Good article on Flash / Open Source / etc....

[Jason Clinton]

Bradley Miller wrote:
> At 09:39 AM 3/19/2003 -0600, you wrote:
>
>> Bradley Miller wrote:
>>
>>> be driving those designs . . . $$$$.   Need I say more?
>>
>>
>> Accessibilty?
>
>
> Extremely.

Last I checked, Macromedia didn't get around to adding accessibility
until version 6 and even now it's even remotely polished. Font scalling
is still not available. I cannot enter any sort of high contrast mode
and screen readers have a very difficult time figuring out in which
order the text in the interface is supposed to be read.

>
>> Internationalization?
>
>
> Not a problem.
>

Support for unicode? Does it allow the visitor to specify their language
and deliver seperate language content inside the same interface design?

>
>> Designer lock-out?
>
>
> WHAT??  Lock out from what?  Those that can't buy Flash and write a
> program?

Part of the strength of the internet was you could visit someone's site
and go: "COOL! How'd they do that?" -- Then look at the source code.
IIRC, Flash allows you to prohibit others from accessing your source. Is
that still true? Maybe I'm wrong.

>
>>  Lowest common denomenator?
>
>
> Exactly how many programs do you know of that support multiple web
> browswers -- across multiple platforms?  One study I read put the Flash
> player on 94% of all web browsers . . . pretty good numbers to me.
>

The beauty of SVG is that, because it's XML, it can be broken down in to
two categories: content and design. If I'm blind or browsing at a
console or just sick of flashy graphics, I can strip all design elements
from content (via XSLT) and _just_ get what I /need/. Flash doesn't
allow me to do that. This is the beauty of CSS with XHTML.

Now, I will say this: Vector based graphics are the interfaces of the
future. Device independant design makes Flash _very_ appealing. I can
design an interface once and no matter what resolution my visitor has,
it will scale accordingly. If Flash has only one benefit, this is it.
SVG can accomplish this as well, though. It just doesn't have the market
penetration yet. Also, a good HTML designer can write device independant
pages. I'd rather just stick with the proven solution: HTML. (Until SVG
rolls around and then I WILL SO be ALL OVER that!) :)

--
Jason Clinton
I don't believe in witty sigs.