I have lots of experience working on Flash based projects, and overall it's been about 20% positive, 80% negative. I've found that development takes longer, there are more issues.. and you inevitably end up rebuilding most of the browser functionality that you get with HTML for free.
I'm of the mind that Flash is great for really experiential sites and kiosk/embedded type applications. However, for websites you end up with a lot of conflicting interaction cues, and building your app to accommodate things like that browser back button, multi-page information, scrolling, even word wrap (as has been mentioned).. all that stuff takes time in Flash/Flex. You can build a standard library, but from what I've seen you end up having to customize a lot each project anyway. All that aside, there is one huge problem I see with the SWF format in general .. it's closed. The web only exists because of the open nature of HTML ... you can learn just be looking at other work that you like, that encouraged huge growth in the early days, and the same thing can't happen with a closed compiled format. I was hoping to see some Flex examples that would blow me away.. and I saw a few that are really good, but nothing that would sway my feelings about it. Like Troy said he has had better experience with RIAs built in Flex/Flash than HTML/AJAX.. (needless to say at this point) I have had the opposite experience. I've found that making changes down the line, HTML/AJAX is far faster and more flexible than trying to change the core of a Flex app six months after it's finished. Same thing with CSS swapping for different devices... Okay, this is getting off topic now.. so to bring it back... do people see value in Thermo outside of a Flex environment? Or are the two workflows linked too closely? On Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 1:06 AM, Troy Gardner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > To be fair developing RIA's is an order of magnitude more complex than > page by page html applications, but on par with AJAX applications, and > consulting agencies recognize that risk...and of course tend to charge > as much as they can. I have gotten far better experiences out of > using Flash and Flex than AJAX/HTML when projects are setup > appropriately, but perhaps like you I am also keenly aware of what > needs to be done, the limitations and am not looking to geek out on > implementation, or charge as much as possible as I'm in house. -- Matt Nish-Lapidus work: [EMAIL PROTECTED] / www.bibliocommons.com -- personal: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
