It seems that Flash design is one of those things that people either love, or love to hate. It's had some bad press due to accessibility and SEO considerations; as well as annoying users when used badly in web design. However if used well it can deliver a powerful message both quickly and efficiently. Immediately communicating to the user the fundamental purpose of a website, whether that is to deliver products, services or information to the user. Poor Use of Flash design I'm sure most of us have experienced tedious Flash introductions that provided users with little more than a search for the 'Skip Intro' button. Who wants to give visitors a pointless waiting room that many will abandon in favour of a competitor's site that allows immediate access to products and information? Who wants to create a barrier to the search engines and put it on their site? Could its relative invisibility in the search engines defeat the purpose of the website in the first place - to reach customers? No wonder so many site owners and businesses are cautious about using flash design. True Flash Integration This track record combined with many misconceptions of flash design is unfortunate and should not be the case; Flash if used correctly can work in harmony with usability, accessibility and SEO. Flash can be a very powerful web communication tool enabling the multimedia elements of sound, animation, interactivity and video to be experienced through a website. The old saying a "picture is worth a thousand words", well flash can provide an all singing, all dancing experience that will convey products services and unique selling points to a target audience in a way that static text and images alone can not. The solution is to use Flash by its strengths and to make Flash an integral part of a HTML website, rather than creating an all flash introduction or website. This was how Flash as a technology was always intended to be used; by those who developed it. This hybrid solution if implemented correctly, can deliver all the benefits of both Flash and HTML content for web design. Search Engine Friendly With a hybrid site nothing prevents the creation of a fully optimised search engine friendly website as would not be the case with a Flash only website. The combination of both technologies mean that even if the homepage is Flash heavy, it can still be optimised with HTML content and headers to allow search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN index a website effectively. This can include search engine visible links to other content within the website. Flash does not need to be a hindrance for websites to be seen. Web sites with flash content can be ranked in the search engines for primary keywords as well as being accessible to users. Accessibility The subject of accessibility can fuel a range of arguments and what is important to users can get lost. Flash can aid accessibility by engaging the user in sound, animation, graphics and non pixelated content that can be easily scaled for accessible viewing. Websites that use flash can be accessible. Adobe continues to bring improvements to Flash that allows web designers and developers to provide more accessible content using the Accessibility panel or Actionscript; such as text equivalents for whole movies and button labels. Effective use of Space Another advantage of this hybrid approach to web design is more effective use of space. Space is a precious commodity on a web page, especially the homepage. Flash provides the means to display a lot of visual content in one area. For example a flash panel on a web site homepage could be used to show a whole series of products that are stocked; one after the other, rather than just displaying a single static photo. The advantage of this is that it allows visitors to quickly view a range and different types of products on offer. As well as space, it also allows the best use of time as visitors can get bored very quickly if they have to figure out just what it is that you sell or the services being offered, Flash allows this to be visually conveyed immediately. The Wow factor First impressions count and users can make their mind up about a website in the first few seconds. As an amazing presentation tool Flash can ensure that the first impressions are good ones. Flash enables you to virtually do anything you can imagine in a multitude of creative and engaging ways. As well as telling a customer about a product or service flash design can be used to show them, whether this is via video, animation, sound, interactive application or all combined. A real focus can be placed on communicating a core message in the most effective and powerful way to customers and visitors. Flash is interactive allowing users to engage with a website and products. Flash design can be used to create an interactive mini application that encourages users to use and connect with a product. This could be interactively, demonstrating its primary function or mechanism.
I find myself longing for the old days, when I could design a web site in 5 minutes on a Sunday and then go play golf for the rest of the afternoon, and still collect a full week of salary for services rendered. That was back in 1996, when the internet was still new. Websites were created exclusively with HTML. The client would email me the content for their website, which I would upload to FrontPage, then insert some tags and a template for formatting and layout, add some graphics, and that was it.
Nowadays, I find myself working up to 10 hours per day designing web sites. I have to use so many different programming languages and specifications when creating a site that it makes me dizzy. I can barely type this article because my brain literally hurts from all the different programming languages I have swirling around in my head.
You might be wondering why my job has become so complicated in recent years. Well, it started with the wireless revolution, which made a mess out of cyberspace. Now, every wireless gadget is equipped with access to the internet and email. Cell phones, palm tops, laptops, even computer screens in automobiles have web browsers. These gadgets have platforms and web browsers that are very different from what is installed on an ordinary desktop PC. These new web browsers are not compatible with many elements of the HTML programming language. As a result, websites created purely with HTML are often invisible or inaccessible to the wireless internet user.
New languages and specifications such as XHTML, XSL, and XML were created to conform to these new web browsers. XML was probably the most important innovation of them all. XML enabled web designers to define data without telling the browser how to display the data, unlike HTML, which both defines the data and tells the browser how to display it. XML data can be viewed on any platform or browser because it is a simple text file with no predefined tags, allowing the programmer to define data any number of ways. XHTML and XSL were created to convert XML files into actual web pages that had style and structure and could be viewed across all platforms and browsers.
Now that you understand how and why programming has changed, you are ready for a brief introduction to the main topic of this article, E4X. E4X adds direct support for XML to JavaScript. An XML object declared with E4X is written like this:
var x = new XML()
Using this method, it is much easier to parse an XML document than it would be using JavaScript. Without it, you would have to use different XML components and libraries for each browser, because each browser is compatible with different versions of the language. Also, E4X is advantageous to use because it does not require very much code.
However, none of the mainstream browsers currently support E4X. A beta-version of Mozilla is compatible with it, but not the actual version. Firefox 1.1 works with E4X, but Internet Explorer, the most popular and widely used browser, does not work with it. Instead, Internet Explorer utilizes various programming components of a programming specification called AJAX, which uses a variety of languages, including JavaScript, XML, CSS, and several others.
If you create web sites for a living, you should probably take some time to familiarize yourself with E4X. Even though it is not actively used right now, it likely will be in the near future. For now, learning AJAX is probably more important because of the dominance of Internet Explorer as the web browser of choice, but that could change. If you have never studied E4X but are already familiar with XML, you can probably learn it through simple online tutorials because the syntax is not too complicated. If you have never studied XML, XHTML, XSL, or AJAX, then you need to enroll in some courses at a local computer programming institute immediately. Not knowing how to use these new languages could mean that your web sites will be invisible to wireless internet users.
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Capil007 has sinced written about articles on various topics from Travel and Leisure, The Internet and Travel and Leisure. Did you find this article useful? For more useful tips & hints, Points to ponder and keep in mind, techniques & insights pertaining to Web Designing, Do please browse for more information at our website :-. Capil007's top article generates over 27100 views. to your Favourites.
Jim Pretin has sinced written about articles on various topics from Insurance, Medicine and Homeopathic Remedies. Jim Pretin is the owner of , a service that helps programmers make an HTML form. Jim Pretin's top article generates over 33100 views. to your Favourites.