I have been a graphic designer in print for about 4 years now. I am starting to get into web design and I have taught myself Flash. Though I am no expert in Flash yet, I am able to make a functional website in Flash. I have done two websites now, one for a friends band and another for a friend who is a make up artist. The question I have if anyone can answer is should I be making websites in flash, I mean is that an okay means? Or should I learn dreamweaver and import flash intems into dreamweaver. Is it better to know dreamweaver? It seems that everyone I tell asks me if I made it in dreamweaver and then I say no flash and they say they have never made a website in flash before.

IMHO, a web site "made in Flash" is an oxymoron. A web site can include Flash content, but the site itself is built with HTML. And even ignoring accessibility issues and browsing environments where Flash is disabled/unavailable, the "made in Flash" sites I've seen have all been horrible messes.

It's up to you what tools you use to generate the HTML (Dreamweaver, Nvu, a text editor, Perl/Python scripts, whatever), but a web site will be built with HTML.

I nkow exactly what you are asking about.
Full flash website can be very functional. it ll depends on the goal of the website.
flash can go way beyond visual presentation, it can work with databases and other languages like php.

only difficulty you may encounter if you are not a pro flash programmer, with full flash websites if you decide to expand it or change layout or functionality. you have to design full flash websites correctly considering loading times, making decisions like external swf VS movieclip.
if you are going to design full flash make sure most content is externally loading, that will give you much needed flexibility.

I would say stick for hybrid html/flash websites unless you really need full flash for some dazzling effect or antill you become Actionscript 2-3 guru.
P.S.
html or browser doesnt know whats going on withing flash movie unless flash allows it to. sort of like submarine in water. the only thing water knows about submarine that its propeller blades kick the water and navigation blades force direction. browser knows nothing of its functionality unless flash opens a door and triggers it from within.

I disagree: Flash cannot be indexed by search engines, and at least the sites I've seen doesn't let you use the right mouse button, or bookmark individual "pages".

There are many browser features (some related to accessibility) that don't work normally for Flash "web sites", that work fine with real web sites.

i disagree, flash has feature to make it indexed, you enter keyword, matatags whatever you want.
even text that is used on flash pages can be set as searchable. also text that has been converted in vector format can have parallel identical text for browsers.

Flash is not at fault if some people dont know well how to use it and full flash websites can't be blamed , similarly when people have wrong or outdated html you can't blame the website and mark full html site as bad.

Perhaps. But since Flash doesn't use the html addressing functions it breaks the basic functionality of my browser. That's why I don't like it either. Obviously there are situations in which a "Flash presentation" may be a wonderful thing to offer, but generally it's used in an attempt to control *how* I look at stuff, which serves only to annoy me.

Okay, maybe Flash content is "searchable", whatever you think that means. But how can someone link to a particular page/view/frame/state of a Flash object? Let's say I find something on a Flash "web site" that I want to show a friend. How can I link to it? All I can do is link to the Flash object itself, which is like linking to www.w3.org as an example of drop shadows. Sure, there's an example of drop shadows on the site, but that doesn't help you find what you're looking for.

That's just one of the basic functions that Flash breaks.

PS: Please fix your avatar so it doesn't redirect to an https URL with unsigned/expired certificates.

To be more specific, a few search engines can indeed spider Flash files: http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2161851 but (besides this apparently being a low priority to SEs) they can't show the result in a meaningful way, since they can only link to the Flash file as a whole. This means a user would have to search again inside the Flash site (provided it features a site search function) to bring up the content the SE could have linked to directly in an HTML site.


True, I like this philosophy: http://blog.deconcept.com/2006/03/13/moder...oach-flash-seo/ Actually I don't recommend replacing content and HTML with Flash (using javascript) like the author seems to suggest, since that might be regarded as "cloaking" by a SE spider. The best solution IMO is to use small Flash movies embedded on a page just like inline images (with alternate backup content, of course, just like an image's ALT text).


They can, since the Flash technology doesn't work well for SEs today, and since individual pseudo-pages can't be bookmarked.

It might be possible to add some functionality to Flash, like being able to right-click, use keyboard navigation etc, if the budget allows it. But even then it would be like reinventing the wheel, and most clients probably wouldn't want to pay for that.

I agree that you cant bookmark individual pages, external files wont be included unless loaded.
but everything comes with price. and depends on a website profile what's it for.
BUT there is a big but, with full flash website can be achieved visual flow and interaction experience that can not be reproduced using html pages.
you have to make a call if it worths the sacrifice.

Yes, and very, *very*, occasionally such an "experience" is something the visitor is interested in. In 99.9993%* of cases, however, this "experience" is something the marketing department wants, whose only function is to irritate the person who is actually trying to find out something.

* According to the latest research (unpublished).

Even among the sites I visit for their Flash content, the basic site structure and navigation is plain HTML. The "full Flash websites" have all been a PITA that just made it harder for me to get the information I wanted.