Do you think Flash websites will become more accepted?

Sirrel Squirrel · 14 Aug 2006 at 22:00

Do you think that websites made entirely in Flash will become more acceptable as more and more websites start to use Flash video, more people will have Flash installed so won't have any hassle trying to view a website made entirely out of Flash?

JonC · 14 Aug 2006 at 22:09

No. Just no.

Al Vallario · 14 Aug 2006 at 22:11

No. Not at all. No way whatsoever.

The fact that some people don't have flash installed is the least of many, many problems with making websites entirely from flash. Avoid at all costs.

tom_e · 14 Aug 2006 at 22:12

no mostly due to the fact they are unaccesable to anyone with disabilitys or impearments(sp)

Sirrel Squirrel · 14 Aug 2006 at 22:40

lol pretty big no then

I'm making a site, which is in normal html/css and I'm going to have videos on there, these have been encoded as Flash video so I was thinking of making a little Flash file, where people can select and play the video like a playlist, would that be acceptable?

zetec452 · 14 Aug 2006 at 22:41

It couldn't be more the opposite. Flash was all the rage until more browsers hit the market. Linix is getting more popular without any out the box native support.

Augmented · 15 Aug 2006 at 00:49

JonRohan said:
Linix is getting more popular without any out the box native support.

Well neither does Windows - you have to install the Flash client on both. The big Linux issue is that they're not releasing a version 8 client, and that's becoming particularly infuriating as more Flash developers are using Flash 8 without regard for backwards compatability. Not surprising, as I don't believe compatability -or any word ending in ability- is in the vocabulary of any Flash developer

.

robmiller · 15 Aug 2006 at 03:51

Full Flash websites? No. Websites using Flash? Yes--especially since Flash has apparently become the de facto standard for cross-platform, web-based movie-playing (see Google Video, YouTube etc.--and their many clones).

chesterstu · 15 Aug 2006 at 09:22

blitz2163 said:
no mostly due to the fact they are unaccesable to anyone with disabilitys or impearments(sp)

This is not strictly true as Flash would allow you to build a UI with more varying colours, sound and a few extra features for those with visual impearments and general disabilities

shifty_uk · 15 Aug 2006 at 09:31

Flash should be used to enhance a site, not build one.
Again, as said, it's all down to accessability. Flash comes with all sorts of problems aswell, for example not being able to scroll in different browsers. Browsers crashing etc. I don't think it will ever be fully accepted as a platform to build site's on, but it will continue to increase as the plugin becomes more popular.

Mr_L · 15 Aug 2006 at 09:39

I agree that it has become useful in terms of allowing video to become cross-platform compatible. Although, this doesn't seem to be the case with Linux if flash-whores ignore the fact that anything past V7 can't be viewed properly by Linux users.

So with respect to videos I think it has become useful in providing content, but I still don't think it's acceptable, or ever will be, to make websites entirely out of flash.

nav... · 15 Aug 2006 at 10:21

making a website entirely out of flash is pretty much on par with making a website out of one big image with an image map.

toosepin · 15 Aug 2006 at 12:20

nav... said:
making a website entirely out of flash is pretty much on par with making a website out of one big image with an image map.

Those were the days

Mickey · 15 Aug 2006 at 12:42

nav... said:
making a website entirely out of flash is pretty much on par with making a website out of one big image with an image map.

You mean that's a bad idea?

robmiller · 15 Aug 2006 at 14:43

chesterstu said:
This is not strictly true as Flash would allow you to build a UI with more varying colours, sound and a few extra features for those with visual impearments and general disabilities

But visually impaired users don't use graphical browsers, they use screen readers to read content to them. The Flash format does not translate to the screen reader format at all, not even slightly.

punky_munky · 15 Aug 2006 at 16:42

nav... said:
making a website entirely out of flash is pretty much on par with making a website out of one big image with an image map.

Or making a giant Java applet of a website. Madness.

Mattus · 15 Aug 2006 at 20:25

Flash websites don't work because they break the unwritten (and written!) rules of the Internet. Anyone who's spent a decent length of time online expects sites to respond in particular ways.

back and forward buttons navigate your path around the site
links load a new page and provide visual feedback when hovered / visited
text tends to load first, then images
mousewheel and PgUp/PgDown/arrow keys used for scrolling
site resizes properly with browser windows

Flash breaks all these rules and more. When you expect these things to just work whilst online and suddenly they don't, it's infuriating.

Van Hellseek · 15 Aug 2006 at 20:31

Sirrel Squirrel said:
Do you think that websites made entirely in Flash will become more acceptable as more and more websites start to use Flash video, more people will have Flash installed so won't have any hassle trying to view a website made entirely out of Flash?

They might become more acceptable if people stop making them so horrible to navigate. I was on the VtM:Bloodlines official website earlier, and it took me a good half hour to figure out that what I was looking for wasn't even on their website. :/