Bobs new doings

[d000hg]

Flash seems appears almost ubiquitous for animated content now. Java applets for example seem to have taken backstage, and I forget what the MS effort is called. Trouble is it's not open source (to create the files) and is expensive to buy. Have many of you lot bitten the bullet and bought Flash, or do you use something else?

There are many many tools which compile to SWF files, not just Adobe's. I expect most of those you have to pay for also, but I doubt they cost as much as CS4.

[VectraMan]

Flash seems appears almost ubiquitous for animated content now. Java applets for example seem to have taken backstage, and I forget what the MS effort is called.

Where have you been? There was that animated penguin thing back in the early-mid 90s, then everybody realised animated GIFs could do the same much better and that was the last anybody heard of Java applets. Flash came later.

There are lots of alternative ways to create Flash files. But Bob's video with much excellentness isn't Flash. It's Flash as a video player, like YouTube, but the actual content could be any video format. Buying Flash wouldn't help you create that.

[TimberWolf]

Where have you been? There was that animated penguin thing back in the early-mid 90s, then everybody realised animated GIFs could do the same much better and that was the last anybody heard of Java applets. Flash came later.

There are lots of alternative ways to create Flash files. But Bob's video with much excellentness isn't Flash. It's Flash as a video player, like YouTube, but the actual content could be any video format. Buying Flash wouldn't help you create that.

I was writing Java Applets long after the mid 90s. In fact hadn't even started back then. The Sun / MS bust-up probably dented the popularity of Java applets, perhaps terminally, though decent graphics (e.g. Java2D/3D) was also made a bit unfriendly for users too. Applets do way more than GIF's (and likely Flash for that matter) so GIFS are not really a valid comparison. I don't think Applets are quite dead, but they seem not to be as common as Flash these days.

[TimberWolf]

Does anyone use Microsoft Silverlight for animated content?

[VectraMan]

I was writing Java Applets long after the mid 90s. In fact hadn't even started back then. The Sun / MS bust-up probably dented the popularity of Java applets, perhaps terminally, though decent graphics (e.g. Java2D/3D) was also made a bit unfriendly for users too. Applets do way more than GIF's (and likely Flash for that matter) so GIFS are not really a valid comparison. I don't think Applets are quite dead, but they seem not to be as common as Flash these days.

Yes, but what I was referring to was when all the original hype about Java started the common example was the silly penguin animation that showed what it could do. But Java for animation never happened in any significant way, because animated GIFs were simpler, smaller, faster and generally better. Looking at this website now I can see lots of animated GIFs, and some Flash, but not a hint of Java anywhere, and 99.9% of the web is like that and has been for donkeys years.

[TimberWolf]

Yes, but what I was referring to was when all the original hype about Java started the common example was the silly penguin animation that showed what it could do. But Java for animation never happened in any significant way, because animated GIFs were simpler, smaller, faster and generally better. Looking at this website now I can see lots of animated GIFs, and some Flash, but not a hint of Java anywhere, and 99.9% of the web is like that and has been for donkeys years.

So what do commercial sites use when they want more than a gif or video provides, say for interactive or dynamic animation, e.g Google Earth? Do commercial sites assume everyone has a Flash player? We've seen at least two posters on here say they can't see the OP's animation. No doubt many people haven't a Java JVM installed these days either. Yes, you're right, I am behind the times a bit...What about Silverlight?

[d000hg]

Does anyone use Microsoft Silverlight for animated content?

Yes but it hasn't caught on massively.Developers I know who've looked into SL seem to like it, but that's not enough of a reason for people to move away from Flash.

[Lockhouse]

Keep it coming

[VectraMan]

So what do commercial sites use when they want more than a gif or video provides, say for interactive or dynamic animation, e.g Google Earth? Do commercial sites assume everyone has a Flash player? We've seen at least two posters on here say they can't see the OP's animation. No doubt many people haven't a Java JVM installed these days either. Yes, you're right, I am behind the times a bit...What about Silverlight?

I suspect the people that can't see the video can't because of some firewall or content blocking preventing external videos. Though it's possible they just don't have Flash installed, some people must not. However, browsers will detect what you need and install the plugin automatically.

Flash was a vector animation format, that's become a much more powerful system with a proper programming language, and the two don't always fit that well together. Whereas Silverlight seems to have been designed to be the latter from the start, much like a Java applet, which is probably good, but is less good for simple animations. I think it's unfortunate that Flash was mainly known for annoying web ads, and now has found a new lease of life as a video player, neither of which demonstrate 1/10th of what it's capable of.

To answer the question, I think the likes of Google insist on doing things the incredibly slow and painful way with HTML and JavaScript, and then have another twenty rounds with standards committees trying to bolt things onto HTML that they think might be useful.

Have a look at Brakes International's online ordering. It's a whole parts catalogue and ordering system done in Flash, which means the GUI looks good and is fast and respsonive, which makes such a refreshing change after using clunky HTML based GUIs. More of the web should work like this IMO:

http://www.brakesinternational.co.uk/

[TimberWolf]

I suspect the people that can't see the video can't because of some firewall or content blocking preventing external videos. Though it's possible they just don't have Flash installed, some people must not. However, browsers will detect what you need and install the plugin automatically.

Flash was a vector animation format, that's become a much more powerful system with a proper programming language, and the two don't always fit that well together. Whereas Silverlight seems to have been designed to be the latter from the start, much like a Java applet, which is probably good, but is less good for simple animations. I think it's unfortunate that Flash was mainly known for annoying web ads, and now has found a new lease of life as a video player, neither of which demonstrate 1/10th of what it's capable of.

To answer the question, I think the likes of Google insist on doing things the incredibly slow and painful way with HTML and JavaScript, and then have another twenty rounds with standards committees trying to bolt things onto HTML that they think might be useful.

Have a look at Brakes International's online ordering. It's a whole parts catalogue and ordering system done in Flash, which means the GUI looks good and is fast and respsonive, which makes such a refreshing change after using clunky HTML based GUIs. More of the web should work like this IMO:

http://www.brakesinternational.co.uk/

I never got into Flash because a) it costs (pots of) money and b) at the time was quite limited in what it could do, and I always wanted to do more sophisticated things. It seems you have to throw money the way of Adobe if you want interactive animated content on the Web now, which is very sad.

Although saying that, I gather you can implement Flash without paying for it, as long as what you want doesn't require any sophistication or programming. My Google Earth example wasn't a good one, as I believe they require you to install a rather hefty plug-in to use it.

Silverlight may be MS and browser incompatible?

We seem to be going backwards in the interactive web animation field.