Is this flash crashing for you?

**shiphen** · 16 August 2009, 07:21 PM

Hi

Is this flash crashing for you?
www.auctionair.co.uk

Ship

P.S. Are there any free on-line sites that test can your flash in different versions of flash?

**steve.ledger** · 16 August 2009, 07:59 PM

No problem in all latest version browsers here Ship with this .swf file.

Does it cause similar problems showing here?

.

**shiphen** · 17 August 2009, 01:28 PM

No it looks fine here on MY windows PC.

However when I viewed that website via someone else (who wasnt very PC literate and may have had quite an old version of Flash installed) the damned thing was failing catastrophically. i.e. Viewing that page caused the browser to crash and there was no way into the website at all! (Unless you guessed a web page addres inside the site!)

Do you know of anywhere online that you can test .SWF files with older versions of flash?

Cheers

Ship

**steve.ledger** · 18 August 2009, 12:37 AM

Yes it's unfortunate but there are no guarantees when developing sites for the web, Ship.

So long as you try to stick with current accepted standards then you can hope that most people will see your site as intended. But there will always be some PC setups that will not.

**shiphen** · 18 August 2009, 09:26 AM

In that case I'm not sure how to proceed.
Should we remove our flash from our home page or should we think that that user was just a one-off?

Ship

**steve.ledger** · 18 August 2009, 10:19 AM

Many web masters opt to offer two versions of their start page allowing the visitor to select the flash page or the plain vanilla html page.

Unless your site is targeting a marginal group, aim for accepted standards where possible. You can also offer links for visitors to download the latest flash player plugins - but it's the 'horse to water...' thing there too.

**shiphen** · 19 August 2009, 10:30 AM

So it's a (whole) extra click? - i.e. The landing page now becomes
something that says: flash version or non-flash version?

The Boss won't like that. He reckons every click in the user journey
costs about 25% of the traffic.

Also technically it would involve quite a lot of mucking around
creating a new landing page with a new name. And this would
cost developer time and therefore development budget. (@ £85/hr)
[deep sigh]

Ship