Poll: Will You Be Creating Entire Sites in Flash MX in 2002?

A poll on GraphicsNew.com asks the musical question: Will You Be Creating Entire Sites in Flash MX in 2002?

GraphicsNews

A poll on GraphicsNew.com asks the musical question: Will You Be Creating Entire Sites in Flash MX in 2002?

GraphicsNews

yup I will be. Push the technology, today most people are not afraid to dowload a plug in and if you do it right you can just simply lead them to the download process.

Will I use everything on every site, NO!!!! just because a Corvette has a great sound system, bad ass engine and a host of other features, you dont turn them all on all at once and use them to the hilt! You use them when appropriate. So if it calls or could use the MX feature then I will use the MX player if not then I will build it to work as low and backward as possible. Regards, Bill

Macromeidians 1:1

In the begining the web was dark and void, and the net was with out color or shape, Then there was a Flash and Life came to the web and vision became reality.

People who complain about having to download a plugin to view the latest and greatest content kinda bug me. The same goes for poeple who complain about long downloads on 3-5 minute animation when they are using a dial-up.

Here's the deal (in my little mind): If you want to watch HBO, you gotta spring for cable. If you want to watch DVDs, you buy a DVD player. Common sense to most people. But when it comes to the web, people want to view the latest and greatest without springing for the high speed modem. And to complain about a REALLY small plug-in that is absolutely FREE! Why the nerve. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

Of course, when clients are the ones with the bandwidth/plug-in issues, if I can't convince them otherwise, I just shut my fat yap and publish back to flash 4. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img] Cheers, Dain

DainBramaged
www.dainbramagedesign.com

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Dain Bramaged:

Here's the deal (in my little mind): If you want to watch HBO, you gotta spring for cable. If you want to watch DVDs, you buy a DVD player. Common sense to most people. But when it comes to the web, people want to view the latest and greatest without springing for the high speed modem. And to complain about a REALLY small plug-in that is absolutely FREE! Why the nerve. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hehehe...sure enough...but look at it this way - DVDs are pretty pervasive now - seems like most people have a player or access to a player. But if someone wants to go rent a movie, they may have a DVD player or a VCR. Sure, most people will want to watch it on DVD, but if they only have a VCR, that doesn't mean they won't want to see the movie. So the movie distribution companies release it on both DVD and VHS. If they didn't, they'd lose out on a HUGE part of their audience. If I want to watch a movie with better picture, better sound, etc., yeah, sure I'll pick up a DVD player. But if I don't give a rat's azz about the extras, I'll just pick up a VCR for $25 at Wal-Mart. In the same way, if I want to see a Flash movie with the coolest stuff, I'll get the latest Flash plugin...but if I rarely (or never) go to see this stuff, I won't get the plugin. Companies are usually very aware of that, and they don't want to turn those audiences away.

More than that, there are people out there who have no idea where or how to get the plugin. And when you try and help them by trying to auto-install it, if they see a popup (even a benign one) they panic and think they're being hit by virii. Trust me - people like that do exist (ask anyone who works in the medical profession - half of the people working on the coolest bio-engineering things you've ever seen have no idea what a plugin is, let alone why they'd ever want something named after a weird guy on the street showing you his hoohoo).

Finally, right now people are scared of technology. If you order cable, you're pretty certain you're not going to screw up your couch or anything else in your house. However, if you download new software, you don't know if it's going to screw up anything else on your drive. Well, Mac users know that (lucky bastards), but Windows users are so used to installing something and having the rest of their machine screwed up. If you'd just gone to some site like www.lop.com wouldn't you be a bit scared of anything that wanted to install itself on your machine?

Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying these people who are trying to stay with the old technology are right for doing so - I'm just saying that there are valid reasons why people would be scared. A bit of education would be nice in making them understand what's okay to install and what's not, but until the general populace reaches that level of understanding, we're stuck with old plugins. Blah.


hth,
Deep (just a guy)
<font face="arial" size="2">
Pradeep Kumar Nair, B.Math
Interactive Developer
http://www.bluespark.com
ICQ: 39102360
</font>

BTW, in response to Chris's post, I will be creating some sites all in MX. Of course, I'll also be creating sites entirely in Shockwave. But it all depends on the audience. If it's for a client, I'll be doing the same thing Dain Bramaged is: swallowing my tongue and exporting for Flash 4...[sigh]


hth,
Deep (just a guy)
<font face="arial" size="2">
Pradeep Kumar Nair, B.Math
Interactive Developer
http://www.bluespark.com
ICQ: 39102360
</font>

Hoo boyo, this one is a tuff one...

On one hand, the latest in tech is always pushed on us because otherwise the cash machine would most certainly dry up...

On the other hand, does everyone truly need/want to be subjected to continual advances, when in all reality, there are many areas within the existing technologies that need addressing first and foremost...security being on the top of the list, along with more stable operating systems, and better plug in technologies... [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

I for one, enjoy a flash/shockwave style of site when it is done right...however, I also enjoy straight forward, good ole fashioned html sites...do I want the whole web to convert to just one or the other? No way...I would much prefer choices to remain the order of the web...

Just my 2 cents [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Chris, good to see you're still around!

Your poll: yes - and no. I'm working on a nifty standalone application now, using Flash MX and the Projector feature for making executables. And I can well imagine I will be ditching HTML and make an all-Flash site. Though functional and readable!

K
www.xaraxone.com/FeaturedArt/kn/
www.klausnordby.com/xara

Of course there are people who can't get high speed connection ... who live outside of major centres.

I'm tending not to like a lot of flash sites I've seen ... the designers spend most of their time making some funky interface which takes 5 minutes to even comprehend where the buttons are. Of course a site done with some taste and class would be nice [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

David K ... www.dkingdesign.com http://www.dkingdesign.com/stuff/signature.jpg

When I first realized MX was about to come out, I was very skeptical about using it. In my experience, people are VERY skittish about downloading plugins -- not for any rational reasons, but they still don't like to download them. I'm not talking about designers or programmers. Of course WE all get the latest toys. I'm talking about Mr. Joe Client.

I remember when Flash first came out, a lot of my clients would say, please don't put any Flash on my site! And for good reason: THEIR clients would complain, saying that they couldn't view the site. They couldn't view the site because they didn't have the plugin. Which is annoying but totally out of my control.

Flash 4 (and then Flash 5) plugins finally became so widely distributed that it's now become very safe to use them, BUT THIS IS BECAUSE THEY CAME BUNDLED WITH WINDOWS 98 and WINDOWS XP -- NOT BECAUSE PEOPLE DOWNLOADED THE PLUGIN! It seems like it takes a new OS distribution to get people to upgrade -- or the plugin can be distributed with tons and tons of CD-ROMS (which worked for Acrobat Reader and Quicktime, but seems an unlikely vehicle for the Flash MX browser plugin).

Yes, I know the plugin is supposed to update itself, but MANY people select NO when asked if they want to upgrade. Who knows why? Maybe they're afraid it will damage their computer or something.

You can say, screw those people, but if your client WANTS those people to visit his site, he'll be pretty pissed off if you make it difficult for them.

BUT --

MX is so cool and wonderful that I'm going to do everything I can to promote it and use it. I've simply never seen an upgrade as exciting and useful as the 5 to MX one. This is especially true if you're an ActionScript coder, but there are a lot of cool new features even for the straightforward designer, like componants, video, and layer folders.

I would urge everyone to upgrade -- even if you only want to author Flash 5 movies. You CAN save as Flash 5 from MX, and you get all of MX's interface improvements.

(Try the following: Type some text, and with the text selected, chose Modify > Break apart. Then immediately choose Modify > Distribute to Layers. You'll think you died and went to heaven!)

Marcus Geduld
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