Comments on: The Case Against Adobe Flash

By: CharlotteiQ

CharlotteiQ — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 23:14:37 +0000

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By: TypeSett

TypeSett — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 19:06:54 +0000

@Randy — I agree wholeheartedly. I was at a Google event last night and this guy was making apps in Flash because it was easier to be cross-browser compliant. I asked him what the trouble was and it turns out he’s too lazy or doesn’t know how to professionally program front-end web graphics. Flash allows him to be “snazzy” in a WYSIWYG way. However, his argument made little sense because he had a lot of trade-offs with using Flash as well. IMO, he would have been better off avoiding adding that extra Flash variable into his app mix.

By: Randy

Randy — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 14:42:28 +0000

I’m at the point now where I’m spending my time searching the web for “Complaints against Flash”. I did this to see if I was the only frustrated designer who after designing several Flash sites with earlier versions of Flash, found it impossible to go further with any of the updates offered by Adobe! In one case, Adobe went backwards when they decided to return designer friendly features to an upgrade after removing them in an earlier version. I’m assuming complaints ran ramp-id! I’ve been forcing myself to TRY to learn actionscript but so far it hasn’t paid off. I still hold onto Flash 8 to do most of my work. What was once designer friendly is now “Designer enemy”. There is so much time spent learning the language that design time is neglected, hence projects are cancelled, downgraded or re-evaluated. Flash at one time was a unique solution for designers seeking to wow customers and easily create interactive marvels with a designers touch. No more. I could also raise an argument for letting other programs go by the wayside as well, GoLive is at the top. I’m disappointed that Flash is no longer as user friendly as it once was but at least I still have Photoshop and Illustrator which have maintained a usability throughout the years.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 20:52:28 +0000

Good post. I think my biggest take-away was right up at the top:

“While I still think Flash has its place, I’m not promoting it or recommending its usage to my clients if other more straight-forward and functional options exist.”

I think the majority of the time, Flash is not the appropriate solution. When it is, then by all means, run with it. But in my opinion, Flash has become an expensive, marginal, niche tool with limited application.

By: Design Ideas

Design Ideas — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 08:47:47 +0000

Great article. I want to say that Flash is best tool for interactive and information design solutions. The limits are imagination

By: admin

admin — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 07:06:42 +0000

@TheRegge

Thank you for your opinion. You basically summed up my entire attitude.

By: admin

admin — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 06:54:16 +0000

@Evan

Thank you for adding perspective to the conversation. I totally support Flash gurus. The world needs you guys to develop QUALITY Flash content. My argument was more in line with @TheRegge (one post below). It’s simply not worth the effort for most developers to keep up with the Flash when you can better use that bandwidth to be more productive in other areas. It’s not a everyday tool but it requires constant tool sharpening.

What you designed there is perfect use-case for Flash.

By: TheRegge

TheRegge — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 04:33:12 +0000

Very good case. I worked hard to learn AS2, then AS3, and then I don’t use it often enough to make I worth my time as a freelancer. Clients keep asking for Flash when I could do the job as well or sometimes better with HTML/CSS/JS. Certainly faster. How to educate them is a valid question, because at the end of the day I need the job…

By: Evan

Evan — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 02:20:47 +0000

I still rather disagree, and not just because I have taken the time to keep up with Flash. Web technologies are getting there, but they’re not there yet.

In particular, heavily graphical content is very difficult to do without using Flash. The advent of the canvas tag, and (to a lesser extent) CSS3 Animations, point the way towards replacing Flash. But CSS3 animations are Webkit-only, and canvas is still not implemented in IE, and moreover, lots of people are still working with the staggeringly sluggish JavaScript engines in IE 6 and 7, which make animation a painful mess.

The work I do is interactive data graphics (for example, http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/11/insurance_market.html). It’d be technically possible to do that using JavaScript, SVG or Canvas, the Raphael library, HTML, and CSS, but it’d be a nasty, bespoke mess that didn’t run in Internet Explorer (i.e. half the web). With Flash, the whole thing is packaged up into a tidy independent SWF, driven by a data file that non-programmers can edit and update without needing to bother me.

I’m optimistic that some day I’ll be able to replace that SWF with a similarly tidy JavaScript file, but the day is (sadly) years away–and every major browser release that doesn’t contain canvas and SVG support, doesn’t have a standard video format, etc. kicks it a little further down the road.

By: Twitted by html5watcher

Twitted by html5watcher — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:49:51 +0000

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