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Flash Makes Splash in Gadgets
An anonymous reader writes "Flash is winding its way into a growing number of gadgets and devices, according to an article at DeviceForge. Although Macromedia normally requires licensees to sign up for massive quantities of licenses before they can build its 'Embedded Macromedia Flash Player' into devices, the company as authorized NEC subsidiary Vibren to supply embedded Flash licenses in lower volumes to makers of POS (point-of-sales/service) terminals, personal organizers, PC replacements, small-screen airline entertainment devices, real-time securities trading terminals, digital signs, and more. Brace yourself for some juiced-up electronic billboards!"
I'm cutting and pasting a journal entry I made a while back because I see a lot of the same crap that people like tcomplain about when it comes tflash on slashdot whenever there is a story about flash. I'm a flash developer and it does keep food on the table; however, just because it's a good deal of what I dfor a living doesn't mean I think it's perfect.
Just tvent a little bit, I really hate flash sometimes. There are smany things that make it a pain tdeal with, it's not funny. Yesterday it was the sandbox issue where flash can't access data outside it's own domain, and today it was the realization that flash is just todamn slow tuse for fast paced action games. Here is my top 10 reasons I love and hate flash:
Top 10 Reasons I Hate Flash:
10. Poor buffering of streaming mp3's
9. Inability for projectors tlaunch files outside of the root directory of the Flash movie
8. Lack of "onload" feature for Loadvariables()
7. Lack of videsupport
6. Separation of Movieclip and Button class objects
5. Unexpandable work area
4. Usage of flash in advertisements
3. Even after you set line tnone, it goes back tblack once you click something
2. New "sandbox" security protocol in Flash MX that is retroactive
1. Extremely slow screen re-draw
Top 10 Reasons I Love Flash:
10. Easy tunderstand
9. Built in sound mixer
8. Scalable vector graphics that can be drawn on the fly
7. Ability tstream mp3's and pull JPG's in on the fly
6. Ability tpull/push data from server based applications
5. Ability texport as a stand alone executable
4. XML Socket support
3. Support for PNG's and TRUE alpha channels
2. Most cross platform multimedia development tool there is
1. Actionscript, Actionscript, Actionscript
On this whole note, here is an open letter I wrote about a year agon the adoption of flash for front ends tnew web technologies. It's fairly venomous, but it was sinta hostile email I had gotten from a company I was freelanceing for at the time.
Flash Findings:
Debunking the Myths
What follows is a slightly modfied rant that I sent as an email ta client concerned about using flash for a front end interface ttheir flasgship product as opposed tDHTML. Hopefully this can provide some insight tpeople that don't fully understand the potental uses for Flash and are currently believing some common myths as truths:
Most of the things that concern clients and other developers about the prospect of using Flash for a project are either untrue or not of concern. Please excuse the rant/angry tone of this -- but there are alot of misconceptions about Flash that make me angry. I've been hearing them a while from people on slashdot. There is alot of ignorance surrounding Flash and I'm here tdebunk this.
1. Closed source
Not entirely true. The Flash file structure is actually quite open and the specifications are available freely from Macromedia. Anyone can write a program that creates flash files or a flash player. As example, there is Adobe Livemotion (www.adobe.com) that creates flash content. If flash is closed source in a traditional Microsoft sense, why does Macromedia's biggest competitor, Adobe, have a flash authoring tool? There are alsother open source flash authoring environments available, just poke around freshmeat.net and you can see for yourself. It may not be full on GPL/BSD open source, but the specifications are available -- unlike almost every other closed source format/application out there today. This is a non-issue anyway. Is your project itself open source? Didn't think so.
2. Breaks Browser paradigm
Back/Forward buttons
You shouldn't even have a need thit back in a browser any more. The web has seriously advanced since the days of HTML 1.0 and Mosaic. If a site is laid out correctly, all desired information should be availble tthe user with one mouse click, removing the need for a back b
"The Wright brothers were the first to fly with a heavier-than-air machine, but boy did they have a lousy plane"
Finally a Flash rant that doesn't come from a total dickhead.
/. .
But you've got some serious wrongs in your rant. Haven't got much time so I'll speed through a few (my refererenc is Flash MX 2004 Pro, btw):
10. Poor buffering of streaming mp3's
Completely wrong. Works perfectly if you write your own AS 2-liners that control delayed playback dependent on bandwidth. Which is what you should do in the first place anyway.
8. Lack of "onload" feature for Loadvariables()
Bad example. Loadvariables() is an ancient artifact thats only left in for compatability reasons. Load an XML document with your stuff (loadvariables() sucks anyway. I remember hacking a dynamic flash app with that in Flash 5. Creepy.) and you can check loadstatus and totalload anytime you want.
7. Lack of videsupport
Incorrect. Importing into swf doesnt bloat Quicktimes and FLV is the best streaming format out there. Or do you want the plugin to be a full range video player? Isn't that a bit much for a VM with so much features allready? I'd rather keep VM size down then support all video formats in existance. We get new ones every odd week anyway. No use trying to keep up with that.
6. Separation of Movieclip and Button class objects
Yeah, shure. Stop the nitpick allready. Heavens crickey, that button thing is a built-in for those who are used to clicking together their apps by hand since Flash 3 using the old style paradigms of keeping your brain switched off. AS is a full range PL with a set of libs. Don't like them? Ignore them and build your own.
THat's for a quick comment of mine. Aside from that: Congrats to a rather educated remark on flash in a long time. Rare thing here on
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca