{"id":40,"date":"2004-05-10T10:45:38","date_gmt":"2004-05-10T16:45:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/?p=40"},"modified":"2004-05-10T10:45:38","modified_gmt":"2004-05-10T16:45:38","slug":"what-the-heck-is-flash-good-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/archives\/40","title":{"rendered":"What the heck is Flash good for?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Flash<\/a> is a fairly pervasive rich client framework for web applications. Some folks<\/a> have issues with it. I’ve seen plenty of examples of that; the Bonnaroo<\/a> site is an example of how Flash . Some folks <\/a> think it’s the future of the internet. I like it, when it’s used for good purpose, and I thought I’d share a few of my favorite flash applications:<\/p>\n

1. Ishkur’s guide to electronic music<\/a> has an annoying intro, but after that, it’s pure gold. Mapping the transitions and transformations of electronic music, complete with commentary and sample tracks, I can’t imagine a better way to get familiar with musical genres and while away some time.<\/p>\n

2. They Rule<\/a> is an application that explores the web of relationships among directors on boards of public companies. Using images, it’s much easier to see the interconnectedness of the boards.<\/p>\n

3. A couple of short animated pieces: Teen Girl Squad<\/a> follows the (amateurly drawn) exploits of, well, a set of four teenage girls, and a cute movie about love<\/a> (originally from http:\/\/students.washington.edu\/k1\/bin\/Ddautta_01_masK.swf).<\/p>\n

Of course, these all beg the question: what is a rich client good for (other than cool movies)? When is it appropriate to use Flash (or ActiveX<\/a>, or XUL<\/a>) rather than plain old (D)HTML? I wish I knew the answer, but it seems to me that there are a couple of guidelines.<\/p>\n

1. How complicated is the data? And how complicated is the representation of that data? The more complicated, the more you should lean towards rich clients. I can’t imagine the electronic guide to music being half as effective if it was done in html.<\/p>\n

2. How savvy are your users? This cuts both ways–if the users aren’t savvy, then the browser may be a comfortable, familiar experience. However, sometimes rich clients can ‘act smarter’ and make for a better user experience.<\/p>\n

3. How large is your userbase? The larger, the more you should tend towards a thin, pervasive client like the browser, since that will ease deployment issues.<\/p>\n

I used to think Flash was unabatedly evil, but I’m now convinced that, in some cases, it really makes a lot of sense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Flash is a fairly pervasive rich client framework for web applications. Some folks have issues with it. I’ve seen plenty of examples of that; the Bonnaroo site is an example […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}