make such a fantastic piece of software is working for a commercialized company. (IE: Proprietary)

Re:Flash is bad. mmkay?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the first statement is true, while the second is false.

And your proof?

Further, no one is talking about throwing people who use Flash idiotically into jail.

That's because using Flash is not illegal. Downloading copyrighted material from P2P apps is. And, yeah, of course you've used P2P software and always downloaded public domain material. Sure...

See the difference?

No. Obviously you're too blinded by your hate of Flash and your love of supporting anything that runs in the exact opposite of the general public.

Come back and participate in the conversation once you've experienced life and see how clear it is then.

Re:Flash is bad. mmkay?

[Alsee]

here are tons of good uses for Flash... For those times when the experience is the content, rather than just the conduit for it

Noooooooo!!!!!!! You stole my Karma!I had planed to write up a whole big article explaining why we (geeks/nerds/hackers/programmers/OSS/whatever) hate flash and aren't making tools for it. I was looking forward to writing up an awsome insightful+5 interesting+5 post on it, and you go and RUIN EVERYTHING by outclassing all my arguments in one elegant sentence.

Damn you! Damn you to hell! I WANT MY KARMA!!

-

Re:Flash is bad. mmkay?

[Odinson]

I must agree.

Just becuase there are tons of stupid (and hysterically funny) flash cartoons out there doesn't mean it doesn't kick ass for Cisco's entire certification curriculum.

I'm sure anyone who has taken any CCNA class will agree, it's at least very good.

One problem, I would hate to be Cisco(or someone alot poorer) if Macromedia ever achives global bundling status. The closed source shakedown would commith hard and fast. (que: High hat, wa wa, 70's chase music)

Re:Flash is bad. mmkay?

[akmed]

Sounds to me like you hearken for the good old days in the '50s as well, when everyone drove big cars with huge engines and faucets all had hot water, cold water, and crude oil and there were no stupid diseases and America was on top of the world and everyone could be a test pilot and drive a Corvette and ....... get over it. I was there in the early days of the web too. The content then sucked. The difference between then and now is that the web in the old days was an old boys club and you could all but post your credit card number online without fear. Now there're a lot more people using it and so it mirrors the real world that you're trying to escape from. Content is the almighty god of web users for bizarre reasons undeterminable to anyone. It's like a state religion accepted without question. You know what the real key to the internet is? Entertainment. If I'm looking for news online I'm headed to news.bbc.co.uk or www.nytimes.com or the such. I'm not going to buckaroobobsbackofthetrucknewssite.com. On the other hand, there're days when the news is just pretty damned dull. So I look for something entertaining instead. The key to finding what you want isn't to eliminate the stuff you don't like, it's to have good searching mechanisms. I notice that no one has ever created a successful pay to search site. Why not? Because you'd deplore "the death of the web" if they did. But maybe a pay to use search engine would be useful. Because then they'd have the money to really research links well and even host their own content. You'd pay for an encyclopedia but you wouldn't pay for one that is gracious enough to point you to information they don't own? Bah. This rant has gone on too long I fear. I agree that the web is in a state of decay, but it's decaying because people are bored with it. Want a perfect analogue? Go out and buy/borrow a movie you haven't seen before. Watch it. Assuming it's reasonably good you'll pay attention to it. Watch it again. Then again. Then again and again and again... you will hate it by the 50th time. It's the same movie. It's just a different you. Punch a bucket of water and the little ripples in it will change. Punch a bucket of ice and your hand will hurt. All things change and indeed all things need to change. The world would be a very boring place if they didn't. Sorry for the rant, I don't mean to offend. Just thought the other side of the coin should be seen as well.

Re:Flash is bad. mmkay?

[Istealmymusic]

That's because using Flash is not illegal. Downloading copyrighted material from P2P apps is. And, yeah, of course you've used P2P software and always downloaded public domain material. Sure...

What do you work for, the RIAA? As an avid P2P user, I'll have you know I steal music on a daily basis. Never bought a CD, never will.

Re:Flash is bad. mmkay?

[Compuser]

Um, we are getting a bit off topic but I will
reply anyway. I never said I wished for the web
circa 1994 merely that I liked the layout circa
1994. Your point about search engines is moot
because it is precisely the bad organization of
stuff within a web site that prevents search
engines from doing their job (flash, database
driven backends etc.).
---
/totally off topic/
The nice thing about the early web was that all
it had was content with "blink" tags as the most
offensive piece of "eye candy". In other words,
signal to noise ratio was high. The down side was
that the signal itself was pretty low. Now the
signal is higher but signal to noise is awful
and getting worse. What is worst is that "signal"
has seemingly saturated but noise is still growing.
This is why I said that the web is degenerating.

Re:Flash is bad. mmkay?

[realgone]

Sigh... okay, okay. Let me get the basket of apples and oranges out of the garage, cuz it looks like it's comparin' time again. =)

The simple fact that a site exists does not necessarily mean its primary (or even secondary) purpose is to communicate quantifiable little bits of information to someone in the most efficient manner possible. In some cases -- an interactive artist's portfolio, to use a self-serving example -- how the site communicates is as/more important than what it communicates. (Kinda the same way you'll go to a swanky restaurant both for the ambiance and the food. Presentation still counts for a lot sometimes.)

But, yes, you're right -- there are tons of sites that slap completely unnecessary layers of Flash crap over what should be simple informational resources. And those people should be covered with honey and fed to rampaging packs of wild boars. But to deny a portion of the population legitimate use of a tool just because some other maroons decide to misuse it -- hey! That almost sounds like the other end of the whole DeCSS mess. Cool! =)

Re:Flash is bad. mmkay?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just another vote of support. Many people here have been commenting that Flash is often used to hide a lack of content, or is, at the very least, an extremely inefficient way to deliver it. And they are right, when content is merely text. There is a reason, though, that newspapers use photos (the Wall Street Journal, a longtime holdout, remade its layout for the first time in decades recently to include color pictures).

You are absolutely right that at times, the content is the look, the animation, or the interface. If I saw Flash animated Linux documentation, I'd probably puke. But at the same time, it makes perfect sense on a movie preview site like that for Blow, though considerably less sense when overused, as in this cell phone website.

Flash also allows certain things which HTML simply cannot do. It provides a fairly unique mix of interactivity, development ease, and the ability to do fairly complex work that I haven't seen in a single other tool or script. I am not familiar with the current state of SVG, but last I saw it was relatively undeveloped. And I hardly can see OSS geeks advocating a plug-in from Adobe, a company who is easily as monopolistic as Macromedia (how do you spell that? Skylarov?).

I hope some people will consider that there is more to the web than plain-text. When used properly, as it sometimes is, Flash has a great potential. I wish it were OSS, but that was the nature of the question--if there are any Open Source Flash development projects.

Re:Flash is bad. mmkay?

[Anonymous Coward]

i don't like the RIAA, that corrupt price gouging trust (as in group of companies who get together to screw consumers trust), but i do like the artists, so i still buy the cds so the artists can keep making music. yeah, the RIAA rips off the artists too, but until the majority of artists can get a way to distribute their music without the corrupt money-mongers taking +90% of the artist's money, we should appease the slave master that keeps our bands from having to work day jobs.

Re:Flash is bad. mmkay?

[Istealmymusic]

Ever heard of eMusic? $120 for a years subscription to unlimited MP3 downloads, directly from the bands. Although their selection is limited I'd say this kind of thing is the next legal killer app in the music industry.

Re:Flash...

[ZxCv]

No, incompetent developers that overuse Flash are what suck. Like a lot of things, Flash is an awesome tool, but only when used appropriately.

Cheap, cheap flash

[KFury]

Don't use flash for a large-scale project, please. It's only going to make your trainging and maintenance costs skyrocket. HTML is open-source and is highly capable.

However, if you want cheap flash, the educational price for Flash MX is $99. Enroll in a community college course. Maybe a flash course... You'll need it. :-)

Re:Cheap, cheap flash

[jsimon12]

The problem with the educational version of Macromedia's Flash and Shockwave is it pastes a "This is an education product" tag on everything you create. Granted you could hack that out, but I don't think doing so is exactly legal.

Re:Cheap, cheap flash

[KFury]

Really??? I have the educational version of Flash 5 and I didn't notice that...

Re:Cheap, cheap flash

[jsimon12]

They might have changed the config then, I had the educational version of Flash 4 and it had this big banner thing at the end.

Re:Cheap, cheap flash

[I Want GNU!]

Yes, that is cheap. But if you actually read the license, you would notice that it is only for educational uses, such as learning how to use Flash. Designing a commercial website with it is in violation of the license. You might as well tell the person to go download Flash warez.

Re:Cheap, cheap flash

[KFury]

To be clear, the restrictions don't say it's for educational use only, but rather that it's not for commercial use. This is an importnat distinction, especially when the person is looking for a product to use for a public open-source project which seemingly isn't a commercial venture.

Re:Cheap, cheap flash

[sehryan]

Actually, with Flash's excellent XML support, any competent Flash developer knows how to make a product that is easy to use but also easy to update and modify content-wise.

And as for Flash's scripting language...it's a subset of the same language javascript comes from, so it isn't like you have to learn something new.

Re:Flash...

[Night Goat]

It doesn't sound like the guy's using Flash to make a web site, rather to make a set of "toys" which I imagine would stand by themselves and be little programs that people would use. I would imagine that these programs might be used in a presentation or something, something private where it can be assumed that all viewers will have Flash installed.

Re:Flash...

[the_2nd_coming]

dude. the ability to make embeded apps that work better than Java and are more powerful than Javascript is invaluable.

I got a buddy who is doing a web development class and he chose flash for his app so that the User does not need to download a new page everytime a serverside script updates information.

faster than Java, nice looking than Java, and has all the power of a serverside script without all the page reloads....NICE!!!!

Flash ain't easy

[mblase]

Being a beginning Flash developer myself, I can attest that it's probably next to impossible to produce a full-bore "budget" tool to create Flash files.

This isn't HTML we're talking about here. Flash files use coordinated timelines, compressed files, and loads of user interaction to do what it does, and it's not cheap. You can't just open the source code and peek inside. It's probably going to be some time before any open source project can produce the complexity Macromedia's put into six versions of their product.

As others have pointed out, though, you don't really need to use Flash. 99% of the time it's just that: flash, pretty animations which are implemented badly by non-professionals in order to make their site look cooler than it needs to. Most people honestly just want the information. You should consider this.

However, if you're persistently determined to use Flash, then I'd recommend buying a used copy of an Flash 4 on eBay or somewhere. It's certain to be better than any of the open source products currently available.

Re:Flash ain't easy

[K.]

Actually, it wouldn't be too hard to read an swf file into a textual format, the format is relatively simple and well-documented. (I think there's a free software utility that does this, as a matter of fact.) The authoring format is closed, however, and more complex.

As I said elsewhere, I think that part of the reason there isn't a free Flash package is coz the format itself isn't completely free but under the control of Macromedia. But it is relatively well-understood and easy to output.

Re:Flash ain't easy

[JudasBlue]

This isn't HTML we're talking about here. Flash files use coordinated timelines, compressed files, and loads of user interaction to do what it does, and it's not cheap. You can't just open the source code and peek inside. It's probably going to be some time before any open source project can produce the complexity Macromedia's put into six versions of their product.

Like open source hasn't been able to produce image processing programs (GIMP), word processing programs (AbiWord among others), and bloody entire operating systems for christ's sake.

_Obviously_ these things are so much simplier than producing flash. But, interestingly, coffeecup sofware has been able to produce tools for the format. I guess they are rocket scientists compared to us open source folk.

Who modded this post up and why?

Re:Flash ain't easy

[G-funk]

Who modded this post up and why?

Probably because he's right. Writing a flash clone could quite easily be on a par with writing an operating system, and if Flash had an interface on par with that of the Gimp, the company would be broke.

Re:Flash ain't easy

[pixelfreak]

Spend the extra money and get Flash 5. The interface is much better and you can always export your movie in Flash 4 format for compatablity.

Re:Flash ain't easy

[obsidian head]

Yes, I personally use a swf to xml converter that works both ways. I can't find the util on the net, so I'll assume my company developed it inhouse. We use it for debugging.

Of course, the xml is a pain to read, so I'm writing a filter soon to convert it to a textfile that uses tabs to show the structure.

Re:Flash ain't easy

[stephanruby]

"You can't just open the source code and peek inside. It's probably going to be some time before any open source project can produce the complexity Macromedia's put into six versions of their product. "

Squeak can do most of things, plus 3-d graphics, and speech synthesis. www.squeak.org You should seriously take a look at it. Flash is nice, since version 5.0, it's a fully object-oriented programming language, but it can not even compare to Squeak. Macromedia has some smart people, but I don't think they can compare to Alan Kay. Alan Kay is one of the main developer behind Squeak, he is one of the inventors of the Smalltalk programming language and one of the fathers of the idea of Object Oriented Programming. He is the conceiver of the laptop computer and the architect of the modern windowing GUI.

Re:Flash ain't easy

[artymiak]

Flash filled the void that should have been filled by an open standard, like SVG + SMIL. But we are still waiting for the right tools (browsers, plugins and authoring tools). So far, only Flash can be used to deliver rich multimedia over limited bandwidth, and that's a fact.We're stuck with it, whether we like it or not.

One thing the Open Source comunity could do is create an Open Source Flash Player.

Re:Flash ain't easy

[stephanruby]

Flash MX is the latest version, it's much better than Flash 5, and it's not really compatible with previous versions.

Re:Nothing Found (-1 Flamebait)

[Anonymous Coward]

Although one of the reasons many slashdot users are anti-flash is that it's not supported by the W3C, I believe slashdot is a haven for command line elitests. Although there are plenty of level headed readers and posters here (perhaps the majority) I've also found the comments to often be anti-gui, anti-Microsoft (with good reason) and often too proud of their accomplishments and knowledge to allow for the fact that aesthetics are actually an important pare of usability and accessibility.

Developement Software Prices

[substatica]

Perhaps no one's made an opensouce version because $500 isn't so expensive when you consider the price of most animation / photoediting tools.

Open source commercial

[jimson]

There's probably a reason why there aren't that many open source Flash development tools. Flash seems to be mainly for commercials and TV-like movement on a webpage. Open source doesn't seem to get behind technologies that offer nothing more than "flash", but no real substance. You'll probably find a few tools that someone who thinks Flash is "neat" is working on, but a full-on v1.X gimp-like tool, I don't think so......

Re:Open source commercial

[Anonymous Coward]

opensource flash programs are to macromedia's flash dev environment as gimp is to photoshop. neither one of them can cut the mustard compared to the programs they are meant to 'replace'

Re:Open source commercial

[Anonymous Coward]

What you say is interesting but not too hard to disprove.

Compare vector graphics with bitmap graphics. Which one is more "content" and which one is more "flash"? Obviously, vector graphics is for those who need their graphic ideas presented cleanly, efficiently, editably, in a truly "open source" way. Bitmap graphics is mostly for "eyecandy", "skins", and family photo albums. In fact, vector is like program source, bitmap is more like closed binary. Now, Open Source does have a great bitmap editor (GIMP) that is almost comparable to Photoshop. But there are no vector editors comparable to any commercial program of this kind (Sketch is the best one so far, but featurewise it's at least 5 years behind). So?

Re:Flash...

[MidnightLog]

I'm curious, what many uses are you refering to where Flash is the only option? The only things I can think of are games and eye-candy.

Macromedia keeps it proprietary.

[jbum]

The reason Flash isn't more "open source" is because it is ultimately a proprietary technology under the tight control of the Macromedia company. Although Macromedia has released a publicly available description of the internal flash file format, this in itself does not an open-source standard make:

* The description Macromedia released is incomplete in some areas, and has not been kept up to date with more recent versions of Flash.

* I've used Macromedia's documentation to write a Perl library that outputs and modifies flash movies. I've found format to be highly optimized for playback unfortunately; you can't do much to modify existing movies in interesting ways (aside from moving existing elements around the screen, rearranging letters and so on).

* Macromedia has not released a description of the Flash *project* file (thus giving them a tight reign over authoring tools). Significant information is lost when a project is published in the (documented) flash format - information that would lend itself to making more dynamic and interesting sites.

* Macromedia likely does not view the prospect of 3rd party authoring tools as being a good thing, since Macromedia is largly an authoring tools company.

Finally, I'm a bit perplexed why you would choose Flash as a good tool for educating people about "complicated policy questions" - this strikes me as something that would be served better by a more dynamic text-oriented approach (such as a Slash-code based site).

One of the problems with Flash is that it doesn't lend itself to sites which have a large amount of interaction between their users and the site authors. You can do it, but it's a huge pain-in-the-ass.

So I'm assuming you want to create a flashy presentation, and not much else.

Re:Macromedia keeps it proprietary.

[GrouchoMarx]

Have you used echo.com? They're moving servers at the moment (natch), but once they're up again check them out. Their an audio streaming site that is entirely JSP and Flash, and is extremely well designed. They only downside is that they do browser checking and reject non-NS4/IE browsers. But their use of Flash as an interactive page design system is amazing.

Re:Macromedia keeps it proprietary.

[Anonymous Coward]

----
Finally, I'm a bit perplexed why you would choose Flash as a good tool for educating people about "complicated policy questions" - this strikes me as something that would be served better by a more dynamic text-oriented approach (such as a Slash-code based site).
----

Actually, this is something that would be prefect for flash since you would probably have a lot of client / server interaction after questions were answered.

using flash would allow you to send and retrieve data from the client without refreshing and downloading the entire screen each time the user made some input that required server side validation.

----
One of the problems with Flash is that it doesn't lend itself to sites which have a large amount of interaction between their users and the site authors. You can do it, but it's a huge pain-in-the-ass.
----

i am assuming you are talking about client / server interactions.

of course how difficult something is is relative, but you can transfer data using XML, and standard URL Query strings. There is a DOM based API within Flash for parsing the XML.

mike chambers

mesh@macromedia.com

Use the Void as a Motivator

[SuperJames_74]

If you can't find an open source flavor of Flash, perhaps that, in itself, could be used as a teaching-tool/motivator. Its prohibitively high cost could demonstrate why closed source is baaad, if that's where you're going with this. Sorry I couldn't help you actually find a free-beer tool...

better than DHTML

[davovad]

My two cents worth - but in my experience if you need (ie it is a requirement and out of your control) anmimated menus or something else dynamic, flash has provided more consistent functionality across browsers vs the dhtml implementations out there.

Re:better than DHTML

[cloudmaster]

It's not better or more widely supported, it's just easier in that you only have to develop it once. There are plenty of DHTML libraries pre-written in ecmascript (javascript, jscript, whatever your browser calls it) that degrade nicely. Flash doesn't degrade - it either works or doesn't - unless you take the time to implement some extra code. At that point, you could've just set up a faster, easier ecma-based menu system.

What ever happened to applets? Those work in more browsers and provide more flexibility... :)

Re:better than DHTML

[bitdamaged]

Yeah and I like Apples better than Oranges.

You can't really compare DHTML to Flash, the two are totally seperate technologies though they both can be used to preform similar tasks. The cross-browser issue, while present in DHTML is quickly becoming a thing of the past since over 75% of browsers (depending on whose stats you use) currently support the DOM.

Don't get me wrong I like Flash and think it is the better tool for the job in certain situations however I think it's shortsighted to try to completely compare a programmatical implementation to a plug-in.

Flash == Chrome

[Anonymous Coward]

And if I want chrome, I'll buy a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

More info

[MAJ Rantage]

The W3C SVG page may be found here. Probably the most popular browser plug-in is made by Adobe and you can get it here (RedHat 7.1 and Solaris 8 versions of the plug-in are somewhat hard to find but are still available).

You might also wish to check out some of Adobe's demos. Jasc has a Win32 app called WebDraw that can come in handy, too.

Re:More info

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny... most of the bitching in here is how Flash needs a plugin to run (though that plugin is installed in 98% of the browsers).

The W3C alternative that people on this site cream their pants over... requires a plugin.

Yeah, whatever...

Re:More info

[dostick]

Mozilla have NATIVE support. That is the right way.
SVG should be (is going to be?) supported natively by browsers, just like native support for JPEG,PNG, HTML, plaintext.

Re:More info

[Psiren]

The plugin crashes my (0.9.9+) mozilla build. Oh well, easy download, easy delete ;)

Re:More info

[Anonymous Coward]

Beyond that, the demos on adobe's own site don't seem to work with the Linux version. nuts. I was hoping that there would be an alternative. [The "hey-you-installed-it-correctly" picture works, but none of the other demos seem to work properly]

Re:More info

[ostiguy]

I don't think so. I think you can build a version of moz that supports it, but it is not it the current builds.

And the adobe plugin in for moz doesn't render everything properly the way ie's does. oh well

ostiguy

Re:More info

[Salsaman]

I think mozilla is planned to have native SVG support. Here's a link to the mozilla SVG project.

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/svg/

Re:More info

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Windows users (*sigh*) can download a version that has both SVG and mathML support.

The latest 'unofficial' Windows build with SVG and MathML support can be found at ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/nightly/latest-t runk/mozilla-win32-svg-mathml.zip.

From Mozilla SVG Project:

The Mozilla SVG implementation is a native SVG implementation. This is as opposed to plug-in SVG viewers such as the Adobe viewer (which is currently the most popular SVG viewer).

Some of the implications of this are:

• Mozilla can handle documents that contain SVG, MathML, XHTML, XUL, etc. all mixed together in the same 'compound' document. This is being made possible by using XML namesspaces.
• Mozilla is 'aware' of the SVG content. It can be accessed through the SVG DOM (which is compatible with the XML DOM) and manipulated by Mozilla's script engine.
• Other Mozilla technologies can be used with SVG. XBL coupled with SVG is a particular interesting combination. It can be used to create graphical widgets (I wonder when we'll see the first SVG-based chrome!) or extend Mozilla to recognize other specialized languages such as e.g. CML (chemical markup language). There are samples of these kinds of more advanced usage patterns on croczilla.com/svg/.

Especially intriguing to me are the SVG chrome concept, and potential CML support. It's be nice to see mathML and CML pave the way for open free methods in academia :-)

Re:More info

[Anonymous Coward]

Adobe? Hmm...that's a company I want to support!!

some of us remember defcon 9.

SVG

[cthrall]

Check these out:

http://www.ep.cs.nott.ac.uk/projects/SVG/flash2s vg
http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/SVG-Implementat ions

SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) is an alternative to Flash.

Not open source, but much cheaper.

[mahlen]

You could try Swish, which does text effects (among other things) quite well and is only $50.

mahlen

"The carrot is the agent of the coleslaw." -- Berkeley Bob

Re:Not open source, but much cheaper.

[crisco]

I'd agree, for knocking together a presentation, Swish may be a better authoring tool than Macromedia's.

Others have pointed out some decent alternatives, SVG, DHTML and Java applets would all let you add some glitz to your presentation.

Whatever you do, enforce a separation of style from content, it is possible in any of the above mentioned technologies. This might even allow you to provide multiple versions from the same content base (something concerning policy on perscription drugs might be very useful to the blind and the physically handicapped)

Lingo is a nightmare.....

[jsimon12]

Have you ever actually used Lingo? It is a "natural english" programming language, and to anyone who has programmed "for real" it is a total nightmare. I would suggest you use some other method to conviegh you information, while Flash is pretty and all it is a quite honestly schlock. Maybe a little more info on what, how, and to whom you want to get information too, so we can better advise you.

Re:Lingo is a nightmare.....

[nickmain]

Flash does not use Lingo - that is Shockwave.

Flash uses ActionScript - which is a dialect of ECMAScript/JavaScript.

Re:Lingo is a nightmare.....

[lux55]

I'm afraid that Flash doesn't use Lingo; that's used in Director to make Shockwave files, which tend to be more interactive, and still play through the same plugin anyway. Just for the sake of keeping our facts straight, Flash actually uses something called ActionScript, which is an embedded JavaScript interpreter with a Flash-specific object model. Not quite so bad, but the focus of Flash on a frame-by-frame structure makes organizing ActionScript code in Flash really ugly for all but the smallest projects.

Re:Lingo is a nightmare.....

[RobTerrell]

Wrong. Lingo is the programmming langage for Macromedia Director/Shockwave, not Flash. JavaScript (ECMAScript)is the programming language in Flash. Besides, Lingo's been substantially cleaned up since "dot syntax" was implemented and overall it isn't all that bad.

Re:Lingo is a nightmare.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash doesn't use Lingo, it uses ActionScript, which is a subset of ECMAScript; very closely related. You can generally do what you need to do with it. You're confusing Flash with Shockwave, which is what Director (which uses Lingo) outputs.

Re:Lingo is a nightmare.....

[scubaninja]

Lingo is the scripting language used by Macromedia Director. ActionScript is the language used by Flash. Starting with Flash 5, they changed the syntax over so it is basically 90% JavaScript with a much cooler object model. (i.e. you can control opacity and rotation, try that in DHTML). ActionScript is still less powerful than Lingo though, although I prefer the AS syntax since it is basically JavaScript with a couple of missing features.

Re:Lingo is a nightmare.....

[jdog44]

Uh, not to pick nits, but FLASH doesnt use LINGO.
that is the language behind ShockWave.(Director)

FLASH uses ActionScript, which has gone under some
major changes in the last few releases.
Mosty dot-syntax now, looks very much like javascript.
The whole program revolves around Objects and inheritance, works as a programming environment now.

Re:Lingo is a nightmare.....

[mediadiva]

Flash is ActionScript not Lingo and it is written in dot syntax. Lingo is the language of Director, and Director is also not dot syntax, though it allows for the natural language as an alternative.

Re:Lingo is a nightmare.....

[mediadiva]

I mean director is dot syntax as well :)

bad bad bad?

[JPriest]

No flashkit and other have an open source flash movie section, there are slightly cheaper closed source products such as SWiSH and Macromedia has a 30 day trail or Flash FX availible for download. but overall this question is _kind_of_ like asking "we would like to build a Visual C++ project but can't afford Visual C++"

Flash is Style over Substance, Usability Nightmare

[John_Booty]

Flash is hell from a usability standpoint. It does away with many of the notions that the web was founded out - consistant interfaces, as well as the page-based metaphor. Flash essentially "breaks" the browser controls people have finally learned to use (the back button, URL bar, etc etc).

I'm sure Flash could be useful in cases where animation is actually necessary - animated diagrams and the such. But the cases where such a thing is actually CALLED FOR are extremely rare.

All in all, Flash epitomizes style over substance. Just don't do it. There's really no good reason to.

Careful buying off Ebay

[jsimon12]

I would be careful buying Flash on Ebay, there are a lot of people selling pirate versions as full blown, educational as full blown, etc etc.

Flash is ok for a small percentage of stuff, but with a little more effort most people could write their Flash apps in something Open/Free (as in beer).

It crashes.

[Yohahn]

Another problem is that the macromedia plugin for linux may be unstable in some configurations.

On my machine, after I installed flash, some web pages would crash mozilla. I removed flash, and poof.. things worked fine.

Much like nvidia drivers, flash is closed, and this "closedness" causing inconsistant stability.

(some people have no problem.. just like the nvidia drivers)

Re:It crashes.

[HeUnique]

Just because it's closed it's "causing inconsistant stability"?

And what makes you absolutly certain that if the Flash plugin was open source that someone will actually fix it?

Just FYI, there are tons of places where you can get info how to develop a flash "player" - be my guest, write an open source plugin...

Re:It crashes.

[Yohahn]

I'm sure, because it's my experience. Much like it is some of my peer's experience that Microsoft dosen't fix bugs.

Here's some of the examples that feed my experience

Examples of "closed" linux products with problems:
nvidia drivers
real player

Examples of "open/free" linux products that have problems that get fixed:
mozilla
apache
linux

I'm not going to dedicate my resources to fixing a closed product that I have no desire to run, which may end me caught in some kinda software patent lawsuit. (I'm a novice to multimedia graphics programming)

This is the problem with flash on Linux

Re:It crashes.

[Anonymous Coward]

It sure is a shame using these linux nvidia drivers. Having wonderful 3D performance sure sucks ass.

Re:It crashes.

[rob_canoe]

mozilla can hang with the Flash plugin, and it may be due to the sound system locking up. F**k knows what the details are, but it works just fine here (under KDE) if I start Mozilla like this

artsdsp mozilla > /dev/null &

Re:It crashes.

[Bert64]

Infact virtually all of the problems i experience on linux, usually a program freezing up, going crazy and consuming all the system ram, or perhaps occupying the entire screen under X11 and locking out the keyboard. involve closed programs. Netscape 4.x is one of the worst offenders, and realplayer. The flash plugin has brought both netscape and mozilla down on several occasions too. Most of these problems involve the program locking up and/or consuming large amounts of ram, rarely will the program exit with a segfault error or such. I would much prefer a screwed up program to die and return me to a prompt, and i imagine opensource software is designed this way because it`s easier to debug when gdb catches the fault.

Simple tool for quick animations

[raju]

Most of the answers so far indicate that Flash should not be used and why. That, however, was not the question. I have been been using Swish from http://www.swishzone.com/ for those simple animations with fade in/out, slide in/out of text and images for the little banner-type images. I would stay away from Flash for constructing a whole page or a site (yes, those exist!).

Re:Simple tool for quick animations

[jedman]

Quick Animations -- yes! Such items can really get a point across well. As many have stated, avoiding glitzy, stroboscopic presentations is vital. But, I'm often amazed how, when watching documentary and history programs on cable TV, new concepts are plainly revealed via active diagrams featuring simple outline animations... for example, spacecraft landing on other planets, or the inner workings of an engine.

I'm sure with clever writing, policy issues can be communicated well with gently moving block diagrams, visually underscoring interrelationships among people, government, and business.

SWiSH

[robbway]

Swish is a Flash tool that only costs $50 for a basic license and has a free demo for you to decide. Macromedia Flash files can be saved in .swf format. It is not fully featured Flash, but may handle your needs.

Re:SWiSH

[MrM]

I use SWiSH (http://www.swishzone.com) and the ease of use and the fun I have doing my flash pages sure beats the bucks I'd have spent on Flash. Swish is about $50.

Re:Flash is Style over Substance, Usability Nightm

[John_Booty]

I just wanted to add one thing...

Think about why people will be using this web site. Do they want pretty? Or do they want information? If they wanted pretty, they'd watch a movie or take acid and stare at some vintage 70's wallpaper. :)

You should try to make the site attractive, of course- but don't forget your #1 priority which is (or should be) usability and information. Any compromise to make the site flashy is a detriment to what your site set out to accomplish.

Re:Flash...

[orangesquid]

Java and SVG should cover about everything Flash does, anyway...

Flash is the right medium for this...

[deviator]

Anyone who has ever actually looked at Flash or its development tools will tell you that there's really nothing else like it on the market right now. I think open-source advocates react strongly to it simply because it's so proprietary. You can develop stuff in Flash that looks *identical* on multiple platforms (despite browser differences) and fits in a minimum of space.

Flash (the development tool) enables people to create relatively complex animations and interactive sites with amazing ease. Flash itself is not to blame for usability problems on websites - check out http://www.homestarrunner.com and tell me that site isn't easy to navigate. :)

Until there are real, viable alternatives to Flash that have 96% browser penetration (this statistic is from Macromedia, of course, so it may or may not be 100% true) then it'll be the best tool for the job.

(Someone suggested PHP as an alternative? You really think doing this stuff in PHP will be as easy without any GUI-based tools??)

Re:Flash is the right medium for this...

[Anonymous Coward]

check out http://www.homestarrunner.com [homestarrunner.com] and tell me that site isn't easy to navigate. :)

Sure it's easy to navigate. Each page also takes considerable time to download. It even starts with a boring cartoon and ditto tune. Simply moving my mouse over a menu item causes annoying sounds to be played, destroying my musical experience. It just adds "flash" to the site, no real value. The teletubby sounds can't appeal to me either.

Re:Flash is the right medium for this...

[wilhelm]

And if you have a browser that doesn't use flash, the site is really easy to navigate also. There's only one control... the back button.

Re:Flash is the right medium for this...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a fucking cartoon site. Do yourself a favor and remove the stick from your ass.

Re:Flash is the right medium for this...

[ChaosDiscordSimple]

Flash itself is not to blame for usability problems on websites - check out http://www.homestarrunner.com and tell me that site isn't easy to navigate.

We'll let's take a look in my current browser...

[EMBED]

Wow, that is the easiest navigation I've ever seem. It's immediately clear the homestarrunner specializes in minimalist poetry. Clearly, after extensive usability research, they determined that too many options can confusing and reduced the navigation options to a bare minimum: none.

Because homestarrunner assumed I was able to view their animation, they haven't even bothered to provide a brief summary for those of us without Flash. If they had provided a brief message explaining the sites purpose and why I reasonably need flash, perhaps I'd open a Netscape window to check it out. As it is, it's completely opaque. I see no reason to bother investigating further, so I'm gone. If a blind user who wandered into the site he would be completely out of luck.

Flash can be useful and valuable. But if you use Flash the most important rule is provide some sort of explaination message for those users who don't have it. Something like "Unfortunately, you'll need Flash to view our entertaining cartoon" or "You'll need Flash to view the 3d model of the the bike, however you can still browse the rest of our site without it."

Re:Flash is the right medium for this...

[lost_it]

Flash itself is not to blame for usability problems on websites - check out http://www.homestarrunner.com [homestarrunner.com] and tell me that site isn't easy to navigate. :)

As others have pointed out, from the browsing that I did, it seemed like a lot of the Flash stuff could be removed without losing anything but download time. But that's not why I'm responding.

The real problem occured for me while I was watching on of the animations and my girlfriend IMed me. Now what am I supposed to do? I'm not dumb enough to ignore my girlfriend for a stupid Flash animation, but there's no way to pause or rewind the animation without restarting it.

And that was when I closed the window and gave up on the site.

That's what is wrong with most uses of Flash. It expects to be the center of your attention (you can't play your own music in the background, and you can't do anything else while watching the animation or you'll miss something).

So when is Flash ok to use? I don't mind it in the e-cards that my girlfriend and I send to each other. There, I prefer it over anything else that the web has to offer. It's also very nice for things like online biology or chemistry examples that let students go step-by-step through an animated experiment, with explanations at each step.

But using it for site navigation, or to add a little glitter to an ordinary page is just plain wrong. Violators should be shot on sight.

Re: Flash is the right medium for this...

[Skiboo]

(A bit OT from the original question, so if you're not into discussion, move along, nothing to see here)

First, a few things about me. I have a 33.6kbps internet connection (although its actually a bit slower). This is due to living in the middle of nowhere (I live near on a farm, in Western Australia).

My machine has a CPU made by cyrix, which should be more or less of an indication of my computer. (On cool days sometimes I clock it up to 166Mhz).

I saw your post, and figured, ok, I'll bite.
The intro took around ~40 seconds to load (this is actually pretty good for a flash site for me). I had no desire to watch the into, so once the animation loaded, (note that there was no skip button whilst loading) I pressed the skip button. Six times. On the sixth click, it seemed to respond.

Next up, another 40 second wait while the main section loaded. (It had now been at least two minutes at this site without really achieving anything). Once that loaded, I picked a section (note that I had to hover my mouse over a button for ~1 second before clicking it in order for it to respond) and clicked on it (it was the download section). This caused another .swf file to have to be loaded, that had an (unskippable, but short) intro of its own.

At this time, I had the downloads page in front of me, but there was no kind of menu or sidebar that could let me jump to another part of the website, I had to go back to the main page, and browse back out from there.

About this time, I got sick of the website and left.

Now, this type of thing is probably fine for what it is, (some kind of kiddy cartoon site, kids like flashy things), but it's definately a stretch to say its easy to navigate.

Would I have designed that site differently? Maybe.. maybe not. Its not really design for usability, or to be easy to navigate, its made to be fun, etc, and it probably serves that purpose. Flash has its place, and its well suited to this type of thing, but don't tout it as a poster-child flash website.

-- Disagree? Reply!

Re:Flash is the right medium for this...

[plimsoll]

> Flash itself is not to blame for usability
> problems on websites - check out
> http://www.homestarrunner.com
> and tell me that site isn't easy to navigate. :)

Ok- That site isn't easy to navigate.

All I saw was

• Black background
• Big white box w/ puzzle icon, "Click here to get the plugin"
• Window title: "Everybody! Everybody! - Mozilla {build id: 2002031104}"

Without any sort of a non-flash navigation (or even an intuitive page title), the user has...

• No idea what the company name is
• no clue what they do
• no desire to return.

Re:Flash is the right medium for this...

[TheTomcat]

• No place in Homestarrunner's target market.

Been there, typical response

[Anonymous Coward]

Mozilla has been going around with flash not playing on remote X terms. You can read the Bugzilla entry, but the short of it seem to be...

A number of ways around the problem have been looked at.

Flash crashes and thwarts recovery by doing funny things with signals.

Macromedia was asked to help.

Response was typical "we have to prioritize based on market"...

Flash released new version.

New version did nothing to help.

So, the situation seems to be one of little interest on Macromedia's part. But, as always, such dis-interest might be swayed by customer out cry.

But then... It is Flash we're talking about. Maybe we're better off without it?

Re:Been there, typical response

[Yottabyte84]

Flash crashes 95% of the time on my remote X term too. Had to disable it so mozilla wouldn't be taken out be every flash ad.

Why not ask for sponsoring?

[_Ash_]

As stated in a number of other responses, the main reason why there aren't any good (correct me if I'm wrong) flash open source initiatives, is because most people think flash is a sign of bad design.

Anyway, if you insist in using flash and can't afford it, why not ask for sponsoring? If the software you build has any social use, perhaps some government agency wants to sponsor you... or, if a lot of businessmen get to use your software, why not ask for sponsoring from some company? Maybe they will give you money, maybe they don't, but if you haven't asked, you will never find out, do you?

Re:Why not ask for sponsoring?

[mediadiva]

Most people do say it is "a sign of bad design" The truth is the failure is not always that of the program, but of the person who weilds it! It's not about the tools you use, but how you use it. on a side note.. Director is dead because Flash 6 supports movies, one day Flash will be dead to, because something else will do something it couldn't.

Why use Flash...

[daddyearlm]

To start with, I am not a flash programmer... Now for the reason to use flash.... A number of projects that I have done in the past have had the benefit of having artists and Usability Experts working on them. When it comes to having the artists prototype their designs, they always use Flash/Shockwave/Director. The reason seems to be that it works the way that they think. We have used flash in a large project and found it wanting. We ended up combining it with custom code. The project was/is successful and the artists can change the UI without learning to program or finding the programmers to do the job.

Educational Discount

[timothy_m_smith]

Flash MX can be purchased for $99 if you are some sort of educator. That certainly lowers the price. Go to this URL to get it:

Macromedia Flash Education Store

You will need to attest that you are an educator.

Hmm...

[SlashChick]

Please read the whole comment before moderating...

As I understand it, the question can be translated as:

"We're developing a new education product in Flash. Instead of hiring developers to help us design the interface, we would like to call it 'open-source' so we can get people to work on our product for free. We're really too cheap to even supply a basic development tool to our workers, so can we mooch off someone else's work by using a free product?"

Please forgive me if I'm assuming too much, but it really sounds like you want someone to have duplicated Flash and put it on the market for free. Now, having stated something that could be considered "flamebait", I will give you some advice.

-- Don't use Flash. I know that a lot of the tech-heads here on Slashdot will say this as enitre comment and get moderated up for it. I happen to not use Flash, but I do also happen to realize that there are very valid reasons for using it, and that education is one of Flash's core markets.

If you are not willing to pay your developers or at least buy them a tool for their work, use HTML. Most likely, the people on this project will already have a preferred HTML editor, which will enable you to just use CVS or another versioning system to check in the documents.

What bothers me about this whole post, though, is that it epitomizes the "bottom-feeder" attitude of companies that really want to profit from people's hard work without paying those people for that work. To avoid this, I would recommend gathring a core development team and paying for the tools that you believe that team needs. Then, you can release your product so that the masses can update it, with the caveat that the people updating it will need a development tool that they will have to pay for on their own. Everyone goes home happy: you sell a product, your development team gets paid a small amount plus experience, and your customers can update the product on their own accord and with their own tools.

Open-source software usually fulfills a need of the developer(s). I would say that the reason that there aren't free Flash development tools is that either a) Flash is such a good product that the people who use it are willing to pay for it or b) not that many people feel a need to use Flash. It's probably some of both.

Another thing: how do you release a Flash product as "open-source"? Do you distribute your product's SWF files to the target audience? I'm not sure how that would work. Is this something you have considered?

I apologize if I read too much into your statement. I hope that you really did have good intentions and weren't just riding on the "free [as in beer] is cool" bandwagon. I'd appreciate a good response from the original poster or someone who is involved in a similar project. At face value, it seems that there are a lot of "holes" in this project plan that haven't quite been addressed.

Re:Hmm...

[Espressoman]

As I understand it, your attitude can be translated as:

"What a bunch of cheap bastards. What gall you have for seeking an open source alternative to proprietary software."

Yeah, what loosers.

You would of course say the same thing for someone looking for open source web browsers, file managers, office applications, games, graphics applications etc., wouldn't you? Wouldn't want to be inconsistant now, would you....

Re:Hmm...

[anderss]

I wrote the original post, and I'm glad you asked the questions you did; I'm sure other people are wondering the same thing. Here are my answers:

1) Profit? Not exactly.... I work for the Service Employees International Union, not a company. I have lots of reasons to use an open source strategy, but making money isn't one of them.

2) I'm definitely not trying to scam work/money off of anyone. In the first phase of our plan, we're going to work with a vendor to build the first round of tools, and obviously all the developers involved will have Flash MX.

3) One of the reasons almost all Flash you see is advertising or a waste of bandwidth is that most of the people who'd like to use it for educational work are scared off by the amount of work & skill it would take to do it well. We'd like to see how far we can reduce this barrier. Our plan is to build several interactive educational toys, and then we're hoping to use what we learn to figure out what code, etc. we can write that would make it easier for us as well as other nonprofits to use Flash/Java/SVG/etc for interactive education.

4) After we've got a core of paid work done, I'd like to make the project as enticing as possible to volunteers (although we'll still pay for some development). Many of the nonprofits who would do a kick-ass job of building educational policy toys can't afford programmers, so most of their work will have to be done by volunteers, and most of these nonprofits can't afford to spend the money to buy a bunch of copies of Flash--these are shops where they get new PCs every 5-8 years. There are also lots of volunteers who may want to help us out because they like the politics of the project. Although I can convince the Top Brass to give me some money to buy Flash for some of them, it won't be enough to cover all of them, and I don't want to have volunteers not be able to work on this project because the cost of the tools is so high.

5) Whether we use Java, Flash, SVG, or a mix of these for different projects, I want to do this as an open source project with, eventually, lots of volunteers involved, because I hope to use this as one of several campaigns to convince the union movement to embrace open source. Most large unions--and for that matter, most large nonprofits--spend a lot of money buying proprietary systems from vendors, often getting ripped off in the process. If we could start to get that money flowing into open source projects, we could easily build many of the tools smaller nonprofits need but can't afford.

This injection of cash would also help solve some of the major problems open source faces, particularly on the desktop, in obtaining wider acceptance. Although things are _much_ better than they were a few years ago, a lot of open source software is still too hard to use, has user interfaces that aren't designed for people who don't get computers, and the user manuals are often crap. If we could harness only a tiny amount of the money unions and large nonprofits spend on software, we could radically change this, because it's something we could convince them to pay for--"if you pay $20,000 for a UI facelift, you get the other $100,000 worth of software for free."

So relax, dude; this isn't bottom feeding. I'm just trying to get this dinosaur turned around in the right direction.

In Unity, Anders Schneiderman Information Manager SEIU International

Re:Hmm...

[Anthony Boyd]

Whether we use Java, Flash, SVG, or a mix of these for different projects, I want to do this as an open source project with, eventually, lots of volunteers involved, because I hope to use this as one of several campaigns to convince the union movement to embrace open source.

Well. Having clarified, it appears to me that Flash is definitely not what you should be using. It simply is not synonymous with Open Source. As others have mentioned, Macromedia has only offered a spec for a small, outdated part of Flash. The full, up to date spec has not been released. And it's been a few years. In addition, they certainly have not open-sourced the code to their Flash apps. About the only way to do Flash in an Open-Source manner would be to use the PHP libraries to serve it up. This would, of course, require you to abandon any kind of graphical development environment.

In addition, other slashdotters mentioned that using Flash to answer policy questions is excessive. I am of two minds about that. First, a simple search box and a neatly formatted results page is all anyone needs to explain policy. So it would appear to me that you want to make a bigger deal out of your area than it really is. If this is the case, give up on your idea and go back to something simple. However, I acknowledge that an extremely competent, genius-like group of artists, animators, audio engineers, and writers could come up with a be-all, end-all app. This app would, perhaps with cartoon-like storyboarding, run someone through policy in such a way as to make it entertaining, easy, and fast. If this were possible, it would quickly become a commercially-viable application that HR departments at every company would buy. If this is the level at which you and these volunteers perform, don't listen to naysayers. But if it's not, you need to rethink your plan.

Re:Hmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think part of that "OSS = Free" reasoning may come directly from the OSS community. When people do their estimates of what it costs to do an open source office vs. a MS office, they don't often include the price of software or the services associated with Linux like red carpet or the mandrake club.

Re:Hmm...

[mshurpik]

So relax, dude; this isn't bottom feeding. I'm just trying to get this dinosaur turned around in the right direction.

Wow, dude, you're proposing to save the OSS movement all by yourself. I am an ambitious person, this is the kind of nonsense I used to say. Now I am 26, and I realize that I do not have the influence or resources to alter the landscape of software development all by myself.

Yet here you are, proposing to do exactly that. Where did this even come from? Your original post was a meek little request for info about Flash. Now all of a sudden you are our Lord Savior? What's your angle?

You paint a rosy picture of putting union resources behind OSS to miraculous effect. I would say you are naive non-CS type, but your second post is articulate enough to make it clear that you know about previous multi-million dollar cash injections from startups like RedHat and (the now defunct) V/A Linux. What makes you think your union of janitors and nurses is going to help any more than V/A Linux did?

Your organization, the SEIU, does not have a clean track record for "helping" or "working with" other organizations. In fact, the examples of CSEA and Intercity indicate that the SEIU will go to any lengths to infiltrate and co-opt existing organizations.

Your second post - a rallying cry for clarity in the struggling OSS world - amounts to little more than re-stating the obvious. This is a common tactic. By stating the obvious, you instantly win the hearts and minds of people who already agree. In reality, you have offered no new information, you have dreamed nothing we all haven't dreamed ourselves.

Beware, psychologist. You have met your match.

Re:Hmm...

[anderss]

I didn't make this clear in earlier posts because it didn't occur to me that anyone would get confused, but... only a small piece of the site will be Flash (or more likely, SVG or Java). Obviously, if you're trying to give someone answers to straightforward policy questions, then HTML is more than adequate. Unfortunately, there are areas of policy in which it's really hard to get a handle on them just using text alone, particularly areas that involve lots of numbers. It is these limited areas that, in addition to text, we'd like to use a more interactive approach. In the "real" world, this is when trainers use games to get the audience more involved and to let them get a better feel for what all the numbers mean. The point of this project is to look for a way of having the same effect online. We could do this all using CGI scripts and have done so in the past, but we'd like tools that let us produce a slicker interface, since it definitely makes a difference when training.

Re:Hmm...

[kollivier]

One of the reasons almost all Flash you see is advertising or a waste of bandwidth is that most of the people who'd like to use it for educational work are scared off by the amount of work & skill it would take to do it well.

I personally am not 'scared off' by Flash and I work quite a bit in educational CBT design. I've found most of the people who don't use it do so for another reason - it's not the right tool for the job. Here's an example to illustrate the kinds of problems that arise from using the wrong technology. I once took a telecourse where the professor videotaped 13 hour-long video sessions where he answered specific homework questions from the text. Well, the semester I took the course, the book had just changed - and so had most of the homework questions. Sure, it was more interactive, but it was also high-maintenance - kinda like Flash. In the end, the prof was doing the students a dis-service by using the technology. And yes, he did have a web forum but there wasn't much on it.

I admit I don't know your project's background, but from your message I get the impression you're making a common IT design mistake - choosing 'the right job for the tool'. That is to say, you first pick the technology you will use, and then design your solution in terms of the technology. Flash is highly interactive, but it is precisely because of that it has a high learning curve. There aren't going to be many interesting tools (open source or not) which can lower this learning curve - because they would have to cut out important functionality.

As far as the problems with open source, I think it's not about lack of money or resources - it's about the nature of open source. Open Source developers don't want to write documentation, or design simple interfaces. Why? Because they don't need them! It is as simple as that. That is why there is not yet success on the desktop, and why there won't be for a long time. Hiring a bunch of part-timers to write documentation and simplify interfaces won't really work - you need experts. The Apple kind, people who have done scores of usability testing and can intuitively understand their target audience's needs and wants in an interface. Of course, those type of experts generally don't work pro-bono, or cheap. Open source doesn't have many (if any) of them, and that is why many open source interfaces borrow heavily from MS app designs.

In fact, in closing, let me say that I think that the software and educational fields both have a strong need for "information architecture", that is, structuring information and options in such a way that the user always intuitively knows where to go and what to do next. The relevant options are always right in front of them. If you master this, then your project will succeed whether you use HTML OR Flash, but if you do not master this, then your project will fail, no matter what tool you use. In short, it's not the tool you used to build the content that matters - its the content itself.

Is your target audience on lower-end PCs?

[neophase]

If you're aiming your educational site at:

- students / low-income people using the browser PCs at the local public library (usually an older box donated by someone)
- the disabled (the visually impaired often use audio text readers / large fonts)
- non-geeks who may not know what a "plug-in" is, where to get it or how to install it
- people on a slow connection (DSL / cable modems are not available in many rural neighbourhoods)

then you DO NOT want to use Flash, because you will block out a large part of your target audience.

If you insist on Flash content, have a dual site - Flash and non-Flash - and make sure the main page is accessible to a text-only browser like Lynx, so people using audio readers / slow links can actually read your page.

Re:Is your target audience on lower-end PCs?

[Anonymous Coward]

I set up a web page with a flash intro. The index.html file was set to refresh to the non-flash starting page. Then, there was javascript to check if flash was installed, and if so, the intro would be shown. It's somewhat ugly, since you need to use javascript to dynamically write VB script if you want to find out if IE has flash installed, but it only takes 5-6 lines of javascript.

There's a couple other ways to check if flash is installed (embed a small flash file that sets a variable if it runs, etc).

Re:Is your target audience on lower-end PCs?

[sandidge]

- students / low-income people using the browser PCs at the local public library (usually an older box donated by someone)

And? Never seen a simple Flash animation use up much CPU unless you're doing complicated computations, which it doesn't sound like he plans to do.

- the disabled (the visually impaired often use audio text readers / large fonts)

You mean text readers like FlashMX supports, or large fonts a la vector graphics that you can zoom in on and not lose resolution?

- non-geeks who may not know what a "plug-in" is, where to get it or how to install it

The same non-geeks who most likely use IE, where the plugin is either already installed or auto-installed if not present?

- people on a slow connection (DSL / cable modems are not available in many rural neighbourhoods)

Inconsequential if the flash is designed correctly. Since it can play as it's downloading all the end user would have to do is wait a couple of seconds. Considering the use/target audience for this, the animation is something they're coming specifically to see meaning they'd be willing to wait.

Re:Is your target audience on lower-end PCs?

[neophase]

You're making a big assumption - that the Flash is designed correctly.

And? Never seen a simple Flash animation use up much CPU unless you're doing complicated computations, which it doesn't sound like he plans to do.

My father went to the local public library to access the Internet, because he could neither afford a computer nor did he have the technical knowledge to configure one. (I live a two hour flight away.) Trust me, he could not view Flash sites with the boat anchor 486's there.

You mean text readers like FlashMX supports,

Um, FlashMX isn't free. Granted, there's a free* (*gotta love those asterisks) trial version, but you can't assume that a non-free app is going to be on the client side.

Inconsequential if the flash is designed correctly. Since it can play as it's downloading all the end user would have to do is wait a couple of seconds. Considering the use/target audience for this, the animation is something they're coming specifically to see meaning they'd be willing to wait.

Two years ago I lived in a location where I was lucky to get a 19.2 connection on a good day. Sorry, "wait a couple of seconds" is a gross underestimation of the time it takes to load multimedia bloatage.

Besides, why bother with Flash if you can convey the same information in a much more widely usable format? What happened to the KISS principle (Keep It Stupidly Simple)?

Re:Is your target audience on lower-end PCs?

[Anonymous Coward]

I surf with javascript disabled, and whenever I hit a lame Flash Intro website, I either get a blank page or something that's just broken. So I don't go to the site. People like you should be lined up against the wall.

Re:Is your target audience on lower-end PCs?

[Anonymous Coward]

The above post is not only wrong, it's quite blatantly ignorant about Flash technology while posing as an informed rant.

- the disabled (the visually impaired often use audio text readers / large fonts)

WTF!? What backwater planet have you been living in? The Flash 6 SWF format is the only multimedia format with specific features for accessibility (especially for the visually impaired, blind). For pete's sake, they have an entire site devoted to Macromedia accessibility, complete with a Section 508 explanation, tutorials, templates, articles, courses, etc.: http://www.macromedia.com/macromedia/accessibility /

- non-geeks who may not know what a "plug-in" is, where to get it or how to install it

In case you didn't know, the Flash plugin is included with all MSIE and Netscape browsers, as well as Windows operating systems since 98. In order to install the plugin, you click on the icon that says "Get Flash", run the plugin if it's netscape (MSIE installs automatically). That's it. There is no third step... there's no second step if you're in MSIE.

- people on a slow connection (DSL / cable modems are not available in many rural neighbourhoods)

Fact: SWF format is the most widely distributed multimedia format for compressed vector graphics, mp3-encoded audio, compressed fonts, video with sorenson compression, PNG/GIF/JPEG, accessibility features, XML parser, all within a 240kb plugin. Flash movies are as large or as tiny as you want to make them.

People need to do some research before making statements like this. Damn.

-Sam

Re:Is your target audience on lower-end PCs?

[neophase]

*sigh*

I have, in fact, lived in a backwater place, and have tried to explain over the (long distance) phone to older people with poor eyesight and zero technical knowledge how to load a "plug-in", and then had to explain why the 486 was hung because of the "harmless" multimedia it didn't have enough RAM to handle. One click is easy, you say? *sigh*

I have fairly recently been stuck on a painfully slow modem connection, where the only effective way to get ANY information was in text format. Sorry, but I don't have the patience to download your "small" plug-in, regardless of how efficient you claim it is.

Sorry if my RL experience doesn't count as "research" in your books.

Re:Is your target audience on lower-end PCs?

[logicnazi]

I think the point the above posters were trying to make is that flash is as well designed for speed/compression etc.. as you can reasonably expect for an *interactive graphics format*. Sure html is way faster (and should be used if all you want to do is communicate text) but it doesn't do animation/processing. If you don't want to do that don't use flash.

Re:Is your target audience on lower-end PCs?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are alot of poorly designed flash websites out there, that I begin to dream about what I would like to do to their authors.

I would start with a baseball bat. First, I would smash their knees into a bloody pulp. Then I would move to their hips, smashing, amashing, smashing. Plenty of smelling salts, to keep them awake. Move to the arms, elbows. Crack! Crunch! Crack! Then I would caress their ribs, their back, with my tender lovetaps. Finally, their head would be left. Imagine a watermelon dropped out of a 10 story building.....

Finally I wake up. That blasted flash crap is still downloading, just waiting to provide zero real additional content. I begin to dream again...

Re:Is your target audience on lower-end PCs?

[Kalvos]

WTF!? What backwater planet have you been living in? The Flash 6 SWF format is the only multimedia format with specific features for accessibility (especially for the visually impaired, blind). For pete's sake, they have an entire site devoted to Macromedia accessibility, complete with a Section 508 explanation

Flash was just about the last to do this, and why the W3C accessibility site railed against it. Good grief, Flash was one of the very reasons the accessibility discussions were so intense! Flash technology held out against accessibility until it was bludgeoned by the advent of Section 508 requirements on publicly-funded sites.

SMIL was already there, as were the very basics of HTML.

Even with the "new" Macromedia, Section 508 accessibility standards look like CYA to me. Brng up accessibility on the Dreamweaver newsgroup. It's a pariah.

Dennis

Re:Flash...

[rkgmd]

Yes, but how secure is it? Java is arguably slow because it goes to great lengths to define and manage untrusted code. If any turing-complete language like flash is used (note that javascript uses a restricted function call model, and, therefore, is possibly provably secure), we typically want to see some guarantees. I find it surprising that folks haven't dug deeper into flash vulnerabilities (I am sure there are tons of them; even java, with its well-defined vm+runtime, class, and security definitions had security issues). Sun and others don't seem to push the original safe mobile-code benefits of java anymore probably because java is currently finding its niche in server-side environments where mobile code and byte-interpretor performance are probably not an issue (because one can always use jit's, can trust server's own code, etc.). Currently, flash seems to have found its niche as a replacement for animated gif's, and I am very scary about the security implications.

Slashdot & Flash Ad's

[Caball]

Why don't you ask Taco what slashdot (or their AD agency) is using to create the Flash Ad's no playing here.

Afterall, we all know they would use nothing but open source software.

More Info on Flash

[PineHall]

found at http://www.openswf.org

Well

[MisterBlister]

There are actually various ways you can create Flash presentations for free. Macromedia themselves even have an SDK (free as in cost, not Free Software) you can use to generate Flash files without having to buy the full Flash application.

The real question is where are the *easy to use, end-user* Flash-making apps...And that question sort of answers itself. Most OSS developers aren't interested in end-user, easy-to-use, GUI-heavy tools. I mean, OSS is just now getting to the point where there are halfway decent Office-style applications...And Flash, while somewhat widely used, is much more niche than Office apps.

To pose a question back at the original author -- why are you looking to Flash for this functionality? I'm not anti-Flash as like 95% of Slashdot seems to be, but for what you're doing it seems like you could do it in browser-neutral DHTML and still have a really slick interactive tool. What is Flash bringing to the table for you?

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

(free as in cost, not Free Software)

And what exactly do you think people mean by "Free Software" then?

Re:Well

[MisterBlister]

(free as in cost, not Free Software)

And what exactly do you think people mean by "Free Software" then?

Tends to depend on how long their beard is and often on the frequency in which they shower.

Why not try LiveMotion?

[multiOSfreak]

It's got an introductory price of $199. It outputs SWF files, and the interface is much easier than Flash 5 or MX. Just go to Adobe's site and read the overview. There is also a nice demo video to watch.

Re:Why not try LiveMotion?

[cpeterso]

I heard that Adobe has recently abandoned Live Motion. Plus Live Motion is only for animation, you can't use ActionScript to make your movie more dynamic or use external data sources.

Re:Why not try LiveMotion?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a common misperception that you can't use ActionScript in LiveMotion. LiveMotion 2.0 compiles ActionScript code to Flash byte codes. (I know because I wrote the code generator.) LM 2.0 is reasonably priced and a lot easier to use than Flash. No, it's not open source, but it's still a good tool.

Please don't.

[sombragris]

Flash sucks because of so many things that have already been said here, but also because it forces you to download and execute a binary file whose content is not available to you and whose behavior you can't control.

Too many times I have been stuck with an really annoying Flash ad, all glitzy and noisy, only to be greeted with an "About Macromedia Flash 5..." and nothing else, when I right-clicked on it trying to stop that suckage somehow..

Any program that does not let you disable the sound or takes away the control of your own computer is a trojan, a security risk, and an annoyance. And keeping the file format binary only makes it worse.

Re:Please don't.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Now can we do something about designers that go ape shit with javascript.

Or maybe find someway to impress on these overpaid, arrogant, morons that if a site takes 40 seconds to load they have lost their audience.

How about tying these idiot web 'developers' to a chair. Tape their eyes open. Fire up lynx. Force this idiots to see what surfing the web is like for people with disabilities or people that just what the content. We don't care about or can't see your stupid graphics.

Text only button at the top of the page please.
text only button
text only button

Re:Please don't.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dunk them until their site loads. At 14400 bps. If they drown, they deserve it.

Open Source Projects

[Anonymous Coward]

Pocket Animator is an open source Flash animation tool built for the Pocket PC in MFC (It shouldn't be too hard to port it to desktop Windows)

http://sourceforge.net/projects/animator/

Check OpenSWF for more Flash projects
http://www.openswf.org/

Or there's SVG...
Beez is an open source SVG animator written in Delphi
http://sourceforge.net/projects/beez/

Re:Open Source Projects

[artymiak]

There's also FreeMovie.

*whine* Flash *whine*

[Enry]

You whiners shaddap. The question was asked, and instead of whining about how bad Flash is, just answer the friggin question.

So, here's my answer:

Get Apache, PHP, and the Ming libraries, located at http://www.opaque.net/ming/.

Ming lets you create Flash animations from within PHP that can be either saved (to reduce CPU load of regenerating the flash each time) or dynamically written so you can do things on-the-fly with it.

I used it to write up some crappy animations on my home page for my relatives to see.

Part of the problem with flash is it's overused, and the audio makes the apps take forever to load.

For some really nice examples of what you can do with flash, take a look at joecartoon.com.

NPD Research claims 98.3% have Flash

[dstone]

I see some people posting here saying "oh, don't develop for Flash; nobody bothers to install those plugins". Well, I was curious myself, so a quick Google search turned up this: (from a Whitepaper on Macromedia's website(!), but the NPD Research numbers should be easily confirmable)

"In December 2001, NPD Research, the parent company of MediaMetrix, conducted a study to determine what percentage of Web browsers have Macromedia Flash preinstalled. The results show that 98.3% of Web users can experience Macromedia Flash content without having to download and install a player."

Take it for what it's worth. Seems amazingly high to me though.

Re:NPD Research claims 98.3% have Flash

[md17]

That still does not change the fact that Flash is NOT a W3C standard, thus it should not be treated like a web standard. Most Open Source developers like to follow standards, since Flash isn't one, use SVG!

Re:NPD Research claims 98.3% have Flash

[Arandir]

But that's missing the point, really. If you don't need to use flash, then don't use it. If you can't make the site work in standard HTML/CSS1, then perhaps you need to find someone who can.

Re:NPD Research claims 98.3% have Flash

[cpeterso]

98% of users have Flash, but what percentage of gone out of their way to manually download and install Adobe's 2.5 MB SVG browser plugin? I did, but I have yet to find a real web page that uses SVG other than Adobe's small gallery of SVG examples..

Re:NPD Research claims 98.3% have Flash

[dousette]

Isn't that about the same percentage of people out there using Internet Explorer?

Re:NPD Research claims 98.3% have Flash

[Pussy Is Money]

Standard schmandard. Not even /. HTML complies with the W3C standards. W3C is a morgue.

Re:NPD Research claims 98.3% have Flash

[mediadiva]

It's because sometimes a flash 5 movie will play in flash 3 or some wacked out thing.. just cause it display's it doesn't mean it's displaying it correctly. (so says the flash advocate.. eeeek!)

Re:NPD Research claims 98.3% have Flash

[Anonymous Coward]

The results show that 98.3% of Web users can experience Macromedia Flash content without having to download and install a player

Way back in the day, IE3 or 4 had an early version of Flash bundled Most people have this. The numbers thin out as you go to newer versions of Flash.

Re:NPD Research claims 98.3% have Flash

[Anonymous Coward]

"...98.3% of Web users can experience Macromedia Flash content without having to download and install a player."

Take it for what it's worth. Seems amazingly high to me though.

Microsoft Internet Explorer comes with Macromedia Flash

Re:NPD Research claims 98.3% have Flash

[imageunion]

YES! Being standard compliant is not the point, it's how many people can use it that counts. SVG is open, but you will merely find a site that use it because it doesn't have that critical mass.

Re:NPD Research claims 98.3% have Flash

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I happen to be one of the 1.7% of the world that doesn't have Flash, nor do I have it available to me. Seems that Macromedia decided that certain non-top-tier UNIX vendors aren't worth working with, despite the fact that they make the fastest fucking systems on the planet...

Go ahead and use Flash... If I can't read your web site because YOU designed it poorly because YOU failed to take into consideration that it is not a public standard, isn't usable by the blind, isn't usable on a handheld, isn't usable on a WAP device, nor on a bunch of other things, well, guess what, Buckwheat - I'm going to assume that you don't want me as a customer.

In short, YOU'RE THE WEAKEST LINK - GOOD-BYE!

Re:NPD Research claims 98.3% have Flash

[buzzbomb]

Don't believe the hype. On a rather busy website that I run, I have gathered my own statistics regarding Flash and screen resolution and such.

Approximately 70% of my userbase has Flash. I (and my clients) do not wish to block 30% of our users from the site and possible sales. DHTML and PHP templates are our preferred technologies. Getting DHTML to work across all major browsers, including Moz/N6, is not easy...but once it's done, it's done. We even have a rather barren text mode for Lynx.

We do not force our users to install anything to use our site. Any "professional" web design that does require Flash (or any other plugin) is not professional...

Re:NPD Research claims 98.3% have Flash

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll follow your advice and go write a 100% compliant XSLT-based site that will render fine in IE/MSXML while Mozilla/Netscape shits itself. Would that make you happy?

Re:NPD Research claims 98.3% have Flash

[silhouette]

This is because they're counting from Flash 2, and only in the US. Here's the breakdown by version type, according to the same NPD Research study. It's worth noting that these numbers aren't ultimately very helpful, since almost all Flash 5-produced files cannot be executed by a Flash 3 or even Flash 4 player. I would estimate that there are very few web sites out there nowadays that use anything lower than Flash 4.

The real interesting question is how many users have the more _recent_ player. I was actually surprised that Macromedia created another player version with the release of MX, since the Flash 5 penetration was still relatively low (~50-60%) as it had only been released for about a year and a half and was not shipping with OSes. In fact, Macromedia made a big deal about how Windows XP would ship with the Flash 5 player - now they're already out of date.

Re:NPD Research claims 98.3% have Flash

[Cryogenes]

98.3% of Web users can experience Macromedia Flash content without having to download and install a player.

This cannot possibly be true. A clean Win2000 install does not include Flash. Neither does a clean WinXP install.

Re:NPD Research claims 98.3% have Flash

[Anonymous Coward]

That's ridiculous. Standards are irrelevant if nobody uses them. Nobody uses SVG. So why develop for it? So your clients can go out of business saying, "But but but! But we were standards-compliant."

Re:NPD Research claims 98.3% have Flash

[burnetd]

Everyone with Adobe Acrobat Reader 5 get the SVG plugin installed as a freebie, so more people have it than people who downloaded it from the
webpage.

perl

[Cally]

Slashdot ran a story on an early Perl/Flash module... mustabeen... at least two years ago. As usual, the answer's Perl: now what's the question? ;)

When I first started reading...

[RatOmeter]

...I thought you were going to make a portably device and wanted advice on how to maximize the utilization of Flash memory, balancing the economics of parts cost vs. storage capacity, minimizing write cycles, compressing code to save space.

Then I realized you're talking about using that bloated, bandwidth hogging, gotta get the plug-in, standards ignoring web-based thing called Flash(tm).

Unless others here can convince you otherwise, please don't. It's starting to look like some day all you'll need to surf the web is that damndable Flash plug-in. Just think about all those poor saps at the IETF and before who, with their misguided thinking, labored so long to create *public standards* for delivering online content .

Maybe a little more info is necessary:

- Is this application to be Internet or intranet based? If Intranet, I guess you might assume better resources (bandwidth, storage) than with an app for the general public.
- do you really need the animation features? My experience (on the receiving end) with Flash indicates it may be esp. good for animation. Somehow I don't see the need in your application.
- Is the content mainly static? I think there are many better choices if the content needs frequent updates.

Ask Macromedia to provide the Dev tools for free.

[Gumber]

It sounds like you are involved in a worthy cause. Approach Macromedia about giving you the dev tools for free. They have to love the fact that you are creating more flash authors in the process.

Flash is useless.

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash means noisy ads moving and disturbing me wherever it is used. Some sites use a silly Flash animation as a worthless "front end" before we can see the real home page.

Flash animation steals my bandwidth, cpu cycles and time. I have yet to see something useful or informative in Flash. The Flash plugin on my computer is compressed into a zip file to save me from it's pain, and when a site tells me I need to download Flash, I answer no.

It will rest in that zipfile until someone convince me Flash has been used to display something useful that I would like to see.

Find another solution because I believe more and more people will find ways to turn that irritating Flash off.

Grow up people. It's not the tool that's evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash itself has no inherent ability to clutter up the web with bad design and slow loading pages. That is up to you geeks (well, me too I guess) to determine.
Many of the pages I create in Flash load just as fast as the equivalent static HTML pages, and significantly faster than dynamic HTML pages.

Plus, in a fashion that HTML cannot boast, flash is cross platform! 95% of all web users can view the same thing when they view a flash page, and for the others, it's just a 500k download away, and it doesn't even cost you any user information. Compare this to the complicated and lengthy (for those on dial-up) process for upgrading your web browser.

Not to mention the fact that flash allows real-time interaction with a web server, something HTML has never been able to accomplish. And compare the speed with a Java applet. The biggest problem I've ever had on web sites was Java, because it's a massive download, there are different versions, and it seriously slows web page loading.

Flash strikes a near-perfect balance between the speed of HTML and the capability of Java, and there is almost no situation where the job won't be easier in Flash.

Granted, if you suck at flash, or at designing in general, then your swfs will suck. But I guess that's why it's $500.

Re:Flash...

[Abreu]

...but only when used appropriately(sic)

I couldnt have put it better myself.
That's why a talented graphic designer that makes usable, non-intrusive eyecandy is worth his/her weight in Athlon XP's
(more expensive than gold or platinum, gram by gram)

Bad thing is, everybody these days thinks that by taking a basic flash course and an online "make your own web page" course they instantly become graphic designers.

So many web pages are out there (many from stablished companies, too!) that don't have the least idea about color theory, font readability, UI design, etc... It gives the WWW a bad name.

Re:Flash...

[Anonymous Coward]

well... SVG is just another ogg-vorbis (ie - no one outside of slashdot has heard of it or has the plugin installed).

And Java requires programming. Flash (unfortunately?) lets anyone design an animation. Heck, there are a lot of 3rd party commercial applications that will make animated text graphics or buttons. It's a modern day HyperCard.

Why doesn't someone answer the question...

[alta]

You guys are absolutley useless. The question was not "what is your opinion of flash" it was "Are there any cheap (not even GPL'd) ways to create flash?" Why don't you keep your criticisms to yourself.

Here's my answer to your question, albeit, not a very easy one.

If you know php, you can build flash files with PHP. Now I'm not saying this is the best way to do it, or in any way easy, but with enough programming it COULD do it. Can someone out there come up with a useful answer?

Re:Flash...

[the_2nd_coming]

it is a web form application. no flashy crap. he is only using it becasue of the dynamic feedback.

Open Source Flash Tools, Vector Tools, etc

[rubberpaw]

There are a few tools for Flash and Open Source, but they are pretty much code oriented. The first is Ming, which can be found at:

http://www.opaque.net/ming/

The second is libswf, created by SGI. I'm not sure of the status of the license, but the source _is_ available.

ftp://ftp.sgi.com/sgi/graphics/grafica/flash/

Both libraries are accessible from PHP.

As far as vector tools, Sodipodi is an incredibly cool vector editor. Unfortunately, at this time it is only svg, but you may find it useful.People have for quite a while wanted flash for sodipodi, and all one has to do is tie the Open Source flash libs to the UI. But nobody has done it. Read a post about it on the Sodipodi web site.

I hope you find this helpful.

SVG

[FIT_Entry1]

How about a nice alternative to Flash.

• The plugin
• A cool example of SVG.

Why not use Squeak?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.squeak.org

Squeak is a freeware, open-source development environment that's been used for education and eToys for years.

There's a browser plugin for most platforms, and you can create standalone small Squeaklets that run on any platform.

SWISH --- THE WAY TO GO ... SOLUTION, not OPINION

[Anonymous Coward]

For all of you people who graciously gave your
opinion on not to use flash .. thanks for your
opinion, however, THE QUESTION WAS FOR A SOLUTION
NOT YOUR DAMN OPINION.

Use swish, it's identical to flash for what most
people desire, and IT'S CHEAP... a good deal.
Have fun...

Re:Flash is Style over Substance, Usability Nightm

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude... Flash is like any other tool. You can do a lot of different things with it. Flash, including its authoring environments, *do not* emphasize form over function, style over substance, or anything else. Unfortunately for the Web, Flash was merely the first common tool available to make decent looking, tiny animations. At this point, though, it's a lot more. If you need the kind of control over user experience that Flash can give you, there's really nothing else out there that will do the trick right now. (Yes, I know about SVG, etc. It's not there yet, mostly on the authoring side.) But, like a good developer with any tool, you have to make sure you've got the point in mind. Flash has a lot more possibilities than you seem to be aware of. As far as the browser UI breakage, yes, it's a problem. I'm working on an optional solution.

What does your site stand for?

[jsimon12]

This is somewhat off topic, but my question is what does your site www.seiu.org actually stand behind? Is there a page that clearly states your objectives? I see "current events", "get involved", "working family issues", but nothing that really states what your guys want and where you guys are going. This is only one /.'s opinion, but it seems a little more time spent on your message and content might be worth more time then prettying/messing it up with Flash.

Re:What does your site stand for?

[anderss]

That's great! I'm going to pass your comment on to the people who develop the message and content for our sites--unfortunately, I've got no say.

For a better idea of what SEIU is all about and what we stand for, here are a few sites that cover some of our campaigns:

Fixing West Virginia Nursing Home. We represent nursing home workers, who get paid painfully low wages & work in nursing homes that are scarily understaffed. http://www.wvnursinghomes.org/

Fighting for nurses: pushing for sane staffing levels and safer needles. http://www.nursealliance.org/staffing/stand.cfm and http://www.nursealliance.org/care/federal.cfm (and yes, the site design is... well you wouldn't want to unleash its designer on Flash, but again, out of my hands). Nurses have been quitting in droves, and at the rate we're going, we won't have enough nurses left to take care of people who are sick and/or elderly. That's why nurses, hardly a brick-throwing bunch, have been joining SEIU in large numbers: so they can work together to fight for working conditions that won't drive more nurses from the field.

Janitors: fighting for wages a family can live on, basic health care and other benefits, and more generally fighting for respect for the people who clean our toilets & make our society function: http://www.justiceforjanitors.org/

Re:What does your site stand for?

[jsimon12]

Where do you stand on Doctors? And Interists/Residents?

Re:What does your site stand for?

[anderss]

Some of my best friends are doctors.... Seriously, though, we like 'em. I think SEIU has the largest group of organized interns and residents in the US, called the Committee of Interns and Residents. They're at http://www.cirdocs.org/. And while I don't think we've organized any doctors as a bargaining unit--yet--I think we may have members who are physicians who work for state government. For interns and residents, most of the organizing has focused around getting their hours down to a less insane level so that hopefully they don't accidentally kill someone because they haven't slept in ages.

Re:Flash is Style over Substance, Usability Nightm

[tps12]

Flash is hell from a usability standpoint. It does away with many of the notions that the web was founded out - consistant interfaces, as well as the page-based metaphor. Flash essentially "breaks" the browser controls people have finally learned to use (the back button, URL bar, etc etc).

That seems only half-right. Things like the back, forward, and reload buttons, and the page metaphor (when not broken by forms...what's a button doing in a scrolling window?) seem to have been there from the start, but most of the consistent interfaces seem to have evolved slowly. Mostly I'm thinking about the "tab" layout, the locations of "log out" and "help," and that kind of thing. They definitely aren't part of the web's foundation, and only developed as the market's response to user confusion.

I do agree with you about Flash though. Stupid stupid.

coz it's too much work

[K.]

A comparable flash tool to Macromedia's would be about as much work as an Illustrator clone before you added all the animation stuff. And all the while Macromedia could just change the swf format and/or introduce subtle incompatibilities in the player. (Though control of the standard may have changed recently, I stopped keeping track.)

There are various free software packages that do interesting things with vector graphics. I forgot what Killustrator changed its name to, but I think it could output static swfs. Autotrace (free, does about the same thing as Adobe Streamline) definitely can (I wrote the first version of the swf output). Then there's Ming, which can be used with several languages to output swf. But you've probably already come across most of these.

But if you're looking for a fully-featured swf authoring packages, just give up and nick Macromedia's, or hassle them for charity copies or something, coz otherwise you're SOL.

This is a fundamental problem ...

[cpparm]

of how people view open source software, and software. It seems to me one main argument for OSS is that it's free. And I summit it's killing the software industry.

This poster has a specific problem: Creating multimedia content without paying for the development tool. To that end, if the development tool is open source or not really don't matter. I am sure if the use is really for community and education, namely, non commercial, a deal can and should be worked out with Macromedia where he can get the tools for free or a nominal fee.

A bigger problem is the mind set: you want something free, try open source. That might be the reason many people create and use open source, but that's not the value of open source. You use open source because you want to control the development of your own software and not be limited by the things you built on. And in an ideal world, you will pay what it is worth to you.

flash is FREE in indo

[p13zo]

i live in indonesia, this is the land of software piracy. you could buy flash,dreamweaver,fireworks etc for just 10000 rupiahs (a lousy 1 american dollar) but theres no one selling pirated linux distro here.(who`d want to buy them anyway, when i could download them for free) ;p i`ve never realized that the software im using cost $500 (5 million rupiah) jeezzfuk!!!! my other machine runs a winXP (installed from `microsoft combo` CD - with wind95,98,XPpro,office,project in one cd). i wonder how much does it realy cost... come to indo guys!!! its heaven here yay..

Even when using MM products, it's not always ideal

[MAJ Rantage]

Amongst other things, I develop site backends with Macromedia (formerly Allaire) ColdFusion. Several months ago, I needed to add a dynamic (and interactive) Gantt chart to a client's site.

My options were Flash, SVG, or Java. At first glance, SVG was the least appealing choice: I know Java, and Macromedia has several applications which allow for ColdFusion-Flash development. Yet when I looked at the development time for a Java applet as well as the cost, poor documentation and kludgey implementation of a CF-Flash workaround from Macromedia, SVG came out on top. And the price couldn't be beat.

Within a day I had ColdFusion to dynamically generating the SVG chart from data in SQL Server 2000. I had nice crisp lines, vibrant color, mouseovers and interactive features.

As other posters have said, Flash isn't an awful choice -- but it has been primarily used for fluff.

Woa! Don't forget newgrounds

[iamwoodyjones]

Where would we be today if it wasn't for http://www.newgrounds.com
That's what I thought.

Ok Ok, I made a mistake......

[jsimon12]

Please drop the thread guys, I was wrong, flash isn't Lingo, I am sorry. My bad, Flash still is crap though.

yatta

[flollywebfrog]

If you just pay the 500 bucks, then you could make Yatta.

Flash -- Changes in a...

[Crash Culligan]

Important factoid to remember when looking at sources for Flash-compatible software: Macromedia makes the Flash plug-in for your users' browsers.

Now that I drove that home, on with my story:

Macromedia did try to open up the Flash 4 format so that other people could create software compatible with it. And in fact, LiveMotion was Adobe's entry into that market.

This was Flash 4, though. They're now essentially up to Flash MX (read: 6), and the spec has grown significantly since then. The first big change was scripting from 4 => 5, and while I have no idea what they added from 5 => MX, but I'm sure it's sizeable. (Memo to myself: look into it, consider upgrading just because it might be fun to try some animation.)

Remember, once again, that Macromedia makes the player plug-in, and if you base a site on Flash, you're still going to be at their mercy no matter whose development tools you use. And if you use someone else's tools, they may not keep up with Macromedia's changes.

Now, it's doubtful that they'll do anything to break an animation when viewed through an older plug-in or browser, but there may be side-effects, and they will affect both usability and user perceptions of your site.

Yes, I'll admit, this argument smacks of FUD, but sometimes the unthinkable happens.

Barring my qualms against it, I'll side with everyone else who answered so far and recommend not using Flash to build a website because it can prevent normal navigation, SWFs can take a long time to play over slow connections (I'm still stuck on a 56K dialup--I know from whence I speak), and as of Flash 5, Macromedia's authoring environment had some seriously "avant-garde" (read: bad) user interface design philosophies. There are those who believe [really C|net news] the Flash-based web is not necessarily a good idea.

The load speeds and display times could be the biggest issue, since web surfers have notoriously short attention spans.

But that's just my opinion, as always. The salt shaker is to the left; take as many grains as you need.

Re:Flash -- Changes in a...

[akmed]

Another important argument to consider is this: Flash lives and breathes off of the size of its market. Should the number of users who have the flash plugin on their computer ever take a serious hit (read: they start charging for the plugin), the number of sites that will use it will plummit. Either that or the sites will just stick with the older version of flash that's still available. Either way it'd be financial suicide. Macromedia is in a position where they throw away money on the player in order to ensure good sales of the development tools. The player is made by them to ensure that everyone has the ability to view flash without any quality problems (or as few as possible). Users like flash and don't need to pay for it = developers pay money to create flash. So Macromedia has to throw away the money on developing the flash plugin in order to recoup it many times over on sales of the flash creator. That's just my view of it though. It definitely isn't a free/open product though. It just seems that way from the POV of web users.

Re:Flash -- Changes in a...

[Istealmymusic]

and while I have no idea why they went from 5 => MX

One of their employees was using WinMX and liked the digraph, so they relabelled their flagship product to reflect this.

Flash and Accessability concens

[phlako66]

Flash is also pretty useless for people with visual disabilities who access your content via screen readers. Current versions of the development environment from Macromedia are also quite complicated and would involve a steep learning curve, so not only do you have to get over the pricing issue, you also need to consider how long it will take someone to learn how to develop Flash pieces.

Developer/Designer needs input

[stubblehead]

I'm very interested in this post as a soon-to-be-college grad going into web design and development. In one month, I'll be working at a small web co. doing a little of each (I love design and have to learn the developmental side, i.e. Perl, php - I'm not a programmer but I think I can handle this with my minimal knowledge of Java.) I digress. I would like to hear from /. peeps on 2 main questions: 1) How do you feel about Flash, overall? 2) How do you feel about Flash if the web page is designed so it's not 100% necessary to have the plugin (i.e. it's got an HTML alternative and the user chooses [www.stubblehead.net])? For example, what if the page checks for the plugin and directly goes to either html.html or flash.html, with no user intervention (my site is set up like the former). I'm very interested in people's opinion on this - please reply or email [etabone1@ic3.ithaca.edu]. And please save the one-liners and reasonless posts for someone else. Thanks y'all -e PS - Givens: -I don't plan on using Flash for every project (hardly any) -I know when simple static pages work better than flashy (no pun int.) ones -Replies will also help gauge the desire/hatred of Flash-ed elements on a page, i.e. Flash buttons in an otherwise coded page

Re:Developer/Designer needs input

[killthiskid]

I think that if you're going to be generating content for a web page, you're going to need to use things like, oh, I don't know--- line breaks!!!

Good god man, you might as well have written one continous run-on-sentence.

OpenOffice?

[no parity]

Apparently, a Flash export for OpenOffice is planned.

Re:OpenOffice?

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

Holy (insert your favorite exclamation here)!

Believe it or not, this would actually be very useful to me - the people at work are hopelessly addicted to "PowerPoint", and have had me convert various "powerpoint" presentations to static slideshows for web presentation before. It's a pain.

Export to flash from Impress would not only make that a lot easier, but would give me yet another excuse to push alternatives to MS Office...

(Looks like the message you're linking to was from several months ago, too...wonder how soon an implementation will be available to test with?...

SVG and patents?

[Micah]

There's been some word that SVG is covered by someone's (Adobe's?) patent. Does anyone know if that is true? That would really suck...

Re:SVG and patents?

[schepers]

Due to public outcry, the W3C abandoned its RAND policies; you can read about it here. AFAIK, this applies to SVG as well.

So, no.

Re:SVG and patents?

[Micah]

Why would that have anything to do with SVG?

From what I recall reading, SVG was patented by someone else. I realize that W3C decided to not standardize patented technologies, which is definitely a good thing. That could make SVG NOT a web standard.

Re:SVG and patents?

[schepers]

Can you supply any documentation for that, or are you --as it seems-- simply trolling? SVG is a W3C Recommendation, as of September 2001. Nuff said?

If you actually have a link, I'd be very interested in reading it. As it stands, I believe that SVG, like other W3C Recommendations (there are no W3C "Standards"), does NOT have any patent roadblocks. A Good Thing, indeed.

Re:SVG and patents?

[KjetilK]

Like another poster said, it is not all that well. There is at least plenty of room for FUD killing W3C recommendations. Basically, it was the work done on SVG, XML-Signature, P3P, etc that prompted the RAND discussion. So there are some recommendations where a few freeloaders want RAND licensing. In the case of SVG, IBM has a patent that may be remotely related to SVG. Kodak has a patent too, but they are so deeply into Batik it is hard to imagine them destroying all that to enforce their patent. Then there is Quark. I think I read the claims of this patent once, but I couldn't find a link. But I think it looks like they patented textbook exercises.

Anyway, I would choose SVG over flash any day.

Re:SVG and patents?

[Micah]

Anyway, I would choose SVG over flash any day.

Except for the minor fact that most browsers don't support it yet... :)

But thanks for the info BTW.

Re:SVG and patents?

[Mr. Fred Smoothie]

Kodak has a patent too, but they are so deeply into Batik [apache.org] it is hard to imagine them destroying all that to enforce their patent.

If their patent is of the "neccessary to implement the standard" variety, then it's easy to view their Batik work as aimed toward growing a large userbase of infringers to go after, thus recouping their investment in Batik development through infringement lawsuits. Their having given away code doesn't also mean they're giving away patent licenses. Remember, Unisys didn't start suing people until GIF had become the standard for images on the Web.

People have speculated the same motivation for some of IBM's OSS WebServices work.

Open Source Flash Tools

[artymiak]

All I can recommend right now is FreeMovie or Ming or libswf. But if you want a GUI Flash design tool, you will have to wait. I do have plans for writing a Flash authoring application, but have to get FreeMovie 2 out of the door first. It also requires quite a lot of time and money to write such application, so you should not expect it to appear before X-mas 2002.

cheap legal copy of flash for windows

[Artemis Entreri]

Edu.com carries a discounted copy of Flash MX for Windows here. The original price is $499.99, but the edu discount brings it down to $96.95, but this is a Windows solution only. Not sure if this is the way you want to go.

Re:Even when using MM products, it's not always id

[cpeterso]

but what percentage of your users have gone out of their way to install Adobe's 2.5 MB SVG browser plugin? Windows, IE, and AOL all bundle the Flash player for their users convenience.

Re:Flash...

[Trevelyan]

works better then java

have you have looked at the flash plugin files? in /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins:
ShockwaveFlash.class libflashplayer.so

how does something that is in java work better then java?

Ridiculous and Moronic Gates reference

[Ars-Fartsica]

aside from copying somebody else's, which as Bill Gates told us is just bad, bad, bad

No Bill Gates didn't invent the notion that theft is bad. This line is getting so lame and cliched. Come on folks, get a grip.

Re:Flash...

[mfeldstein]

faster than Java, nice looking than Java, and has all the power of a serverside script without all the page reloads....NICE!!!!

Exactly. Let me add a couple of more reasons to this list.

1. There's a relatively unified platform to write to. Forget browser-delivered client-side Java. It's way too much work and too heavy a download for the typical online learning application. And Javascript and DHTML vary according to browser. For some kinds of functionality, you can actually get broader compatibility with Flash, since it has come bundled with Windows and Mac browsers for ages now.
2. It's the right trade-off between functionality and required programmer skill level. You don't need a full-blown Turing-complete object-oriented language for interactive online learning. Forcing yourself to write everything in Java is silly. On the other hand, being able to write a relatively rich (and stateful) client-side web app *is* helpful. With Flash, I have a tool that gives me the right level of power without having to find (and pay) programmers with more skill than necessary to use a tool that has more power (and overhead) than necessary.

You guys who live in the world of the command line are very comfortable with plain text. Thus, you assume that everything is best presented to everyone in plain text. The fact of the matter is that people have different cognitive styles. If you're developing something to teach people, at least some of your audience will learn better through diagrams, pictures, simulations, and other sort of participatory (i.e., interactive) exercise. Flash can be very useful for this sort of application, particularly now that it has a real scripting language behind it, can use XML, and has some real interface widgets available to programmers.

Section 508

[zmokhtar]

More reasons NOT to use flash: 1) It doesn't print well. 2) It's not section 508 compliant, meaning it's not accessible so government websites won't link to you. 3) Not cross platform (I'm thinking PDA's and webpads)

Flash is bad for any serious web site.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please moderate the parent message down. Speaking as a web developer with many years of experience, I cannot emphasize enough that Flash is just bad for the web.

There's no open tools for Flash because Flash (unlike HTML, JavaScript, etc) is not an open standard. Flash was created by a company (MacroMedia) for their own products and adapted as a web plugin mostly as an afterthought. Flash can only be read by that company's plugins (or, other plugins they bargained themselves into, like RealPlayer). There's no guarantee that your viewers will have the Flash plugin. To top it all off, most search engines cannot read and index flash content.

And don't lie about JavaScript, and don't confuse JavaScript with Java. Proper JavaScript can re-render pages quite reliably without hitting the server -- but this also comes with the argument that such content cannot be read by search engines, or browsers of users who choose not to view that language. As for Java ... well, you got me, I have no love for (or practical experience with) Java in a Web environment.

Re:Flash is bad for any serious web site.

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate flash too but I see a few problems here.

1. Flash was not created by Macromedia. It was originally called FutureSplash and was purchased by them. Yeah it's details but hey, lets get it all straight.

2. There are plenty of flash implementations that are not from Macromedias partners. Even a few open source ones

Take a look

[SomeOtherGuy]

my right arm to get back to the good old days of plain old fasioned text and hyperlinks -- or better yet a touch of content every now and then.

Anymore with flash and banner ads everywhere the content begins to slip away. Plus I don't know how friendly flash sites are with search engines. You can't put a price on someone being able to fire up google and search for "policy on prescription drugs" and find your site. (I would trade that for flashy, bandwidth hogging eye candy any day!)

Confused: Open Source Vs Free Software

[brianvan]

Apparently, the person who submitted the story was appalled at the costs of developing in Macromedia Flash tools, and wanted to find something that was free.

It seems that person, however, did not wish to look at the source of whatever program he was going to use... he just wanted to have something that was free for use.

This is the problem with Open Source AND Free Software. While Open Source software is a nice idea in some respects, it seems that everyone thinks Open Source is another word for free. It's not. Plus, you can derive a lot of benefits from selling commercial software that is Open Source... unless you have low-lifes out there that will compile the source and use the resulting commercial software at no charge. Judging from what computer geeks do with commercial MUSIC, it's not hard to imagine.

And let's not forget the most sickening part of this all: this guy wants to use free software as a development tool in a commercial/business environment. Or, basically, profit off of someone else's hard work without having to put in any effort or support into the author's cause in a meaningful way. (come on, did you even think that this guy's company would send the author a thank-you card?) And there's absolutely no way in hell that there's any logical consistency in writing free software for business use.

And you want us to PAY for this crap?

Re:Confused: Open Source Vs Free Software

[weierophinney]

Did you read the post? He said "I'm involved in a project that's planning to create open source toys for educating people around complicated policy questions (e.g., policy on prescription drugs)," and that the cost of Flash is "more than some of the community group folks we want to involve can afford". It sounds to me like he's working for a non-profit and that there will be volunteer developers assisting in the project. And THAT would be a perfect use for free (as in beer) software coded by open source developers. Get off your high horse and stop trolling.

Re:Confused: Open Source Vs Free Software

[brianvan]

I did, but it was unclear to me whether or not it was for business or for non-profit use.

In the case of the latter, I would be wrong to say that this is a bad use of Free Software. Open Source really doesn't relate to the commercial or non-profit use of the software, at least in the way it's supposed to work. Still, I wouldn't want to troll against such a good concept.

In the case of the former, I'm not wrong to state that there's little logical consistency in writing Free Software for business use. If you believe software should be free, but someone else is going to make money using the software you wrote, and you approve of that, you're morally inconsistent. It's a way of saying "Software should be free, but you can make money off of other things if you'd like." In that case, have a commercial-use license and a personal/non-profit-use license - one charges fees for usage, and one doesn't. That's the most logically sound solution. Netscape did it with success.

Of course, the rest of the post isn't a troll... the submitter was talking about Free Software, but the topic was labeled Open Source. Trust me, if I made a mistake like that, people would be all kinds of down my throat... like you were with your post.

Re:Confused: Open Source Vs Free Software

[Anonymous Coward]

So, the fact that Linus created his own version of UNIX because MINIX (and other *NIX's) were cost prohibitive has nothing to do with the fact that he wanted to fill a niche of affordable software. Open Source is a good idea and I fully support it, but there's nothing wrong with free. Compassion is free, understanding is free, and common courtesy is free. It's apparently lacking in response to this person's post. How about we set the Open Source movement ahead and treat people who are ignorant with a little compassion instead of releasing the dogs every time someone with a question tries to educate themselves.

Re:Confused: Open Source Vs Free Software

[shed]

Right... so in your universe commercial businesses shouldn't be allowed to download Red Hat and install it? Come on.

It's not "open for people we like" and "free for non-capitalists" software.

Re:Confused: Open Source Vs Free Software

[mgandhi2]

bad delivery, but your heart is in the right place. i agree that there needs to be a clear distinction between free software and open source software. "open source" DOESN'T mean "free", and the mindset that it does mean "free" will eventually kill the open source movement. there's nothing wrong with free software, or wanting to write software for research purposes or charities. however, the people who have the power to make or break open source aren't the corporate giants you so vehemently disagreed with; they're the educational, military, and government software developers. these guys understand more fully than any capitalist organization how practical customization can be, AND they have the strict production structure required for creating massive software package.

i disagree with your statement about using code from free open source to make an open source program that costs. when you buy an open source program, you are not paying for the code. you usually aren't even paying for a license to the code. what you are paying for is peace of mind...less hassle, time, - maybe an intuitive interface. you are paying for the pre-assembled kit, rather than the seperate components. as long as the developer isn't charging money for or placing restrictions on the use of the code from the other programs, nothing is keeping somebody from remaking it. however, i agree that ALL original authors deserve credit, and thanks are always in order.:)

core OSS community

[Anonymous Coward]

...is unlikely to be found posting on crackpot, er...slashdot.

Re:core OSS community

[Aanallein]

...is unlikely to be found posting on crackpot, er...slashdot.

Of course not... they're busy writing graphical programs for creating Flash development tools. ;)

Plugin woes

[MAJ Rantage]

It's funny... most of the bitching in here is how Flash needs a plugin to run (though that plugin is installed in 98% of the browsers).

The W3C alternative that people on this site cream their pants over... requires a plugin.

You have a valid point. However, here are two things to consider:

1. Just because a large percentage of web browsers have a Flash plug-in installed doesn't mean that they have the most current plug-in installed. If you're using Flash 5 and the majority of your users have the Flash 3 plug-in...they're still going to have to install a plug-in. Again.
   
2. With a solution like SVG, you can easily look under the hood and see how the graphics are being generated. You can quickly build other products to build SVG graphics on-the-fly (as I have, using ColdFusion) instead of having to take an eternity to kludge something together which may be broken when Macromedia comes out with Flash 7. When presented with the option of having to spend thousands more on development as opposed to a minor inconvenience to the user, most clients will choose the latter.
   

The best solution, of course, is to have SVG handled natively by the browser. I'm not holding my breath.

Re:Plugin woes

[Anonymous Coward]

"# Just because a large percentage of web browsers have a Flash plug-in installed doesn't mean that they have the most current plug-in installed."

Even so, the Flash Player is only 400K or so, which is probably within the threshold for a modem user. Compare to 2.3MB for the Adobe SVG plug.

printing

[phossie]

It takes a little extra care while authoring, but printing is fully supported in Flash. Not a big deal, really. Since Flash can do it, I can only assume Director can too.

thats a bunch of poop

[Anonymous Coward]

read title

http://www.theredpenguin.com

Not sure why this hasn't been duplicated in OSS...

[qurob]

They've done WINE, UNIX clones, GIMP, DOSEMU, Office clones...

What's the REAL hold up?

None of the top sites use flash!

[rootmon]

None of the popular sites that receive over a million hits a day make use of Flash, with the exception of the occasional movie fad site. (A fact Rob Miller mentioned as a guest speaker at our South West Florida Linux Users Group (http://www.swflug.org) meeting this weekend. Support open standards (http://w3.org) and leave Flash to the fools who are too ignorant or lazy to use anything but Dreamweaver.

Re:None of the top sites use flash!

[daveman_1]

Haven't been to yahoo lately eh?

I have seen much flash in different parts of their site, mostly advertisements. Hell, I've even seen the variety that fly across your screen! (Harry Potter comes to mind.)

Simply saying "Noone important uses flash." just isn't true. By the way, ever been to cocacola.com? Not sure if they get a million hits a day, but I wouldn't doubt it.

Also, does your lug site address stand for southwest florida lug or Shockwave Flash lug? Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Re:None of the top sites use flash!

[rootmon]

You just illustrated my point. Look at yahoo: a simple design using web standards- only the ads use Flash (which are usually on other servers.)

I didn't say "no one uses flash", I simply said none of the top sites do. Simplicity and content is the key to successful sites. Annoying Flash presentations may amuse someone the first time, but it gets stale quickly, like an overplayed TV commercial.

I seriously doubt cocacola.com gets a million hits a day (maybe a million a year). Really, I doubt anyone visits it daily to get the lastest soft drink news ;-P

And the nonsense about about what our LUG stands for shows how mature you are. Based on that and the fact that you mentioned "Harry Potter", I assume you're about 12 years old and fond of your warez copy of Dreamweaver.

Score -1 (Offtopic)

[jasno]

Forgive me, as I have nothing useful to add to this discussion, but why is it that when anyone poses a question like this to a group of geeks, 90% of the responses are of the "Why would you want to do that, you idiot?" variety?

Yes, we know you don't like flash. Fine. That wasn't the question.

Re:Score -1 (Offtopic)

[kindbud]

Well, if this was a site oriented towards talk about guns and rifles, and someone posted a question asing how best to use a 30.06 to hunt quail, I think people would be justified in answering him with "Why the hell would you want to do that? Use a shotgun, you idiot."

devil's advocate

[Anonymous Coward]

I am seriously thinking of redoing my main page in Flash, primarily because it would be compatible with Netscape 4.x and the latest spiffy browsers.

text browsers, blind readers, cell phones, or many of the more obscure OS's

Sometimes, 97% is enough. Take it or leave it, but it's true.

Flash generator at CoffeeCup

[Anonymous Coward]

CoffeCup software has a Flash creator that saves in .swf format called Firestarter. Costs $50, but probably isn't as full featured as Macromedia's offerings (never used either, myself).

Not free, but not super expensive, either.

My homepage

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello...

I'm working on my home page, and I want to have an elaborate flash animation, so people coming to my site will know how great I am. And since I am so important I know they won't mind waiting through a 5-minute flash presentation before they get to any meaningful content.

Flash not bad, just useless in many cases

[maxpup979]

For me, it really is quite a simple choice. I work on a website that requires strict compliance with the Americans with Disabilities act. Where is the flash plugin for the blind? This alone makes flash impossible for just about any site/application that receives federal funding, government grants, or even one that just has a few blind/vision impaired users.

However, for neat little apps, where I KNOW every memeber of my audience, I actually like using it.

Re:Flash...

[mediadiva]

very few see the light at the end of the tunnel. Macromedia see's it, but tends to take it to the extreme. Flash is wonderful for module sites, were you can have say.. a survey in flash, and without having to refresh the whole page you can view the reults of the survey, or take the survey.. all on the fly and DB driven. It's wonderful for small applications.

There are very few people who know how to really use flash, I personally can't code it, but I know what *can* be done. Windows API calls.. XML socket.. all kindsa crazy shiet.

I am still pissed that Flash 6 still doesn't underline A HREF tags in linked text files.. *sigh*..

anways... back to the point.. Flash is fantasic for training, along with a few other things.

I personally don't believe in making a whole site in flash, for functional reasons, use it properly and it's very powerful.

-mediadiva
http://www.forwardon.net

you just made a bigger one

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're wrong about that, too. Knee-jerk reactions are crap. And you, sir, are a knee-jerk reaction!

Re:you just made a bigger one

[Anonymous Coward]

Give me a break loser, I have been designing sites for years, and Flash is what people who don't know dick default to. Sure it has a place, a very small place, but morons just over use the stuff. This is by no means a "knee jerk" reaction, it is an opinion based on years of experiance. FLASH IS CRAP, cause PEOPLE OVERUSE IT, or USE IT WHERE THEY SHOULDN'T. GET A CLUE!!!!!!!!

jsimon12 (posted anonymous cause of moderation)

If you can read the tiny font

[onlyjoking]

Typical ignorance of basics by Flash designers. For *** sake take your eyes off the neon lights and try reading the text. It's virtually illegible. There's no colour contrast and the font size is ridiculous.

Re:If you can read the tiny font

[kz45]

Typical ignorance of basics by Flash designers. For *** sake take your eyes off the neon lights and try reading the text. It's virtually illegible. There's no colour contrast and the font size is ridiculous.

I think the general opinions on flash around here is merely because it's a commericalized application. If flash was all open source (let's say PHP), Whould you feel the same way?

Disabling Flash Ads

[NerdMachine]

On a similar train of thought, Macromedia Flash is used very frequently for distracting advertisements on pages that are difficult to ignore. Can anyone offer some suggestions as to how to disable Flash in IE6.0? These options haven't worked for me:
1) uninstalling Flash (as described by their website). It prompts to be reinstalled frequently which is more annoying than the ad itself. I get the prompts even with Enable Install On Demand turned off.
2) turning animations off (Tools->Internet Options->Advanced->MultiMedia->Play animations in web pages) doesn't do any good for non-gif animations as far as I can tell.
3) turning off third-party browser extensions (Same place as #2) also doesn't affect Flash.

Re:Disabling Flash Ads

[IronChef]

Get The Proxomitron:

http://www.flaaten.dk/prox/

It does an amazing job of de-annoyifying the web. Start it, change your web proxy to localhost:8080, and you're done. Many settings to tinker with though, if you like that kind of thing. No Windows user should be without it. And it kills Flash if you want.

Re:Disabling Flash Ads

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe, just maybe this is the reason that advertisers actually use Flash. My take on this: Simply do not frequent websites who uses flash ads or any other flashy gif animation ads. That should sent the message, should it not? But again this would be quite limiting, would it? Web sites need to make money, it's as simple as that. If you can't deal with it, don't use it. What you are asking is like asking to have an option to remove the ads from a TV show without any hassle...

SWiSH

[wilton]

Have you checked out SWiSH.
This is what it says about itself: Do you want to get into Flash(TM) but can't afford the steep price and even steeper learning curve? Then SWiSH is the tool for you!

Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

If you build it...they will come.

Flash sux...

[diesel_jackass]

I've rarely seen anything done in Flash that cannot be done with some hard-core DHTML and JavaScript. Especially if the user has IE5.5+/Mozilla.

Seriously, check out DynamicDrive.com

Re:Flash sux...

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out ao.ambientauto.com. You can't build this kind of app in html.

Re:Flash is Style over Substance, Usability Nightm

[Anonymous Coward]

You're wrong, and if you don't see that, you don't know the subject area well enough. There are plenty of "right ways" to use Flash. Just because you only see the 3 wrong ways (that are smeared all over the damn place), don't throw the tool away.

Oh, and re: "Flash is hell from a usability standpoint". You're wrong there too, if only because Flash requires you to make those usability decisions. It *is* possible to preserve paged navigation while viewing Flash in browser (where it is not always used, by the way).

Swish.

[lukew]

To quoth the site;

SWiSH makes Flash easy ... and affordable! Do you want to get into Flash(TM) but can't afford the steep price and even steeper learning curve? then SWiSH is the tool for you!
SWiSH creates all the cool flash effects you need for your web site in a fraction of the time it takes with other programs!
SWiSH exports the same SWF format used by Macromedia Flash(TM) so more than 97% of web surfers can see your animation without downloading a plug-in!

... and so on. Check it out, I found it great, and with a $49.95 license fee, not too harsh on the pocket.

You said it!

[czardonic]

Finally, I'm a bit perplexed why you would choose Flash as a good tool for educating people about "complicated policy questions" - this strikes me as something that would be served better by a more dynamic text-oriented approach (such as a Slash-code based site).

I couldn't agree more. Perhaps the reason why these policy quesitons remain complicated is that the people put in charge of creating educational tools have no clue about how to deliver simple, succinct answers.

Flash indeed.

$500 is too much?

[Drunken_Jackass]

C'mon folks. Show me another app that's as powerful as Flash for $500.

To sum up - don't confuse open with free when you're a cheap bastard!

Try SVG

[schepers]

Scalable Vector Graphics is a great open-standard, W3C Recommended technologies that can look just as nice as Flash. And the editing environment? Any text editor. There are also a couple of projects out there for making freeware GUI SVG editors (I'm making a Web-based one in SVG/JavaScript, myself), to make the process easier.

One advantage to SVG is that you can separate out the content from the presentation using CSS and XSL. If you needed to translate your presentation into Spanish, say, you could simply change the source text (in XML), and the animations, fonts, etc. would stay the same. Since text in SVG keeps its textual meaning, and isn't converted into a meaningless vector image, the text is also searchable and can be copied and pasted.

While this may be outside the scope of your project, you can also translate to SVG
from MathML (I'm working on a project doing that right now, to make math tutorials), or represent ChemML graphically (see the SVG demos at Adobe ( http://www.adobe.com/svg/demos/main.html ).

There's a great SVG-Wiki/FAQ at http://www.protocol7.com/svg-wiki/ .

Screwing your target market

[Anonymous Coward]

How do all the persons out there with disabilities feel about flash? Or I guess if you're deaf or blind you're not allowed to have an opinion about complicated policy issues, like for instance, the ADA?

$50 software to try.

[kenv79]

I am not sure if this will do everything you need but give it a go. I do a little web development on the side and I use Flash as my primary language. This is a great piece of software but like you mentioned the price is up there. I recently discovered a app call SWiSH this software cost $50 and it does everything Flash does but more. They have built in effect so the learning curve on this software is minimal and the price tag is the best part. You should grab a evaluation copy and give it a try. You will be pleasantly surprised. If you need any help please don't hesitate to ask.

Trial

[meggito]

Just use the trial version. I haven't read through the licensing, but I don't think there will be any problems you can't get around. You may want to take turns registering it if you go past 30 days.

The truth is, Macromedia would make more money if they sold Flash for less. The problem is, then everyday people would have it and they'd make crappy flash sites. By keeping it to the elite, they ensure that sites using Flash are fairly good quality (not may people would spend $500 and make a shitty site). This keeps the reputation of their project up. It also protects their trademark by keeping Flash less common, and keeping it from going the way of escalator(tm).

Re:Flash...

[rkgmd]

since when did security and privacy cease to be relevant? The previous user was touting flash benefits like easy and powerful programming, and I am trying to make a point that this comes at a high cost not yet examined in detail. A simple example: flash allows a seemingly innocous ad to connect to third-party marketing sites to track the user's browsing habits, the browser configuration (and, for that matter, even what files are on the user's disk). Java, because of its careful namespace handling and "sandboxing" restrictions on mobile code, prohibits such behavior. There are any number of such examples which, even if not directly security-related, can invade user's privacy in the name of "ease".

Stoning

[guttentag]

"Anders Schneiderman, it is the judgment of the community that you be stoned into oblivion for uttering the word... Flash. Ow! Oof! Wait! Stop! We haven't started yet. Who threw that rock?"

It was him! Him!

"All right. Why did you throw that rock before I gave the signal?"

Well you did say 'Flash...' Ow! Ouch!

There isn't any free clone of Flash

[mr.buddylee]

Even though most of these people are too busy telling you why you shouldn't use Flash, chances are: 1) they're not in web development, 2) they're not doing the project, and 3) they're not even answering your question.

There aren't any free tools that can do what flash can do. There are a large number of 'plugins' that allow you to manipulate a flash movie from asp, php, etc, but to actually author the good stuff, you have to shell out the money.

There are similar products to flash out there though, so you may want to keep that in mind.

are you experienced?

[rodentia]

...the experience is the content...

That is so heavy, man. I mean, it's like, the site is about animated menus, naw'mean? I mean, like, my experience of the dancing text is the meaning of the text, naw'mean.

I thought so.

Re:are you experienced?

[D_Gr8_BoB]

I think the poster was going for a McLuhen-esque reference. Marshall McLuhen was a media and culture guru in the 60s, 70s and 80s, and according he and his supporters (including the guys over at Wired before it sucked), the medium is the message. And while McLuhen was partially about freaking out the squares and psychedelia, he was also a lot more than that. Turn off your computers and go read The Medium is the Massage or Understanding Media. Had Flash been around in his day, I'm sure he would have been thrilled about it and probably been involved in its gaining acceptance as more than just another stupid advertising ploy.

Re:are you experienced?

[praktike]

Turn off your computers and go read The Medium is the Massage

If the medium is the "massage," then whay aren't there any tactile pr0n sites yet?

But seriously, folks. if the world were made up of jakob nielsens, then Flash would always be a bad thing.

But the fact is, users learn and experience things differently. they value image/style at different rates. i for one, refuse to read cnn.com because i think it's ugly. i cringe everytime i visit slashdot because it has ugly, out-of-date colors, too little whitespace, etc. but i love the content, so i suck it up.

Some people *need* things like Flash in order to better process information. i would put some very talented people in that category--lots of artists and even scientists think primarily with their eyes.

OTOH, that back button problem is hella annoying.

Re:are you experienced?

[rodentia]

I'm familiar with McLuhan's work and find it just as problematic from a phenomenological standpoint as the remark I was mocking. I urge you to turn off your TV for a year and then re-read McLuhan. Motion pictures are a unique and compelling art form with an aesthetic language of their own, this does not a revolution of consciousness make.

Insightful: What about buying Flash

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the principle reasons I bought Photoshop (and Illustrator) two years ago was that I knew I could make a good return on my investment. I recently upgraded to Flash 6. I bought Flash 5 last year and in one single person (just me) 3 day project I brought in enough to pay for my Flash license and lots of Pepsi.

The development time you'll save using Flash 6 will easily add up to $500. That said, BE CAREFUL how you use_flash.

Ed

Re:Flash...

[vipw]

No he's right, flash does suck.

There isn't suitable user control of flash. flash is used in annoying ways(think ads) on many sites and isn't easy to enable/disable in any browser I've seen. If I had the control to only display the last frame of animation and disable frivolous and visually distracting events I could tolerate having the flash plug-in installed.

As near as I can tell flash use is never appropriate for a general use website because it lacks accessability settings and has a tedious enable/disable procedure. To me, that constitutes sucking.

By not making me install the plugin and then close my browser when I'm done flash free sites are doing me a big favor.

Very few people create Flash

[Dominic_Mazzoni]

Lots of people have mentioned reasons why you shouldn't be using Flash, or why it's difficult to write an open-source implementation of Flash.

However, I think the reason there's no complete, stable open-source implementation of Flash is that:

1. It's a very large project
2. With a very small market

The fact is that very few people actually need to create Flash content. Most companies that want a little bit of Flash on their websites are better off paying someone else to build it for them. Therefore, the price ($500) is quite reasonable - it's honestly what Macromedia needs to charge in order to be able to create a product that only a tiny number of people need to own.

Contrast this with Microsoft Word. (Yes, you can still purchase Word without Office; it costs $289, all of Office costs $419). Everyone needs a basic word processor. However, most users only need 10% of Microsoft Word's features, and therefore the price of Microsoft Word is not fair. The fact that everyone needs a basic word processor, plus the fact that the commercial competition is unfairly priced, is what has driven so many open-source developers to create word processors. (My favorites: AbiWord, OpenOffice Write, and KWord. I'm not even counting LaTeX-based tools, which I also enjoy, but aren't for the masses.)

An Answer that might be useful

[techmage]

Coffee Cup software has a flash tool called Firestarter that you might find useful. www.coffeecup.com/firestarter

W3C standards

[Anonymous Coward]

[The reason many users of OSS are anti-flash] is mainly due to the fact that no matter how glitzy, Flash is still not supported by the W3C as an accepted internet standard.

I believe that the W3C only accepts *purposed* standards as W3C standards. Has MacroMedia actually *purposed* Flash as an open standard to the W3C? Also, since MacroMedia is still enforcing it's TradeMark on Flash, the open standard would obviously have to go by a different name. So, what is the name of the purposed Flash-compatable open standard submitted to the W3C? As far as I know, one does not exists. Your statement makes it sound like the W3C turned down Flash, I think it wasn't even put on the table by MacroMedia for the W3C to consider.

It is not and should never be the job of the W3C to seek out the most popular plug-ins of the day and consider them for standards. It is up to the authors to submit a purposal to make something an Internet standard. The standardization through purposal method even predates the W3C and is largely the method by which the IETF also oberates. Otherwise there is the risk of standardizing a dated format where the author keeps the format a moving target as well as messy legal problems with the author over use of "intellectual property." Just because Adobe (backed by it's legal team) is able to support current versions of a format does not mean a non-profit standards group has the backing to support that same format.

Maybe what you should have said is: The reason many users of OSS are anti-flash is mainly due to the fact that no matter how glitzy, MacroMedia wants the freedom provided by controlling a closed/prioritary format so that they can continue to add more glitzy format changes on a whim and does not want Flash to be an open Internet standard.

Nevertheless, maybe it's time we asked Macromedia to help us out??

Yes, maybe it's time we asked them to write an open white paper purposal.

The reason why OSS is not gun-ho flash is because most OSS developers create programs to provide a specific generic *function*. So, you might find several programs for doing web animations but if you decided to lock yourself into a prioritary method such as flash then your probably better off using flash. Just as if you want the functionality of a spreadsheet then there are several OSS programs to provide that but if you want something pixel for pixel identical to the look of Excel then you probably should just use Excel.

Re:W3C standards

[Bedouin X]

Yeah and don't forget that SMIL and SVG are both XML specs that do much of the same as Flash.

Re:W3C standards

[sydb]

That's 'proposal' not 'purposal', 'proposed' not 'purposed'.

Aside from that, right on.

How come....

[nooboob]

...geeks hate "flash" on websites (style over substance) but love it in their GUIs? (KDE3, OSX) Isn't it slowing things down either way?

Re:Nothing Found (-1 Flamebait)

[Anonymous Coward]

>Although one of the reasons many slashdot users are anti-flash is that
>it's not supported by the W3C, I believe slashdot is a haven for
>command line elitests. Although there are plenty of level headed
>readers and posters here (perhaps the majority) I've also found the
>comments to often be anti-gui, anti-Microsoft (with good reason) and
>often too proud of their accomplishments and knowledge to allow for
>the fact that aesthetics are actually an important pare of usability
>and accessibility.
>
>
Nice summary. Now do the human race a favor and take a gun and blow your brains out. The gene pool will thank you for it.

Macromedia bad impressions

[fishbowl]

Well, I wouldn't mind Flash so much, but, the problem
is that every time I go to a site with Flash on the
main page, my browser opens up three windows (or more)
to Macromedia's website, presumably to explain to me
that I don't have Flash support in my browser.

This is a terribly annoying thing to go through, and
it does not inspire me to do whatever would be required
to make Flash work on my system (plugin from another
browser platform + compatability software, run another
browser, etc.)

It really just alienates me further, wastes my time,
annoys me, and generally makes a bad impression on
me by Macromedia.

no SVG thanks..why ?

[sh0rtie]

SVG a great open standard.

yet the *only* person who makes a browser plugin is Adobe (all 8mb of it), so much for open :/

So one again iam left choosing between two multi national corps, one who has a 400k plugin (MM) that i probably already and 80% of audiences can view it,
or
one who has a 8mb plugin (AD) which i definately havent got, so i need to download it on my 56k modem, so how long is 8mb going to take at 4kbps to download ? hmm too long

SVG while great its a standard, no developer in his right mind would develop something that needs a 8mb plugin to view 100k of content, at least certainly not on a "general public" educational site (usability aside)

so really SVG isnt even an option, conforming to standards means nothing if no-one is going to use unless it was bundled as standard with new PC's like Flash(TM), this is the key to a formats success.

Re:no SVG thanks..why ?

[Salsaman]

You might be interested in this: Mozilla SVG project

I think there are builds that already support it.

Re:no SVG thanks..why ?

[schepers]

Uh... maybe you'd better check your facts before revealing just how ignorant you are.

The download is 2.24MB. Agreed, still a bit large, but not that bad.

Not to mention that it comes bundled with most Adobe downloads, like Acrobat Reader, so it's probably installed on hundreds of users' systems without their knowing.

As for it being the only viewer, there's also Batik. Oh, and have you heard of Mozilla? You know, the browser that AOL is going to be using?

Re:no SVG thanks..why ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is Batik a client side plugin? Last time i checked it was an apache project for java libraries to render svg server side. perhaps you could build a java flash player, but then you'd be back to huge viewer download and sluggish performance.

Flash

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys are way off base here! Flash is a tool. It can be misused (as it is often) - depending on the designer (or nondesigner). Just because I can design a horrible page in MS Word doesn't mean people shouldn't use Word. Flash is excellent at compressing data, typefaces and pictures for the web. Things don't even half to move with Flash. You are going to see more and more Flash stuff in the future - get used to it!

Amen brother.

[Anonymous Coward]

That is something I learned real quick doing client side coding. Make it in Flash once or write umpteen different versions in DHTML. I like my free time too much to do that.

SWiSH

[deanj]

It's not open source, but it's realitively inexpensive ($49.95) http://www.swishzone.com/

compatibility

[koekepeer]

unfortunately, many people find the dominance of the majority enough reason not to support the minority

sad but true

Flash wins

[GCP]

98% of browsers have a Flash player installed, and the vast majority are Flash 5. There are about as many people still using the Flash 3 plugin as there are using IE 3 or Netscape Nav 3.

The Flash installed base upgrades very fast because the player is so lightweight and quick to download.

The SVG plugins out there are an order of magnitude larger than a Flash player and most browsers don't have them installed.

There are probably a thousand Flash sites for every SVG site, and that may be too generous to SVG. Most of those Flash sites participate in the sprea of lightweight Flash players. With that level of use, the amount of debugging that has gone into Flash is overwhelmingly larger than what has gone into SVG.

If what you want is to be able to easily create professional quality media (assuming you have the artistic skills, of course), for it to work reliably, and for it to be accessible by almost everyone, then choose Flash.

If political considerations are more important to you, consider writing your own open source SVG authoring tool -- for Linux only, of course -- and nuts to your users.

If all you care about is the price, there are very cheap, low quality tools for both Flash and SVG. I'm not quite sure how they compare in quality, because each time I (briefly) survey such tools, they seem to be either bad or worse.

Re:Flash wins

[Lemmy Caution]

Macromedia doesn't have a vested interest in SWF anyway: it's already an open format that anyone can build tools for. I can see no reason why it wouldn't put SVG output ability into its future authoring projects.

Re:Flash wins

[SurfsUp]

If political considerations are more important to you, consider writing your own open source SVG authoring tool -- for Linux only, of course -- and nuts to your users.

You are frothing. Check out sodipodi.

DHTML Can Deliver...

[Bistronaut]

... but there is always a price. The best trade-off (IMHO) for most situations is losing the 'D' when you're in NS4.x or IE4.x. You said:

I am seriously thinking of redoing my main page in Flash, primarily because it would be compatible with Netscape 4.x and the latest spiffy browsers. Flash seems to be more cross-platform than anything. It's not perfect, but sadly neither is Dynamic HTML.

By your comment, I assume that support for NS4.x is a priority for you. I could try to argue all of the reasons to deprecate NS4.x, but The Browser Upgrade Initiative and A List Apart do a much better job.

The bottom line is that you can create web sites that:

• are beautiful in any of the 5.0+ browsers
• are totally dynamic in any browser with Javascript and a reasonable implementation of the DOM
• drop down into a clean top-down format in browsers with poor (or no) CSS support (that means that it is beautiful in Lynx as well)
• and are acutally easier to create and maintain

If outside forces require that you make your sites all flashy in every concevable browser, then you have my sympathy. Every new browser will mean time-consuming maintenance, because pixel-perfect backwards compatability automatically precludes forwards compatability in today's web. If you don't need 100% accessability (screw those blind and non-Flash-liking people) Flash is probably your best answer. If you want a site that is a breeze to maintain, and don't mind giving older browsers a plainer page, (and maybe don't mind pushing the web forward a little instead of holding it back,) go with the latest web standards.

Flash is proprietary and NOT a good idea for web

[atr0x]

The reason there are not many Flash tools in the open source world is simple. Flash is proprietary Macromedia stuff, not a standard nor open. Open source is not about coming up with tools to code in proprietary formats (not in general anyway.)

That beind said there are a few tools for Flash, but Flash should NEVER be used on a public website. Consider the decision to use Flash at all, not what tools are required.

Flash is proprietary, requires a plugin (ie requires special client side configuration), Flash is also blocked by many firewalls and proxy servers (several offices I have worked in, more in Europe than US, but in both) block Flash, for bandwidth and security concerns, and rightfully so.)

Flash is pretty and fancy, but unless you can GUARANTEE the client side implementation you should not use it, PERIOD. You cant guarantee the client on a public network, ie the Internet.

Thats not a slam against Flash itself, but rather a precaution that should be taken when using anything that depends on client side implementation or processing. Javascript, Applets, Flash, etc. All should NEVER be used as a sole means to view or perform functionality on a site.

These are all great if you DETECT that the client can handle it, and provide an alternative if the client cannot. Sites that rely on any of these technologies lose many many visitors because they either dont allow those technologies (ie have them blocked or disabled) or dont have the capability to use them (dont have the plugin, misconfigured, etc.)

Flash is chief among these technologies and again, should NOT EVER be used on a public website (without detection and alternative.)

iShell, free authoring tool

[Anonymous Coward]

iShell, from Tribeworks, www.tribeworks.com is an autoring tool based on QuickTime. Of type object based not like flash time line based.

It's free to use and deploy, not open source though. They have a free and a costy membership alternative. It's mainly an integration tool though so you need other tools to build the media. But that's the case with flash also, accept for flashy animations and transitions.

Re:Flash is Style over Substance -- no, it's not

[veddermatic]

For every bad example of Flash usablility, I can show you 1,000 or more HTML usablility nightmares. So is HTML bad? No. Bad designers are bad. Unfortunately, Macromedia did such a good job at making thier tool taht even taltntless clods can create contnet.

Much like the way Slashdot made it so easy for cluless people to post.

squeak...

[kevin lyda]

considered squeak?

OT: Re:Non-Macromedia Flash tools

[purplebear]

Something like Visio: Kivio. It would really be nice to see the community get behind this and create some decent stencils though.
The stencils and resulting drawings are in an XML based format.
The tool is there, it just needs marketing.

Monday quality ideas

[Juggle]

Yep, this is the quality of thought I'm capable of on a Monday.

I'd love to see someone buy ads to the word redundant and link them to a page which uses the new google API to return the same search results that brought them the ad in the first place.

I should honestly just not even bother getting out of bed on mondays :)

$500? Adobe LiveMotion: $200

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't imagine why anyone would spend $500 on a tool to develop Flash. Adobe's LiveMotion is a Flash development tool that costs $200 and is a whole lot easier to use.

That said, Flash in general sucks ass with a straw and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

A few words about Flash

[elchulopadre]

As a poster above said, talking about Flash on /. always provokes knee-jerk reactions...

To summarize (and grossly over-simplify) /.ers' main points of criticism of Flash, a) It makes sites that look like angry fruit salads, b) it requires use of a FAIB, proprietary plugin which is unavailable for some platforms, and c) is generated by a commercial program that is not open-source.

The truth be told, flash is such an easy-to-use, powerful program that abusing it is really easy. Cheesy text effects are really quickly done, and this is even worse when you throw in programs such as Swish, whose sole purpose is to make these cheesy text effects. Only once in a blue moon do you come across a site that actually gains functionality from these effects.

On the other hand, flash is an extremely good environment for three kinds of developers. First, it's wonderful for cartoonists and animators, giving them tons of tools with which to make ...er... cartoons and animations. The ability to work with a library to recycle elements, the timeline, the various techniques and options available for animating all allow for easy cartoon-making.

Second, it's a nice environment for making web applications that require tight control over the site's graphical representation (when customizing products, etc). Flash sites with good design and good actionscripting (hopefully integrating to the server via xml) allow programmers to make different apps that get things done, while keeping tight control on the GUI (example: OneScreen for hotel reservations - go to http://www.ihotelier.com/onescreen).

And thirdly, it is really good for designers who want to have absolute control over how their website looks and feels. Granted, often these websites don't look and feel like 'standard'; however, the limitations that come with making 'standard' webpages are avoided. I personally prefer to have control over as many elements of my site as possible.

Speaking in terms of the original topic of discussion, I'd consider Flash to be a strong possibility because, after making a few selections, one could quickly access different media and have them play directly in the browser window. A quick change of options leads to a quick change of what information's being shown. Text (and in flash mx, sound and images) can be loaded dynamically, making site maintenance a lot easier to swallow. All in all, I don' t think flash is too bad an alternative, especially if , as quoted by another poster, 98.3% (I think) of computers can already view .swf files.

In terms of how to find it, academic pricing is usually very generous (someone said $99 for Flash MX), and since the site in question seems to be non-commercial, I'm sure there wouldn't be any problems.

Re:A few words about Flash

[kindbud]

How do you pronounce iHotelier? According to dictionary.com, and given the French etymology and the silent H, the correct pronunciation of hotelier with an i prepended would seem to be approximately "Yotle-yay". Nice one!

Oh, and by the time the Flash had loaded, my travel dates had passed.

Looks like any other sucky Flash site. The whole GUI is littered with "click below" instructions, and ooooooo, it makes sounds when I click. Yep, looks like programmers designed it alright.

Yawn.

The reality of free software

[skozee]

Because developing such an advanced animation tool takes a lot of time and money.

Adobe has Livemotion but it's nowhere near Flash and it's still not free. Your best bet is making some templates and allow people to modify them either through XML or by changing JPEGs, for relatively simple changes.

SVG in real development environment.

[dostick]

We, we been developing the product using SVG technology for a while now.
We did not chose SVG over FLASH.
Our options was HTML with javascript or Java applets.

So we chose SVG to work with.

At the beginning it looked exciting. Very clean graphics, alpha blending, easy effects like drop shadows. Nesting, a lot of little good things, e.g. you can set the line style. SVG look absolutely like mature standart.

So, the biggest problem is that the only existing SVG browser plugin from Adobe is too slow. And too big. Also cannot be installed automatically (unlike flash). To install you need to supply enduser with URL like www.adbee.com/svg and hope user will return from there with plugin installed.

In our application we have scripted code to hide 20+ objects (lines, rechangles, text.) and un-hide one. The operation take fraction os secod for processing Javascript, but redraw itself takes about 6-8 seconds ! Thats unsuitable for real production environment.

Comparing to latest Flash MX, SVG is still better, even that you have to edit SVG in editor like XML Spy (there is no serious SVG WYSIWYG development software exist at the moment).
Flash MX with all its enhancements still feels like carrying the baggage from it's originator, FutureSplash.

If big names will decide to support SVG, it will absolutely kill Flash. - to put it in another way - if Microsoft will decide to support SVG natively in IE.

So, my advice would be; use SVG, it's the future. But if you're going to have interaction, scripting and stuff like that in, you better have some tests before you commit to SVG way.

Re:Even when using MM products, it's not always id

[MAJ Rantage]

This was for an intranet site, so we did have the luxury of dictating which plug-ins users must have.

Construct a Flash-XML Template?

[Eightlines]

Why don't you just pick up one copy of Flash (MX/5) (I don't know if LiveMotion 2 has this capability) and develop an application that uses objects and libraries to build the policy application. Allow the client to place the objects on the screen and type content into specified areas, then save the information to XML. When the audience queries the information you just read the XML back into the stage and regenerate the information? This reduces the purchased materials to one copy of the $500 program -- also look for older discounted versions now that MX is out -- keeps the bandwidth low, allows you to control the information from one common database, and keeps your brand throughout the presentations. Off the top of my head, check out http://www.flashcan.com/cards/ as this uses the same method I'm speaking of. There's lots of other examples of parsing XML. Check out the archives of http://chattyfig.figleaf.com for more in depth ideas on how to do this.

Try being blind, and using a flash site

[Anonymous Coward]

just doesn't work

flash-artists !~ /semantics/

[Anonymous Coward]

flash artists really dont seem to understand the fact that the world doesnt revolve around their artistic expression.

the artists are just like the software they use: out of touch with everything else.

any _USEFUL_ thing that can be done in flash can be done in DHTML as well, very easily.

Why Flash costs money

[veddermatic]

Two reasons: Good software takes time to make, and the fact that people need to eat.

Flash is a simply AMAZING authoring and development envirnonment. And before the typical folks who never used flash, never seen GOOD flash done on the web jump on the "Flash suxorz, flash is always stle over substance, flash sux! Flash is unusable" bandwagon start moaning, USE Flash, and develop some quality stuff with it. It's not hard... but like with most things, it's really easy to create crap with it... If I write a well formatted but crappy novel with OpenOffice, does OSS software sucks, and OpenOffice is "style over substance"? No, it means I can't write.

Anyway, back to the point. It takes time to develop software, and if you need to eat, you can either work on your software and charge for it (what macromedia does) or work on it in the time you are not making sure you can eat (what msot OSS software folks do)

The "problem" is that with a tool as comlplex and powerful as Flash, it takes a loooong time to create, and so the X number of months the for-profit guys turn thiers out in, it can (and most likely will) take X number of years for the OSS version to come out.

Obviously there are exception, and every case is different, but the volume of programming, and the various types of programming ( vector based drawing, type, actionScript compiler, timeline animation system, etc..) involved in creating a "Flash-alike" enviroment is a rather huge undertaking.

$500 is dirt cheap for something that can create the type of multimedia web and stand-alone applications that Flash is cabable of in a small ammount of time... I'm seeing Flash 5 selling for $400, or if you plan out what you want to to ahead of time, DL the 30 day trial... you can get 4 - 5 big projects done in a month =)

Re:Flash is proprietary and NOT a good idea for we

[EnglishTim]

So... much as I dislike flash 'intros' as much as the next man, what do you suggest for web-based interactive graphics? I don't know of anything as widespread and well-supported as Flash.

Anyway, the Flash file format is open: http://www.openswf.org/ (Well, in that it is openly documented, anyway...)

Hot Media

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM has the Hot Media toolkit. Little Java applets that do animations, 360-degree pans, etc. Plus sound. UNIX and IBM packages of the java files. The tool itself is strictly Windows. Very small and compact content for your pages. Link at:

http://www-3.ibm.com/software/ad/hotmedia/

Re:Flash is Style over Substance -- no, it's not

[Anonymous Coward]

For every bad example of Flash usablility, I can show you 1,000 or more HTML usablility nightmares.

Yes, but how many good examples of Flash usability are there?

Answer: None. (Show me one flash site where the "back" button works, or where you can search for the text that you want, or any of the other things that you can do on a non-flash site.)

What about Squeak

[Anonymous Coward]

What about Squeak? www.squeak.org It reads the flash format, it runs on 20 odd platforms. It does have plugin support for mac/windows (maybe *nix). It's open source.

Best of all it support Morphic in which you can do *way more*

ok, i tried it....

[Anonymous Coward]

(i.e. you can control opacity and rotation, try that in DHTML

using DHTML filters and SVG, actually you CAN do that. Anything else?

Why open-source?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cmon succer, make it open source. It's nice when people waste their talent, or don't you have some?

Similarly, support Linux to help top Linux kernel developers stay in life.

A thought on not using flash

[elgecko]

While I'll admit Flash can be useful in developing UI's for website, animation, ad banners and such, there's one important limitation to consider about Flash on the Web -- It's not searchable.

Search engines and web portals employ spiders and bots for purposes of finding web pages. Even submissions to search engine databases will be less than ideal if sites employ the majority of their documentation in Flash, or behind flash menus and screens, many search engines will lack the ability to index those pages.

How much does a company in question want to spend in external advertising to augment this loss of searchability, and therefore likelihood that a site will be found in a target audience search query? Adobe's PDF format, along with text, html, and a number of other *docment* based formats can be found via search engines. I don't know of any that successfully search flash.

Flash isn't Free and it denies accessibility

[jbn-o]

One of the big reasons I'm against Flash is I don't know of a Free Software implementation of it. Another big reason I'm against Flash is the lack of accessibility—as far as I know there's no such thing as a Flash user stylesheet, so it's possible you could make a Flash animation I could not easily read (or see) which goes against the a major advantage of the rest of typical WWW pages.

When I put these two reasons together, it's enough for me to reject Flash altogether. Also, I don't find Flash to be a marker of high quality thoughtful presentation that is worth my time to download over my slow connection. I think the questioner needs to focus on writing prose (difficult to do, but very low bandwidth and it can survive the test of time far better than Flash ever will).

Re:Nothing Found (-1 Flamebait)

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash gives us the best of both worlds!

The anti-gui crowd exists because they lack the requisite taste to make something usable. tolerable is the highest they will ever achieve.

Of course, designers take the opposite approach and create beautiful designs that are a technical nightmare.

With flash though, tacky design AND shoddy programming are within easy reach of more people than ever before! mediocrity abounds! plugins are beautiful! embrace your future! more spinning animated logos with bad type and bad trance music!

Three options that may or may not exist...

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

I've been wondering about this myself, for some time. Not for any "serious" reason, but I'd love to play with web-cartoons. Problem is, I doubt that I've got $500 worth of talent to justify buying Macromedia FlashMaker(or whatever it's called) and installing Windows to use it...

There appear to be three ways of approaching this from a free/open perspective that I know of:

1. Ming and other 'flash-making' libraries.
   Drawback here is that they supply the raw functionality, but no "authoring environment" seems to exist for them.
2. SVG. Don't know much about this. I know there are some authoring tools being developed for it (Seems to me I've seen, among others, a KDE application for it). On the other hand - does it do sound?
3. MNG over Ogg. I'd love to see this. Apparently, in the Ogg CVS there is a crude tool for messing with this. This has the drawback that it's not currently in use anywhere, and like Flash, there don't seem to be any free/open (or otherwise Linux-accessible) MNG-authoring programs that I can find. If this goes anywhere, though, it'd give the ability to both download or "stream" it, with MNG graphics and effects and Vorbis audio.

Can anyone further enlighten me on these three options?

education version flash

[jqubed]

they must have, because i never saw it in flash 5 and i haven't seen it in MX either. i was about to suggest the same thing...as long as you're students and the work you're doing is non-profit, i see no problem purchasing the education version. and if you're getting multiple copies for several people, you might be able to get a volume discount that might be even cheaper than 99 bucks a pop.

OSS users aren't normal

[GCP]

Yeah, yeah, I know. "Troll!" I mean it in the statistical sense.

Most OSS users prefer command lines to GUIs. Normal people are the reverse.

OSS users are usually the sorts who prefer the experiences inside their heads to external experiences. Reading roller coaster specs is just as good for a lot of them as actually riding the roller coaster.

Not so for normal folks.

Standards committees, forums like /., and other gaggles of techies are famously out of touch with the preferences of "normal" people. They are then morally outraged by technologies that "corrupt" the purity of their systems -- by making them more the way normal people would like them to be.

Techies have screamed for years as HTML has moved from "it looks the way you want it to look, depending on how you configure your browser", to "it looks the way the professional designer intended it to look, and it looks that way in every browser". Techies want to configure their browsers for optimum "information display". Normal people want to see professional production values and don't want to waste their time "configuring" anything.

Flash is a superb way to build websites for normal audiences. Most /.ers seem convinced that their eliteness means they know best what is right for the Web. In fact, they are simply out of touch.

Re:OSS users aren't normal

[johnnyb]

Standards committees, forums like /., and other gaggles of techies are famously out of touch with the preferences of "normal" people. They are then morally outraged by technologies that "corrupt" the purity of their systems -- by making them more the way normal people would like them to be.

***

This is a common misconception. The reason that "normal" users and techies differ is not necessarily that they want different things from their computers, it's that the techies know the consequences of various design decisions. For example:

1) Normal people like web pages that are done by graphic designers because they look nice even though they violate every know web design rule. Oh wait, except for my parents, because they can't read the font that the page author picked. Had it been done by a techie, they would have let the user's pick the fonts, and thus my parents could read it easily.

2) Normal people like flashy pages that are all interactive and move around on the screen. Oh wait, my parents don't because they are on a 100Mhz computer. Oh yeah, and it's bad for the company because although their information changes daily, it's so hard to change the custom-designed web page that it becomes useless in a matter of weeks because it's outdated. My church website is like that.

3) Normal people like GUI tools to build their web pages. Oh wait, unless they want it to look good on more than the browser the tool was built for. GUI tools tend to try to hide the nature of HTML, and thus, even though they will be displayable on other browsers (or even other browser versions), they won't look anything like the user intended. Because the user isn't aware of how HTML works, they will have no idea why this happens.

So, you can see, even though a lot of people would like to think "oh, those are just silly techies talking", the truth is that they usually have the same goals, but are just more realistic and knowledgeable on how they can be achieved.

Re:OSS users aren't normal

[mshurpik]

OSS users are usually the sorts who prefer the experiences inside their heads to external experiences. Reading roller coaster specs is just as good for a lot of them as actually riding the roller coaster.

Not so for normal folks.

Heh. Excellent stab at dorks. You're right, Flash is good, people who bash it are knee-jerking. But since you pitted dorks up against graphic designers, I'm going to have to step out of character and actually defend the dorks.

Yes, normal people want to see a professional presentation. The trick is that in the case of the web, dorks usually have a better understanding of what a professional presentation actually is.

Graphic designers are woefully under-equipped for the web. They think it's a piece of paper, and no amount of 7pt font can make this true. They see what's up on their 21-inch monitor and they think this is what the world sees. Graphic designers, sadly, have only one set of eyes.

Not so for normal folks.

Re:OSS users aren't normal

[debrain]

Here here! The "moral outrage" is an example of the technical elite corporate ignorant defending the bourgoisie against the corporate elite technical ignorant. It's all about the power of the middle class, and the struggles of those powers, in this case the will of the technical smart to live in a world with less problems, and the will of the corporates to push the average person into directed consumerism. Key insight to the corporate side: the average person, not every average person.

Re:OSS users aren't normal

[karm13]

Oh yeah, and it's bad for the company because although their information changes daily, it's so hard to change the custom-designed web page that it becomes useless in a matter of weeks because it's outdated. My church website is like that.

the problem with most of the comments here is that the oh-so-knowledgeable techies here know nothing about flash and are just prejudiced.
like you don't know about flashs xml capabilities, that would let your churches server update the sunday prayers on your mothers computer without her even having to reload it, with flash using the ECMA-262-based scripting language to update the content even with only 100Mhz.

by the way, assuming you have gone through at least two update cycles since the 100MHz days, you really could have build your parents a new computer out of the old parts. shame on you!

Re:OSS users aren't normal

[johnnyb]

I'm still running a 200Mhz computer. I'm a cheap bastard.

Re:OSS users aren't normal

[Anonymous Coward]

If I'm desiging an e-commerce website, why should I keep the cheap bastards happy? It's not like they're going to spend money there anyway.

Re:OSS users aren't normal

[Anonymous Coward]

We're perfectly happy to buy stuff or even bits, as long as you don't demand control over how we use them once we own them.

Re:OSS users aren't normal

[Cwaig]

>Oh yeah, and it's bad for the company
>because although their information changes daily,
>it's so hard to change the custom-designed web
>page that it becomes useless in a matter of weeks
>because it's outdated. My church website is like
>that.

Actually, in that respect flash is just like any other format - you can seperate content from presentation, put the content in a seperate text file and have it load
that file into the pretty flash front end.
Badly written web pages (HTML, Flash, ASP, PHP, whatever), are the problem there, not Flash itself.

Re:OSS users aren't normal

[johnnyb]

If you sell a product that's worth buying, it's not an issue. Being a cheap bastard doesn't mean that I don't buy anything, it's that I refuse to be cought in a useless continuous upgrade cycle that in the end gives me no real benefits, other than I can run bloated, worthless applications.

What about Total Costs?

[desolation angel]

You mention that Flash is $500, how many developer hours does that buy you?

Re:Flash is Style over Substance, Usability Nightm

[anderss]

I think of the web itself as a giant step backward in usability. Unlike standard GUIs, the people building HTML-based web sites pretty much made up their own interface. There's been a bit of standardization since the web took off, but it's still a pain in the ass.
For example, many web pages have "Printer friendly" versions of a page, but where the link to it is, what it looks like, etc. can differ wildly. In contrast, if you're using a client-based GUI on a Windows box and you want to print a page, you can be pretty sure that to print a file you go to a menu at the top of the screen called "File" and then go to a button called "Print."
We're considering Flash--along with Java and now SVG--for only a very small part of our site, primarily simulations & games for teaching. You can do this via HTML/CGI, but for the kind of educational toys we're thinking of making, it's not a very good medium; it's too hard to create the graphics & immediate interaction we want to have. The reason you don't think much of Flash is that 99.9% of what it's used for is essentially advertising. We don't plan on using anything but HTML except where SVG/Java/Flash gives us capacities we otherwise don't have.

Flash Symptoms

[jbum]

Apologies to Jeff Foxworthy.

Is your website promoting a movie or selling vacuum cleaners?
It could be a Flash site.

Does your website live in a tiny little pop-up window all it's own?
I betcha it's also a Flash site.

Does your website display the message "Loading" when you visit it?
Yep. Smells like a Flash site.

Does your website impress all your graphic designer buds?
Flash site.

Is your website incredibly fun to visit, but exactly one time only?
Might be a flash site.

Does your website have an animation of a bunch of semi-transparent oblong
objects moving in a spiral pattern?
Flash site.

Does your website have a "skip intro" button?
I'd say there's a 99% probabililty that it's a Flash site.

Is your website invisible to users who are using ad-blocking tools like Proximitron,
or slightly non-standard web browsing technology or computers that don't use one
of three well known operating systems?
Well then maybe you're abusing javascript.
OR maybe it's a flash site.

Is your website immune to being bookmarked?
Hmmm. Maybe there's an outside chance it might be a flash site.

Is the content on your website 2 years out of date, because it's
such a pain-in-the-ass to update?
Well then, there exists the possilibity it might be a flash site.

Re:Flash Symptoms

[ShadowMind]

Amen brother... preach on... (I spend 90% of my time trying to convince people (or clients who are almost simian) the error of their flash fixations)

flash / opensource

[ben77]

this 'serious' flash stuff is a must-see, really. http://www.levitated.net/ by the way, it's open-source. (ok, you still have to rely on non-free(beer)/non-free(freedom) hardware for playing it)

He explained the reason

[n9hmg]

I for one am more partial to content over form.

So am I. So is everybody on /.. If we needed oversimplification and pretty moving pictures to understand things, we'd be on people.com instead of here. His task is "...toys for educating people around complicated...". That implies that these aren't deep thinkers, and probably would benefit from such a presentation.
Our personal biases (bia?) against stupid flash is irrelevant. It sounds like he actually needs it.

They'll Need Training, Too

[hubbabubba]

You say the cost of Flash software is prohibitive for your unspecified "community groups." That may be the least of your worries. Do you plan to train these folks how to use it? Flash ain't rocket science, but the learning curve is steep, steep, steep. If you're thinking these people will be able to just open up your SWF files and make any sense out of timelines, events and symbols, then you're not thinking.

Cheap Flash Alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

Try Swish at www.swishzone.com. Only $49.00, Cheaper than flash but produces swf files for flash viewers.

What About SVG?

[bsbodden]

What about a Flash Like environment using SVG?.

JGenerator

[chris_sawtell]

This JGenerator is exactly what you want.

Re:Nothing Found (-1 Flamebait)

[rizzo420]

i couldn't agree more (notice i'm not a coward like the other guy that replied telling you to shoot yourself). i think that people need to realize that websites are made to please the majority of the people and make money. lots of people like glitzy flash sites, lots of people like gui, lots of people like doing things the easy way (with gui tools). why take the time to do something through the command line when you can do it quicker with gui? too many people are linux elitests here. it's cool sometime, but after a while, it sucks. microsoft is not all bad. excel is still the best spreadsheet application. i personally enjoy using windows 2000. it's stable, it's easy to setup and configure, and it's compatible with everything i want to do. i can also find more cracks and software for it than i could for linux. so until linux becomes mainstream enough (equalling microsofts share of the desktop market), i think people need to stop bitching about something like flash or gui. windows is easier to handle, most people don't have time to learn linux. and honestly, the command line is really fucking ugly. i like my machine lookign pretty.

Geeks should pay attention...

[Anonymous Coward]

If geeks paid more attention to what looks cool, they might get more dates...

Re:Flash is Style over Substance -- no, it's not

[John_Booty]

For every bad example of Flash usablility, I can show you 1,000 or more HTML usablility nightmares. So is HTML bad? No. Bad designers are bad.

Whatever your opinion of HTML (and there are PLENTY of things with which to find fault, usability-wise) Flash inherits all of them, and adds a few more such as the breaking of the browser's back/forward buttons and URL field.

Even a well-designed Flash site has these problems, because they break standard browser navigation UI conventions. While you could of course create an HTML site which is less usable than many Flash sites, HTML is, on the whole, inherently more usable and consistant than Flash for the reasons I outlined above.

Pointing out any number of badly-designed HTML sites does not address the issue of Flash being better or worse than HTML. That's like saying, "for every drug overdose fatality, I can show you 1,000 or more fatalities that did not involve drug overdoses." True, perhaps, but you're not addressing the issue! If you want to argue in favor of Flash, by all means do so but please address the issue.

Re:Flash...

[MattC413]

As a former Flash developer, I can say that Flash is very secure.

Flash is done using an almost "sandbox" model. Client scripts cannot ever write to the disk. You can, however, create "server" and "client" flash movies that interact, and the server can write to the local machine the server is running on.

I believe you CAN dynamically link files into Flash movies, using Lingo (the scripting language), but you must know the exact path and filename. There is no such thing as browsing from my understanding.

-MattC413

Open Source

[deepfoo]

Um, try openSWF.org Seems like there are plenty of tools there. By the way, the SWF format is at least partially open, not that you can extend it or anything. OK, it sucks and is uselsss, but at least you can get the kit for less.

you should be able to pull something together

[moore234]

Perl and flash can be integrated. The web site hasn't been updated in quite some time, but I can definitely see you using this module, together with something like Komodo, to cobble together something fairly user friendly.

Re:Flash...

[silhouette]

I find it surprising that folks haven't dug deeper into flash vulnerabilities

It's hard enough to dig deep into Flash as a developer, what with the inconsistencies, hacks, and bugs that proliferate the environment - let alone knowing all of those well enough to be able to root out specific exploitable security holes that probably don't even work half the time.

Interestingly enough, a long while back there was some discussion among Flash programmers on a well-known community discussion board about possible security exploits. Months later, a very real Flash virus went around the web based on that very discussion. Slashdot also covered it.

I just bought the academic Flash MX for $99.00.

[rossm3]

Where's he getting $500?

Re:Flash...

[saforrest]

No, incompetent developers that overuse Flash are what suck. Like a lot of things, Flash is an awesome tool, but only when used appropriately.

Yes. And here is an example of the most brutally inappropriate site design, and use of Flash, I've yet seen:

http://www.awortho.net/

Another open source Flash tool...

[silhouette]

..is flasm (like JASM). It's a command line assembler/disassembler of actionscript bytecodes (v4 and v5). It's certainly not a replacement for the Flash program itself, but can do some pretty cool things:

- It gives insight into how actionscript is compiled into bytecodes. It's amazing at which commands are compiled into their own bytecodes, and which are not. You can learn interesting things like how Flash compiles a (!condition) into:
push condition
not
not
goto.. etc.

- You can hand-optimize critical bottleneck sections of code. Here's a cool example that's linked from the FLASM webpage: first before optimizations, and afterwards.

Whoever said that you can't do geeky things in Flash!

Re:Lingo is a nightmare..... LINGO IS NOT FLASH

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry to flame here, but I hate it when people talk bad about things they don't know about.

Flash uses ACTION SCRIPT as it's core language, not lingo. Lingo was the language used in Macromedia's Director, a completely diffrent product all together.

Furthermore, Action Script, as a language kicks MUCH ass. It's very much like javascript, except without all the lame dependencies on what idea of a DOM the browser uses. It's class based, easy to understand if you have used ANY language before, has dimensional arrays, etc etc.

Please guys, you make us all look like retards when you badmouth things you don't know about. It's pretty much like me saying I don't like the Beatles because I can't stand that song they sing called "Stairway to Heaven".

Re:Flash...

[nickmain]

BS !
Flash can only connect back to the domain it came from.
When hosted by the browser it cannot access the local disk.

This is exactly what is worng with flash

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have the flash plugin, take a look at his sight.

This doesnt exactly seem like a good medium for educating presumably readonably educated users about "coplicated policy questions". Maybe I'm missing the boat here.

You be the judge

ANd yes, it does screw up the back button. You need to clik it like 5 times. Once to rewind the current anination, once to go back to the intro screen, once to rewind the intro screen and once to back out of the intro screen.

If your policy questions are so complicated indeed, this is not goig to hinder your users ability to navigate the sight and rethink / rehash what has been said earlyer in the site.

This is a clssic example of why /.ers hate flash. -- the whole proprietary thing aside.

your a moron..

[Cenam]

..flash, or anything else that requires a plugin that does not come with all browsers, limits your audience..whenever i goto a page with flash or java aplets(when i don't need a calculator and none are near me) i immediatly exit the page, because i know that there is no actual content - just a bunch of crappy anims that take 30 secsw to download(on a cable modem)

It depends on how you use the tool

[silhouette]

Here's a question for you in order to help answer your problem. How exactly do you intend to use Flash? Because as much as I love Flash and spend lots of time coding silly fun things, it's not the be-all end-all development tool for web content or web-based training. It is very strong in interactivity, vector graphics, and recently scripting, but every release before Flash MX is incredibly poor at displaying and manipulating text.

So if you at all intend to display large amounts of text (and since this project is a learning tool I am assuming that you are) you might be better off not using Flash at all - especially if money is a concern. Good ol' fashioned HTML will always be easier to create and run faster than any kind of in-Flash text manipulation (Alternatively, if you have interactivity requirements that you'd like to use Flash for, like a quiz, you can always keep the main text HTML and embed individual Flash movies into the page for the interactivity). Now, I really do think that MX is making leaps and bounds in this area, but you said yourself that the price is very high - and I agree with you. Others have suggested the educational version (which is ~$99) and I would also recommend that.

Now I might be reading too much into your question, but you said that "We'd really like to use Flash as our main language." Very few people ever refer to Flash as a "language" (it's mostly seen as an animation tool), and fewer of them would post your question to Slashdot (you might want to try the Flash message boards on were-here or flashkit). So I'm assuming that you or the people on the project have technical experience and are coming from the prospective of programmers. In this case, you might want to consider doing at least some parts in Java. You don't have to pay anything, there's plenty of free tools out there, it can do interactivity, and the download requirement isn't going to be a whole lot larger than the Flash MX player (though that would depend on which version you'd use). The development time would almost certainly be a lot higher, but again that depends on the specific requirements of the project.

In any case, good luck and if you do end up delving into some serious Flash programming, I have a bunch of good links to advanced Flash actionscripting resources off my little university page.

Re:Flash is Style over Substance, Usability Nightm

[scrytch]

Excuse me, but: what if your goal is to make something pretty?

What the hell is it about HTTP (aside from the name) that makes people think that it's only good for delivering HTML, and that every site must have information, information, information. Cripes do you demand information from art galleries? You might be a functional unit kind of person, but do you have a hundred identical black turtlenecks to choose from in your closet? (Oddly, Steve Jobs, mister style-is-king himself, does)...

It's just lazy intellectually to decry, bemoan, and otherwise wring your hands about the decline and fall of all that is right and correct at the hands of some devil tool. You have a choice, so exercise it, and stop telling everyone else what they should want.

Get Flash donated from Macromedia

[jdstahl]

Did you know that Macromedia has a pretty good donation program? We -- and many of the Northwest environmental orgs we work with -- have gotten flash and other MM products from it.

The donation form is online.

best,
jon

------------
Jon Stahl
ONE/Northwest: Online Networking for the Environment
www.onenw.org

um...

[greymond]

"If you want to build Flash and you don't want to pay $500, how do you do it (aside from copying somebody else's, which as Bill Gates told us is just bad, bad, bad)?"

1) Download the trial version (which is the full version) and you have 30 days to build your entire site and set up everything before the demo runs out.

2) warez it and then tell everyone it cost you $500

3) copy it from someone because it pisses you off that you cant afford it

4) steal it from a store so you have the retail cd's and manual

5) dont use flash - use something else

I also want expensive stuff for free!

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anybody know where I can find it?

Geesh, figure it out -- some stuff with value might actually cost you money.

SVG is still under a patent cloud

[SurfsUp]

As you can see here.

Even though the W3C has backed away from the proposal to include RAND-licenced patented material in W3C standards, the SVG standard went to 1.0 under the assumption that the public would accept RAND-licensing for web standards, and so SVG incorporates a number of RAND-liceneced patents, specifically from IBM Kodak and Quark. No doubt this situation is going to be resolved, especially if people don't forget it still needs to be resolved. To remind the W3C and the companies involved that this situation is still unresolved, you can comment on this list, subscribe here.

And oh by the way, is IBM's roll in this particular little minidrama hypocritical, given their support for and reliance upon Linux and other open source projects? You bet it is, and that's because IBM has lots of little parts, not all of which are headed in the same direction, e.g., some are run by the legal department or managers who still don't get it.

Re:SVG is still under a patent cloud

[KjetilK]

I don't know if it is a problem in this case, as Kodak has a big interest in the Batik toolkit, and the relevant claims of the Quark patent has to be invalid. At least to me, it seems like they patented textbook examples. So I wouldn't hold off on SVG. It is still a whole lot better than Flash.

XML-Signature is on the other hand a standard I'd like to use that is a whole lot more problematic.

here's an example -

[Anonymous Coward]

- a site that uses flash and is open source. they give away the xml source of the entire site and the stylesheet that generates html and flash (all under gpl):

http://www.kirsanov.com

Free flash

[Anonymous Coward]

Two ways I know for free flashing -
1. Naked except for trenchcoat, find schoolgirls... I trust this is not what you mean

2. I've used Coffeecup software which is free / trial / needs registered at some point maybe - quick and easy as I remember. I'm sure there are plenty others. No idea if there's a linux version or if it is WINE compatible

Flash is often a complete waste of bandwidth, but some stuff is pretty good - I saw a page that had a Flash form for hotel room ordering a few months back - all on one page including credit card details, point and click for most of it (i.e. pop-up calendar, interactive live room availability etc. - great idea and very well implemented) and it was far better than any of the other online forms I've seen.

When it's done right it can be excellent - until someone comes up with a better alternative. At the moment it is innovative and that's why they make so much money / business from it! The free software model is not the only one, you know...

Here it is....

[La Camiseta]

It's called Java. It'll probably do just about anything you need for an education site, plus it's compatible with more systems.

What do DVDs use?

[MobyDisk]

What do DVDs and DVD players use for the menus? Is this format open? Is it appropriate for the web?

flash isn't all bad, it's just certain users

[jqubed]

most people, once they discover that basic animations are easy to create in flash, simply use it for that. most people don't look into the more practical applications of flash. with the release of MX, flash included components that could be used for serious application development. flash's ActionScript (which changed only slightly betweend 5 and MX, as well as still currently supporting all older commands) is a surprisingly powerful language very similar to java. MX also has prebuilt components, such as scroll bars and combo boxes. however, most people don't take the time to learn these more powerful uses of flash. flash can be used as a front end for cgi, sql, or xml, and combined with it's own language, i feel in the future we will see flash based apps sprouting up on windows and mac boxes, and if a stable version can be run on linux, we'll see one there too.

unfortunately, i don't think we'll see the end of cheezey-flashy flash. however, refusing to use flash because of the bad flash content out there is like refusing to use the web because of the bad html out there(like, most geocities pages, or you can look at the crap code FrontPage spits out to see some real garbage). For the most part, we've moved on from telnet and ASCII art (though admitedly there's been some interesting and really good (a little treat for you slightly scary natalie portman fans) ASCII art made over the years). i don't think people who could afford flash and would be good at it should be turned off from it because of the crap some people have made though. it'll only get better as the geeks who can really push it to it's potential do so.

marketing 101

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not focus on your message instead?

Because, much like traditional marketing, if you don't grab the attention of your viewer within the first five seconds, you've lost them.

The trick, really, is to be tasteful. I absolutely agree that 95% of the Flash "enhanced" sites out there are awfully gaudy. It is difficult and expensive to develop a classy, tasteful site using Flash, but done effectively, the results can be awesome.

so don't visit them! Damn...

[karm13]

if you don't like it, just don't go there. noone makes you to.
those pages were not made for you. they were made for people interested in experimental interfaces, to show off, or just because something cool came out of an experiment.
most people here sound like they had a clockwork orange like treatment with bad flash sites.

most comments i have read by now either come up with some prejudice (you can't do this, it's too big, other nonsense) without really having a clue what they're talking about, or they really critisize bad programmed flash and the content (or lack thereof). this is just plain ignorant.

i can understand why people critisize bad flash sites, but they ahould critisize the programmer and not the tool. if there is important information that can't be read with a low tech browser, the site simply is made poorly. i do use lynx occationally, and i used to surf the web a lot with net+ (a non-javascript browser for the BeOS) and let me tell you i hate it when people use javascript to just open a link. that doesn't make javascript itself bad, does it? however, it does show that the one who did it should consider working in another area.

and believe it or not, "experience is the content" sites are a good thing. they are experiments in design and interfaces. they push the edge further. development does not only happen in technology, it happens in other areas as well. some of those sites are to be considered art. they are made for those interested.

not for you.

No misconception

[GCP]

The misconceptions here aren't mine:

1) Had it been done by a techie, they would have let the user's pick the fonts, and thus my parents could read it easily.

Only if you parents knew how to map host fonts to HTML virtual fonts. That's the sort of "configuring" that techies assume everyone does. To quote you, that's a common misconception.

As one of the twenty busiest sites on the Web, we have done a lot of research and discovered -- what a surprise -- that the vast majority of users leave their browsers unchanged from their default settings. They have no mental model of mapping site descriptions to host implementations. They don't "configure", they browse.

2) Normal people like flashy pages that are all interactive and move around on the screen. Oh wait, my parents don't because they are on a 100Mhz computer

Only a small minority uses a machine as slow as 100MHz. Again, the statistics show you your market. Most competitive commercial businesses will sacrifice the low-end 5% and the high-end 5% in order to maximize customer satisfaction in the fat center of the normal curve.

Parents who are into configuring browser font mapping and yet still use hardware from the days of Windows 3.1 aren't exactly mainstream. I'll take our statistics over your anecdotal evidence.

3) Normal people like GUI tools to build their web pages

Most normal people don't build websites at all. Of those who do, the majority use simple Web-form-based tools provided by their ISP to create their "My Cats and Me" personal Web page. Your raw text HTML editor for the masses would go over like a lead balloon. These big consumer ISPs advertise "no need to learn HTML", and that's a big selling point for the mass market.

Flash is for the creation of consumer websites with high production values, with relatively high consistency across browsers and platforms. The majority of people who browse the Web consider such sites more interesting and more professional looking than the "this site best viewed with Lynx" type sites beloved by techies.

So, you can see, even though a lot of people would like to think "oh, those are just silly techies talking", the truth is that they usually have the same goals, but are just more realistic and knowledgeable on how they can be achieved.

Really? I remember when all websites were designed by techies. Which of the top 20 MediaMetrix websites are designed by these "more realistic and knowledgeable" techies today? "Web producers" at major sites today majored in graphic arts, communications, and marketing, not CS or EE. Like other media before it, the Web is abandoning techie preferences in favor of consumer preferences. Flash may drive /.ers crazy, but it's a major hit with the real Web audience of today.

Re:No misconception

[snookums]

Which of the top 20 MediaMetrix websites are designed by these "more realistic and knowledgeable" techies today?

Yahoo!

Started by techies way back in the Dark Ages, and still a great example of a good-looking, useable collection of web applications. What's good about it?

• It's mostly text
• It uses simple graphics that actually enhance the useability rather than obfuscating a lack of content.
• Applications like the web-based mail interface allow selection of no-frames/no-javascript version.

Re:No misconception

[johnnyb]

Only if you parents knew how to map host fonts to HTML virtual fonts. That's the sort of "configuring" that techies assume everyone does. To quote you, that's a common misconception.

*****

Not quite. Parents have children, or they can ask around. No, I don't expect my parents to know how to do such a thing. However, they do often ask me, "how do I get these fonts bigger" when they are looking at a JPEG rendering of fonts, done so that everyone's fonts look the same.

So no, I don't expect them to do everything themselves, but for the option to be available when they ask for help.

Also, as users get more power (which they would if people followed standards closer), they start to become more self-sufficient and knowledgeable.

The concepts behind the web and HTML aren't tricky or hard to grasp. The problem is that they are geared toward giving power to the end-user. Most corporations don't like that, and so they benefit more by simply covering up the fact that the users have power, and try to take it away for themselves.

I don't think they do this with a bad intention, it's just their nature, and the nature of many people, especially marketing people. Designers always seem to want people to experience things in the way that they have mapped out for them, instead of whatever way the user wants to experience them. Where I have worked, the designers, even when they have a design that will work in variable-width tables, insist on it being fixed-width so everything is exactly the same. Nevermind that users with big screens like to make use of them, or people with small screens don't like to scroll - they just want control of the experience. And the experience suffers because of that.

Hmm

[alex69s]

Yes, flash looks nice, but sometimes something more plain gets the message accross better. Usually flash is jammed pack with images, movies and sound which make it's loading times crazy. I would like to look more into flash, but no way i'm going to pay 500$. a|_

Why not HTML?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why FLASH? Why not plain ole HTML? I can guarantee you that I won't be in your audience because I don't have those silly Flash or Shockwave plugins loaded on my browser.

Why not you ask?

1) They increase the loading time of my browser

2) They use memory that I'd rather use for ummm, Webwasher

3) I have yet to see one useful thing that absolutely requires Flash or Shockwave to be implemented.

4) The Flash junk is bandwidth intensive. Yes, I've got a broadband connection, but I'd rather not use it for downloading advertisements and useless fluff.

5) I want the information. Not dancing, singing, blipping, flipping, phasing, and morphing stuff... I've got games, or my choice of recreational pharmaceuticals if I need that...

6) People with text only browsers, vision impaired, etc. aren't gonna be seeing your content. There's lots of us - maybe you'd like to do something crazy like INCREASE YOUR MARKET SHARE?

7) Oh yeah, Invest the $500 in something like Home Depot...

Stick with PHP, or HTML with PNG/JPG - People have, and you can, do lots of neat stuff with that...

Yes, it's a usability nightmare

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no idea what resources are on the ET site

because I couldn't explore it

because there's no BACK button!

Because Open Source people know...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody's seriously developing Open Source flash tools because Open Source developers agree: FLASH IS THE MOST ANNOYING THING ON THE WEB!!!!

And that 0.000001% is...

[Anonymous Coward]

located at http://www.levitated.net

Macromedia's not the only choice...

[Anonymous Coward]

There are quiet a few software packages for creating flash movies besides Macromedia's program.

*) SWfx www.wildform.com ~$30

*) 3D Flash Animator www.insanetools.com ~$50

*) Swish 2.0 www.swishzone.com ~$50

*) Swift 3D www.swift3d.com ~$150

*) Adobe LiveMotion 2.0 http://www.adobe.com ~$275

*) Toon Boom Studio www.toonboomstudio.com ~$375

FRAUD ALERT

[mshurpik]

Fellow slashdotters, please check out this guy's website before giving him any more help. Read it thorougly, do not simply gloss over. Notice the saturation of blue-collar propaganda, and the lack of any relevant details as to how the SEIU works. The SEIU is a cult.

The SEIU is, ostensibly, a union, and they do in fact unionize people. Like all unions, they have their share of corruption, money laundering, and influence peddling. However, what sets the SEIU apart from other unions is a singular pattern of coercive, manipulative, and undemocratic behavior towards their members, hostility towards other unions, and strict top-down financial and administrative control.

For documentation, please visit the Organized Labor Accountability Project Please compare the SEIU with the other unions listed at this link. I doubt you will find this pattern of cult-like behavior in any other union.

Local 32B-32J: Our union president... conducts general membership meetings in total violation of the LMRDA, our Local's constitution and basic parliamentary procedure. Mr. Fishman... refuses to open the floor for new business, refuses to take unrehearsed questions and refuses to open the floor to independent motions.

Local 32B-32J: ...on Sept. 11, the original primary day, many of the local's staff were forced to volunteer to campaign for mayoral candidate Mark Green. Staffers were allegedly forced to sign vouchers stating they were taking a vacation day so they can go campaign...

Local 79: [Employees] become union members only after working a probationary period of 100 events in a 12-month period. If a worker cannot work 100 events in twelve months, [he] must start over again... "The workers end up perpetually on probation."

Local 1212: In an effort to lure members away from the United Industry Workers Local 424, SEIU Local 1212... claimed to be the largest transportation union in N.Y. state... However, examination of the union's financial reports... destroy the claims. The report shows the union has only 5 officers and employees...[and] has only 94 members. And it is unclear whether any members are in the transportation industry.

CSEA: CSEA has refused to participate in SEIU's unity plan... which required locals to abandon their names and logos, and use the purple and gold SEIU banner. The unity plan also called for fees that would cost CSEA $18 million... Kenny summarized CSEA's complaints: "SEIU has disenfranchised CSEA."

Intercity Janitorial Services: SEIU began attempts to organize Intercity in late 1994. Intercity's president refused to sign... saying it was up to the workers to decide whether to unionize. SEIU's assistant director of organizing repeatedly warned Intercity... to sign the agreement or SEIU would attempt to drive the company out of business...

THE SEIU IS A CULT

[mshurpik]

This is somewhat off topic, but my question is what does your site www.seiu.org [seiu.org] actually stand behind? Is there a page that clearly states your objectives? I see "current events", "get involved", "working family issues", but nothing that really states what your guys want and where you guys are going.

Thank God, one person noticed the obvious. The SEIU is a cult. Read my post further down for a full explanation.

In defense of Flash

[Chente]

You might check with Macromedia, I'm a teacher, and as a teacher I bought Flash MX (It's the new version, the successor to Flash 5. The user interface is much more refined) for $99 USD. They may be willing to swing such a deal for non-profit groups.

On the Plus side:
Flash MX allows Flash files to be indexed on search engines, has accessibility features for vision impaired and handicapped users.

If used well, I don't think there is anything that can beat it for what it does. It's the most commonly used special feature plug-in around and most browsers can view Flash files (According to Macromedia's figures, 98% of all Internet users have the Flash plug-in installed).

File sizes need not be large at all, Flash uses vector graphics rather than raster graphics to save time on downloads (at the expense of CPU cycles on the user machine...the processing power needed to display vector graphics is somewhat higher than displaying raster graphics such as jpeg, gif and png images).

Despite what is being said in reply to your question, not everyone on the internet is an open-source fanatic that avoids Flash for ethical reasons. I would say a very miniscule percentage, and not likely within the scope of your target audience (to the upcoming firestormers, flame me, bake me, scorch me, but it's ture).

Using Flash on a website is not, be definition, bad design. Commerical designers the world over use it extensively, and for a reason.

On the Downside:

Flash has a steep learning cure. It isn't quite vertical, but it's pretty close to it at first. If you're used to vector graphics programs, that will help somewhat. Once you've learned how to draw and animate shapes, text and objects in Flash, you will discover that you have not even begun to scratch the surface, Actionscript is next, and it's enormously powerful. You will need to read several books on both Flash and Actionscript to come to grips with the full potential of the medium, also a good deal of time and practice to master it.

If someone in your group is passionately interested in learning the tool, and creating a great website with it, go for it...but he or she will be outlaying a fair amount of money and time on books and practice. I'll wager they'll get a kick out of it, and in time produce splended results, but Flash can be quite intimidating at first...if not to say opaque and inscrutable. This isn't Powerpoint! I think any tool you use will ultimately require a lot of study however.

Personally, I use it to give presentations to my students on many topics. I have one of my classroom computers hooked up to a very large presentation monitor, but I don't do very much webdesign with it at the moment, although I am making three or four sites using it, they are secondary to my current purpose. For the future, I'm looking toward web-based exercises and testing applications. I use it in place of many other programs, and I use it almost constantly. I've read a couple of books on it, and am reading three more (now mostly dealing with actionscript). I swear by it, but for what I'm doing, it so much more than adaquately fills my needs. It's overkill for me, but overkill is the American way, isn't it?

HTML itself takes quite a bit of education in good webdesign, even if you're using a WYSIWYG HTML editor, so some education is going to be necessary whatever you do.

Are there alternatives to Flash? Adobe's LiveMotion 2 looks interesting...and it will handle Flash SWF format files...but I don't think its userbase is nearly as large, and I feel you're probably better off just using Flash to make Flash files in the end. It does cost USD $199 however (introductiory price).

Adobe and many others are developing SVG, which are scalable vector graphics in XML, and they will do many of the things Flash can do...but I doubt if the SVG plugin is very commonly used at all at the moment. Check it out at www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Overview.htm8

This site contains links to many other articles on the subject, and I think it bears a lot of promise for the future of the web.

I'd vote for Flash, myself, but you're not going to get immediate results from it. I do have high praise for the product, but whatever medium you choose, you're going to have to do the hard work of mastering it. Flash is a means to this end, and then some.

Vince Frost
chente@attbi.com

confusing bad tools with bad authors

[Tablizer]

While I agree that Flash is often misused, it is like any other tool: in the right hands it is great, in the wrong hands it stinks.

I had some great laughs with Flash movie-lets depicting Osama jokes after 9-11. It was a great way to vent frustration at that bast*rd.

Designing "lean" flash and flash-like presentations is an artform that nerds should appreciate the same as writing efficient or "clean" programming code or web pages.

I would like to see an open-source Flash-like tool(s). If anything, I can bust up at more Osama jokes, and maybe make some of my own.

Remember the gif ad of the giant penguin stepping on a Redmond WA company building? Wouldn't you like to see/hear a more detailed version?

You're missing the boat

[doctong]

In typical Slashdot reader's hysteria and zealotry, you're completely missing the boat. Flash is the one chance all you Linux users have to see a non-Microsoft dominated world in the browser UI. Has anyone noticed that Macromedia regularly ports Flash to Linux and that it's BIT FOR BIT COMPATIBLE between Mac, PC and Linux? Tired of "Optimized for IE" pages? Here's your chance.

More importantly, have any of you bothered to check out Flash MX's feature list? Macromedia is trying to use Flash to create an rich application platform and from where I sit, they've hit it right on the market. All the nifty potential of dHTML that Netscape and Microsoft screwed up on have been implemented exceptionally well in Flash. Standardized UI components, full Unicode support, accessibility hooks for non-sighted users, fast XML parsing, direct loading of JPEG and MP3, not to mention direct socket connections so you can write stateful apps. Oh, and did I mention you have BIT FOR BIT COMPATIBILITY between all platforms? (Yes, the MX plugin hasn't been released on Linux yet, but give them a few months. It'll be out soon.) All this and it's bloody fast because you just download tiny vector-based files.

I've been running Linux for years and I'm continually stunned at how short-sided and antagonistic this group is. Macromedia has actually published the SWF spec, and you're still complaining. Can you ever imagine Microsoft publishing the specs to Office? Here you have a chance to see web applications created for you that work as well as they do on Mac and PCs and you're complaining about Macromedia like they're a Microsoft. Open your eyes, read something from other than Slashdot and see that there is life beyond the command-line.

Some reasons why there aren't Flash tools

[Anonymous Coward]

/* I'm involved in a project that's planning to create open source toys for educating people around complicated policy questions ... but we're concerned about the fact that the major Flash development tools cost $500. ... I took a look at Sourceforge, and ... there didn't seem to be any v.1 general development tools. ... If you want to build Flash and you don't want to pay $500, how do you do it? ... And if there aren't any powerful open source tools for it, any thoughts on why?
*/

The AP often uses Flash animations to get a visual point across to its reporters, so while I would prefer you use Java, I can understand your decision to use Flash. Done well, it can lead to an interactive encyclopedia.

However, I don't know of any open source projects that compare to what Macromedia has programmed. Some reasons why include:

-- Flash is a binary technology, which makes programming tools for it more annoying than normal, and slightly raises the bar for entry (binary data isn't normally covered in first year computer science courses);

-- Macromedia believes that freeing the file format will put them out of business, even though many companies have seen increased demand for services when they open their code;

-- The Flash way of doing things is simply different enough from existing projects that more code would have to be written to get something workable -- GIMP and Film GIMP (used for things like Shrek) share a lot of code, but GIMP can't be used to make an Illustrator program because the fundamentals between touching up photos and drawing are too different;

-- Many programmers (like Linus Torvalds) are web-savvy only in the fact they can surf the web and use email -- their creative energy is spent on code, not HTML or other web technologies;

-- Macromedia's halfhearted support for Linux upsets developers enough that they don't have any drive to spread Macromedia's influence.

You may consider having only a few Flash developers, using another technology (like Java or SVG), reconsidering the project's specifications, or living with the few tools that are out there now.

Re:Flash is Style over Substance, Usability Nightm

[John_Booty]

Cripes do you demand information from art galleries?

That's an interesting point. I think it's a matter of taking advantage of the strengths of a particular medium. If you want pretty, why web pages? It's probably one of the least well-suited mediums for whatever aesthetic goal you're trying to achieve.

Now, having said that, playing around with constraints is fun too. I'm a big fan of the music and sound on old(er) video games as well as a lot of minimalist art in general. I dunno, I like that FM synthesis music and those 16-color sprites. So, I guess it's a matter of personal taste.

cracks on effie

[zer0*ryok0]

as far as im aware the way most people make flash sites is to download it from macromedias site and get a crack/serial on efnet or other location

Try Squeak !

[stephanruby]

You've got to try Squeak! It's free, it's open source, it works on all platforms, and it was designed exactely for the purpose you had in mind. It was conceived by some of the best minds at Apple, Xerox Parc, and Disney and I can guarantee you some of its capabilities will blow you away.

http://www.squeak.org/"

From their web site: "With the Squeak programming system, we have made some delightful and powerful educational applets. If you are a student, parent, or teacher, please jump over to www.squeakland.org, and download some great educational projects."

Stephan

Did you even read his request for info?

[Anonymous Coward]

Has the slashdot crowd gone daft? He didn't ask whether he _should_ use flash or the ethics of it. He asked for help from his colleagues. I don't like flash either, but, it does have it's uses. Especially in training environments where the information needs to be more interactive. He has three choices then for the modern browser...

1 - DHTML - ummmm, nightmare.
2 - java - not bad, but too thick to have three whirling circles for a multiple choice online quiz
3 - fast_er than it's equivalents good for non-techies.

Audience, we have to come to realize that not all the world are techies and that not everyone likes lynx for their browser and mutt for their email (i like mutt. mutt good. i use mutt. mutt.....ugg).

So, having said that, try to help him out instead of tearing him down.

Re:Even when using MM products, it's not always id

[civilizedINTENSITY]

True now, perhaps. Gecko is moving towards having SVG, and AOL is moving to gecko. Won't be all that long and SVG will be as standard as javascript support. What then? Still any reason for Flash? Its not as though the user interface for flash was as good as the gimp ;-)

Short sighted coding geeks !

[bushboy]

For those of you complaining about not wanting flash on the web - for christ sake, you are so damn short sighted it's frightening.

Hey - maybe you'd prefer a black and white TV set ?
Or perhaps ditch all your CD's and go back to vinyl ?

If you had your way, nobody would ever leave a bloody command prompt.

I don't lay into coders about how they should conduct thier business and what they should and shouldn't do.

SO LAY OFF THE MULTIMEDIA !!

There are plenty of people who enjoy a media-rich web, so you don't ? - well stick to your text browser and stop whining !

Flash and multimedia are here to stay and will only get better over time.

I can only thank god that you are by far the minority.

LUDDITES !

Re:SVG to flash converter

[millette]

If you can't find a decent flash editor but you find one for svg, then you can probably get away with this converter and end up with flash anyway:
http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/svg2swf/

Eh?

[TheInternet]

Not even /. HTML complies with the W3C standards. W3C is a morgue

Hmmm, I really don't see how W3C is a "morgue," and I don't see how the fact that Slashdot pushes nonconforming documents to browsers as supporting evidence. W3C standards are the best way to create sites that work across all major browsers.

W3C is the source of XML, XHTML and CSS (as well as many others) specs. This is what most people are using now. The fact that not everyone uses it properly is no different from when people write bad C++ code.

- Scott

Re:Eh?

[Pussy Is Money]

Slashdot is supposedly a place where people come to worry about standards. If Slashdot can't be bothered, then who can?

Further, you seem to define "bad code" as code "not approved by W3C". That's exactly the kind of semantics game I have come to expect from adherents to the anemic institution that is the W3C.

In reality there is no "bad C++ code", just stupid applications. The whole notion that everybody should be able to communicate with everybody and that everything should work everywhere is an ideological fantasy with very little grounding in reality or technical necessity.

Flash had the same problem

[TheInternet]

what percentage of gone out of their way to manually download and install Adobe's 2.5 MB SVG browser plugin?

Flash went through this too. If we think Flash has too big of a lead to catch up, I think we could be in pretty big trouble from a competiton standpoint. That's another Windows brewing -- which is great for Macromedia but bad for pretty much everyone else.

Adobe certainly has more clout than many others. Maybe they can make a dent.

- Scott

Hey, wrong question chummer - you're dead!

[Qbertino]

Bad Idea, man. Don't EVER ask a question like that on /., or you'll get fried. 'cuz everybody here knows that "Flash sux(TM)" because Flashsites [insert random website flaw here].
And, by the way, why in hell don't you use HTML 1.1 compliant design, it's all you need. Check out Kornshell and XFree for prime examples of the great webdesign feats achieved in HTML.

To answer your question: I'd predesign templates in Flash 5 and then use ming to modify them. Ming even offers the ability to dynamically insert ActionScript into generated Flash, so it actually is quite powerfull.

Buy the software instead of crying like a baby

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to be able to create things with flash, then stop your stupid whining and get a job and go out and buy the damn software.

Geeez.... This free software revolution is just freaking lame. Paying for things make the economy run and helps people keep their jobs.

Buy a clue and buy the software.

Hate style over substance?

[Arsewiper]

How did you people ever get into cyberpunk? I love flash when it's used right in the same way that I love good special effects in some films and poetic writing in some books. I use it for presentations and it works fine. As for the question - if you can't afford it then don't use it, HTML works fine.

Get it right!

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash should not be used for an information driven, text based site, its ideal for "advertising" sites where image is more important than content.

Like all poweful tools it has a place, and I can think of plenty awful HTML sites as well as plenty of bad Flash sites.

I work as a full time web designer, and use Flash when its best suited to the job (who said Flash has to be animated anyway?) th new version allows on the fly loading of jpg's which will certainly cut the file size down on many of my jobs, and I can create a complete web advert site in less than 200K using flash which is virtually the same size as doing it in HTML (6 pages including images) Load time is aprox the same, its just that it takes place at the beginning rather than individual page loads.

My advice is use open source PHP and MYSQL for a data heavy site, not Flash.

Oh and by the way, Swish may be quick and easy but it creates heavy animations as each frame is a keyframe the same effects can be done in Flash at abut 10% file size, but a little more effort

Why use Flash?

[Anonymous Coward]

The main reason Flash should not be used has already been stated by Anders Schneiderman. The community group folks they want to involve are not already using Flash as a development tool. They should not be expected to learn or buy a tool they are not familiar with. Much time would be spent learning the new tool rather than completing the project.

I also wonder why they want to use Flash for their project. Macromedia Flash does give the author a higher degree of control and many options not available with standard HTML. I was able to complete a monitor test application that consists of many graphical test patterns using Flash that would have been much more difficult to implement using other tools. For those interested, the page is located at www.MonitorsDirect.com/toolkit. While Flash excels at manipulating graphics their project sounds like it primarily involves textual based information. I wonder of what added value using Flash will add to a site that consists of complicated policy questions? If not done properly, this might end up annoying many visitors to the site if it distracts them from retrieving the information they require.

Ummm.. you could pay for it

[Anonymous Coward]

Not for nothing .... but if you're working on a project for a Pharmaceutical company (one of the biggest money market segments in the US)... couldn't you just pay for your friggin software?

Sheeet, that's like complaining that you work for Fleet bank and you don't see why you have to pay for chairs for your desk? Aren't there some free ones out there?

(besides flash sucks)

Siwsh

[remi42]

We use Swish.
It's much easier to learn than Flash. You'll get the first results in half an hour and it costs about US$ 40.

http://www.swishzone.com/

Re:Flash is Style over Substance -- no, it's not

[veddermatic]

HTML is not consistant, Web BROWSERS are consistant... but that is another issue all together =)

I agree that Flash inherits som "usablility issues" if your goal is REPLACING a "normal" HTML page... but for applications that require animtaion (and by require, I do mean *require*, not those godawful 'skip intro' pile of crap every throws up in front of their sites because little Johnny leanred how to make a button in Flash =) and / or do things a normal web page can't do ( there are web-based apps I develop that are impossible to do in DHTML ) in which case you are losing the "this is a web page" metaphor anyway, and getting into "this is software.. it just happens to be deployed in your browser."

Qarbon Viewlet Builder

[big_cat79]

A company called Qarbon makes a product called Viewlet Builder. Basically, using tools similar to Flash, it produces a Java applet to demonstrate something, generally a software application or something like that. You can get it for free with the only caveat being it will have a banner ad for their company at the top. It's relatively easy to pick up, provides nice VCR/CD Player-like controls, and there is no need for a plug-in on the user side.

Flash is a tool

[Anonymous Coward]

And like any other it has it's uses. Every tool has a good acceptible use.

That having been said, most of the time flash isn't used properly. Before development begins one should ask themselves, is this necessary, is this worthwhile and will this work.

Now, whether this is true of the project in question, the developer will have to decide.

However, it should be known that flash does make a great educational tool. It provides an interactive environment equiped with sound and visual stimulation. As any psychologist will tell you, hands on experience and interaction are key to the learning process. As well, audio and visual cues enhance pnemonic learning.

I personally don't see the rejection that stems from the open source community.
Perhaps, it's all the flash enabled spam out there.

Sounds, images and interactivity?

[metamatic]

Oooh, advanced stuff. Pity you can do it using CSS, ECMAScript and HTML, without needing Flash.

Re:Flash is Style over Substance -- no, it's not

[veddermatic]

http://www.eskimospy.com/contentPages/phone.html

It prints, if you use your back button, you go to the page you were on before. It's easy to write a text search in Flash.

Have a nice day

you could get parts from jgenerator

[rawdirt]

jgenerator is an open source project on slashdot. It provides the functionallity of (expensive) Macromedia Generator. In order to accomplish this it has to understand flash. Not a development environment, but a core code toolkit for building one?

Re: you could get parts from jgenerator

[rawdirt]

sorry, it's a sourceforge project.

duh.

no it's not

[GCP]

Nice guess, but not correct. Yahoo doesn't use techies as Web designers. They gave that up in early Tim Koogle days.

You may like the design, but that doesn't mean they let programmers design their pages.

The look comes from their early adoption of a pay-per-view advertising business model, which happened when the business people took over control from the founding techies. The more ad views per second, the greater the revenue, so get the pages up FAST, and move them thru to other sub-services with more targeted ads ASAP. No dawdling on the home page, because the higher rates come from the more targeted internal ads.

The techies at Yahoo don't do page content or design. That's the job of the "producers", who get their orders from the business people.

Re:no it's not

[johnnyb]

Not using techies for design does not mean that they aren't doing what is basically a techie-friendly design. Yahoo!'s and Google's designs are among the best of the internet, because they allow you to do what you want without getting in the way. The design is flexible and easy to configure, and is nice-looking. I'm sure they used designers - just clueful ones.

Thanks for the help (from Anders Schneiderman)

[anderss]

I just wanted to thank the many people who posted really helpful advice. It was great to see that there are some open source options if we do some Flash work for our educational simulations/toys, and it was helpful to be reminded just how much Flash can be misused and abused.

Most of all, thanks for letting me know about SVG. I was sure we'd end up having to just use Java, which as a tool for designing really enticing interfaces leaves a lot to be desired. I've downloaded a bunch of tools for and information about SVG, and I'm looking forward to taking it out for a test drive.

Sometime in the next week I'm going to be meeting with the Higher Ups about open source. The help I got here will be Exhibit A of why the open source world is such an amazing place to be and why we should join & start contributing to it.

Anders Schneiderman
Information Manager
SEIU International

Why would anybody want to use flash?

[mal0rd]

I don't know. I mean it doesn't even work in Lynx. Go Here

The real issue is accessibility

[dsoltesz]

I'm all for Flash. The arguments about what "geeks" want aren't important. Yes, adding animation and interactivity to a website can help users learn and comprehend the information.

But, you must supply the same information in an accessible format, and that is not Flash, especially for the audience your site will have. Go ahead and use Flash, but make sure you supply the same information in an accessible format. Navigation and interactivity must be usable from both keyboard and mouse. All the text must be readable by text readers. Users must be able to have the ability to stop the animation and be given an unlimited amount of time to interact with the information (e.g. automatic slideshow should have a "manual" option).

I don't know if you've taken all this into consideration, but here are some links that will help you address accessibility issues:

• W3C WAI: Web Accessibility Initiative
• Section 508: Government Accessibility Laws and Guidelines
• UseIt.com: Jakob Neilsen's Usability Site
• Usable Web: Links about Web Usability

I'm a geek. I think Flash rocks (I don't use it myself). Sometimes the browser I am using is not the latest greatest Mozilla/Netscape/IE/Opera -- it's Lynx.

Disabling ActiveX

[Hemi Rodner]

Yes, it turns off flash, but it displays an annoying msgbox for EACH flash plugin which can't display:

"Your current security settings prohibit running ActiveX controls on this page. As a result, the page may not display correctly".

If there's more than one flash control on the page, you must click on OK in each box. You can't just repeatedly press ESC and close all the damned boxes.

Now try disabling ActiveX and then going to a page full of stuff like this..