Flash Applications That Can Be Used Online and Off 346
General Voltron writes "Macromedia, Inc., the same people that brought you Flash, have done it again with a new product called Central. Central will allow users to more easily interact with information on the internet by also allowing them to interact with it offline. It will also allow developers to create and sell their own applications. See the press release." I'm not a big fan of Flash myself, but I realize it has its niche. This looks like something that Flash authors have been clamoring for.
Crap (Score:2)
Dammit, Macro! I told you to use the litterbox next time!
Is it just me (Score:2)
Re:Is it just me (Score:2)
Re:Is it just me (Score:2)
A distinction needs to be made between Flash navigation, and Flash for other purposes. Cartoons and games in Flash are great. If I hear about some cartoon or game or whatever, I go to the website, wait for it to download, and have a good time. OTOH, if I hear about some new product I don't want to hit their website, wait 30 seconds for crap to download, and then have a popup telling me to upgrade Flash. Bite me. Remember OQO [oqo.com]? The Flash on their site was such an impediment to obtaining information that
Re:Is it just me (Score:3, Funny)
No?
That's probably why.
The Entertainment Industry (Score:4, Insightful)
You can also create some decent little games with flash, which is hard to do using JScript and HTML.
Re:The Entertainment Industry (Score:2)
'contains little code', dude, flash has more code than you can shake a stick at to make it do anything cool....
It's just you. (Score:2)
Flash is excellent when it's implemented well. Or it's a freaking nightmare when it's implemented poorly. Guess you've never used an excellent implementation.
Re:It's just you. (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, YTV for the kids, it's great and entertaining and before anyone corrects me YES YTV Flash is mostly advertising.
Re:It's just you. (Score:2)
I don't like Flash much either, but..... (Score:2, Interesting)
That's some pretty impressive stuff, you have to admit. I couldn't see this getting done very well with DHTML. Animation work, especially interactive anaimation, is the definate niche for Flash. It can be developed so cheaply and so quickly, loaded in any browser with a free plugin, and effortlessly distributed to billions via the internet. Perfect format.
Re:Is it just me (Score:2)
I've taught both JavaScript and Flash at the local community collage. Flash does things simply that are a pain to accomplish in JavaScript. Of course, there is debate over wether these things should be done on a web page at all.
For people that look at web design from a graphic design point of view, Flash is a godsend. Elements stay where you put them and you don't have t
Re:Is it just me (Score:2)
You try writing cross-browser dhtml, js, and css that works in 4.0 browsers for a while. Now try doing it in Flash.
And then you miss those of us who refuse to install Flash because we hate waiting through annoying Flash animations that are the "gateway" to a website. One way or another, somebody is not going to get the "effect" that you're looking for. If you really want to publish something that looks the same to absolutely everybody, I suggest either using pdf or mailing out direct mail....
Re:Is it just me (Score:2)
Re:Is it just me (Score:2)
No (Score:2)
Re:Is it just me (Score:5, Insightful)
This could very well be the next big thing.
Online multiplayer games already exist, personally I have a background in heavy server side development, now I'm creating a communication module for flash/backend, which is to be used within a 3D visual model of a large building. Users can rotate the building, click a room on any floor, book it, retrieve info etc. Try and make that more "effective" in HTML/JavaScript. Point and click is easier and more intuitive to the average user than drop-down, drop-down, type type, check, whatnot, click.
Re:Is it just me (Score:2, Interesting)
The company I work for makes a fairly successful school-focused educational product (online and off), and we use Flash for our lessons because it's fairly easy to work with (a little limited at times, but getting better), and because you cen fit more content into less bytes with Flash than you can with just about anything else. Seriously, take a look at the
Re:Is it just me (Score:2)
At work we have a full word processor that has template support, as well as drag'n'drop object support, and CVS support written in Flash.
Lets see ya do that. I'm all for Flash when it's used intelligently.
Re:Is it just me (Score:2)
First off, I'd mod you as a troll if I had the points. Do your research before you bash. Flash alone is simply for glitz and glamour.. which may be appropriate as long as it doesn't go over the top and affect the usability of a site.
Developers (like myself) use Director to create web-based applications. A combination of di
Re:Is it just me (Score:3, Insightful)
I hate they way everybody generalizes.
Re:Is it just me (Score:2)
Ok go to Joecartoon [joecartoon.com]
now show me how to do that with javascript and HTML.
thanks
Re:Is it just me (Score:2)
Re:Is it just me (Score:2)
Someone could crank out sites that look like shiny comic books every 5 minutes. I'd still not look at them.
Re:Is it just me (Score:2)
Nope. If anything, I think it's exactly the tool the internet needs. The graphics are (usually) vectorized resulting in smooth resizing. A properly programmed Flash interface can result in far fewer page hits, thus optimizing traffic. Audio can be added. Though that's a double edged sword, it's more than can be said for HTML. It's pretty compact as well.
As for it dying a quick and painful death, I think that's an ignorant point
Re:Is it just me (Score:2)
Re:Is it just me (Score:2)
Flash should be replaced by a proper W3C standard, that way everybody can play without running closed code from Macromedia.
Lo and behold, just such a thing exists!!!
It's called Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/ [w3.org]
Don't worry, you can still do all your stupid, annoying animated 'punch the monkey' type of nonsense, but at least your monkey is standard XML. And your audience can 'view-source' your monkey if they like, thus enabling a whole community of open-sourced monkey punching a
Re:Is it just me (Score:2)
Exactly what 'sucks ass' about them? You haven't given any reasons why it's bad that it's proprietary. Other than the potential to recieve karma for praising Open Source, what exactly is wrong with Macromedia providing this product?
a.) WC3 is incredibly slow and hesitant to evolve the standard. That's why MS charges ahead with it's own stuff. If Mozilla or Opera were smart, they'd do it as well.
b.) Macromedia, since it's made a business of it, has a go
Re:Is it just me (Score:2)
Yes, the W3C is horribly slow, I agree, but to encourage the adoption of non-standard 'standards' is not a good thing. This is how we ended up having to code two complete version of sites, one for IE, and one for moz.
I have no problem with Macromedia developing whatever it pleases. I *do* have a problem when I, as an end user, cannot access
Re:Is it just me (Score:2)
definitely not (Score:2)
Strong Bad disagrees (Score:2)
Re:Is it just me (Score:2)
Re:Is it just me (Score:2)
Except, of course, HTML+script and SVG. Next?
Re:Is it just me (Score:2)
1) Even seen any good games done in HTML and JS? (Yes, there are a few, but they have no audio and bad animation, if any.)
2) HTML isn't always appropriate for non-browser environments (e.g. kiosks)
3) Have you actually tried developing DHTML apps cross-broswer, cross-platform and cross-version? Flash is miles closer to Write Onc
It's just you (Score:2)
Drew a series of kanji characters, shape-tweened animations between them, added music, fadein/fadeout text, etc. Took about 3 hours total, most of which was deciding on what to say and getting decent drawings. (I've got my tablet on order: it's a bitch doing pen art with a mouse.)
If you could do something similar in Javascript or (D)HTML in less than a week I will eat the CD I burned it to.
Re:Is it just me (Score:2)
Not a good advertisement (Score:2)
Finally! (Score:2)
It's about time a technology company included this great feature in a product!
That's nice (Score:2)
It's bad Enough I had to put up with that stupid Harry Potter Owl flying all over a webpage. Now it can fly all over my desktop too.
A flash player that can disable features? (Score:2)
A lot of the Flash ads out there will allow you to right-click and bring up a menu that you can use to turn off the animation. But apparently the app can disable that option so you can't stop the ad. Is there anything that allows you the kind of control that Mozilla does with Javascript and such?
How about a MUTE button? (Score:2)
TROG-DOR!!! (Score:2)
I do this already... (Score:2)
I haven't tried this in Windows, though.
Wee (Score:2)
Way of the Exploding Stick [beryllium.ca]
If you're careful, you can even play it offline! heheh
Let me think... (Score:2)
1. You only need to write it once.
2. You don't need to test it for each browser.
3. It automatically resolves differing resolution issues--if you have a high or low resolution screen the flash movie can automatically compensate.
Those three reasons save me at least half of my development time and headaches.
BTM
Re:Let me think... (Score:2)
It supports streaming media (audio and video) in a smart, reliable, cross-platform way without hosing up anybody's system settings or trying to hijack anybody's computer (as do Microsoft, Apple, and Real). If you'll look closely you'll see that MSNBC.com is using Flash audio instead of Microsoft -native cruft.
Here's a surprise: It does a great job of separating content from presentation. I can create a highly complex basemap that needs to be downloaded only once, then add/update/plo
Yay! (Score:2)
Flash is NOT proprietary (Score:2)
Macromedia opened up flash (swf) in 1998. Check out OpenSWF.org [openswf.org].
And besides, you can get a flash plugin for Linux that works fine in Mozilla. Check out Macromedia's site [macromedia.com].
Offline apps for Flash -- dumb headline (Score:2)
Central isn't about "offline" use; it sounds more like a "distributed" Flash. You can use Flash on- or offline now, but it's set up to act like a discrete, enclosed app, and basically you can go to "external" sites, or other Flash apps, through urls. The
Re:Offline apps for Flash -- dumb headline (Score:3, Informative)
You're missing the point. This will allow Flash apps to run, collect data, and then connect back to their home server later to upload the user's data and download the server's response. For example, think stock quotes: when Central runs, it would connect to the stock quote server, grab the updated quotes for the user's portfolio, and hang on to them. When the user runs that particular Central app, whether he's online or of
this is Java's missed boat (Score:5, Insightful)
But today, Flash ships with just about every browser and there is far more dynamic web content in Flash than in Java. Why? Because Macromedia didn't unnecessarily taunt Microsoft ("we are going to make Windows irrelevant"), because they worked hard to get Flash shipped with everything, and because they focused on authoring tools. And, strangely enough, Macromedia graphics works on Linux, while Sun keeps complaining and changing their implementation.
Sun, in contrast, did everything they could to get into Microsoft's cross-hairs, they didn't fix their bugs, they kept changing their strategies, and they never produced decent authoring tools. Now, Java is mostly a server-side technology. But that's not a particularly secure niche, since Java-style sandboxing is needed much less on the server than for downloadable applications, and because there are lots of alternatives on the server.
I don't think Macromedia will be successful at turning Flash into an application platform. But they sure are trying, and they are a lot more successful with worse technology than Sun with Java.
Re:this is Java's missed boat (Score:2)
Re:this is Java's missed boat (Score:2)
That's my point: Java applications don't need sandboxing, but the Java runtime still has complete support for it built in.
Java on the server allows people to write secure code
Yes, and so does just about any other language other than C or C++. While client-side sandboxing was something genuinely new in a shipping environment in 1996, there is nothing special or new about Java's security for server-side applications.
Re:this is Java's missed boat (Score:3, Informative)
This isn't technically correct. The SecurityManager in Java can be configured to allow or disallow many actions, not all of which are even enabled by the defaults you get with a standalone Java application.
Granted, for applications, you specify the security manager at JVM startup, but still, if you're not writing a networked app, your script can tell the JVM not to allow those
Actually Flash + Java is a great solution (Score:2)
In fact, Macromedia did a Flash + Java "Petstore" application to show off this exact solution. See:
J2EETM: Behind the Pet Market From Macromedia [sun.com]
Macromedia Pet Market Blueprint Application [macromedia.com]
Macrome [macromedia.com]
You missed the original poster's point... (Score:2)
Its this same ability, in its more robust form, that scared MS so much as to prompt its actions against MS/Sun. (along with Scott McNealy's taunting, of course. Shame on him to believe that he could hide behind the protection of the law...)
As a side note, how fully-featured is Flash? Can I do encryption? Query databases? Communicate to re
Re:You missed the original poster's point... (Score:2)
Don't get me wrong: I think Flash is pretty awful. But they are handling the marketing and business side better than Sun.
Size does matter (Score:4, Insightful)
Flash player has historically been ~250k. This is downloaded in under a minute even on a modem. It adds little to the size of any web browser. You get a lot of bang for that 250k. Flash is very pretty and in some ways powerful (also very awful to author, but that's another post altogether). IE's ActiveX autoinstall was shooting it out around the world - even without anyone's help it would become ubiquitous. But of course it's also very attractive and easy to bundle.
Compare this with Java. 1.0 was rather small - in the neighborhood of a megabyte, if I recall, or even less? It's been a while. Small enough that Netscape could package it without committing suicide and Microsoft followed suit. 1.1 was a couple of times larger. The browser folks bit the bullet. Barely.
Java 1.2 finally arrived. The English-only JRE weighed in at an appaling 5.3 megabytes. Bigger than most web browsers! This insured that it would never see the inside of an internet-mass-distributed client. Only Microsoft could have saved it, by putting it on the Windows CD. And they did! But they were unable to resist embracing and extending it. By making MS Java incompatible with Sun Java, they had deliberately violated their license (in order to "pollute" the Java market), and Sun sued them for it, halting matters on that front for some years.
Fast forward to 2002. English only JRE 1.4 is now weighing in at 8.2 megabytes! Flash 6 is topping out at... ~500k?
Sun gave up on the web client. It was probably a wise move. With Netscape dead, Microsoft was the only game in town, and the only way Microsoft was going to play fair was if a few judges teamed up to force them to. Java wasn't a vector art tool with a tacked-on scripting language... it was a huge and growing general purpose computing platform, and it had grown too big to distribute "casually" over the net... In their defense, Java was designed to meet vastly different needs than Flash. It's much more powerful. But that was the price they paid.
In general, I thought it was possible to do much better in terms of size and initialization time. Beyond spending more time tuning I suggested at the time that they modularize the system; use a small Java framework (~200k) that can download various parts of the API on-demand; then you can do version tagging and the whole thing looks more like ActiveX (or perhaps a Shockwave XTRA) where you reference a package and a version number and it gets transparently pulled from a URL if the client doesn't have it. This way at least users won't have to pull megabytes of CORBA and JDBC and three different GUI API's just to do some vector art or a little stock ticker widget, and there's the chance the whole thing can be doable for real users at large. But it boils down to big scary changes and it's no surprise Sun just threw up their hands and let it go.
You are smart to draw the comparison. It's highly ironic that Java has ended up overshadowed by Flash on web clients, and may someday lose even more ground to it elsewhere... there's a profound lesson about the evolution of software technology in there.
Sherlock? (Score:2)
Flash Already offline capable (Score:2)
The problem is usually in getting the flash files. If you know their names already, it's easy. If not, it's still not hard. Load up the file from the internet, then check your cache. The
Flash Already offline capable -- MORE (Score:2)
I don't get it (Score:2)
The only legitimate use of Flash I've seen... (Score:2)
Scuse me? (Score:2)
Re:Scuse me? (Score:2)
Re:Scuse me? (Score:4, Interesting)
Flash 6 has some very nice server side communication features. I just finished developing a B2B site that provides some extremely nice ability to customize products and show the results online during the ordering process, all database driven. This sort of thing work quite well if you can count on your audience having broadband.
The clients were pissing in their pants when we demo'ed this. It's a level of interactivity thy've never seen on the web before.
Nothing new. (Score:2)
A minimum of commom sense whilst building a Flashapp will circle that problem.
It's nothing but marketing hype, if you ask me.
Finally! (Score:2)
It's revolutionary!
Description of Central (Score:2)
1) Manages caching of online data for its Flash apps in XML format so the apps themselves don't need to worry about it. I should say that this is really just a guess. At the least I'm sure that Central provides a way for the Flash apps to manage the caching themselves.
2) Creates a cen
question (Score:2)
Flash is fun. (Score:2)
I'm a little confused... (Score:2)
From the screen shot on the Central page it looks like a Macromedia version of Sun's Java Webstart - only instead of loading Java apps it loads Flash apps.
I guess I will just have to try their demo when it come sout to really know why or if I would want to use this.
Like Castanet for Java (Score:2)
It was a way to synchronize Java applications so that they could be used offline, and automatically updated whenever the user went back online. The idea was to have "channels" of available Java programs on a user's machine that could be accessed at any time and updated/synchronized with a central server periodically. It was intended for use by traveling salesmen and others with intermittent Internet connections.
It was a fun novelty at first, but overa
done what again? (Score:4, Informative)
nice one macro, but do we need this????
SashXB (Score:2)
there's also a windows version called SashWin or something. Very niche environment; but it's probably great for those flash developers trying to branch out into nonweb-based applications.
Needed: PowerPoint replacement in Flash (Score:2)
A big advantage would be that presentations could easily be moved to the Web. They'd be far smaller, too. (Why are PowerPoint files so bulky, anyway?) This could be a great tool for educators if someone wrote an open-source authoring tool for presentations.
The Flash delivery format is open; there's
Re:Needed: PowerPoint replacement in Flash (Score:2)
Though I agree that it would be a great idea for a product--a familiar, easy-to-use-for-the-suits environment that exports swf. I think it is at least slightly more difficult than it fir
export to wmf, import into Flash (Score:2)
Not exactly what you are looking for, but ...
Export your PPT to a series of WMFs, autonamed with names like slide1.wmf, slide2.wmf, etc.
Then import the first one into Flash. Flash asks if you want to import the whole series. You say yes. Each one loads as a Frame.
From there, it's trivial to make a navigation layer, put stop() actions on each frame, etc. Voila! A PPT authored presentation, but in Flash. Smaller, and you can insert more complex animations in choice spots.
Enabling and disabling Flash on-the-fly (Score:5, Informative)
My original solution to flash ads was to uninstall the flash plugin, but this meant that I couldn't view stuff like The Carabella Game: The Quest for Tunes [eff.org]. Then I found out that Mozilla and Phoenix can make use of plugins that are installed while the browser is running. This meant that I could load and unload the flash plugin without restarting my browser. I cooked up the following script, which was originally nicely indented:
Here's how it works: Mozilla is installed in /opt/mozilla, and Phoenix is installed in /opt/phoenix. I have a directory called /opt/plugins where I keep my plugins so they aren't lost when I install a new nightly build. When I turn Flash on, the script makes a symlink to the Flash files inside the browser's plugins directory, and when I turn Flash off, the script deletes the symlinks.
To make this even simpler, I added the following entries to my window manager (IceWM). This way I can enable or disable flash with the click of my mouse.
You are doing this the hardway. (Score:3, Interesting)
Hope this helps.
Obligatory Flash comment. (Score:3, Informative)
Flash has been known for its security vulnerabilities, such as this one:
Security hole in Macromedia Flash allows attack through any browser.
By editing the Flash header (SWF), it is possible to run any code on the computer of a visitor to a web page, according to an eEye Digital Security Alert [eeye.com]. The vulnerability exists in all versions of Flash and in all browsers that support Flash, making it "... trivial to bypass firewalls and attack the user at his desktop." eEye [eeye.com] says they found 17 other vulnerabilities in Flash. eEye reported a previous vulnerability [eeye.com] last May.
I've always disliked how Flash tends to be an advertisement for Flash. Visitors to a page with Flash often get upgrade notices.
When I read the above security risk announcement, I disabled Flash in Mozilla, and now I often get the Macromedia advertisement: "Click here to get the plugin." Did the owners of those web sites intend to force me to install unsafe software or go elsewhere? No, probably they just trusted a web site builder who knew that flashy graphics is cheaper than useful content.
After reading the whitepaper (Score:2)
Basically they're making an app that manages client applets. Earth shattering. When you connect, Macromedia Central knows it and tells your local clients as well as their servers that you're connected and they can receive/send info back &
an alternative to microsoft /java? (Score:2)
Quote
"Macromedia Central provides this ideal environment for rich,
customized, occasionally-connected applications. It runs on both
desktops and Macromedia Flash Player enabled **MOBILE DEVICES** using
the technology of the Macromedia Flash Player 6. Therefore, millions of
users with the Macromedia Flash Pla
Re:Does Flash have a niche? (Score:2)
This may be cool but... (Score:2)
I guess I am trying to figure out if any sort of Flash based tech has a role in real enterprise application development.
Re:This may be cool but... (Score:2)
J2EE: Behind the Pet Market From Macromedia [sun.com].
You can also use Flash with a
Re:Does Flash have a niche? (Score:2)
From a quick look at the site, it seems Macromedia is trying to create a browser that reads only Flash content. I wonder why anyone would use such a thing. Am I missing something?
Re:Does Flash have a niche? (Score:2)
There are Flash competitors that also output to swf files. If you want to write your own Flash-alike, go ahead.
How open is the swf format? (Score:2)
Any lawyers out there with the ability to address my concerns? Otherwise, I see no reason to not just use SVG instead...
Re:Macromedia petition. (Score:3, Insightful)
"I refuse to use your product until I can use it!"
Re:Macromedia petition. (Score:2)
Re:Macromedia petition. (Score:2)
Macromedia's not going to care because they get paid by the content providers, not the end user.
You're not boycotting Macromedia, you're boycotting individual websites, assuming they don't provide a non-flash alternative.
Sooner or later you're going to have to face facts. Not every OS gets everything the other OS's get. Linux isn't going to get ActiveX, for example. That's a result o
Well, considering that... (Score:2)
On Linux, Flash is slow and the audio lags the video.
On Windows, Flash is faster, but the audio still lags the video.
On Mac OS X, Flash gets jerky in a hurry unless you have a boatload of RAM.
The only platform I've seen Flash work perfectly on is Internet Explorer on Mac OS Classic.
Re:Well, considering that... (Score:2)
Re:Well, considering that... (Score:2)
I think it's more a function of bloat and inefficiency in the Flash plugin... (AFAIK the Linux flash plugin is written in Java. Java.)
Re:Flash authors? (Score:2)
But now, with Flash MX it's really asserted itself as a serious development environment for web based apps. I think we'll start to see Flash used more in this respect in the coming years.
It's interesting to note that there are two almost totally separate Flash communities. Designers and developers, and they do things very differe
Re:Director (Score:2)
Re:Does this mean... (Score:2)
No, it means you'll have to change your screen to 256 colors everytime you want to run it.
Re:1999 Deja Vu (Score:2)
I'm sure there probably is...but I'm sure it's not to the degree we're led to believe.
It's like people want you to think that everyone who doesn't know anything about computers uses them for recipes....