I've already e-mailed DAZ about this, but being the weekend, I won't hear anything until at least Monday, but has anyone experienced any problems with the new Flash page on DAZ? I can't view it. Not at home, not at work, not anywhere. When I wait until the page loads, I get an error message that tells me my security settings won't allow Direct X to run. When I click off the error message, I just get a blank white space where the Flash should be. I've tried changing my security setting to everything possible, including turning it off entirely, but I still can't run it. For a long time now, I've been adamantly against Flash. I hate it. I don't know why people use it. It's annoying and slows down my machine (yup, I'm still one of those with a 56K dial-up modem because I can't afford a high monthly DSL or cable bill right now). Because of the new Flash page on DAZ, I can't seem to get anywhere in there anymore. I click on the little "here" to get into the store, but I can't seem to get anywhere else. Where'e their main page, where you could find their contact information and navigate to other parts of the site? The icons at the top don't really work well. The square that is supposed to lead to the galleries goes to the Flash page that I can't view. No galleries. I'd like to see if they've displayed the winners of the Medieval dragon contest, but I can't even find the galleries at all. Whose bright idea was it to mess up the site like this? Don't get me wrong. I'm probably the world's biggest DAZ fan. I LOVE them. But their site has been rendered totally user unfriendly with this new layout. Rant, rant, rant! Sorry. I don't mean to dump my frustration on everyone, but I'm wondering if I'm the only one who can't get around in there or are there others here who would rather see the old entry to the site brought back. My sister can't get into it either, by the way. Any comments? Melanie PS: I am able to navigate between the Premier and Platinum areas OK, and I can find the Free Section, but I just can't find the gallery or their company info (contact e-mail addresses, employee bios, etc.)

I haven't been able to either melanie. ~j~

I can't see it or get past it, haven't been able to since they put it up. I didn't worry about it after I found I could still get to the store via the freebies page, which I have a seperate bookmark for, but I was somewhat miffed to start with. Sorry not able to help you any more than that, but you're not alone. :)

I can use Flash no problem, but I hate it. I wish they'd get rid of it and just have a site which doesn't keep overloading and shutting down. :)

Perhaps they could build an alternate non-Flash site for those who have troubles with it. It might take some time, but I suspect it would be win/win for customers and biz. It works for me, but I can understand the frustrations.

I agree. They should have a flash and non-flash site. The interface is nice, but you don't want to exclude any customers.

I had the the same problem. White screen, could not see a thing, even though Flash was working on other sites. I then used the link on the DAZ site, to download and install Flash Player version 6, and now the DAZ Flash site works fine. I am no expert on Flash, but it would appear to me, you must have version 6 of the Player, for the DAZ Flash site to work.

Attached Link: http://www.macromedia.com/downloads/

Sounds like you need to install the free Flash Player version 6.0 ... that's all. It's a free download and apparently available through a link on the DAZ site OR it's also available from the link in this message. Eventually, you're going to have to upgrade Flash Player to view the latest Flash sites. It's evolution.

Attached Link: http://www.macromedia.com/downloads/

p.s. Click on "Macromedia Flash Player" in the "Macromedia Web Players" section to find the latest version for your platform. :-)

Attached Link: http://www.weirdass.net

I hate flash. Hate it vehemently. I avoid flash sites like the plague itself. Believe me, I understand why people like it. Especially the action scripting which allows you to do anything you can think of to the users computer, but it violates my basic rule- Most people have dial ups, not broadband. If you ask someone to download a plug in when entering a commercial site, you are losing multiple customers. I hate the bloody program as well. Makes director and office look streamlined and user friendly. Blecch, wish they would give you the option for vanilla html or the fancy face that the web designer thought would be great for his or her book. I hate flash Mitch

Hi, if you still can't use the flash interface here are some of the links to the various sections: http://store.daz3d.com http://store.daz3d.com/index.php?StoreDepartment=sdplatinum http://free.daz3d.com/index.html http://arcana.daz3d.com http://www.daz3d.com/pages/faq/faq.html http://www.daz3d.com/pages/gallery/gallerymain.html Hope this can help.

melanie, I sent an email to daz days ago, since I don't ever go into a flash site. they will concider my comments while continuing the redesign of the site. the only part of daz that isn't flash is the store. ~l~ actually, no javascript run sites, no xml, no clientside scripting at all ever on my system. dkal, nope it is devolution and extremely bad practice for commercial sites to have all the dynamic newest tech crap on them. the only rule they should remember, K.I.S.S. ( KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID ) it costs companies business to make people jump through hoops to get the content of their site. best rule of thumb, if a page takes over 2 seconds to download for you, leave the site. why waste your time and money to be somewhere that is not designed for ALL users?

Hiya! When starting with www.daz3d.com you can get by the flash following the small print under the loading intro: --------------------------------------------------------- This site uses the Macromedia Flash 6 (MX) Player to display content. If you prefer not to use the Flash plugin, click here to proceed directly to the store (html). Copyright 2000 DAZ Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ---------------------------------------------------------- The link on the word "here" leads you to some HTML-pages. That's it. I never saw the flash-intro until now - and I'm not intending to see it, 'cause I won't dl the crap someone believes to need to display his/her fancy pages. Thank goodness, DAZ is navigable still with some of the links mentioned above. I hope they don't convert their other pages with that c**p. Regards, Willy

Luddite is the word that comes to mind....

I can't see it either - got to the store OK, but had to try a couple older bookmarks to get this week's wee little ghostie.

Awww :) Luddite - what did I do? What about netizens who are optically challenged, or even blind? I know, they would probably NOT visit a site like DAZ3D (what should they do with visual art?) but the flash technology is spreading more and more across the internet. This is excluding lots of ppl from net content they could otherwise use very well. Mostly when flash is used for navigation. The issue is called "accessability". In our understandable joy of creating and providing visual content, stills or animations, we should sometimes consider this. (maybe using the "alt"-tag more often; like ... alt="Vicky nekkid in a temple" [I like that] :-) Willy

The reason I don't like Flash on sites is because I want to just get on with the business of why I'm there in the first place, not go "Oooooo" at the intro graphics or the doodads. I find DAZ to be a slow and unreliable site at best; Flash just gets in the way.

Willy, the "here" at the bottom is the only way I've been able to gat to the store. That I've already done. But has anyone been able to get to the gallery? The icon at the top of the page that is supposed to go to the gallery only takes me right back to the Flash page, but no gallery. I wonder if that was a bad link, going to the wrong place. I would just like the old home page they've always had. sob Melanie

I can see the Daz site just fine, but I detest flash based sites. Give me plain old html and leave the graphics for the customers to make. I'm not there to see what your web designer can dream up to make the site harder to navigate.

Flash has its uses. The problem is that so many web developers don't know how to use it properly. Use flash to make a point, not for navigation. Most business related sites should avoid Flash use in any way. It cuts down on their customer potential.

I have to say that the Flash of DAZ site is very fast and smooth for me.

I fully agree about obnoxious overuse of Flash at so many sites, but DAZ' use is discreet and tasteful. There are no bright orange epilepsy-inducing flashing banners with cute little anime monster cars racing across the screen while a bad MIDI file of the theme from "Ms. PacMan" plays. ;-) There are some ad banners that "rotate" at reasonable intervals, but that's it, as I recall. Just curious (because I really don't know,) what's the objection to XML? I'm told it's here to stay and take over, and that I should code my HTML to account for it.

I just wanted to say that I too find the new interface fast and I have not problem with it. I hope they don't dump it. Sure there are cases where Flash is used just to display some "skill" with the program, and those sites are almost impossible to navigate without a fast connection to the internet, but I think this snot the case. They should however give the option to their costumers to use a old style interface too, maybe a site map to let every body reach the tutorials, FAQs and so on or a drop down menu to select the section where you want to go?

I have no problem with DAZ' new site. It loads very quick and the new design is great. Hope the keep it. I can access the site with IE 6, Netscape 7 and Opera... maybe upgrading to a new browser would help a lot sometimes...

Well, I finally figured out how to view the Flash. It kept telling me that it couldn't run Direct X because my security setting said it was unsafe on the DAZ page. I changed my security settings to enable Direct X and I can get the Flash now, but I can't seem to log in on the DAZ site anymore, so I can't buy anything in the store. This is getting so frustrating. I never had these problems before they put the Flash on there. If they want to use Flash, just do a flashy logo or something, but don't use it as a navigation tool. It's very exclusive to machines that don't have the capability to run it. A lot of us don't have a mountain of money to buy a high end machine that can jump through these types of hoops. I was finally able to get to the gallery, but I sure don't like that scrolling feature to view the images. It's annoying. Bring back the old way. Sorry to those who like DAZ's new look, but I find it much less user friendly now. I guess I'll go back to the non-Flash way of accessing the site. At least I could sign in to the store then. Melanie

well the only way to get the message across is to communicate with: Reachel White Daz Productions Webmaster reachel@daz3d.com send her your comments and concerns about the daz site. xoconostle, "what's the objection to XML?" it is another easily abused clientside scripting language. no matter how high end a system I use, I will never have any clientside scripting enabled, or flash content. I do not need the bells and whistles that leave gaping security holes and suck system resourses. serverside can create the same dynamic and interactivity, without the browser needing to handle anything other than html.

Well, I finally got everything straightened out. I can view the Flash now and everything seems to be hunky-dory for the time being. However, I still feel that the Flash should not be used to navigate through the site. This is a hardship for those who can't use Flash. I had already e-mailed DAZ about it before posting this thread, but now I think I'd better send another e-mail to let them know everything is running. Thanks for all the input. I'm glad to see that it wasn't only me, that others are having the same problems. I guess misery loves company. :) Melanie

Now about this site....several times this morning, I've tried to pose replies on several threads and got bounced out to the list of forums and my post didn't make it in. The first time it happened this morning, I forgot to copy my reply to the clipboard, so I had to rewrite it. Thank goodness this time, I copied it and was able to post. Anyone else having that happen this morning? Melanie

DAZ is not a Flash site. The Flash ONLY appears on the main screen. It's not a long download either..very fast. And I have a modem.

Don't you know that Flash is just cool? It's animation! It's creative! It's neat! It shows that "web designers" made the site! Why spend 2 minutes making plain, HTML links that everyone can use when you can spend days and days making that "perfect" animation that many people don't like (or will block)? In my opinion, most "web designers" need to be take out back and shot. These "web designers" are usually decended from graphic designers- they can make pretty pictures, but "usability" is a foreign word. And web sites are like mini-applications- they need to be "usable" and user-friendly! Don't use Flash, don't use JavaScript buttons (when plain HTML buttons will work), don't use cookies (unless you have to), don't use pop-up windows (unless it's for a product's detail) And, NEVER, EVER have pop-up windows for your "advertisers" and "sponsors". Nothing "breaks" your website faster than an unexpected pop-up window. People are expecting to read the information on the site, not be interrupted to buy yet another webcam. Remember, if people can't get to your store, they can't buy anything. If people like something, they will tell 5 people, if they don't like something, they will tell 20 people.

JohnRender, isn't this: If people like something, they will tell 5 people, if they don't like something, they will tell 20 people. translatable also to: good news travels at a walk, bad news flies at lightspeed? cookies are the easiest way to "maintain state" so that the site can keep track of shopping cart items. without cookies a session would need to be started, which would require a distintive login to shop there. I personally think the cookies are much less invasive than requiring a membership / login to shop and would rather have the cookies. ( you can delete them when done. ~g~ ) though, due to the common issues around credit card fraud online, the membership / login is the only way to have information to try to protect yourself from it.

Hi, I'm a web designer. For money. Really. A few professional opinions: Flash is a useful tool, but IMHO only for the following 3 applications: lo-bandwidth animated banner ads, SHORT cartoons that don't crash browsers, and interactive demonstrations that don't need to send data back to a server. As a site navigation toolmaker, it sucks, and DAZ demonstrated this with their new homepage. Developers like Flash because it has the bells and whistles of Java applets without the object-oriented programming learning curve and it really does work exactly the same on all browsers. What it doesn't come with is a booklet titled "Use Responsibly." The sad part is that the site structure at DAZ -- the part that really needed streamlining -- is still fundamentally the same. ] best rule of thumb, if a page takes over 2 seconds ] to download for you, leave the site. As far as "all pages should load in 2 seconds or less" is concerned, no one who has to earn a living designing pages can afford to sympathize with you. The ADA guidelines don't recognize "MTV Attention Deficit Disorder" as a valid disability, akamai backup servers are not free, and most of the Internet is still electrons being pumped through copper, not light through fiber optic. Even those of us with T1s at work and DSL at home have to put up with slow page loads of text-only resources. If it's any consolation, when browsers besides Netscape 7/Mozilla are CSS-3 compliant, the kinds of rollover effects that currently require bloated, cross-compatible JavaScript will be possible with a few lines of stylesheet code, no scripting and will degrade gracefully for disabled users. ] xoconostle, ] "what's the objection to XML?" ] it is another easily abused clientside scripting language. I have no idea what the hell you're talking about. XML is neither side-specific nor a scripting language, it's a protocol for data description markup, usually in the context of an application's mining data for translation to another, specific format or importing a set of preferences the way .INI files used to.

We want to let you all know that we are listening. Your comments have not gone unheard. We are sorry for those of you who have had difficulty accessing or navigating our site since our recent change. While the vast majority of our visitors have not had any such problems, we realize that this is a legitimate concern of several users. We do have a html version of our site which may be viewed (as mentioned earlier in this post). We are going to make this link more readily noticeable so that no one has to hunt for it in the fine print, we apologize for not doing this from the start. The html version of the site will not be updated quite as often, unfortunately, due to the time constraints that our webmaster is working under. We are still working hard at finalizing many other parts of our new store and the website as a whole. Several big additions are still to come to our website, and they are keeping Reachel extremely busy at the moment :/ We wish we had 3 of her, she does a tremendous job. The flash portion of our site was implemented so that navigation through our site could be sped up, and just about everyone who does visit our site has confirmed that for us. We do not have any intent to use Flash for annoying splash screens or other wasteful media in our site, fear not. Thank you for your patience, and we hope you like what's coming in the next few weeks. Steve Kondris DAZ Productions, Inc.