If you're going to use Flash

[francis]

...do it with style (http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/). This site has been around for a couple of years, but everytime I drop by, I'm always impressed by the artwork, design and layout. The site consists of a series of seemingly simple games (http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/g3/pig.htm), that actually aren't (http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/g3/spider.htm).

The artwork is always beautiful and occaisonally there will be a well thoughtout soundtrack (http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/g2/duck.htm) to accompany the game.

[Terry]

Francis,

neat design but don't you think the text looks a bit washed out? (or is it my monitor?)

Terry

[francis]

Parts of the site do have a washed out design, but that's quite pleasant after looking at so much web-safe content for hours on end (or at least I think it is).

[Terry]

OK - so I don't have the world's best monitor - but I do like to be able to read the text without too much eye strain!

[Tom]

Microsoft are being 'forced' to provide less support for Flash (http://www.netmechanic.com/news/vol7/browser_no1.htm) in Internet Explorer. I bet that did not hurt much.

[francis]

This is fairly old news. It goes back to a patent dispute by Eolas (http://www.eolas.com/) who alledegly patented a way of embedding objects into web pages. This will affect all objects emnbedded into pages, of which Flash is the most promintent. They successfully sued Microsoft for about half a billion for putting their patented software into IE without any payment, acknowledgement or anything else.

Since that, the W3C have found examples of prior art (http://www.w3.org/2003/10/28-906-briefing), which apparently can invalidate a patent claim. Microsoft are releasing a patch to IE (6.05) that may or may not include this patch.

However, the patent relates to directly embedding code into the page. Developers can get around this by use of scripting (http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/activecontent/articles/devletter.html) the relevant code into the document, so it's not the end of the world.

More comment back in October at the WaSP (http://webstandards.org/buzz/archive/2003_10.html#a000215)

[Tom]

Here is a good use of what I take to be Flash (http://www.kpf.com/contacts.htm). Since the creeps make it difficult to see their source code one can't be sure. I rather like the tangerine-on-brown colour scheme too.

[Terry]

Tom,

I like the exploding building - must be popular in NY!

It is a pity they don't give any information on who they are on their title page - but I suppose if you know the company name you already know who they are.

Again for a small page (in terms of content) I still have to scroll down to see it all. OK - I still have a 15" monitor - but so have many others. This page could have easily be designed to fit 800 x 600 on a 15" screen.

Tangerine and orange - no accounting for taste!

Terry

[David]

There's an even better implementation of a Flash location plan at the Foster & Partners (http://www.fosterandpartners.com/internetsite/) site. Click on the "Contact" link. Try zooming in and out - really nice.

[Tom]

I find the delays on the Foster site a little irritating, and they must be infuriating on dial-up, but the site conveys its single message effectively: "Our designs and our technology are Flashy, like our website". So long as the phone keeps ringing, why should they bother about anything else? Heck, there must be a reason!

As David notes, the location plan is superb. I wonder if their web designer did it himself - or can you buy this type of thing ready-made?

[francis]

The problem with the vast majority of Flash developers is that they just don't understand the concept of streaming. They want to use a pre-loader to load the entire movie in before giving the user access. They plonk all of their movie clips onto the stage right at the beginning of the timeline, meaning that the Flash player will spend ages getting this down from the server before playing the site proper. Virtually no thought is spent looking at or thinking about usability, it's all about presentation. I worked with a Flash developer a few years back and he spent days and days working on getting a ~5 minute movie working without a single hitch and with no preloader on a 56k modem. It made the thing a pleasure to watch. This site is another one of those.