Flash and Open Source 597
Anders Schneiderman asks: "I'm involved in a project that's planning to create open source toys for educating people around complicated policy questions (e.g., policy on prescription drugs). We'd really like to use Flash as our main language, but we're concerned about the fact that the major Flash development tools cost $500--more than some of the community group folks we want to involve can afford. I took a look at Sourceforge, and while there are plenty of projects that offer ways to create Flash for free, there didn't seem to be any v.1 general development tools. Did I miss something? If you want to build Flash and you don't want to pay $500, how do you do it (aside from copying somebody else's, which as Bill Gates told us is just bad, bad, bad)? And if there aren't any powerful open source tools for it, any thoughts on why?"
Don't use flash (Score:2, Informative)
Maybe because most open source people (me included) tend not to like flash?????
Seriously if you are going to use flash you will also need someway to view it right? That means you have to get a system capable of viewing flash.... Which means that your nice community effort is going to rely on commercial software.
Go with something completly free (the speach kind), it will safe you a lot of money!
Jeroen
Re:Don't use flash (Score:3, Interesting)
Even when browser developers start supporting the open SVG standard the questioner will still find himself with the same problem because SVG just specifies a vector format to display static images. Animation can be achieved my means of Javascript (yeh, I know you probably don't like that either) manipulating the DOM. Even so, few multimedia authors want to write Javascript.
If you look at the huge number of projects listed on SourceForge or Freshmeat you will see very few that involve rich graphical user interfaces like the Flash developer environment. We all agree that free software developers are as smart as commercial developers (many of them are the same people just working in their spare time). The lack of multimedia development tools in the 'free' arena is really down to the fact that they are a bitch to write and people that are developing software for fun would rather write something that is useful to *them*.
Re:Don't use flash (Score:2, Informative)
Nothing Found (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Nothing Found (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is that 99.999999% of the flash you encounter on the web is waste of bandwith.
Most OSS users don't like 'glitzy' they like the actual content which is absend on nearly all flash sites.
Jeroen
Re:Nothing Found (Score:3, Funny)
replace the word flash with everything and you'd be on the mark!
Re:Nothing Found (Score:3, Insightful)
Click to explode Little Boy
Click to explode Fat Man
Seriously thou, flash has uses, it's just too overused in most places.
Re:OSS users aren't normal (Score:4, Insightful)
***
This is a common misconception. The reason that "normal" users and techies differ is not necessarily that they want different things from their computers, it's that the techies know the consequences of various design decisions. For example:
1) Normal people like web pages that are done by graphic designers because they look nice even though they violate every know web design rule. Oh wait, except for my parents, because they can't read the font that the page author picked. Had it been done by a techie, they would have let the user's pick the fonts, and thus my parents could read it easily.
2) Normal people like flashy pages that are all interactive and move around on the screen. Oh wait, my parents don't because they are on a 100Mhz computer. Oh yeah, and it's bad for the company because although their information changes daily, it's so hard to change the custom-designed web page that it becomes useless in a matter of weeks because it's outdated. My church website is like that.
3) Normal people like GUI tools to build their web pages. Oh wait, unless they want it to look good on more than the browser the tool was built for. GUI tools tend to try to hide the nature of HTML, and thus, even though they will be displayable on other browsers (or even other browser versions), they won't look anything like the user intended. Because the user isn't aware of how HTML works, they will have no idea why this happens.
So, you can see, even though a lot of people would like to think "oh, those are just silly techies talking", the truth is that they usually have the same goals, but are just more realistic and knowledgeable on how they can be achieved.
Re:No misconception (Score:3, Informative)
Which of the top 20 MediaMetrix websites are designed by these "more realistic and knowledgeable" techies today?
Yahoo!
Started by techies way back in the Dark Ages, and still a great example of a good-looking, useable collection of web applications. What's good about it?
Re:No misconception (Score:3, Insightful)
*****
Not quite. Parents have children, or they can ask around. No, I don't expect my parents to know how to do such a thing. However, they do often ask me, "how do I get these fonts bigger" when they are looking at a JPEG rendering of fonts, done so that everyone's fonts look the same.
So no, I don't expect them to do everything themselves, but for the option to be available when they ask for help.
Also, as users get more power (which they would if people followed standards closer), they start to become more self-sufficient and knowledgeable.
The concepts behind the web and HTML aren't tricky or hard to grasp. The problem is that they are geared toward giving power to the end-user. Most corporations don't like that, and so they benefit more by simply covering up the fact that the users have power, and try to take it away for themselves.
I don't think they do this with a bad intention, it's just their nature, and the nature of many people, especially marketing people. Designers always seem to want people to experience things in the way that they have mapped out for them, instead of whatever way the user wants to experience them. Where I have worked, the designers, even when they have a design that will work in variable-width tables, insist on it being fixed-width so everything is exactly the same. Nevermind that users with big screens like to make use of them, or people with small screens don't like to scroll - they just want control of the experience. And the experience suffers because of that.
Re:Nothing Found (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nothing Found (Score:5, Informative)
Phillip.
Re:Nothing Found (Score:3, Interesting)
It's almost embarassing when I try to load up one of these pre-alpha putative workalikes and try to use it. Not that I hold it against the developers: at the very worst, they are using the project to learn something, very few make premature claims about their pet projects, and sometimes, as in the case of the Gimp, the projects grow up to be impressive, useable applications. But the peanut gallery here has no compunctions about premature recommendations without the benefit of experience.
Re:Nothing Found (Score:2, Informative)
here [blue-pac.com]
My company's site is developed using it, and it's fully dynamic....
Digitized Solutions [digitized.com]
Re:It crashes. (Score:2)
And what makes you absolutly certain that if the Flash plugin was open source that someone will actually fix it?
Just FYI, there are tons of places where you can get info how to develop a flash "player" - be my guest, write an open source plugin...
SVG (Score:5, Informative)
More info (Score:5, Informative)
You might also wish to check out some of Adobe's demos [adobe.com]. Jasc [jasc.com] has a Win32 app called WebDraw [jasc.com] that can come in handy, too.
Re:More info (Score:3, Informative)
SVG and patents? (Score:2)
SVG is still under a patent cloud (Score:3, Informative)
Even though the W3C has backed away from the proposal to include RAND-licenced patented material in W3C standards, the SVG standard went to 1.0 under the assumption that the public would accept RAND-licensing for web standards, and so SVG incorporates a number of RAND-liceneced patents, specifically from IBM Kodak and Quark. No doubt this situation is going to be resolved, especially if people don't forget it still needs to be resolved. To remind the W3C and the companies involved that this situation is still unresolved, you can comment on this list [w3.org], subscribe here [w3.org].
And oh by the way, is IBM's roll in this particular little minidrama hypocritical, given their support for and reliance upon Linux and other open source projects? You bet it is, and that's because IBM has lots of little parts, not all of which are headed in the same direction, e.g., some are run by the legal department or managers who still don't get it.
Get an educational license... (Score:3, Insightful)
Non-Macromedia Flash tools (Score:5, Insightful)
Flash is a well-designed format, and the format is known and documented. It could be used for more things. I'd like to see a PowerPoint replacement that used Flash, for example. PowerPoint files are incredibly bulky; Flash is compact. Plus, you could put your presentations on web pages without much hassle.
Flash is also useful for user interface design. Many video games use Flash for the 2D API. That approach could help the open source community transition from bitmap-based to form-based APIs.
And just having a good open-source draw program for when you need a diagram on a web page would be a big help. It's annoying that Linux documentation seldom has useful diagrams. And if there are diagrams, they're raster images that can't be usefully edited. A good Flash-based lines-and-boxes program, like early Visio, would be valuable.
Macromedia's tools have a keyframe animation mindset, but that's not inherent in the Flash format. It's just a Macromedia bias. There are lots of interesting things to do with Flash and its object stream / event stream format.
Re:Non-Macromedia Flash tools (Score:5, Informative)
There's really no such thing.
If you need to be redesigning a UI in order to get the job done, then you're probably missing something in your app design. You want your users to presented with something they immediately recognize - you don't want them to have to figure out where they have to click and what each funky abstract blinky thing does. It's a bit different with games - those are supposed to be playful, not necessarily usable. But if you're doing stuff for a non-entertainment purpose - stick to the standard widget sets.
Let's face it: a scrollbar is a scrollbar for a reason, and a bunch of graphic designers workign independently aren't especially likely to come up with a better replacement.
Flash: good for some things. Animation? Yep. AV syncing? Yep. Designing widgets for navigating your website? Nope.
Re:Non-Macromedia Flash tools (Score:2)
Director apparently has a feature to import PowerPoint presentations so they may be jazzed up with interactivity (a mock of an application in the presentation I was present at) and all the other neat Director features.
The only problem I could see is the ability to print out a presentation, something PowerPoint allows with ease, may prove difficult with Flash or Director.
Re:Non-Macromedia Flash tools (Score:2, Informative)
WHat is wrong with it? Well, it doesnt have decent generic matrix transforms for a start. SVG is better from this point of view. And there is more once you start to look at it
Re:Non-Macromedia Flash tools (Score:2)
I was asked to do some PowerPoint presentations, and I said "How about Flash instead?"
Fortunately, my employer was open-minded enough to let me give it a try, and I must say it worked out quite well.
I am seriously thinking of redoing my main page in Flash, primarily because it would be compatible with Netscape 4.x and the latest spiffy browsers. Flash seems to be more cross-platform than anything. It's not perfect, but sadly neither is Dynamic HTML.
My only real problem has been a combination of lack of time and lack of Flash for MacOS X. The latter finally came out, so it may be about time for me to exercise my creativity a bit.
Unless someone can convince me otherwise
D
Re:Non-Macromedia Flash tools (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Non-Macromedia Flash tools (Score:3, Interesting)
Most graphical interface designs, no matter how designed, have little to no mercy on text browsers. I would be better off having:
In a hurry? Text mode | Search [ ]
(flash page)
That might serve everyone effectively. I really need to put my sprawling pages in a database, but I just don't have the time. My other problem is that my pages are all formatted differently - there should be something that ties them together. But again, time's a huge problem.
I should consider server side includes, I suppose.
At any rate, I really should do something soon, since the only way to properly view my main page right now is Netscape 4
D
Flash is bad. mmkay? (Score:4, Insightful)
While there are some practical uses for Flash, these are few and far between, far outnumbered by the idiotic uses. This is why there's no opensource flash tools.
Re:Flash is bad. mmkay? (Score:2, Insightful)
Practical use for Flash: Getting the sales and marketing people to buy into your web site.
"Oooh, Shiney!" == "We'll pay for it!".
Re:Flash is bad. mmkay? (Score:4, Insightful)
Might as well say you don't like GNOME because the name implies it's gonna be short on the usability front.
There are tons of good uses for Flash. (I say this as both a designer and coder who uses the app every day, mind you.) For those times when the experience is the content, rather than just the conduit for it, Flash provides a tidy, cross-platform (with obvious exceptions) and server-independent way to deliver exactly that. Just because the Geocities EULA mandates that all user must abuse the hell outta it doesn't necessarily make it bad.
*ZIP* Okay, there. All done pissing in the wind... =)
Re:Flash is bad. mmkay? (Score:3, Insightful)
sites where "experience is the content" that
draw the ire of people like myself. You either
have info on your site or you don't. Many people
like the web design circa 1994 (grey background,
black text, blue links). The mere existence of sites
where "experience is the content" is why people
like me say that the web is in a state of decay,
if not already commecialized into oblivion.
are you experienced? (Score:3, Funny)
That is so heavy, man. I mean, it's like, the site is about animated menus, naw'mean? I mean, like, my experience of the dancing text is the meaning of the text, naw'mean.
I thought so.
Re:Flash is bad. mmkay? (Score:2)
Cheap, cheap flash (Score:4, Informative)
However, if you want cheap flash, the educational price for Flash MX is $99. Enroll in a community college course. Maybe a flash course... You'll need it.
Re:Cheap, cheap flash (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Cheap, cheap flash (Score:2)
Flash ain't easy (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't HTML we're talking about here. Flash files use coordinated timelines, compressed files, and loads of user interaction to do what it does, and it's not cheap. You can't just open the source code and peek inside. It's probably going to be some time before any open source project can produce the complexity Macromedia's put into six versions of their product.
As others have pointed out, though, you don't really need to use Flash. 99% of the time it's just that: flash, pretty animations which are implemented badly by non-professionals in order to make their site look cooler than it needs to. Most people honestly just want the information. You should consider this.
However, if you're persistently determined to use Flash, then I'd recommend buying a used copy of an Flash 4 on eBay [ebay.com] or somewhere. It's certain to be better than any of the open source products currently available.
Re:Flash ain't easy (Score:3, Informative)
As I said elsewhere, I think that part of the reason there isn't a free Flash package is coz the format itself isn't completely free but under the control of Macromedia. But it is relatively well-understood and easy to output.
Macromedia keeps it proprietary. (Score:5, Insightful)
* The description Macromedia released is incomplete in some areas, and has not been kept up to date with more recent versions of Flash.
* I've used Macromedia's documentation to write a Perl library that outputs and modifies flash movies. I've found format to be highly optimized for playback unfortunately; you can't do much to modify existing movies in interesting ways (aside from moving existing elements around the screen, rearranging letters and so on).
* Macromedia has not released a description of the Flash *project* file (thus giving them a tight reign over authoring tools). Significant information is lost when a project is published in the (documented) flash format - information that would lend itself to making more dynamic and interesting sites.
* Macromedia likely does not view the prospect of 3rd party authoring tools as being a good thing, since Macromedia is largly an authoring tools company.
Finally, I'm a bit perplexed why you would choose Flash as a good tool for educating people about "complicated policy questions" - this strikes me as something that would be served better by a more dynamic text-oriented approach (such as a Slash-code based site).
One of the problems with Flash is that it doesn't lend itself to sites which have a large amount of interaction between their users and the site authors. You can do it, but it's a huge pain-in-the-ass.
So I'm assuming you want to create a flashy presentation, and not much else.
You said it! (Score:5, Insightful)
I couldn't agree more. Perhaps the reason why these policy quesitons remain complicated is that the people put in charge of creating educational tools have no clue about how to deliver simple, succinct answers.
Flash indeed.
Re:Even when using MM products, it's not always id (Score:2)
but what percentage of your users have gone out of their way to install Adobe's 2.5 MB SVG browser plugin? Windows, IE, and AOL all bundle the Flash player for their users convenience.
Not open source, but much cheaper. (Score:3, Informative)
You could try Swish [swishzone.com], which does text effects (among other things) quite well and is only $50.
mahlen
"The carrot is the agent of the coleslaw." -- Berkeley Bob
Re:Not open source, but much cheaper. (Score:2)
Others have pointed out some decent alternatives, SVG, DHTML and Java applets would all let you add some glitz to your presentation.
Whatever you do, enforce a separation of style from content, it is possible in any of the above mentioned technologies. This might even allow you to provide multiple versions from the same content base (something concerning policy on perscription drugs might be very useful to the blind and the physically handicapped)
bad bad bad? (Score:2)
Flash is Style over Substance, Usability Nightmare (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm sure Flash could be useful in cases where animation is actually necessary - animated diagrams and the such. But the cases where such a thing is actually CALLED FOR are extremely rare.
All in all, Flash epitomizes style over substance. Just don't do it. There's really no good reason to.
Re:Flash is Style over Substance, Usability Nightm (Score:2)
Think about why people will be using this web site. Do they want pretty? Or do they want information? If they wanted pretty, they'd watch a movie or take acid and stare at some vintage 70's wallpaper.
You should try to make the site attractive, of course- but don't forget your #1 priority which is (or should be) usability and information. Any compromise to make the site flashy is a detriment to what your site set out to accomplish.
Re:Flash is Style over Substance, Usability Nightm (Score:2)
That seems only half-right. Things like the back, forward, and reload buttons, and the page metaphor (when not broken by forms...what's a button doing in a scrolling window?) seem to have been there from the start, but most of the consistent interfaces seem to have evolved slowly. Mostly I'm thinking about the "tab" layout, the locations of "log out" and "help," and that kind of thing. They definitely aren't part of the web's foundation, and only developed as the market's response to user confusion.
I do agree with you about Flash though. Stupid stupid.
Don't listen (Score:2, Insightful)
I especially liked the fact I could dynamically load data in without having to "refresh" the screen. Do-able in HTMl, but buggy (frames anyone?)
So, while not on topic, I think flash is a viable solution for creating web applications, but as always, do your homework before making any decision. Sometimes DHTML is more the enough.
In regards to OSS apps.. There are some PHP and python modules that allow for dynamic creation of flash content. I don't know of any robust development app though. I'd love to find one though because flash development is the only reason I haven't switched to a full linx desktop.
Why are you posting on Slashdot (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that 99% of Flash out there is gratuitous and badly designed.
Flash can actually be very usable and very accessible when designed properly.
There was an open source project but it seems to have died:
http://www.openlgx.org/
eBay (Score:2, Interesting)
Check it out.
Justin
flash is not the problem... (Score:2)
just one of the rating sites you might want to check out..http://www.flashgallery.co.uk/latest.html
NOT to mention the many artists that use Flash for what HTML would not allow them to do. IMHO it is nicer if ppl. use Flash than stick with IE style CSS and DOM which is not supported in Mozilla: think right click, partial fill etc.. at least we have a linux flash player which works just as well (in my experience) as the windows counterpart.
Now about the real question, OSS suport for flash: I loooked for it myself sometime ago when i became interested in ActionScript and found very little available... but would be interested in find out more about new projects..
SWiSH (Score:2)
Flash is the right medium for this... (Score:3, Insightful)
Flash (the development tool) enables people to create relatively complex animations and interactive sites with amazing ease. Flash itself is not to blame for usability problems on websites - check out http://www.homestarrunner.com [homestarrunner.com] and tell me that site isn't easy to navigate. :)
Until there are real, viable alternatives to Flash that have 96% browser penetration (this statistic is from Macromedia, of course, so it may or may not be 100% true) then it'll be the best tool for the job.
(Someone suggested PHP as an alternative? You really think doing this stuff in PHP will be as easy without any GUI-based tools??)
Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
As I understand it, the question can be translated as:
"We're developing a new education product in Flash. Instead of hiring developers to help us design the interface, we would like to call it 'open-source' so we can get people to work on our product for free. We're really too cheap to even supply a basic development tool to our workers, so can we mooch off someone else's work by using a free product?"
Please forgive me if I'm assuming too much, but it really sounds like you want someone to have duplicated Flash and put it on the market for free. Now, having stated something that could be considered "flamebait", I will give you some advice.
-- Don't use Flash. I know that a lot of the tech-heads here on Slashdot will say this as enitre comment and get moderated up for it. I happen to not use Flash, but I do also happen to realize that there are very valid reasons for using it, and that education is one of Flash's core markets.
If you are not willing to pay your developers or at least buy them a tool for their work, use HTML. Most likely, the people on this project will already have a preferred HTML editor, which will enable you to just use CVS or another versioning system to check in the documents.
What bothers me about this whole post, though, is that it epitomizes the "bottom-feeder" attitude of companies that really want to profit from people's hard work without paying those people for that work. To avoid this, I would recommend gathring a core development team and paying for the tools that you believe that team needs. Then, you can release your product so that the masses can update it, with the caveat that the people updating it will need a development tool that they will have to pay for on their own. Everyone goes home happy: you sell a product, your development team gets paid a small amount plus experience, and your customers can update the product on their own accord and with their own tools.
Open-source software usually fulfills a need of the developer(s). I would say that the reason that there aren't free Flash development tools is that either a) Flash is such a good product that the people who use it are willing to pay for it or b) not that many people feel a need to use Flash. It's probably some of both.
Another thing: how do you release a Flash product as "open-source"? Do you distribute your product's SWF files to the target audience? I'm not sure how that would work. Is this something you have considered?
I apologize if I read too much into your statement. I hope that you really did have good intentions and weren't just riding on the "free [as in beer] is cool" bandwagon. I'd appreciate a good response from the original poster or someone who is involved in a similar project. At face value, it seems that there are a lot of "holes" in this project plan that haven't quite been addressed.
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Profit? Not exactly.... I work for the Service Employees International Union, not a company. I have lots of reasons to use an open source strategy, but making money isn't one of them.
2) I'm definitely not trying to scam work/money off of anyone. In the first phase of our plan, we're going to work with a vendor to build the first round of tools, and obviously all the developers involved will have Flash MX.
3) One of the reasons almost all Flash you see is advertising or a waste of bandwidth is that most of the people who'd like to use it for educational work are scared off by the amount of work & skill it would take to do it well. We'd like to see how far we can reduce this barrier. Our plan is to build several interactive educational toys, and then we're hoping to use what we learn to figure out what code, etc. we can write that would make it easier for us as well as other nonprofits to use Flash/Java/SVG/etc for interactive education.
4) After we've got a core of paid work done, I'd like to make the project as enticing as possible to volunteers (although we'll still pay for some development). Many of the nonprofits who would do a kick-ass job of building educational policy toys can't afford programmers, so most of their work will have to be done by volunteers, and most of these nonprofits can't afford to spend the money to buy a bunch of copies of Flash--these are shops where they get new PCs every 5-8 years. There are also lots of volunteers who may want to help us out because they like the politics of the project. Although I can convince the Top Brass to give me some money to buy Flash for some of them, it won't be enough to cover all of them, and I don't want to have volunteers not be able to work on this project because the cost of the tools is so high.
5) Whether we use Java, Flash, SVG, or a mix of these for different projects, I want to do this as an open source project with, eventually, lots of volunteers involved, because I hope to use this as one of several campaigns to convince the union movement to embrace open source. Most large unions--and for that matter, most large nonprofits--spend a lot of money buying proprietary systems from vendors, often getting ripped off in the process. If we could start to get that money flowing into open source projects, we could easily build many of the tools smaller nonprofits need but can't afford.
This injection of cash would also help solve some of the major problems open source faces, particularly on the desktop, in obtaining wider acceptance. Although things are _much_ better than they were a few years ago, a lot of open source software is still too hard to use, has user interfaces that aren't designed for people who don't get computers, and the user manuals are often crap. If we could harness only a tiny amount of the money unions and large nonprofits spend on software, we could radically change this, because it's something we could convince them to pay for--"if you pay $20,000 for a UI facelift, you get the other $100,000 worth of software for free."
So relax, dude; this isn't bottom feeding. I'm just trying to get this dinosaur turned around in the right direction.
In Unity, Anders Schneiderman Information Manager SEIU International
More Info on Flash (Score:3, Informative)
Well (Score:3, Insightful)
The real question is where are the *easy to use, end-user* Flash-making apps...And that question sort of answers itself. Most OSS developers aren't interested in end-user, easy-to-use, GUI-heavy tools. I mean, OSS is just now getting to the point where there are halfway decent Office-style applications...And Flash, while somewhat widely used, is much more niche than Office apps.
To pose a question back at the original author -- why are you looking to Flash for this functionality? I'm not anti-Flash as like 95% of Slashdot seems to be, but for what you're doing it seems like you could do it in browser-neutral DHTML and still have a really slick interactive tool. What is Flash bringing to the table for you?
*whine* Flash *whine* (Score:2)
So, here's my answer:
Get Apache, PHP, and the Ming libraries, located at http://www.opaque.net/ming/ [opaque.net].
Ming lets you create Flash animations from within PHP that can be either saved (to reduce CPU load of regenerating the flash each time) or dynamically written so you can do things on-the-fly with it.
I used it to write up some crappy animations on my home page for my relatives to see.
Part of the problem with flash is it's overused, and the audio makes the apps take forever to load.
For some really nice examples of what you can do with flash, take a look at joecartoon.com.
NPD Research claims 98.3% have Flash (Score:3, Interesting)
"In December 2001, NPD Research, the parent company of MediaMetrix, conducted a study to determine what percentage of Web browsers have Macromedia Flash preinstalled. The results show that 98.3% of Web users can experience Macromedia Flash content without having to download and install a player."
Take it for what it's worth. Seems amazingly high to me though.
Re:NPD Research claims 98.3% have Flash (Score:2)
98% of users have Flash, but what percentage of gone out of their way to manually download and install Adobe's 2.5 MB SVG browser plugin? I did, but I have yet to find a real web page that uses SVG other than Adobe's small gallery of SVG examples..
perl (Score:2)
Ask Macromedia to provide the Dev tools for free. (Score:3, Insightful)
Open Source Flash Tools, Vector Tools, etc (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.opaque.net/ming/
The second is libswf, created by SGI. I'm not sure of the status of the license, but the source _is_ available.
ftp://ftp.sgi.com/sgi/graphics/grafica/flash/
Both libraries are accessible from PHP.
As far as vector tools, Sodipodi [sourceforge.net] is an incredibly cool vector editor. Unfortunately, at this time it is only svg, but you may find it useful.People have for quite a while wanted flash for sodipodi, and all one has to do is tie the Open Source flash libs to the UI. But nobody has done it. Read a post about it on the Sodipodi web site [sourceforge.net].
I hope you find this helpful.
SVG (Score:3, Informative)
How about a nice alternative [w3.org] to Flash.
What does your site stand for? (Score:2)
coz it's too much work (Score:3, Interesting)
There are various free software packages that do interesting things with vector graphics. I forgot what Killustrator changed its name to, but I think it could output static swfs. Autotrace (free, does about the same thing as Adobe Streamline) definitely can (I wrote the first version of the swf output). Then there's Ming, which can be used with several languages to output swf. But you've probably already come across most of these.
But if you're looking for a fully-featured swf authoring packages, just give up and nick Macromedia's, or hassle them for charity copies or something, coz otherwise you're SOL.
Flash -- Changes in a... (Score:3, Interesting)
Now that I drove that home, on with my story:
Macromedia did try to open up the Flash 4 format so that other people could create software compatible with it. And in fact, LiveMotion [adobe.com] was Adobe's [adobe.com] entry into that market.
This was Flash 4, though. They're now essentially up to Flash MX [macromedia.com] (read: 6), and the spec has grown significantly since then. The first big change was scripting from 4 => 5, and while I have no idea what they added from 5 => MX, but I'm sure it's sizeable. (Memo to myself: look into it, consider upgrading just because it might be fun to try some animation.)
Remember, once again, that Macromedia makes the player plug-in, and if you base a site on Flash, you're still going to be at their mercy no matter whose development tools you use. And if you use someone else's tools, they may not keep up with Macromedia's changes.
Now, it's doubtful that they'll do anything to break an animation when viewed through an older plug-in or browser, but there may be side-effects, and they will affect both usability and user perceptions of your site.
Yes, I'll admit, this argument smacks of FUD, but sometimes the unthinkable happens.
Barring my qualms against it, I'll side with everyone else who answered so far and recommend not using Flash to build a website because it can prevent normal navigation, SWFs can take a long time to play over slow connections (I'm still stuck on a 56K dialup--I know from whence I speak), and as of Flash 5, Macromedia's authoring environment had some seriously "avant-garde" (read: bad) user interface design philosophies. There are those who believe [com.com] [really C|net news] the Flash-based web is not necessarily a good idea.
The load speeds and display times could be the biggest issue, since web surfers have notoriously short attention spans.
But that's just my opinion, as always. The salt shaker is to the left; take as many grains as you need.
OpenOffice? (Score:2, Informative)
Open Source Flash Tools (Score:2, Informative)
cheap legal copy of flash for windows (Score:2, Informative)
Ridiculous and Moronic Gates reference (Score:2)
No Bill Gates didn't invent the notion that theft is bad. This line is getting so lame and cliched. Come on folks, get a grip.
Section 508 (Score:2, Informative)
Take a look (Score:2)
Anymore with flash and banner ads everywhere the content begins to slip away. Plus I don't know how friendly flash sites are with search engines. You can't put a price on someone being able to fire up google and search for "policy on prescription drugs" and find your site. (I would trade that for flashy, bandwidth hogging eye candy any day!)
Confused: Open Source Vs Free Software (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems that person, however, did not wish to look at the source of whatever program he was going to use... he just wanted to have something that was free for use.
This is the problem with Open Source AND Free Software. While Open Source software is a nice idea in some respects, it seems that everyone thinks Open Source is another word for free. It's not. Plus, you can derive a lot of benefits from selling commercial software that is Open Source... unless you have low-lifes out there that will compile the source and use the resulting commercial software at no charge. Judging from what computer geeks do with commercial MUSIC, it's not hard to imagine.
And let's not forget the most sickening part of this all: this guy wants to use free software as a development tool in a commercial/business environment. Or, basically, profit off of someone else's hard work without having to put in any effort or support into the author's cause in a meaningful way. (come on, did you even think that this guy's company would send the author a thank-you card?) And there's absolutely no way in hell that there's any logical consistency in writing free software for business use.
And you want us to PAY for this crap?
Try SVG (Score:3, Informative)
One advantage to SVG is that you can separate out the content from the presentation using CSS and XSL. If you needed to translate your presentation into Spanish, say, you could simply change the source text (in XML), and the animations, fonts, etc. would stay the same. Since text in SVG keeps its textual meaning, and isn't converted into a meaningless vector image, the text is also searchable and can be copied and pasted.
While this may be outside the scope of your project, you can also translate to SVG
from MathML (I'm working on a project doing that right now, to make math tutorials), or represent ChemML graphically (see the SVG demos at Adobe ( http://www.adobe.com/svg/demos/main.html ).
There's a great SVG-Wiki/FAQ at http://www.protocol7.com/svg-wiki/ .
Stoning (Score:3, Funny)
It was him! Him!
"All right. Why did you throw that rock before I gave the signal?"
Well you did say 'Flash...' Ow! Ouch!
Flash Symptoms (Score:3, Funny)
Is your website promoting a movie or selling vacuum cleaners?
It could be a Flash site.
Does your website live in a tiny little pop-up window all it's own?
I betcha it's also a Flash site.
Does your website display the message "Loading" when you visit it?
Yep. Smells like a Flash site.
Does your website impress all your graphic designer buds?
Flash site.
Is your website incredibly fun to visit, but exactly one time only?
Might be a flash site.
Does your website have an animation of a bunch of semi-transparent oblong
objects moving in a spiral pattern?
Flash site.
Does your website have a "skip intro" button?
I'd say there's a 99% probabililty that it's a Flash site.
Is your website invisible to users who are using ad-blocking tools like Proximitron,
or slightly non-standard web browsing technology or computers that don't use one
of three well known operating systems?
Well then maybe you're abusing javascript.
OR maybe it's a flash site.
Is your website immune to being bookmarked?
Hmmm. Maybe there's an outside chance it might be a flash site.
Is the content on your website 2 years out of date, because it's
such a pain-in-the-ass to update?
Well then, there exists the possilibity it might be a flash site.
JGenerator (Score:3, Informative)
In defense of Flash (Score:3, Interesting)
On the Plus side:
Flash MX allows Flash files to be indexed on search engines, has accessibility features for vision impaired and handicapped users.
If used well, I don't think there is anything that can beat it for what it does. It's the most commonly used special feature plug-in around and most browsers can view Flash files (According to Macromedia's figures, 98% of all Internet users have the Flash plug-in installed).
File sizes need not be large at all, Flash uses vector graphics rather than raster graphics to save time on downloads (at the expense of CPU cycles on the user machine...the processing power needed to display vector graphics is somewhat higher than displaying raster graphics such as jpeg, gif and png images).
Despite what is being said in reply to your question, not everyone on the internet is an open-source fanatic that avoids Flash for ethical reasons. I would say a very miniscule percentage, and not likely within the scope of your target audience (to the upcoming firestormers, flame me, bake me, scorch me, but it's ture).
Using Flash on a website is not, be definition, bad design. Commerical designers the world over use it extensively, and for a reason.
On the Downside:
Flash has a steep learning cure. It isn't quite vertical, but it's pretty close to it at first. If you're used to vector graphics programs, that will help somewhat. Once you've learned how to draw and animate shapes, text and objects in Flash, you will discover that you have not even begun to scratch the surface, Actionscript is next, and it's enormously powerful. You will need to read several books on both Flash and Actionscript to come to grips with the full potential of the medium, also a good deal of time and practice to master it.
If someone in your group is passionately interested in learning the tool, and creating a great website with it, go for it...but he or she will be outlaying a fair amount of money and time on books and practice. I'll wager they'll get a kick out of it, and in time produce splended results, but Flash can be quite intimidating at first...if not to say opaque and inscrutable. This isn't Powerpoint! I think any tool you use will ultimately require a lot of study however.
Personally, I use it to give presentations to my students on many topics. I have one of my classroom computers hooked up to a very large presentation monitor, but I don't do very much webdesign with it at the moment, although I am making three or four sites using it, they are secondary to my current purpose. For the future, I'm looking toward web-based exercises and testing applications. I use it in place of many other programs, and I use it almost constantly. I've read a couple of books on it, and am reading three more (now mostly dealing with actionscript). I swear by it, but for what I'm doing, it so much more than adaquately fills my needs. It's overkill for me, but overkill is the American way, isn't it?
HTML itself takes quite a bit of education in good webdesign, even if you're using a WYSIWYG HTML editor, so some education is going to be necessary whatever you do.
Are there alternatives to Flash? Adobe's LiveMotion 2 looks interesting...and it will handle Flash SWF format files...but I don't think its userbase is nearly as large, and I feel you're probably better off just using Flash to make Flash files in the end. It does cost USD $199 however (introductiory price).
Adobe and many others are developing SVG, which are scalable vector graphics in XML, and they will do many of the things Flash can do...but I doubt if the SVG plugin is very commonly used at all at the moment. Check it out at www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Overview.htm8
This site contains links to many other articles on the subject, and I think it bears a lot of promise for the future of the web.
I'd vote for Flash, myself, but you're not going to get immediate results from it. I do have high praise for the product, but whatever medium you choose, you're going to have to do the hard work of mastering it. Flash is a means to this end, and then some.
Vince Frost
chente@attbi.com
Re:what?? (Score:5, Informative)
FreeMovie/C#
FreeMovie/Java
FreeMovie/Perl
FreeMovie/PHP
FreeMovie/Python
FreeMovie/Rebol
FreeMovie/Ruby
FreeMovie/Tcl
FreeMovie/VB
FreeMovie/VB.Net
So the real question is, "How do you want to flash today?"
Re:Flash... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Flash... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Flash... (Score:5, Insightful)
I got a buddy who is doing a web development class and he chose flash for his app so that the User does not need to download a new page everytime a serverside script updates information.
faster than Java, nice looking than Java, and has all the power of a serverside script without all the page reloads....NICE!!!!
Re:Flash... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Flash... (Score:2, Informative)
works better then java
have you have looked at the flash plugin files? in /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins:
ShockwaveFlash.class libflashplayer.so
how does something that is in java work better then java?
Re:Flash... (Score:2, Insightful)
faster than Java, nice looking than Java, and has all the power of a serverside script without all the page reloads....NICE!!!!
Exactly. Let me add a couple of more reasons to this list.
You guys who live in the world of the command line are very comfortable with plain text. Thus, you assume that everything is best presented to everyone in plain text. The fact of the matter is that people have different cognitive styles. If you're developing something to teach people, at least some of your audience will learn better through diagrams, pictures, simulations, and other sort of participatory (i.e., interactive) exercise. Flash can be very useful for this sort of application, particularly now that it has a real scripting language behind it, can use XML, and has some real interface widgets available to programmers.
Re:Flash... (Score:2)
Re:DON'T DO IT! (Score:2, Troll)
you can use flash to develope powerful clientside applications that load faster and look nice than Java and there is no need for serverside crap so no reloading the webpage.
Is your target audience on lower-end PCs? (Score:4, Insightful)
- students / low-income people using the browser PCs at the local public library (usually an older box donated by someone)
- the disabled (the visually impaired often use audio text readers / large fonts)
- non-geeks who may not know what a "plug-in" is, where to get it or how to install it
- people on a slow connection (DSL / cable modems are not available in many rural neighbourhoods)
then you DO NOT want to use Flash, because you will block out a large part of your target audience.
If you insist on Flash content, have a dual site - Flash and non-Flash - and make sure the main page is accessible to a text-only browser like Lynx, so people using audio readers / slow links can actually read your page.
Re:Is your target audience on lower-end PCs? (Score:3, Informative)
- students / low-income people using the browser PCs at the local public library (usually an older box donated by someone)
And? Never seen a simple Flash animation use up much CPU unless you're doing complicated computations, which it doesn't sound like he plans to do.
- the disabled (the visually impaired often use audio text readers / large fonts)
You mean text readers like FlashMX supports, or large fonts a la vector graphics that you can zoom in on and not lose resolution?
- non-geeks who may not know what a "plug-in" is, where to get it or how to install it
The same non-geeks who most likely use IE, where the plugin is either already installed or auto-installed if not present?
- people on a slow connection (DSL / cable modems are not available in many rural neighbourhoods)
Inconsequential if the flash is designed correctly. Since it can play as it's downloading all the end user would have to do is wait a couple of seconds. Considering the use/target audience for this, the animation is something they're coming specifically to see meaning they'd be willing to wait.
Re:DON'T DO IT! (Score:5, Informative)
that is not an accurate or mature attitude towards flash. yes.. the blink tag is dead, and for good reason, but in case you haven't seen any promotional websites for things such as movies or events lately, you might be interested in knowing that your version of the future of the web is boring. Yes, a good website is one that offers dialup and text only browsers lusers an escape trap, but flash has some very entertaining possibilities on the web. Of course it has no place on a site like slashdot.. but fine.. move on from sites that use it.. you are seriously missing out.
I happened to have loved the recent E.T. website [et20.com], completely done in flash. The sounds, images, and interactivity were very interesting.
Sorry about your connection, or browser, or lack of interest in web media. It must be boring where you live.
flaimbait? perhaps.
As for the slashdot question,
If you want to build Flash and you don't want to pay $500, how do you do it
you do it with swish [swishzone.com].
it's not as fancy but it will do the basics.
Re:This is ridiculous (Score:2, Insightful)
the problem with flash is that it's a _functional_ nightmare. it's impossible to make information rich sites using flash, or deep link using flash.
if you find that certain sites rendered using flash are unusable, don't blame the hammer. blame the carpenter.
Re:This is ridiculous (Score:4, Insightful)
1) I can't use the BACK button to get back one step.
2) I can't search text with the browsers search function.
3) I can't resize the browser window to my comfort and have the content resized as well.
4) I have to learn how to use each and every site because everybody uses a different user interface (preferably using tiny fonts and tiny scrolling windows to display large amounts of text).
5) Murphy's Law: interesting sites always require the latest flash plugin, which unfortunately is not yet available for your platform.
6) Murphy's 2nd Law: if you have the required plugin version it will crash your browser.
Re:This is ridiculous (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunatly this is simply a limitation of any technology that gives this level of control to the developer. People use flash precisely because it lets them do things like run animations/programs in the web page. If you have some sort of fast changing graphic (for instance a game/educational software) what is "back." The programmer needs to explicitly tell flash how to go back precisely because it has that extra power (if you don't believe this ask the question "why doesn't x-windows have a back button". Flash gives you similar power to an x-windows app.
Searching is similar. Quite simply if you want to display graphic images (which are often buttons or words) you need to tell the program how to do a search otherwise it isn't very usefull.
Of course flash effects can be arbitrarily resizeable. This is the same reason x-windows programs can't simply be resized, it doesn't always make sense. Flash is meant to be used primarily for graphic intensive operations. Its strength is precisely the fact that it lets the author control precisely how the output looks on the computer.
Quite simply all of these are disadvatages of giving the author such a high degree of control over the output. I am not claiming flash is as well designed as possible (maybe it could have more features to encourage authors to add these userfriendly features) however these are all issues endemic to any tool which addresses flashes needs. In fact flash is remarkably good at replicating the same results on differnt platforms.
It mostly seems that your problem is that people often implement flash for the wrong purposes. HTML is better for informational content b/c it has search builtin (esp if you aren't going to bother to implement it yourself). This is no more flashes fault than it is perl's fault that your ray tracer written in perl is too slow.
It is really unfortunate that I know of no good free flash development tools
Re:This is ridiculous (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is ridiculous (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:better than DHTML (Score:2)
What ever happened to applets? Those work in more browsers and provide more flexibility...
Re:Why not try LiveMotion? (Score:2)
I heard that Adobe has recently abandoned Live Motion. Plus Live Motion is only for animation, you can't use ActionScript to make your movie more dynamic or use external data sources.
Re:Flash is proprietary and NOT a good idea for we (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyway, the Flash file format is open: http://www.openswf.org/ [openswf.org] (Well, in that it is openly documented, anyway...)