Example: We just wrapped up Restaurant Week here in Seattle where a bunch of local establishments offered up prix-fixe specials for a couple of weeks. The website for this event was done up all in Flash, and made it impossible to crawl for a search engine, or even to link or bookmark a particular restaurant for later retrieval.
What did we exchange for this cheese and gimmicky design? Everything.
There's no regulating for good taste - you're right, most websites in general are poor. They, however, are still accessible - neon green text on black background with an annoying MIDI track in the background is still information that:
- you can link to
- you can bookmark
- you can copy and paste
- you can search for in-browser (doubly important if the website fails at layout, e.g. most Flash sites!)
- you can search for on Google/Bing
Those are pretty important.
I agree that if you don't follow the proper protocol you will end up with an undesirable site. I can't argue that Flash == HTML in terms of accessibility. There are ways within Flash to harness some accessibility but it is up to the developer to implement these. An informational site in Flash is a bad choice. I would never suggest the use of Flash for broad use. A fun site (like http://www.myspace.com/fanvideo) is more appropriate.
> - you can link to
> - you can bookmark
Named-anchors and proper implementation (same as AJAX RIA)
> - you can copy and paste
"Selectable text" is an option in any Flash text field.
> - you can search for in-browser (doubly important if the website fails at layout, e.g. most Flash sites!)
> - you can search for on Google/Bing
Flash exports text within to the container. Google also can search SWF.
> Those are pretty important.
Agree.
Is copying/pasting it to the OS (or app) pasteboard an option? If so, will it use the same UI as native apps have? Or will it force a funky widget of its own in the middle of an app that otherwise looks like the rest of the OS?
I'm only asking because I've never had copy/paste from flash work well on the desktop.
So if you're going to have a Flash-y data visualization component, say, it's easiest and most natural to have the controls for it (buttons adjusting parameters, display of those parameters, navigational controls) made in Flash too -- just expand the content rectangle of your Flash component out and drop in the controls.
In HTML5, the 'environment' of the <canvas> object is that of the surrounding HTML page. Adding buttons and other controls around the edge of your visualizer is most straightforwardly done by using "native" HTML <button>s and other such elements.
So it would be surprising to see <canvas>-using pages end up being done in a way where the <canvas> is essentially the whole page — it would require more programmer effort — whereas in Flash that's by far the easiest way to do it.
The vast majority of websites in general are poor. It would be no surprise to see that the majority of Flash sites would also be poor. Both sides have exceptions, though.
> Videos/Audio: Easily replaced by HTML5, and better too. More readily hardware accelerated, behaves as part of the core browser instead of a hijacking addon (e.g., Ctrl+T while focused on a Flash applet = no new tab), and much better battery life on mobiles.
I don't disagree. I am grateful that HTML5 can handle this, but it took a "standards" committee several years to roll this into a questionably viable model. The immediate fanfare for the slow implementation raises my eyebrow a bit. We're all happy about having something we've needed for years. The company that created the fold so we could have sites like YouTube today? The devil.
> - Crappy restaurant websites and other crimes against humanity: These should just die, and HTML5 will hopefully inspire better design ethic than this.
It won't. Cheese is forever. If HTML5 can accomplish cheese, people will create cheese. We're all hopeful, but the human condition comes into play.