Currently on a foundation degree in new media and graphic design. Wound up on it following an interest in affiliate marketing/web interest/midlife crisis career change. second term into it so early days. That is me. Anyway....... I would like some honest views about flash. I heard on the affiliate forums before i started that flash was bad/waste of time/just about dying and not good for SEO really so i avoided it. Our course is covering flash and in a big way really. Going to make games and film trailers etc in flash. Now ive challenged my tutor about the use of flash in the future, and time could be better utilised with advanced css, or a lot of other things really. He remains unmoved and think he has a personal interest in flash anyway. Ive sold it to myself that even if i have to make games which i have no real interest, i will gain a skill in something that does get used, so not totally pointless. I would love to hear peoples opinions about flash in general. I may go into either web development or web design, so if learning an animation tool then i could look into that field a bit more. Not my current interest but you never know/ So any thoughts about flash generally? good, bad, waste of time?? Thanks in advance Alan.
Very good post Alan, I understand your confusion truly. The answer depends upon your eventual goal, which unfortunately right now may not be very clear. I'd say Flash is not a waste of time. Yes, its not good for SEO. But still Flash is used at many places and it can give you a competitive edge. Most web designers are avoiding flash but there are companies who needs flash and are not much concerned about SEO.... as they already have a big brand. Besides, making Flash Intros, games and such things are really in fashion. So if you can learn it well, it will help you on the long run. Take care and best of luck Alan.
The biggest misconception people have is that flash is only about games and intros...while flash certainly should not be used in every cases, it has its use when bringing interactive media content to the web, and not everyone cares about being top of google, a photographer, video editor, music artist may prefer to offer a rich experience to its visitors rather than a plain boring HTML option. So think of it as a tool that is appropriate in some cases, and Flash has only been growing ever since its release so I really don't understand where that "Flash will die soon" comes from, there were doubts at the beginning of 2010 when Steve Jobs opened his mouth, but it is clear now Android is embracing Flash so Flash on mobile devices is not an issue, well unless you have an iPhone...I think a good web developer should have as many skills in any given technology, then you can provide content that is appropriate in any case. Finally don't consider Flash as a simple animation software, Actionscript3 is a very powerful Object Orientated programming language...sure HTML5 will be able to do some of what flash does, but javascript is very heavy language so I don't think Flash is going anywhere, certainly not in the next few years at least.
Personally to me Flash is a waste of time. In school i took a Flash class that was about 150 hours long learned the basics of it. A few years ago people kept asking me about it so i didn't know enough to mess with jobs so I got some books and lessons studied invested another 200-300 hours into it. So I stepped back and looked at it and the time it takes to create things with it and determined people were not going to pay for it. People like it but most people are not going to pay dozens of hours of labor for 1 Flash presentation. I will do some rotating pics in headers once in a while but not enough to pay for the hundreds of hours I have invested into flash. The sites made out of pure Flash are garbage.. no SEO and they frequently break.
flash is not a waste of time, but flash is not intended for every website. for example, if you have a website about custom rides and lowriders than i can understand adding flash can make the effects look even better. if you create a website about losing weight or a tutorial website than i dont think flash would be such a great idea.
Flash is a very useful software and it will be good to learn for sure. So you should go for it. Best of luck
Personal opinion. Total waste of time. Focus on HTML5 and the JavaScript renaissance, because it's just around the corner. *Gently pats FlashBlock*
Flash for an entire website I feel is over kill, I did a similar course at uni and had to interact with a client and complete a project for them. I did the entire website in flash which now was a bad idea. I feel that flash can be used in small doses just to include some animation and a little interactivity within the website. A good example of this is the K-Swiss website at the bottom of the page: http://www.kswiss.co.uk/lifestyle/f...anic|utmctr=k-swiss&__utmv=-&__utmk=231485471
Flash helps your visitors to interact with your website more efficiently.But if it takes a longer time to load then visitors may skip your website because of frustration.To avoid you may add a link like skip "flash intro" or use "No flash version" so that you may not miss your visitors.
I’d like to recommend Flash as it’s definitely worth it because the knowledge of any designing software is an advantage. I also learnt Flash and Maya.
Hi Alan, I would recommend you to use Flash because it will really help you to have a competitive site esp. when it comes to animation. It's not all about games anyway. It may help you attract more visitors on your sites depending on your creativity.
Flash is not a waste.. It just depends on what and where you intend to use it... I try to keep it on my tools coz I still stumble upon clients who needs them.
Flash is an excellent tool to have you just need to use it in the right place to add a little sparkle to a website
Only the SEO issue cannot kill the flash. It has unlimited uses these days we are developing a social networking website and most of its audio/video communication features are in Flash Communication Server. one of our product is selling flash templates and people are purchasing these templates. the only disadvantage is the SEO but its not everything. There will always be a need of 2d vector animation tool for web, like flash
Nowadays Flash is a valuable tool for not only web designers but any multimedia designer/producer as well. It is still spread all throughout the web. However, I wouldn't minimize the coming of HTML5 and the battle with Apple either. Android maybe gaining ground, but Apple is still king of the market, and popular websites won't just accept not being able to show their content on Apple devices, regardless of Android's popularity. So I'd say learn Flash, but keep up to speed with newer developments as well, cause you are probably gonna need them a lot more in the future.
Is there any chance that Apple would add support of flash in future? and do anyone know the actual reason of not supporting flash?
Apple does not support Flash on their mobile devices simply because it would affect the sales of the app store, mainly the games as there are 1000s of free flash games on the web. They claim flash is buggy but it is now clear with all the android devices supporting Flash without any problems that this is not the case. Will Apple support it in the future? Well again with all the new android mobile devices supporting Flash, they may have to, to avoid losing too much market.
But by blocking flash they have forced the word to use apple's platforms. they also claim that flash kills the resources which could be fatal for apple's reputation. My best wishes are with Adobe
websites that are built entirely out of flash are not good for seo. Of course, if you have classy flash banners, logos, and pre-loaders people will naturally like it. I think its worth it, people are always hiring flash designers.