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Out there in the WWW there are
thousands sites using flash for their needs. But the
majority sites are not in this list. Let's summaries some
facts about flash using on YOUR web site and after that
it's you who will have to decide: to use or not to use.
There are some facts about Macromedia Flash Technology:
The First Fact:
Sites are look much
prettier and professional with the flash animation on
their pages. Users sometimes visit sites only to see flash
intros if it's done in some original manner.
The Second Fact:
Flash Source Scripts cannot
be stolen unlike Java Scripts or HTML code. Flash files
come in "two" pieces: files with .fla extension
are the actual source and .swf files are compiled version
of these files. In browsers you can see only .swf files.
The Third Fact:
Flash animation files are
slow to download and require flash player plug-in .
Regular static graphic requires less time to download. In
a couple of years when the problem of dial-up connection
may be solved and fast DSL lines will be cheap and
available for anyone this problem may seem not so serious,
but so far we must consider this aspect, as not all users
are eager to wait for a minute or two to see your flash
intro. That's one of the main reason flash is not popular
on the big corporate sites (but Yahoo for example displays
flash advertisements on their pages)
The Fourth Fact:
Not all browser compatible
with flash players. The old versions of MS Explorer and
Netscape Navigator cannot display flash movies. There is a
solution however: to use Java Script to check the
compatibility of browser and display the static image if
the player is not available for that browser. Well there
is some issuer still left with browsers who cannot
understand Java Scripts but there are few people who use
those browsers today…but there are some…and you must
keep that in mind.
The Fifth Fact:
As you may notice we used
on our web page http://www.metamorphozis.com
flash header. Why? The reason was simple and that is the
fact number five: flash movies are cashed in special
browser folder and second time you access it you don't
need to wait. Flash movie will be displayed from the cache
folder. Image files are also stored in browsercache and
may be reused if you keep the file names and path to
images the same. But we selected flash due to several
technical reasons related to our needs. So we did it to
reduce our page loading time. See how contradictorily it
sounds with the third fact?:-) The problem is that it
requires a lot of time to download but only for the first
time! If you could make visitors wait that time then you
will benefit from having flash header as it always there
and does not need to be loaded each time you go to the
other page.
The Sixth Fact:
Search engines do not like
flash pages, as it makes almost impossible to crawl them.
They can not crawl links on your web page and can not
index your website content if it is in flash. In html you
can insert flash only as object.
As you may see flash has
number of advantages and disadvantages. No matter what you
think about flash but it is the future of the Internet. If
you cannot admit this and stay away tomorrow you will
regret you did it. Just consider the flash usage on your
web site. Remember! Be reasonable in design and flash
usage and you'll be o.k.
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About
The Author
Thank
you for your attention.
Oleg Lazarenko
Metamorphosis Web Design Studio
Production Manager
http://www.metamorphozis.com |
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