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Here's at least why I hate working with flash: 1) I have to use their lame tool 2) Flash UI feels super cheesy (imagine gmail in flash) 3) The workflow is ve

by jcapote 17y ago

Here's at least why I hate working with flash: 1) I have to use their lame tool 2) Flash UI feels super cheesy (imagine gmail in flash) 3) The workflow is very tedious

richard-lyman 17y ago
If by 'working with flash' you actually mean, 'producing a SWF to run in the Flash Player'... 1) I've been using Vim for years to produce SWFs. I hate their tool too - that's why I don't use it. You can use any text editor you want. 2) The 'Flash UI' is very skinnable (not as skinnable in Flex3 as in the upcoming Flex4, see: http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2008/08/27/everything-there-is-to-know-about-flex-4-gumbo/ http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2008/08/27/everything-there... ) 3) I'm not sure what you mean by tedious. You might be referring to the Flash editor's use of the timeline. If that's the case then you'll want to look into the Flex SDK I mentioned. I haven't used a timeline for over 5 years.
- zackattack 17y ago
  "1) I've been using Vim for years to produce SWFs. I hate their tool too - that's why I don't use it. You can use any text editor you want." This makes no sense at all to me. Are you coding Flex? How do you design the interfaces for your apps? Pardon my ignorance.
  - cjbos 17y ago
    As a programmer my design skills are mostly implementable with the graphics class. But when I do work with flash designers, I have them create assets in the Flash IDE and publish a .swc which I import into flex builder. This gives me nice intellisense access to all the graphic elements. I very rarely open up the IDE, usually it's to rename an asset which the designer had forgot or incorrectly named.
Sindisil 17y ago
1) So use use the Flex SDK and your favorite editor. Or, if on Windows, flashdevelop. Or, if you like Eclipse and have some cash to spare, Flex Builder. 2) Your opinion. Assuming it was done well, a Flash/Flex based mail client could rock. As an added bonus, done right, it could also be a client side mail client (using AIR). Also, if you're using Flex controls, reskinning isn't that hard. 3) Again, your opinion. Without knowing what you mean, I can only assume you mean the whole Flash Authoring Tool (damn Adobe for overloading Flash to mean the IDE, the VM, the framework, and the technology)/time line thing, you don't need to use it. There are loads of options. See #1, above.
- wreel 17y ago
  MTASC or haXe from Motion Twin are also good alternate .swf development compilers that you can integrate with your favorite development environment. I've played around with haXe with MinGW build tools on Win32 and was pleased with the results.
- old-gregg 17y ago
  I am surprised you haven't gotten -28 points for this response. HN used to be better than this. The death of Flash is critical to survival of the web as we know it. The flash poses so many threats that I don't even know where to begin: it is closed, i.e. not controlled by the community, is binary and not text-based, puts new hardware platform manufacturers at Adobe's mercy, it violates nearly all common software "behavioral standards" on all platforms it attempts to run, i.e. configuration/control of basic things like scrolling, zooming, printing, font rendering, security, keyboard handling, etc. Flash ignores ALL settings in your browser with an exception of proxy configuration, just like their PDF plug-in. Platform control is dangerous: we just beginning to escape from Microsoft hell, and the last thing I want is to depend on Adobe: imagine starting a new portable hardware platform business: you'll have to beg Adobe to release their fucking plugin for your new awesome phone, and hope it won't drain your battery in an hour, or annoy your users with "Time to Upgrade!" popups. I am surprised that people from Mozilla, Apple, Opera and Microsoft STILL haven't gotten together and pushed out an emergency release of their browsers with an awesome built-in support for <video> and <audio> tags. I, however, am certain that Flash will disappear. Eventually browsers will become good enough, that whatever else Adobe will come up with won't be enough to convince developers to steer away from HTML. Besides, Adobe doesn't have any engineering muscle, I'm sorry if this sounds too personal, but they just can't code and ultimately they don't stand a chance competing with Mozilla/WebKit or Microsoft's Silverlight - they're in another league.
Mgreen 17y ago
(1)You can build complete Flash applications using freely available Flex SDK & command line compiler. You dont have to stick on to Adobe Flash IDE or Adobe Flex Builder. (2)'Cheesyness' depends a lot on how you implement fonts and how how much of a professional designer you are. Its is a function of your imagination and professionalism. See kontain.com (3) Just like any other language, workflow tediousness depends on the kind of IDE you use. If you are of the developer kind and tries to use Flash IDE's timeline based designer workflow, it will be a disastrous experience. Having said that , i wish Adobe open-sourced the Player.
- arrrg 17y ago
  Why would you use flash for something like kontain.com? It feels so weird. Nearly everything you see there could easily be done with html. Doing it in Flash only means that you are going to create a lot of inconsistencies with the way everything normally works. Strange context menus. Strange selection colors. Strange click behaviours. And so on. Why would you want that? That’s crazy. Flash should be used as a last ressort. Video. Games. That sort of stuff. Use friggin’ html for the rest and do not confuse your users.
  - nimbix 17y ago
    Yikes. Whoever created kontain.com did not know what they were doing. Not only does it break some basic browser functionality, like opening a link in new tab, but because it is all flash it is also painfully slow. It takes 9 seconds to display the first page (which is very simple and would render in under 2 seconds if it was done in HTML) and 14 seconds for every photo page. I bet it also doesn't play well with mobile browsers. Using this site as an example of "professionalism" is just wrong.
  - lowdown 17y ago
    Flash is only as good or as bad (in terms of UX) as the developer(s) make it.
- richcollins 17y ago
  Contain seems slower than javascript based sites. Any idea why? If you leave the flash UI framework and do it all yourself is there a big performance hit?
ashot 17y ago
1.) mxmlc Main.as -> main.swf 2.) iilwy.com 3.) mxmlc main.as -> scp main.swf www.mysite.com/main.swf

by jcapote 17y ago

Here's at least why I hate working with flash: 1) I have to use their lame tool 2) Flash UI feels super cheesy (imagine gmail in flash) 3) The workflow is very tedious

richard-lyman 17y ago

If by 'working with flash' you actually mean, 'producing a SWF to run in the Flash Player'... 1) I've been using Vim for years to produce SWFs. I hate their tool too - that's why I don't use it. You can use any text editor you want. 2) The 'Flash UI' is very skinnable (not as skinnable in Flex3 as in the upcoming Flex4, see: http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2008/08/27/everything-there-is-to-know-about-flex-4-gumbo/ http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2008/08/27/everything-there... ) 3) I'm not sure what you mean by tedious. You might be referring to the Flash editor's use of the timeline. If that's the case then you'll want to look into the Flex SDK I mentioned. I haven't used a timeline for over 5 years.

zackattack 17y ago
"1) I've been using Vim for years to produce SWFs. I hate their tool too - that's why I don't use it. You can use any text editor you want." This makes no sense at all to me. Are you coding Flex? How do you design the interfaces for your apps? Pardon my ignorance.
- cjbos 17y ago
  As a programmer my design skills are mostly implementable with the graphics class. But when I do work with flash designers, I have them create assets in the Flash IDE and publish a .swc which I import into flex builder. This gives me nice intellisense access to all the graphic elements. I very rarely open up the IDE, usually it's to rename an asset which the designer had forgot or incorrectly named.

Sindisil 17y ago

1) So use use the Flex SDK and your favorite editor. Or, if on Windows, flashdevelop. Or, if you like Eclipse and have some cash to spare, Flex Builder. 2) Your opinion. Assuming it was done well, a Flash/Flex based mail client could rock. As an added bonus, done right, it could also be a client side mail client (using AIR). Also, if you're using Flex controls, reskinning isn't that hard. 3) Again, your opinion. Without knowing what you mean, I can only assume you mean the whole Flash Authoring Tool (damn Adobe for overloading Flash to mean the IDE, the VM, the framework, and the technology)/time line thing, you don't need to use it. There are loads of options. See #1, above.

wreel 17y ago
MTASC or haXe from Motion Twin are also good alternate .swf development compilers that you can integrate with your favorite development environment. I've played around with haXe with MinGW build tools on Win32 and was pleased with the results.
old-gregg 17y ago
I am surprised you haven't gotten -28 points for this response. HN used to be better than this. The death of Flash is critical to survival of the web as we know it. The flash poses so many threats that I don't even know where to begin: it is closed, i.e. not controlled by the community, is binary and not text-based, puts new hardware platform manufacturers at Adobe's mercy, it violates nearly all common software "behavioral standards" on all platforms it attempts to run, i.e. configuration/control of basic things like scrolling, zooming, printing, font rendering, security, keyboard handling, etc. Flash ignores ALL settings in your browser with an exception of proxy configuration, just like their PDF plug-in. Platform control is dangerous: we just beginning to escape from Microsoft hell, and the last thing I want is to depend on Adobe: imagine starting a new portable hardware platform business: you'll have to beg Adobe to release their fucking plugin for your new awesome phone, and hope it won't drain your battery in an hour, or annoy your users with "Time to Upgrade!" popups. I am surprised that people from Mozilla, Apple, Opera and Microsoft STILL haven't gotten together and pushed out an emergency release of their browsers with an awesome built-in support for <video> and <audio> tags. I, however, am certain that Flash will disappear. Eventually browsers will become good enough, that whatever else Adobe will come up with won't be enough to convince developers to steer away from HTML. Besides, Adobe doesn't have any engineering muscle, I'm sorry if this sounds too personal, but they just can't code and ultimately they don't stand a chance competing with Mozilla/WebKit or Microsoft's Silverlight - they're in another league.

Mgreen 17y ago

(1)You can build complete Flash applications using freely available Flex SDK & command line compiler. You dont have to stick on to Adobe Flash IDE or Adobe Flex Builder. (2)'Cheesyness' depends a lot on how you implement fonts and how how much of a professional designer you are. Its is a function of your imagination and professionalism. See kontain.com (3) Just like any other language, workflow tediousness depends on the kind of IDE you use. If you are of the developer kind and tries to use Flash IDE's timeline based designer workflow, it will be a disastrous experience. Having said that , i wish Adobe open-sourced the Player.

arrrg 17y ago
Why would you use flash for something like kontain.com? It feels so weird. Nearly everything you see there could easily be done with html. Doing it in Flash only means that you are going to create a lot of inconsistencies with the way everything normally works. Strange context menus. Strange selection colors. Strange click behaviours. And so on. Why would you want that? That’s crazy. Flash should be used as a last ressort. Video. Games. That sort of stuff. Use friggin’ html for the rest and do not confuse your users.
- nimbix 17y ago
  Yikes. Whoever created kontain.com did not know what they were doing. Not only does it break some basic browser functionality, like opening a link in new tab, but because it is all flash it is also painfully slow. It takes 9 seconds to display the first page (which is very simple and would render in under 2 seconds if it was done in HTML) and 14 seconds for every photo page. I bet it also doesn't play well with mobile browsers. Using this site as an example of "professionalism" is just wrong.
- lowdown 17y ago
  Flash is only as good or as bad (in terms of UX) as the developer(s) make it.
richcollins 17y ago
Contain seems slower than javascript based sites. Any idea why? If you leave the flash UI framework and do it all yourself is there a big performance hit?

ashot 17y ago

1.) mxmlc Main.as -> main.swf 2.) iilwy.com 3.) mxmlc main.as -> scp main.swf www.mysite.com/main.swf