And where does that leave information? I use sites to find info (content), not to look at art and I block advertisements.
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Rebuild website From Flash to html 5... (Flash vs. html 5)
- Thread starter freeny
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And where does that leave information? I use sites to find info (content), not to look at art and I block advertisements.
It is quite simple really. Because there is no need to wait if the site uses appropriate technology.
If you absolutely must wait for something then that is fine (an example would be a game loading screen) but for things that have a loading screen because they mis-used a technology or used a technology when it was not 100% essential then that is an extremely annoying feature.
Just because the site designer thought Flash was cool, does not mean that me, the user, thinks it cool or even necessary.
Agreed, I used Flash because it was a tool that delivered my needs and I knew how to operate. Now if there is another tool that can do the same thing that is easy to use, intuitive and is more accessible to the end user I am all for it
I am not an animator and I usually dont include animation on my site, but every once in a while ill throw it in for a change. Other then that the only animation i use is the preloaders and only because its better then staring at a blank screen for 7 seconds...
Same issue here
I'd like to be able to show off my website - http://avicdar.com
It's currently an HTML front page and a flash portfolio presentation. I've found the HTML templates that come with Aperture and Lightroom to be fairly weak and not to my liking. What I've used for my flash portion is a flash template that comes with Lightroom.
I'd love to find an alternative that is similar to my flash version but will work on iPhone, iPad, etc.
Anyone have any brilliant ideas? All this talk of how flash will never be supported is bumming me out.
I'd like to be able to show off my website - http://avicdar.com
It's currently an HTML front page and a flash portfolio presentation. I've found the HTML templates that come with Aperture and Lightroom to be fairly weak and not to my liking. What I've used for my flash portion is a flash template that comes with Lightroom.
I'd love to find an alternative that is similar to my flash version but will work on iPhone, iPad, etc.
Anyone have any brilliant ideas? All this talk of how flash will never be supported is bumming me out.
I love this thread. It reveals some really fundamental issues.
We are hearing, from Apple, and from many people on this website, that HTML 5 is the replacement for Flash TODAY, RIGHT NOW. So, the OP is asking a valid question. If "HTML 5 = Flash, How do I...". Its interesting how few of us can give him an honest answer. The simple answer is that there is no *simple* way to do this.
We probably should be prepared for a lot more posts like this.
The HTML 5 specification is a good thing, and is long overdue. The video tag will someday simplify video embedding, but as many know, there are currently fundamental codec licensing issues that will affect the use of the HTML5 video tag for the near future.
HTML5 is also still not fully supported across all browsers, etc. So, while the transition will happen, I personally think that the "call to HTML 5" is a bit premature.
Realistically, outside of the video tag, HTML 5 features are roughly comparable to Flash Player 2 or 3 (circa 1998). A great deal of my work involves creating real-time web-based interactive tools that visualize data. I do not see how the lion's share of the programming I do in AS3 (or Java) can be replaced by HTML 5's canvas tag. So, while HTML 5 will hopefully remove a lot of the flash banner ads and video players, to me HTML5 != Flash.
I often have to make the choice as to what technologies should be implemented on a specific project and from a business standpoint, again in my personal experience, development time and costs for AJAX have been significantly longer / higher than the same project built in As3. Part of this is because, as the OP has discovered, there is no simplified toolchain for this type of development. We have a handful of tools and libraries. Passing a project from developer to developer can be problematic sometimes.
So, for our OP (who is a talented artist. One who's work was familiar to me before he posted on the site) the costs for creating an interactive website just went up.
We are hearing, from Apple, and from many people on this website, that HTML 5 is the replacement for Flash TODAY, RIGHT NOW. So, the OP is asking a valid question. If "HTML 5 = Flash, How do I...". Its interesting how few of us can give him an honest answer. The simple answer is that there is no *simple* way to do this.
We probably should be prepared for a lot more posts like this.
The HTML 5 specification is a good thing, and is long overdue. The video tag will someday simplify video embedding, but as many know, there are currently fundamental codec licensing issues that will affect the use of the HTML5 video tag for the near future.
HTML5 is also still not fully supported across all browsers, etc. So, while the transition will happen, I personally think that the "call to HTML 5" is a bit premature.
Realistically, outside of the video tag, HTML 5 features are roughly comparable to Flash Player 2 or 3 (circa 1998). A great deal of my work involves creating real-time web-based interactive tools that visualize data. I do not see how the lion's share of the programming I do in AS3 (or Java) can be replaced by HTML 5's canvas tag. So, while HTML 5 will hopefully remove a lot of the flash banner ads and video players, to me HTML5 != Flash.
I often have to make the choice as to what technologies should be implemented on a specific project and from a business standpoint, again in my personal experience, development time and costs for AJAX have been significantly longer / higher than the same project built in As3. Part of this is because, as the OP has discovered, there is no simplified toolchain for this type of development. We have a handful of tools and libraries. Passing a project from developer to developer can be problematic sometimes.
So, for our OP (who is a talented artist. One who's work was familiar to me before he posted on the site) the costs for creating an interactive website just went up.
Hammer, meet head of nail...
Perhaps I should rename the thread so it will be more appropriate?
Its refreshing to have a realistic conversation/debate outside of the front page posts that are pretty much "Flash sucks good riddance/No Flash, screw Apple" I would be guilty of the latter
The iPad looks to be a fantastic mobile portfolio for someone like myself, but as you can see my site would display a big blue Lego brick.
Drat, just as we get near the point of being able to ignore the extra development costs for ie6...
So here is my question...
If Apple (or other mobile companies) were to support Flash, how would mouse handler events be translated on touch devices? Video is one thing, but so many sites are built with event handlers that require mouse or keyboard input...that degree of interactivity is the reason why these designers chose Flash to begin with.
So how does Flash translate to a touch device without those event handlers? And has Adobe or Apple even addressed how that would work?
If Apple (or other mobile companies) were to support Flash, how would mouse handler events be translated on touch devices? Video is one thing, but so many sites are built with event handlers that require mouse or keyboard input...that degree of interactivity is the reason why these designers chose Flash to begin with.
So how does Flash translate to a touch device without those event handlers? And has Adobe or Apple even addressed how that would work?
Flash player 10.1 has native multi-touch events built in. Currently you can use your macbook's multi-touch track pad as an input on OSX. Windows 7 also has multitouch built in (perhaps better implemented that OSX).
Flash CS5 is able to compile native iphone applications (and soon probably ipad applications) as well. The As3 multitouch events work just fine across all those devices.
Its quite easy. See: http://theflashblog.com/?p=1672. Arguably easier than doing the same thing in xcode.
I should also mention that the multi-touch stuff works in browser as well. On Windows. Apple has locked down its gesture and raw touch data and won't give us access to it.
But Flash itself isn't really the problem here because it actually has very little overhead. If I made a website with 2 MB's of images it would take just as long to load a HTML version as it would a Flash version. The only difference is that the HTML version loads one image at a time. The same method could be used with Flash as well. Perhaps that is really the only problem here. Pre loaders give a perception of taking too long even though they may not be. It all comes down to how a site is loaded. With HTML it loads one image at a time and builds the site before your eyes. In the end you pretty much wait the same amount of time for a site to be 100% loaded. The true problem here is not Flash vs HTML but a data driven site vs a visual driven site.
Personally I don't think it's necessary to provide "Flash-equivalent" rich content for mobile devices, but I do think it is necessary to make the data available to these devices.
The approach I'm working on right now for simple Flash apps is to create an external XML document that contains all data for the Flash app.
This XML document is imported into Flash and parsed to create the objects that make up the Flash app.
PHP5 is used to parse the XML data and write it into the swfObject alternate content div.
CSS can then be used to make the data presentable on crippled devices like the iPhone and iPad.
The upside of this approach is that an HTML form can be created that allows your clients to easily update the site data without having to work directly with an XML document, or (ugh!) editing an FLA or Actionscript file.
At the end of the day, the choice to use a niche device like the iPad or iPhone to browse the internet should not dictate which API developers should be using.
I'd be surprised if more than 1% of internet users were on crippled devices like the iPad at the end of the year.
All of these users will have to accept the limitations of Apple's mobile platform.
Some websites will simply never be viewable on this device.
The approach I'm working on right now for simple Flash apps is to create an external XML document that contains all data for the Flash app.
This XML document is imported into Flash and parsed to create the objects that make up the Flash app.
PHP5 is used to parse the XML data and write it into the swfObject alternate content div.
CSS can then be used to make the data presentable on crippled devices like the iPhone and iPad.
The upside of this approach is that an HTML form can be created that allows your clients to easily update the site data without having to work directly with an XML document, or (ugh!) editing an FLA or Actionscript file.
At the end of the day, the choice to use a niche device like the iPad or iPhone to browse the internet should not dictate which API developers should be using.
I'd be surprised if more than 1% of internet users were on crippled devices like the iPad at the end of the year.
All of these users will have to accept the limitations of Apple's mobile platform.
Some websites will simply never be viewable on this device.
In my opinion it will not replace it 100%. I am happy for HTML 5 and cannot wait to make real use of it. HTML 5 however to me looks more like actionscript 1 and Flash 1 - 6. It can create interactivity and complex animation but it is no where near a programming language yet. It will be able to do some neat things like simple Flash banner animation but true interactive games will be a bit tough.
HTML 5 also has a few problems right now.
#1. No authoring software. While the concept of open means you can create great HTML 5 content with a simple text editor the fact is that a lot of the complex stuff will need a visual development environment. Without that HTML 5 development will be like programming with basic. Flash development can happen 10x faster for a complex project which means a much lower cost for companies. Chances are this will be a program more like Flash then Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver isn't really setup to a be a tool that can handle complex animation with layers of complexity. Hey maybe Go Live will come back to life as the HTML 5 version of Flash.
#2. Training and community support. How many art schools teach HTML 5 right now? How big is the user community with tutorials and books? Sure it will get bigger eventually but it is at least a few years off. I would say closer to four or five years. Other then a few topics here and there no art schools focus on HTML 5 right now. The focus is regular HTML and Flash. Even if schools did start HTML 5 training it would take two to four years before there would be a talent pool to support HTML 5 taking over Flash. That is assuming the tens of thousands of designers that already use Flash will llet that happen. Technology doesn't control what tools are used, the artists and talent do. If the designer community wants to use Flash then that is what will be used. If HTML 5 can fit into the same work flow and offer the same level of functionality then maybe slowly people will switch. It is not going to happen over night however. It is going to take years for the corporate world to totally switch gears and do a 180. So who exactly is going to create all of this HTML 5 content we are supposed to see a few months from now? We need a bit more then a few interesting samples to sell HTML 5 as the new standard.
#3. No universal video codec support yet. Many companies want to target as many users as possible. Considering Firefox will not use H264 for HTML 5 poses a huge problem for video content. Flash still offers the cheapest, easiest way to target the largest number of people with video.
Have you seen the NES emulator written in JavaScript?
Not needed really. I always prefer hand coding. Visual editors just get in my way. There's a lot of developers who feel the same way, maybe not designers, but developers prefer code views.
Yes and have you seen how slow that emulator is? The emulator also isn't an emulator. It doesn't read the rom data but pulls images wile the rom runs. I'm not sure about you but I find the performance of this to be unacceptable in a professional environment not to mention reading a image from a rom isn't exactly showing complex animation.
Sure developers prefer to code that way but the world isn't full of programmers. Heck sometimes I prefer to work that way as well but we do need something a bit more complex then just a simple text editor. Even Adobe Flex builder is better then writing raw XML files. Time is also money in this world. If a company that can use Flash can produce a project in 20 hours compared to a company that can do it in 120 hours who do you think is going to get the job? Do you really think a client is going to give a darn if you tell them the 120 hours is worth it because you are using a open source method of development? The other problem is just how well is HTML 5 going to work with thousands of line of code. I could imagine the execution would be a tad slow compared to a decent runtime environment.
I didn't say anything about animation. I quoted you on interactive games. That page was just one example, it may require a faster browser, but it was just an example, a proof-of-concept really. There's plenty of pages showing animations using canvas. I've even used it to do OCR processing and applying image filters.
Just because it's new doesn't mean people should avoid it or anything. You seem to assume it'll take longer to do with HTML/JavaScript than Flash, but that all depends on the developer. I could do a number of these in the exact opposite hours you gave because I don't use Flash and it would take me forever to do. Someone coming from Flash to JavaScript will be slower at first, but everything gets easier with time. The client may not care about the hours it takes, but many will care about it being accessible on mobile devices.
I didn't come to the forum to post this topic, but I might as well since I'm here.
Isn't Jobs outright lying when he says HTML 5 will replace Flash? As I understand it, HTML 5 will deliver a codec solution, like H264 and Flash are used for on YouTube.
But Flash isn't a codec. It's an interactive experience. Sure, it's used as a crutch many times, but talented Flash designers never fail to wow. Is Jobs really contending that Flash will be replaced by a gimped, hastily-implemented HTML 5 standard?
Isn't Jobs outright lying when he says HTML 5 will replace Flash? As I understand it, HTML 5 will deliver a codec solution, like H264 and Flash are used for on YouTube.
But Flash isn't a codec. It's an interactive experience. Sure, it's used as a crutch many times, but talented Flash designers never fail to wow. Is Jobs really contending that Flash will be replaced by a gimped, hastily-implemented HTML 5 standard?
HTML5 accomplishes the goals for Apple's mobile platform, and does not interfere with the revenue model for the appstore and iTunes.
Flash is also in many cases far too demanding for most mobile devices.
No one is going to be playing the latest 3D videogames on the iPad either, but I doubt that game developers will stop advancing video game technology because of this.
In the same way, Flash developers will continue to produce advanced Flash content and simply provide static alternate HTML content for the iPad, iPhone and other limited devices, as they should already be doing anyway.
iPad and iPhone users will just have to accept as a fact of life that these devices are limited, and will probably never actually be the de facto "best way" to surf the net.
The iPad multitouch interface is definitely cool though, and Flash developers would LOVE to be able to leverage this feature in Flash CS5 websites, but I doubt we'll see it in anything but apps compiled for the appstore.
(this is of course assuming that Apple approves apps that have been compiled in Flash CS5)
Flash is also in many cases far too demanding for most mobile devices.
No one is going to be playing the latest 3D videogames on the iPad either, but I doubt that game developers will stop advancing video game technology because of this.
In the same way, Flash developers will continue to produce advanced Flash content and simply provide static alternate HTML content for the iPad, iPhone and other limited devices, as they should already be doing anyway.
iPad and iPhone users will just have to accept as a fact of life that these devices are limited, and will probably never actually be the de facto "best way" to surf the net.
The iPad multitouch interface is definitely cool though, and Flash developers would LOVE to be able to leverage this feature in Flash CS5 websites, but I doubt we'll see it in anything but apps compiled for the appstore.
(this is of course assuming that Apple approves apps that have been compiled in Flash CS5)
But what is the compelling reason to use HTML 5 over Flash? Ok fine you say it will be easier and faster then Flash for you but not everybody will think so. There is also a very deep Flash community that isn't going to shake up their tried and true method to make 100% of their clients happy just to please a few people who want everything to be open source. Why exactly should tens of thousands of Flash designers switch to HTML 5 just because Steve Jobs said so. HTML 5 offers nothing at all over Flash except Iphone and Ipad support. I think HTML 5 is a great addition but moving to it would be like taking a step backwards for myself and many other developers and designers. I do not doubt that HTML 5 will be able to create some nice content but it is going to take awhile for people to drop what they know to move to something new if they don't really need to. When HTML has some real market potential I and many others will use it but not right now. Give me a reason why I should use it and maybe I will change my mind, but so far nobody anywhere has given me a good reason as to why I should dump Flash.
Flash lite has been working on cell phones much slower then the Iphone for years and 10.1 will be even better. I fail to see how a crappy cell phone can play Flash without any problems but yet the Iphone which has the processing power to play 3D games cannot handle it. Something just doesn't add up there. I do agree with you that Flash is bloated but everybody really exaggerates by how much.
By the way there are already aps in the ap store that were made with CS5. CS5 will publish native Iphone aps so I'm not even sure if Apple will know it is made with Flash since it will look like a native C executable.
For me, the biggest reason not to use Flash, is the price and it's proprietary. You seem to be under the impression that I think Flash will be replaced by HTML5. I haven't said anything like that. My comments have been about HTML5/JavaScript being able to do a comparable job and that I don't need Flash to make an experience like Flash does. Jobs statement was overstated in my opinion (mostly because he dumbed it down for his audience rather than elaborating on what he really meant, but that's just marketing), but I do see its usage lessening in the future unless Flash brings more to the table that other technologies cannot.
The iPad and iPhone also aren't the only ones without Flash support. Most mobile devices cannot handle it. I haven't tried to convince you to drop Flash, just giving reasons why it isn't all that necessary for many of us. I have my Flash plugin disabled personally. I only turn it on for the occasional video to watch.
This thread continues to educate
I tried to tell you early on that there was more to it than you realized. This thread is only a small glimpse at the topic, which is why I always suggest further reading.
Agreed! I'm on a sluggish Thai connection and the animations did not take very long to load - better than a lot of flash sites. The artwork is great. keep it up.
I've never been a big fan of flash though, and I also suggest diving head first into JavaScript.
I think proprietary works both way, in the earlier days on JS, it is plagued by inconsistent rules implemented by different browsers causing a big headache for developers. Right now, remnants of this problem still surface every now and then and especially if you are designing for audiences with limited tech access (outdated OS/browsers). It gets extremely tedious when you start testing. This problem also existed for Flash player plugins in very rare cases though.
It sounds like you may misunderstand what the word proprietary means based on your comment. Proprietary: "protected by trademark or patent or copyright; made or produced or distributed by one having exclusive rights."