I think its a consiracy! They keep changing the rules so that I can never take my nose out of the programming manuals
Well I've seen a few people still using flash for menus and special occasions, but would crawlers recognize any content/links?
Personally, I think flash is fine for this application. There are two main drawbacks 1)Poor SEO - He already said SEO doesn't matter, I'm assuming that it is a client application, not a website that needs to be seen well by the search engines for promotional purposes. 2)Weight - Flash applications are bigger and take longer load time. Once again if this is a client application and he knows they have high speed internet this is not a problem. If they may use dial-up, then he may need to reconsider, depending on how involved the application is. Other than that Flash is just another programming language with its benefits and problems. One major benefit it that it is a relatively (compared to javascript) secure way to program. It runs on the client side which in some case is a real plus. It does not require a download to run like Java does. If you are alright with the limitations then Flash still does have applications that it is well suited for.
No, if you are using Flash for navigation on a website and you want the search engines to find the other pages of your site, you will need to have a good set of footer links and probably a site map. Be sure that you use footer links on all the pages you would normally have the navigation. Sence the search engines will not follow the links in the flash, this is the only way to spead PR throughout the site. A sitemap will allow the search engines to find the other pages, but with out the footer links the pages will only recieve PR from the sitemap and not all the other pages on the site.