First off, I will say this about sites that use shockwave flash; I love how it can look. I hate how loooong some of these things take to load up. The only flash I would consider using would have to load/react as fast as, or faster than using normal html with .jpg's, etc. And, the whole of the Backroom pages would not be flash, just parts. Right now, I'm turning the backroom into frames, and I am always leaning towards keeping the backroom as simple as possible, and as plain as possible to avoid browser conflicts, and my brain imploding. But, I MAY incorporate some flash...not sure yet. AgentSmith

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"I want to be what I was when I wanted to be what I am now"

Attached Link: http://www.derbauer.de/

Btw, on the subject of Flash Shockwave sites, here is a link to a newly made one by "derbauer". It's fairly fast...compared to other flash sites, and/but it is freaking COOL! Not that the Backroom will be like this, I just thought I would show you boys and girls some flash coolness. AS

Contact Me | Gallery | Freestuff | IMDB Credits | Personal Site
"I want to be what I was when I wanted to be what I am now"

I, as you, like how flash pages can look and dislike how long some of them take to load. But there is always some give and take to what ever you do.... no matter what it is. I would personally not have any problems with some flash incorporated into the backroom. Just my $0.02 Wade

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That is a flippin' cool page man. That is some nice flash work and it quite fast. Is this the kind of thing you are looking to do with the back room? I think it would be a nice implementation. Wade

There are 10 kinds of people: Those who know binary, and those who don't. 

A whiner is about as useful as a one-legged man at an arse kicking contest.

I agree with you on all accounts. I've played a lot with animations and flash; and if they're part of a "story" they're cool. If they're just a splash screen they annoy me. I mean if you have to go to a site often, - and you have to wait for that flash thingy to load every time, that is a pain in the royal ***. On the other hand; there are a lot of flash interfaces that are efficient, fast and very appealing! So it all boils down to context, design and usability.

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

I dont mind flash either, even it takes a few seconds to load. Doesn't really matter unless you're in an extreme hurry, which Im assuming a backroom browser wouldn't be. And this site has some of the most amazing flashwork I've seen, I was truely amazed when I first saw it (still am, lol).

Attached Link: http://www.gric.at/home_frame.htm

Not a problem here. Here is a link to one of my favorites.

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Attached Link: My Flash Site

I've been working with flash for a while now. If you need any help, just contact me. Here's a link to my site, I've done several flash movies / intros / banners / menus for many sites in the past. If you want some more examples I can host them. To see some of the flash movies just click on..."flash" and or flash movies... They are much funnier if you've played that game before (Ultima Online). So, if you need/want any help, I can lend a hand for sure.

well lol, after looking at those, mine seems pretty shitty. I'm not a flash master so don't get me wrong, I just meant I'd be able to help. =P

Go with it. I think we've learned to trust your judgement Morphe...errr...AS. You know too that if folks think it's slow they'll tell you about it. :)

pretty cool. only problem is that flash websites are a DC to print.

I've experimented with Flash a bit, and it can be a great asset, but I do hate slow-loading, self-indulgent splash pages.

Sounds great! I've dabbled a bit in flash, java, javascript, and dhtml, so I can lend a hand, too, if needed.

As a webdesigner Flash interfaces are primo if orchestrated well. I agree with what's been said already, splash pages can be ridiculous and are invariabley a waste of time. A competent link to "skip intro" is the best way around it. The average person starts out with a 56k - so unless you have cable, a T-1 or DSL there's no point for the splash page. I say there's nothing wrong with Flash exclusive sites. And BTW if you're trying to print (as already noted) a Flash page, hit Print/Screen and then paste into your graphics program like PS7 - it's not that difficult to do.

"To pass your plate is nothing new." - MG

or just an opening page that has high speed on the button to the right and low speed through door number 2.

Flash/Shockwave pages break quite a lot of usability of HTML pages. For instance, I don't get to decide whether I will open a link in a new window or it will open in the same one. And that's just the first point. BTW, copying and pasting into an image is breaking the usability. OTOH, using Flash for buttons and/or animations would be quite okay.

-- erlik

I love flash intros, etc., I even use Flash on page designs (not my site, for others), but I'm on dailup and it takes forever for these things to load, I usually skip intro's altogether, and if it's a choice of html or flash for a site, I'll take html everytime, it's faster....that said, AS, I trust your judgement, go for it.....;]

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Vision is the Art of seeing things invisible...

I've dealt a bit in Flash myself, not a guru by a long shot. Derbauer has been one of my personal favorites for a long time and their stuff is always top shelf and they have some of the best designers. Flash is great if you have a fast connection, a real bore if on a slow deal-up. Small things that load quickly like animated buttons or drop-downs aren't too bad. I lot of people I know including myself avoid Flash sites like the plaque and although they may look pretty are totally unnecessary for the end results.

A polite flash programmer will use the print set up functions in flash to create a printable version of sections of the site (a great example would be the painting site on the childrens BBC site, your kid can paint n image and then there's a nice polite print button) Personally I like flash, I use it create websites occaisionally, but mainly for computer based training and multimedia CDs. For speed reasons, I still prefer to keep websites to HTML/CSS/PERL combinations. (my current one for example is HTML and CSS). If a client really really wanted Flash, I'd still be inclined to persuade them to do a complete 'non flash' site. The HTML/CSS combo rocks and is where it's at, positioning and interaction are much better then frames, the only frames I use tend to be iFrames.

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Toolset: Blender, GIMP, Indigo Render, LuxRender, TopMod, Knotplot, Ivy Gen, Plant Studio.

I think a flash site would be cool.

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I also like flash pages except for the fact that you can't change the font size and sometimes the fonts are just too small for me to read unless I change resolutions.

Flash done well is great. It can be overpowering or annoying however. I remember the first Tomb Rader and X-Men sites had a repeating soundtrack. I could not stand to stay on the frontpage for more than a minute, which I guess was the intent. As long as it does its thing and doesn't keep going over and over demanding attention it all right. Pages load fast if done right. You can get better feedback from imagemaps when you are in active zones.You can generate motion or animation without big MOV files. Cool stuff!

When I notice flash sites, I notice that they are horribly slow. I don't know if I'm just noticing the bad ones and they're actually in the minority of the sites I visit, or if I'm just visiting the same slow ones all the time, or if flash is just Right Out when you have a dial-up connection, or what. I would not be opposed to it, but I would prefer something that doesn't take significant extra time to use, if possible.