Flash (aa-ah!) Savior of the Universe

[unixronin]

...But not, let it be known, of teh Intarweb.  Yet it seems like everywhere you look these days, you trip over sites written by people who apparently work on the philosophy that "Iffen y'all don't use Flash, y'all ain't shit."

Yeah, I'm talking about gratuitous overuse of Flash here.  Sites that you can't even ENTER without a Flash plugin.  Sites like the one cymrullewes just found, with a scrolling menu pane of nineteen buttons down the left side, and every goddamn button a Flash animation.  This is not, the evident belief of far too many self-professed webdesigners notwithstanding, "cutting-edge web design".  On the contrary, it's "When you have a shiny new hammer, everything looks like a nail."

Now I'm only going to say this once.  But I'm going to put it in nice, simple words that even the most retarded Intarweb Desiner can understand:

Flash BAD.

mm'kay?

Sure, use it where it's appropriate, if you must.  (There are actually far less such places than you think.)  But "where it's appropriate" does not mean "everywhere you can shoehorn it in."

1996:  the <blink> tag.

2006:  Flash.

'Nuff said?

Comments

[bfly.livejournal.com]

I have the same complaint about Java links. Don't use a sledge hammer - let alone one requiring my computer to start the Java console before I can see anything on your site - to push in a thumbtack. Because if you do, I'll have closed the tab and moved on to something more immediately fulfilling long before your shiny buttons load.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Java is, at least, much less overused than Flash. Because, you know, <barbie>Java Is hard</barbie>, and doesn't lend itself nearly as easily to the mass-production of gratuitous "cute" animations. To produce anything usable in Java, you have to be actually capable of writing working code.

[richspk.livejournal.com]

Roger would probably tell you that Flash is perfect for the button animations because Flash is compresses animation *so* efficiently! I, however, am in complete agreement with you. I'm sick to death of Flash video players, in particular. I prefer to download videos to watch later. Oh, and don't get the idea that Roger bugs me. Roger's awesome; I just don't like Flash.

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

Why Flash? Why not gifs? They can be animated and load lots faster and don't crash browsers.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Well, basically there's a number of reasons, among them that a Flash animation CAN be smaller than an animated GIF; GIF limits you to an 8-bit color palette (which may or may not be important); and a GIF cannot be interactive. Then again, I suspect that most of the times when people use Flash for interactivity (Flash games excepted), it's not because they need to, it's because they can. The "Oooh! SHINY!" factor comes to outweigh the original conception of what the page actually needs to be able to do.

Honestly, yes, an awful lot of the things I see people use (or abuse) Flash for could be done just as well with an animated GIF -- or even, frankly, with a couple of static images and a few lines of Javascript. But, you know, it's Teh New Web Bling.

[richspk.livejournal.com]

I don't know why. Roger works at Macromedia and is a bit of a Flash evangelist. That's all.

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

Roger works at Macromedia

Ah! That explains everything!

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

I don't mind Flash as long as there's an HTML version that I can use instead.

It's becoming increasingly rare to find, though. :/

[olafthunderfoot.livejournal.com]

yer icon's extra bitchin cool!

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

Thanks; a friend made it for me when I took up archery.

[olafthunderfoot.livejournal.com]

kewl, bows don't like me!

[ehintz.livejournal.com]

Heh. Well said indeed. :)

[darthgeek.livejournal.com]

The flashblock extension is my friend :)

[olafthunderfoot.livejournal.com]

it's even worse for those of us on dial up!

[nephthys510.livejournal.com]

/me purrs