Flash
Web Design & Portfolio
What
is Flash?
Flash is based on a file format called Shockwave. Shockwave
files will play in a web browser if the browser has
the Flash plug-in. Almost all browsers from version
3 onwards have this plug-in therefore almost all users
can see a Flash movie running within a web page. Although
Flash movies can run as a standalone exec file, they
are often embedded within HTML pages. A movie can cover
the whole web page or only a small part alongside normal
HTML output.
What
can Flash do?
A Flash movie can provide animation, sound and interactivity
to a page. Text and graphic animation is possible with
slide, zoom and fade effects. Movies can play in a linear
fashion or can be directed to different scenes depending
on a user’s mouse movements.
If movement is required in a web page, GIF files can
be animated but there is a drawback. Since each frame
of animation requires a separate image, the resulting
file size needs to be very large and this slows download.
With Flash, the animation is created in real time so
very small file sizes are possible. With spectacular
animation and interaction Flash is a clear winner over
animated GIFs. |
Are
there any drawbacks to using Flash in a web page?
If Flash is used as a means to add movement and interest
to a web page by embedding small movies instead of perhaps
using animated GIFs, then Flash has no real drawbacks
and has the advantage of very fast download. However,
if Flash is used for site navigation links, for example,
then there can be drawbacks.
The obvious one is that if a user’s browser can’t
display Flash then the user won’t see the links
to other pages on the site - although this might not be
considered so problematic since almost all browsers can
display Flash.
Another difficulty can arise with search engines. Most
search engine spiders ‘crawl’ a web site by
using the site links to move from one page to the next,
indexing each page as they go. If site links are within
a Flash movie they will be invisible to a search engine
spider and the spider will crawl no further than the opening
page. However, page links can be duplicated on another
part of the page as HTML links in order to overcome this
problem. |
