To flash or not to flash that is the question April 27
In the recent years flash has come under fire from accessibility and usability experts. I feel that flash gets a some bad wrap. While some of the arguements are valid I don’t feel that we should just opt to not use it.
I thought that I would highlight some of the good aspects and missconceptions of flash as well as some of the new technology that has some serious potentail to contributing to the future of the web.
When looking at when to use flash you should look at a few things.First you have to look at what is the value of using this technology. here are some great examples of when flash would be a great solution to use.
Integrated video: this has become a huge selling point for flash with its high ubiquity on browsers and now with flash 8 it is unparreled in what it can achieve with video. Some of the great features for video in flash are alpha transparency( for using blue screening and green screeening), skining the player with your own style, custom shaped video so you are not tied to a specific form factor, flash overlay to add aditional functionality to the video.
Interaction: Another one of flashes strong points is its ability to create interactions with your users. Don’t under estimate the power of being able to think out of the box with interaction. This is a great way to visually show your users presentations and how stuff works. Also with its powerful scripting language you could also provide complicated equations and graphs to illustrate your point. You can also update those results without refreshing the screen.
Shattering myths
Flash can not use the back button
In flash you actually can enable use of the back button. Application developers in flash will often leave this feature in active as it can actually confuse the user in complex application.
Deep linking
Many people don’t believe that you can not have a link to a section within a site using a url. this is actually false and it has been for some time now.