You really are obsessed by Flash aren't you.
I'm not particularly obsessed with Flash. I am fascinated by the inability of the Flash-advocates -- including you -- to engage on the accessibility question. We've talked about it plenty in this thread, but no advocate of Flash technology has been able to engage on this fundamental shortcoming in Flash's architecture.
Your behavior in another thread here doesn't appear to be rational:
The decline of Flash -- coupled with the huge success of the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad -- seems to be a threat to the manhood (or womanhood) of some of its advocates. Many of them have clearly never
read the memo. Some of them demonize Steve Jobs for Apple's decision; some discuss it in a wholly irrational fashion. The Flash-advocates will not deal head-on with the most important reason cited by Apple for ditching Flash. Do they understand that the platform-specific accessibility widgets will never ever work in Flash? I cannot tell.
None of my commentary is personal to those Flash-advocates. They are clearly passionate about the technology; they simply didn't realize the fundamental architectural limitations of their chosen technology. Apple -- and much of the web -- has moved on.
You really can't answer any post without talking about Flash. You must have several textfiles sitting on your desktop just so you can paste them into responses to whichever users weren't talking about Flash in the first place.
Your claim that I can't answer any post without talking about Flash is rather silly. Anyone can search my posting history to find your conjecture is nonsensical. Failing to account when you make a nonsense claim is a tell-tale that a rational discussion with you may not be possible. Your behavior in that other thread underscored what I noted above: Flash-advocates
cannot engage on the accessibility issue.
If you're upset with something being discussed in some thread, please take it up with the moderators. It's their job to police the discussion -- and not yours. 'Nuff said.
It's interesting to note the question you ignored in my last message to you:
As of the last time I posted Flash Builder does not support anything more than simple animation techniques. No animated masks. No tweens. No actionscript. It is sorely lacking as a HTML solution.
Then perhaps it's time to either simplify the animation techniques or ditch your Flash code base completely. Perhaps something like what Adobe did for their own corporate webpage. If you are interested in having your webpage play on the
quarter billion iOS devices and other computers that are permanently Flash-free. Are you more interested in solving your problem, or are you more interested in complaining about it?
[Silence. No response.]
It's a legitimate question: are you more interested in solving your problem, or are you more interested in complaining about it? At this point, it appears you are more interested in complaining.
You never did update your definition of "full web experience". I don't have a complete definition, but I propose that part of the definition of "full web experience" is that that everybody, regardless of their ability, should be able to access every webpage on the network. Data should be served with transparency so that the adapters on each users' computers can adapt the presentation of the data so the web content is universally recognizable and understandable.
Please answer the question: do you agree that this component of "full web experience" is valuable and something that we as a society should strive to deliver?
Currently "the full-web" includes Flash. Accessibility implications do not change that fact.
Congratulations. Once again, you completely and utterly failed to address the accessibility issue. This is the
most fascinating thing to me in the discussion: none of the Flash-advocates can deal with issue head on.
The other little twist in your response: you response presumes that the phrase "full web experience" actually has a meaning. A long time ago in a MR discussion, you offered the following definition:
Full interent is not marketing, it is the entire internet. Its viewing any site you want without having to resort to work arounds.
But that definition has
already been deconstructed in the discussion:
@darn: Adobe's phrase "full web experience" was a non-starter from the beginning. It's just a code-phrase for "Adobe Flash". Your definition doesn't work, either: there are all sorts of sites that contain code that doesn't run in your current browser. "any site you want" is way too squishy a phrase to have in a definition. I like Mathematica demonstrations, but there's not a way for me to play the CDF files on an Android phone. My "full web experience" is unfulfilled.
If you think "full web experience" has some real meaning, please give it a meaningful definition. Until you do, we'll just score it as a marketing phrase.
If we're going to have an intellectually honest discussion, you can't cut corners like this. If "full web experience" is actually a meaningful phrase, you need to provide us with a meaningful definition first. If you don't, it's just the tail wagging the dog.
If I understand the situation, people who rely on accessibility solutions cannot access "the full-web" because of Flash. Flash's inability to work with accessibility is what prevents there being anything like "the full-web" which everyone could in principle access. There is only a fractured web. Flash keeps the web's user-base fractured, independently of any concerns about it being available in iOS Safari or not. I'm sure FloatingBones can confirm or qualify this.
Bingo. In one short paragraph, you nailed the fundamental problem with Flash. If you read through this whole thread, I don't think you ever see a Flash-advocate even acknowledge the problem. @darngooddesign never has.
Flash makes the data being delivered opaque. This means that the browser is unable to do any sort of processing on the data. If there is text in a Flash window, you can't use the browser's native text-searching functions (e.g. Command-F or control-F) to search for a particular text string. Further, the accessibility adapters in your browser cannot do anything intelligent with the text -- change the pointsize, enhance the contrast, or read the text to the user.
Flash can't hack accessibility. It never could, and it never will. Even those who don't need the accessibility adapters are impacted by the opaque data that Flash serves up.
Tell you what...................
Have two models of the iPad in the Apple store for the same price.
Model 1 does not play flash.
Model 2 does play flash fine.
Let's see how many people would deliberately choose to pick the one that does not play flash.
@Piggie is another poster who doesn't grok the accessibility problem.
Your posting reminds me of a great joke:
What if there were no hypotheticals? What would the world be like then?
Here's the problem with your hypothetical: the same vision that makes the iPhone and iPad truly great products is the exact same vision that makes Flash a non-starter on those machines. This may be a difficult concept for the Flash-advocates to wrap their heads around. Those who have actually read
Steve Jobs's memo and understand the accessibility problem may be able to understand it.
A web free from Flash will be better for all of us. It will be especially beneficial for those who need accessibility adapters, but it will benefit all of us.
3. Flash is bad for the internet. It is slow and cannot be indexed easily or well by Google.
Nice list. I've thought about this issue a lot, but this observation had never occurred to me: since Flash makes the data opaque, indexing is far more difficult if not problematic. Flash breaks findability.
@darngooddesign: Here's the quarter-billion-dollar question: are you more interested in solving your problem, or are you more interested in complaining about it? At this point, it appears you are more interested in complaining.
