Dreamweaver - OK to use FLASH logo?

Author

OK to use FLASH logo?

tornsoul

2004-03-06, 7:28 pm

I am considering using a flash movie for my sites logo. It looks cool and I
like it alot. I am aware that some people don't have the flash player installed
on thier machines but I can't do anything about that. Is it NOT recommended to
use flash movies on the home page of websites???

Tom McGuire

2004-03-06, 7:28 pm

I think the statistic was that 19 of 20 internet ready computers have Flash
installed....I think you will be safe :)

--
-Tom McGuire

"tornsoul" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:c2dl54$cdu$1@forums.macromedia.com...
> I am considering using a flash movie for my sites logo. It looks cool and
I
> like it alot. I am aware that some people don't have the flash player
installed
> on thier machines but I can't do anything about that. Is it NOT
recommended to
> use flash movies on the home page of websites???
>

Ian Firth

2004-03-07, 4:28 am

In article <c2dlis$ct8$1@forums.macromedia.com>, tom@pure-fun.com
says...

> I think the statistic was that 19 of 20 internet ready computers have Flash
> installed....I think you will be safe :)

Macromedia wants you to believe that, but it's far from accurate.

I have Flash installed on 1 out of 3 computers in my home.

--
Regards,
Ian Firth

SteveAudus

2004-03-07, 5:28 am

When adding a flash object into a page,
bear in mind,

you can always set the swf object so I offers to download flash for the
viewer, if they do not have flash.

<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"
codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#ve
rsion=6,0,29,0" width="100" height="100">
<param name="movie" value="example.swf">
<embed src="example.swf" width="100" height="100" quality=high
pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Vers
ion=ShockwaveFlash" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" menu="false"
wmode="transparent"></embed>
</object>

I believe there may be a way to have an alternative gif or jpg image as well.

Hope this helps.

Steve

John Waller

2004-03-07, 7:29 am

You're far from average, Ian.

:-)

--
Regards

John Waller

Gary White

2004-03-07, 8:28 am

On Sat, 6 Mar 2004 22:59:48 +0000 (UTC), "tornsoul"
<webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote:

>I am considering using a flash movie for my sites logo. It looks cool and I
>like it alot. I am aware that some people don't have the flash player installed
>on thier machines but I can't do anything about that. Is it NOT recommended to
>use flash movies on the home page of websites???

Go to http://www.moock.org/webdesign/flas...ction/moockfpi/ and get
the script. It will allow you to put alternate content in for users that
don't have the Flash player, or those who don't have a recent enough
version of the player.

Gary

tornsoul

2004-03-07, 4:28 pm

Hi, After uploading the homepage with the flash player, I went over to my
friends house to try it . She didn't have the flash player installed. There was
a flash folder but no flash.exe. Did a search on the computer and no results.
Called my girlfriend, asked her to sign on and try the link to the same
homepage. She has the same problem.....Flash folder and no flash.exe. What is
going on? I sent the link from the macromedia site for the flash player to my
girl and told her to install flash player. She got as far as clicking the link
and clicking install, but go some kind of active x error during the install
process. She aborted after about a half hour trying to intall it.

I think the idea of that alternate content is then the best idea. Its too bad
because the flash logo is sooo cool.

One other important question if you please. The flash logo I created also has
a short sound sample and it swishes from one speaker to the next. I might be
pushing it here for 56k users, but I like to keep it a stereo file. Maybe that
will prove to be impracticable but I don't know yet.

What are the guidlines for file size that is ideal for home pages?
Just the flash logo without any sounds is already 17kB. The same logo with the
sound set to the lowest bit rate for stereo 20kbps and the "fast" quality
setting, the logo is 41KB. No other content on the page yet. What do you think?
Is this why web masters use a slpash page then use an "enter site" link?

Barry Pearson

2004-03-07, 4:28 pm

tornsoul wrote:
> Hi, After uploading the homepage with the flash player, I went over
> to my friends house to try it . She didn't have the flash player
> installed. There was a flash folder but no flash.exe. Did a search on
> the computer and no results.
[snip]

Although I have Flash on my PC, I run with it switched off. Perhaps every sane
person in the universe does - or just some of the sane people.

I have never found a use of Flash on the web that I believe gave me any value
whatsoever over what could be achieved much easier without Flash.

That is simply my opinion, of course. And I treat web sites with Flash
accordingly. But I realise that there may well be users who *like* Flash!

--
Barry Pearson
http://www.Barry.Pearson.name/photography/
http://www.BirdsAndAnimals.info/
http://www.ChildSupportAnalysis.co.uk/

tornsoul

2004-03-07, 5:28 pm

I have never found a use of Flash on the web that I believe gave me any value
whatsoever over what could be achieved much easier without Flash.

That is simply my opinion, of course. And I treat web sites with Flash
accordingly. But I realise that there may well be users who *like* Flash!

--
Barry Pearson
http://www.Barry.Pearson.name/photography/
http://www.BirdsAndAnimals.info/
http://www.ChildSupportAnalysis.co.uk/[/q]

Barry, are you saying you don't appreciate animations or are you saying that
you can achieve animation using just html?

Barry Pearson

2004-03-07, 5:28 pm

tornsoul wrote:
>Barry Pearson wrote ...
> I have never found a use of Flash on the web that I believe gave me
> any value whatsoever over what could be achieved much easier without
> Flash.
>
> That is simply my opinion, of course. And I treat web sites with
> Flash accordingly. But I realise that there may well be users who
> *like* Flash!
>
> Barry Pearson
> http://www.Barry.Pearson.name/photography/
> http://www.BirdsAndAnimals.info/
> http://www.ChildSupportAnalysis.co.uk/[/q]
>
> Barry, are you saying you don't appreciate animations or are you
> saying that you can achieve animation using just html?

I don't like:
- animation that is not tightly controlled by me, including control by me of
time/sequence;
- any form of browser navigation & bookmarking that differs from the standard
features provided by typical browsers.

So I switch off Flash, (and lots of other things too), I back out of any site
that relies on it, and I get on with my life. I'm happy with this, because
I've only found 2 Flash sites that I needed to look at. One changed their
"Flash buttons" at my personal request. The other is Macromedia Extensions,
who have their own irritating agenda.

Be clear - I fully support the use of the web by "implicit communities" of
people who are happy to communicate among themselves, and to hell with anyone
else! I myself say "stuff you" to people who believe photographs should be no
more than 40 kilobytes! (How little they know).

I am happy for people to put passwords on their pages. To use plug-ins that I
haven't got. To speak in languages other than English. Or to do anything that
excludes even 99.9% of the people in the world. The web is big enough for
this - the capacity of the infrastructure will expand as necessary.

I will simply not be in the audience for any such web sites. That applies to
many other people too. We won't be persuaded otherwise, but if we don't matter
to the owners of the web site concerned, just go ahead! But please don't
include us in any statistics of people who *might* access the web site because
we have Flash on our computers. That would be a lie.

--
Barry Pearson
http://www.Barry.Pearson.name/photography/
http://www.BirdsAndAnimals.info/
http://www.ChildSupportAnalysis.co.uk/

Gary White

2004-03-07, 8:28 pm

On Sun, 7 Mar 2004 19:58:28 +0000 (UTC), "tornsoul"
<webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote:

> I think the idea of that alternate content is then the best idea. Its too bad
>because the flash logo is sooo cool.

Those things that most often seem to be "sooo cool", usually tend to
become sooo annoying after a while. ;-) I tend to be with Barry on this
one. I have Flash installed in IE6, but not in any other browsers and
about the only time I use IE is to test sites. Oh ... one other ...
during football season the NFL site does some nice things with Shockwave
and I use IE to access that.

> One other important question if you please. The flash logo I created also has
>a short sound sample and it swishes from one speaker to the next. I might be
>pushing it here for 56k users, but I like to keep it a stereo file. Maybe that
>will prove to be impracticable but I don't know yet.
>
> What are the guidlines for file size that is ideal for home pages?
> Just the flash logo without any sounds is already 17kB. The same logo with the
>sound set to the lowest bit rate for stereo 20kbps and the "fast" quality
>setting, the logo is 41KB. No other content on the page yet. What do you think?
> Is this why web masters use a slpash page then use an "enter site" link?

Sound, especially unexpected sound, and even more so if I cannot turn it
off, tend to drive me away from a site. That said, the target size for a
page, including all images, css, js, and Flash is 40-45k. The idea of
putting up a splash/entry page to get around that just puts one more
obstacle between your user and your site. When I go to a site, without a
Flash player, and don't see anything interesting, I leave the site. If
you put up a Flash splash page, what do you think I would do when I got
to your site?

Gary

tornsoul

2004-03-07, 10:28 pm

[q]
Sound, especially unexpected sound, and even more so if I cannot turn it
off, tend to drive me away from a site. That said, the target size for a
page, including all images, css, js, and Flash is 40-45k. The idea of
putting up a splash/entry page to get around that just puts one more
obstacle between your user and your site. When I go to a site, without a
Flash player, and don't see anything interesting, I leave the site. If
you put up a Flash splash page, what do you think I would do when I got
to your site?

Gary[/q]

OK. You made a very good point. Using sound in the logo may not be a very
subtle approach BUT...... It is a very short ambient sound sample with fade in,
I don't think would drive most people away. The site is being designed for a
record label. I hope the people who visit are coming to listen to some music
samples. But then again I suppose there are a lot of people who are bothered by
sounds especially if they don't keep a conscience mind of what their systems
sound level might be set at, at all times. Then again I could argue the sound
sample is on the same lines as when you first fire up your computer and you
hear that distinctive Windows signature sound or whatever startup sound people
use. This actually prompts the user to adjust their sound level. If they don't
like sound they would most likely turn it down or off then. But STILL, I do
understand some users don't like not having control of stopping the sound. Fair
enough. I will keep this in mind. I agree the splash idea is not good. I will
keep the rest of the site vey simple, hopefully in that 45k range. I am a
newbee so it will be some time till I can post a link for feedback.
Thankyou for the help and opinions, I appreciate it.

Gary White

2004-03-08, 1:28 am

On Mon, 8 Mar 2004 02:11:41 +0000 (UTC), "tornsoul"
<webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote:

>I hope the people who visit are coming to listen to some music
>samples. But then again I suppose there are a lot of people who are bothered by
>sounds especially if they don't keep a conscience mind of what their systems
>sound level might be set at, at all times.

If they are music lovers, as I am, they may already have music playing
when they come to the site. Your sound would just interfere. If they
click a link to specifically listen, that's an entirely different
matter.

>Then again I could argue the sound
>sample is on the same lines as when you first fire up your computer and you
>hear that distinctive Windows signature sound or whatever startup sound people
>use.

<LOL> One of the first things I do when I install an O/S is turn OFF
that stupid sound! And the silly, annoying noise it makes when you shut
down too. <g>

Good luck with it.

Gary

Barry Pearson

2004-03-08, 6:28 am

Gary White wrote:
> On Mon, 8 Mar 2004 02:11:41 +0000 (UTC), "tornsoul"
> <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote:
>
>
> If they are music lovers, as I am, they may already have music playing
> when they come to the site. Your sound would just interfere. If they
> click a link to specifically listen, that's an entirely different
> matter.
[snip]

And if they are surfing at work when they should really be doing something
else .....!

--
Barry Pearson
http://www.Barry.Pearson.name/photography/
http://www.BirdsAndAnimals.info/
http://www.ChildSupportAnalysis.co.uk/

Michael Fesser

2004-03-08, 2:31 pm

.oO(Ian Firth)

>Macromedia wants you to believe that, but it's far from accurate.
>
>I have Flash installed on 1 out of 3 computers in my home.

And having it installed doesn't mean it's enabled ...

Micha

Michael Fesser

2004-03-08, 2:31 pm

.oO(tornsoul)

> Barry, are you saying you don't appreciate animations or are you saying that
>you can achieve animation using just html?

There are many people out there looking for _content_, not a multimedia
experience. Personally I like fast loading websites, don't have the time
to waste my life waiting for a big animation I don't wanna see.

On my system I have

* Flash and other plugins disabled
* sound disabled (I have my own music, I don't care what others want me
to hear)
* GIF animations disabled (flashing and blinking banners are annoying)
* sometimes all images off, speeds up the entire thing dramatically
* Javascript on, but restricted (no window size/statusbar modifications)
* a minimum font-size of 13px (I hate to stress my eyes with 10px fonts)

And from time to time I have to disable the entire CSS to make a website
usable ... sick ...

Just my 2 cents

Micha

Steve Fleischer

2004-03-08, 2:31 pm

On Mon, 08 Mar 2004 18:51:42 +0100, Michael Fesser wrote:

> .oO(Ian Firth)
>
>
> And having it installed doesn't mean it's enabled ...

Soon to be a major motion picture called "Grumpy Old Thread" starring Jack
Lemmon as Ian Firth and Walter Matthau as Michael Fesser. :-)

--
Steve
www dot flyingtigerwebdesign dot com
Hong Kong, 09-Mar-04 2:06:47 AM

Michael Fesser

2004-03-08, 3:29 pm

.oO(Steve Fleischer)

>Soon to be a major motion picture called "Grumpy Old Thread" starring Jack
>Lemmon as Ian Firth and Walter Matthau as Michael Fesser. :-)

*g*

Micha

tornsoul

2004-03-09, 12:28 am

I am not out to please the entire Internet community including the
professionals using the net for mostly text (quiet please)! :) I'm building a
site to represent a record company. Every record company site I visited so far
today is using flash! I like what I see. I love sites with lots of flash to be
honest. It might not be a good idea to include sound in the logo at this point
in time with current interenet standards, but at least I should use flash
within the site. Thanks again for the many personal opinions. :)

darrel

2004-03-09, 12:29 pm

> Every record company site I visited so far
> today is using flash!

And if all your friends jumped off a cliff?...

Ask your self why people want to come to this site. THAT will help you make
your decision.

The absolute best record company site that I can recall was the late Grand
Royal site. Minimal but effective graphics, lots of good, fairly accessible
content, and a great streaming label station.

Jay-Z may have a great looking, all-flash site, but does it really give any
value to the end user (the Jay-Z buying public)? I don't know. But that's
the question you need to ask.

Sadly, most flash sites are still experiements in graphic masturbation. Done
for the sake of the client or the designer themselves...not necessarily for
the sake of the actual site visitor.

> I like what I see. I love sites with lots of flash to be
> honest.

Make sure you like them for the right reasons. If you are a web designer,
it's easy to fall into the 'I like flash because it's cool and fun' rather
than 'I like flash because it provides a better user experience for my
target audience'.

> It might not be a good idea to include sound in the logo at this point
> in time with current interenet standards, but at least I should use flash
> within the site.

Again, why? You don't need to tell me why...just be sure you have a good
answer for your own justification. ;o)

-Darrel

mzucker

2004-03-09, 2:29 pm

Geez, and all along i thought that the more 'interactive' the site was the
better it is for the viewer. Makes ya wonder how much analysys should be done
to determine who the audience will be and what they want to accomplish by going
to the site.

Gary White

2004-03-09, 4:30 pm

"mzucker" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:c2l04u$sv2$1@forums.macromedia.com...
> Geez, and all along i thought that the more 'interactive' the site was the
> better it is for the viewer. Makes ya wonder how much analysys should be
done
> to determine who the audience will be and what they want to accomplish by
going
> to the site.

The key point is whether or not that interactivity provides some benefit to
the user. More often that not, Flash is used to provide some pointless
animation, or sound that really doesn't add any value to the site. It's kind
of like the guy who puts up an animated .gif file and proudly proclaims that
he builds dynamic web sites. ;-)

Gary