Rate Flash!

[Dr. Web]

Flash.....some people love it, some hate it. Its the waiting...., and then the long intro with no skip button.

But wait....not all flash websites are like that.......

some are actually good.
My point in motion....

www.eye4u.com
http://design.edge.net/predators
www.crazyraven.com/dwo.htm

[huythuy]

may have addition option Dr.Web :)

x Flash and HTML will live together ( i checked it)

[whkoh]

Flash is good for most people, but not for all. Some of us do not have high-end PCs, or do not want Flash, so they cannot experience Flash.

[Goldilocks]

Flash is good when it is used for a valid reason. Filling a site full of flash animations just because they're "cool" is a bad idea and annoying for users as many are slow to download, if they download at all.

There may only be 2% of internet users that can't view flash but 2% of the whole world is an awful lot of people.

Maybe once the novelty wears off there will be less misusage and hopefully, as huythuy said, it will live together with html happily ever after.

[Wabanaki Web]

I send e-cards and like the flash ones. So for entertainment type sites flash is good. I have seen a few sites where you can't figure out what the site is about by the flash movie, but not only that, the rest of the design is trying to be so artsy and cutting edge you can't even tell what the links are to. I forget the name of the site, but I was sent there to look for interesting backgrounds. I spent maybe 5 minutes there and couldn't find them, so I finally gave up. I think that some of these flash designers are so busy amusing themselves that they give very little consideration to the end user.

[Dr. Web]

Originally posted by Wabanaki Web
I have seen a few sites where you can't figure out what the site is about by the flash movie, but not only that, the rest of the design is trying to be so artsy and cutting edge you can't even tell what the links are to. I think that some of these flash designers are so busy amusing themselves that they give very little consideration to the end user.


This is an unfortunate truth for flash right now. But, HTML pages also started out in much the same way.... the technology being misused/ abused before some good came out of it. There are some clean flash websites running today, and we can expect flash to continue towards an agreeable end.

[Chrisp]

If you've been to the allaire site recently you've seen how great the merger between the two is. I've never been a big fan of flash but when it's used right there's nothing that can compare!

[Dr. Web]

I couldn't have said it better!

[dmm1285]

I say about 75% of flash things/sites could be done better with javascript. However, whenyou go to a site like eyes4u.com, you are just blown away. These kind of sites transend the typical web site surfing. They are no longer web pages; theyt are webn expriernces.

[dmm1285]

that eyes4u site is undoubetly one of the best sites Ive evr been to. Im bobbing my head to their little music thing, I cant stop touching the links, evenm though Ive already seen all the sutff on the site, its pehnomenal.

[Dr. Web]

Originally posted by dmm1285
I say about 75% of flash things/sites could be done better with javascript

No way. Simply put, js or animated gifs are jumpy, frame by frame switches. They are far from a well done flash animations.

Personally, I could design a flash rollover effect that could not be replicated with JS/ animated gif without using up a huge filesize, and sacrificing a lot of quality. The flash counterpart would be a fraction of the filesize. And.... over 90% of surfers can view flash animations.... more than can view JAVA applets.

Also, have you looked at a dvd lately? They are using flash/ director combos to create the interfaces that prelude the actual movie. Its great, because flash has transcended the 'web only' boundries....and grabbed a huge market!

[Roberts467]

Have to agree with Dr.Web. Flash when used correctly can be pretty awesome and can definitely out perform javascript. Still javascripting is very useful and can be used modified slightly in Flash.



Used correctly flash offers more than html and javascript combined. More interactivity, better graphics compression, and full sound.



I built the www.trekfactoryteam.com site to load as fast as an html site. The opening Flash movie loads separately so you can still navigate the site.



My personal site is a showcase so download times are a little longer. www.xccelerant.com

[Dr. Web]

Roberts,

I only spent a couple of minutes looking over the Trek site, but the quality is great. I am looking forward to spending some time in your personal site looking at your other samples.

Maybe you should put the Trek site up in our website review section. It's my opinion that your site is top tier, and better yet: such a good end product was developed in Flash.

We get a lot of people who see flash as a gimmick for creating banners and such, it would be nice to show them just how a well done Flash website can out-do a static version.

BTW, Welcome to the forums!

[Modulus]

Well, just thought I'd make some points.

If you guys think that eye4u is good, and it is, just remember that this site is 2 years old, which in Internet time, is ancient.

I personally like http://www.lookandfeel.com as my favorite flash site.

I do, think, that the web will inevitably change into a different format, such as like our friend here, flash.

I don't use flash myself, Im a regulare notepad and photoshop guy, but I can definitly see flash's vector graphics and actionscripting taking over the oldstyle HTML as we call it.

While I still see the backend programming staying the same for quite a few years more, I see flash will very slowly monopolize the frontend area of the internet.

Okay, that all probably sounded incredibly stupid, but oh well, it's late, and i wanted to voice my feelings :P

[Roberts467]

Dr. Web,

Thanks for the compliment. I took your advice and posted it on the web site review section. The other thing I left out about the site is that it is now updated by someone with very little web experience. They just upload new text files with a certain file name and the Flash files import the text. Very low maintenance.

As for the ongoing discussion concerning Flash, I really don't see it taking over the web and supplanting HTML. The two actually work better together. But like I said before there are some aspects of Flash that lend itself quite well to sites that want more interactivity. Without long download times.

As for eye4u.com being old, everytime I see a '68 Mustang Fastback I have to stop and stare. Its old but there's something about the design...


Other good flash sites;
www.derbauer.de - long download but interesting.
www.2advanced.com
http://www.rayoflight.net/
http://www.hipnotika.com/

[kdjoergensen]

The web is getting closer and closer to fully animated contents, e.g. even popup advertisements are now in flash. The look and feel is so much better than the static page. Surely to be a 'must' for the web in future for web-pages targetting regular audiences (e.g. not html programmers etc).

Sure you can copy effects of flash with javascript and for simple rollover effects I agree javascript is today superior ..

slowly, however, the web is going toward an animated look and feel and I am sure flash will win out here.

I like it although I have no clue how to program in it today..

[eelectrick]

flash is fun to use and definitely easier than Director which I've slogged away at for years. The fact that its so fun probably makes a lot of designers overuse it when they would be better off with HTML and a bit of flash here and there. The main thing though is that flash takes a while to download over a 33 - 56k modem, which over here in Europe most of us are stuck with and will be for a long time.
The other thing is that most flash sites just aren't organised very well, they forget that usability and getting the info you need is why people use the web in the first place.

[Dr. Web]

I'd have to say that the last comments are all too much the truth. Many flash developers see "animation' as a replacement for info and organization.

I do like fresh approaches to pages.... but usability has to be a concern.

Quote of the day:
"good design does not replace good content."

[ASHORY]

I think that there will be a stronger Maromedia products better than flash

Macromedia may produce flash programs supporting many options better than today
but i think that Macromedia will stay in the future ..

[Gregory]

flash... i only use flash to make little cartoon animations, mostly becuase im not good enough to make a flash website.

i dont think right now actionscript is powerful enough to rule out HTML, PHP, etc, so I think Flash and HTML will be integrated in the future.

my opinion-- right now, only personal sites, cartoon/game/kids sites, and proffessional web design sites should really use flash... otherwise, i sometimes see it as an annoyance.

[fredricknish]

With broadband users on the rise Flash has a great future.In the future Flash would be a great tool for delivering multimedia rich content over the web.

My guess is that in a few years Flash will have a standalone application for surfing Flash sites (100% flash - no html)

[Gritz]

The referenced sites are so impressive I'm almost embarrassed to ask my question ... but here goes anyway. I want my site to allow the viewing of a 9 minute video -online. I encoded a half dozen examples in a small window keeping the size down so as to enable the video to play as smoothly as possible using selectable connection speeds. I used XP's Windows Movie Maker 2 to encode each and came up with the following selections. 1. Connect at 38Kbps which takes 8 minutes to load on a dialup!!(2.9MB file size 2. Connect at 48 Kbps which takes 12 minutes (too long)(3.5MB) Both of these are in small windows too. 3. DSL connect speed @ 150 Kbps ..(11 MB) about 15 sec to load and 4. Satellite connect at 340 Kbps (24 MB), also about 15 sec to load and start viewing. Since I wanted something that would load faster on the lower Dial-up speed I downloaded Macromedia 7 Trial and created a video flash (sfw)... the file size being about 16 MB. I now believe that I'm being unrealistic with the video flash! It works fine on my computer, but never finishes loading online and is never viewable. Maybe Flash is not really appropriate for video? I thought Flash was supposed to preload and start playing shortly after selection? This is cut & paste for me (a newbie) so maybe I've screwed it up some way? Anyway ... all suggestions and help greatly appreciated. My referenced file is attached (chagrin)

[PetiteAmoureuse]

Well, I think flash will play a huge part in the future of not just webdesign, but all kinds of multimedia... I dunno if any of you watch american idol... but on that World Idol thing, Simon (the mean judge) was saying comparing Kelly Clarkson to the other countries' idol winners was like comparing donkeys to a racing horse (kelly being the 'racing horse') and I think thats kind of how it is when comparing javascript & html with flash... But I have seen flash abused in many cases where the site was either just too much and defied all aspects of 'good design' and I have seen sites that were done inflash that should have been just html and javascript - (www.mandileigh.com)...

but, when used appropriately, nothing is more jaw-dropping than a good flash site... of course there will be people that can't view it, but thats true with just about everything... and if they have such a crappy computer that they can't even install a flash viewer, then they're probably not the 'online' type anyway... even my old computer from like 1996 that had a 2 gb hardrive and windows 95 could view flash.... lol...

Anyway, here are some good flash sites that I've found...
http://www.menupalace.com/menupalace/internetservices/portfolio_websitesflash.asp - this site has a bunch of flash sites that are really cool.... :)