Advice for designing sites with Flash?

[Jaime65]

HEY DO ANYONE KNOW HOW TO DO A QUICK EASY FLASH WEBSITE OR ANY SUGGESTIONS ON WERE I CAN GO TO FIND OUT

[thoughtful]

www.flashkit.com

it has a lot fo stuff including menu systems small website templates e.t.c. Hope it helps

[CJO]

I would definatly check out the site above. In addition, ultra shock (URL ?) has some nice open source stuff. A hint for the beginning Flash artist, actionscript is a lot like C. Also, depending on your application, you may want to ditch swf files, and upload the actionscript as class files (or so my webmaster says).

[Koko Ed]

Someone last year pointed out this site for flash buttons that you can use on your site.
It'll save you a step.

[Goobergunch]

Also, since Flash requires a plugin, you may note that designing most of your site in Flash will lead to your site returning massive blanked/errored spaces for those who haven't downloaded the plugin.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Goobergunch

Also, since Flash requires a plugin, you may note that designing most of your site in Flash will lead to your site returning massive blanked/errored spaces for those who haven't downloaded the plugin.

thus you should make a companion html site for those who don't have the plugin.

[CJO]

Alternativly, you could only design portions of your site in FLASH out of respect for your webserver

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by CJO

Alternativly, you could only design portions of your site in FLASH out of respect for your webserver

like the intro (with the option to skip) and let the rest be html.

[Venkatesh]

There are many things to keep in mind when using Flash, especially if you intend your site to have a professional "feel" and want to have a lot of users.

First, there is no such thing as too little Flash. None is idea, some is useful, too much is garbage. Don't just use technology because you can. Falling into that trap leads to slow, clunky webpages with dynamic "everythings", annoying the user very quickly. Don't use any dynamic technology unless you have a clear reason for doing so, and particularly Flash. Its too easy to make bad pages that way.

A well-place, professional Flash addition greatly improves the effect of a website. An example of such a thing would be fading borders/mastheads, a menu system, and well-done animations. Cybersonics (Team 103, if memory serves me correctly) had an excellent Flash-based webpage. Flash served an auxiliary role in the layout, assisting the main body of the document, which was classic HTML.

[Koko Ed]

If you want ot see excellent use of flash check out Cybersonics website.

[ahecht]

Also, if you use flash for entire pages, don't break the back button. Put each page of information in a seperate flash file (like sites such as HomestarRunner). People are used to how their browser works, and they don't want to have to learn your navigation system.

[Greg Marra]

Flash is not one of my favorite inventions. It has its place, but its place is far smaller than what most people think.

Please don't do something crazy and put a billion different flash elements on your page. If you must have a flash link bar, make the entire bar one flash element and not 8 little ones. If you must have a flash intro make sure you have a 'skip intro' button.

Flash just doesn't float well with me. Heck, I don't even like using images when I don't have to. What can you accomplish with a javascript or flash linkbar that you can't do with XHTML that adds more than a cool fading effect or sounds?

[dk5sm5luigi]

The best suggestion for flash is not to use it for anything critical. Flash is not handicap accessible making it so anyone who has disabilities can't use it. It is true that Flash is more handicap accessible now than it used to be but it is still a far cry from what it could be. If you are designing for the Website award you need to remember that one of the criteria listed is the ability to be used by everyone, this can include the blind. For those who don't know there are text readers that will read out the text on the page, this is why it is important to use alt tags on images and other things so that these people will know what the images are.
With that said flash can be used for making pages look a little more dynamic and if used right can enhance a site.

[Roland]

I AGREE WITH MOST OF THE PEOPLE IN THIS THREAD THAT YOU SHOULDN'T DESIGN YOUR ENTIRE SITE IN FLASH. YOU SHOULD BE USING MAINLY HTML FOR MOST THINGS - I MEAN IF YOU DO AN ANIMATION OR SOMETHING IN FLASH THAT'S COOL, AS IS FLASH VIDEO CONTENT AND THINGS LIKE SCALABLE INMAN FLASH REPLACEMENT FOR FANCY HEADLINES, BUT I SUGGEST YOU LEARN HTML AND CSS FIRST BECAUSE AS COOL AS FLASH IS, IT CAN BE A HUGE PAIN TO BROWSE A COMPLETELY FLASH SITE. CHECK OUT W3SCHOOLS.COM FOR A LOT OF USEFUL RESOURCES ON THAT.

ALSO FIX THAT CAPS LOCK KEY

[AIBob]

I personally do not like flash.... You can do all of the flash abilities using just HTML and javascript and images, if you would like me to, ill design an html alternative to a flash thing you may want to do...