1

I want to make a site from scratch, and Im considering to use Flex to make a R.I.A instead of the standard approach (xhtml + css + some ajax).

The kind of site I want to make is something like e-bay, but less complicated.

But.. I know that 95%+ of the sites like that are built in the previous mentioned techs... so, what are the cons and pros if I want to make a pure Flex site?

Thx.

Artemix
  • 8,497
  • 14
  • 48
  • 75
  • 3
    A site like eBay in Flash feels very wrong. Some reasons here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/510010/what-is-so-evil-about-a-flash-based-website – Pekka Jan 08 '11 at 00:51
  • Would probably be better on programmers: http://programmers.stackexchange.com/ – Orbling Jan 08 '11 at 00:55

8 Answers8

2

If you write an entire website in Flash, the entire website lives at one URL. (Short of mucking around with whatever Flash provides to let you offer deeper links.)

Whereas a website written in HTML, unless you go mad with your AJAX, lets people link to the stuff they’re actually interested in, like unicorns:

Or for a non-eBay example, Stack Overflow questions:

HTML also has a pretty standard and understood user interface: links, and form controls. (Mainly links.)

Community
  • 1
  • 1
Paul D. Waite
  • 96,640
  • 56
  • 199
  • 270
  • I think latest version of Flex has some sort of workaround about that issue you mention, not sure thou. – Artemix Jan 08 '11 at 01:09
  • 1
    Yeah it has :http://help.adobe.com/en_US/flex/using/WS2db454920e96a9e51e63e3d11c0bf69084-7cb6.html – Artemix Jan 08 '11 at 01:19
  • 1
    Have you considered SWFAddress (http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/) for Flash/Flex deep-linking? It seems like a more mature solution, and simpler to use than Adobe's solution. EDIT: oops, just saw your comment below – Ryan Jan 08 '11 at 02:59
  • Not to dispute what your saying Paul as it has grounded evidence - but it is possible to product deep linking and I feel the Flex component package is relatively standard. Aside from the default colours, there is not much difference in use. – Glycerine Jan 08 '11 at 15:31
  • Yeah, "deep link" (like they call it) is actually SWFAdress. – Artemix Jan 08 '11 at 16:16
  • @Glycerine: sure, judging by Artemix's link above, it's certainly supported. Looks immensely faffy though, not very web-like. – Paul D. Waite Jan 09 '11 at 00:26
1

Flash doesn't work on iPhone/iPad. End of story.

Other reasons: not a web standard, often quite slow, not good for SEO, etc.

kijin
  • 8,702
  • 2
  • 26
  • 32
  • 2
    I dont care about iPhone, believe me. About being a web standard.. what does it mean?, and slow... About the slow part, of course it can be slow, but if I use (not abuse) Flex native componentes I dont think that would be a problem. SEO... yes, I have nothing to say about that. – Artemix Jan 08 '11 at 01:04
  • 1
    Ah. So people aren't allowed to bid if they don't get home before the auction ends? – Quentin Jan 08 '11 at 01:07
  • SEO Can be fine if done correctly. Search engines can use the ever popular (coming standard) headless player. Not working on iPhone is not 'end of story' - The ruddy thing is not the wrapper of all things tech. My Android runs it fine. not web standard is old hat. Theoretically HTML5 is still not currently a web standard. – Glycerine Jan 08 '11 at 15:36
1

It requires users to have a proprietary plugin which some users don't want and other users can't have (since isn't available for all platforms (iOS being a key example)).

It also has performance and stability issues on some platforms (OS X and Linux being prime candidates).

While some search engines have started to index Flash content (so long as it exposes the information), the results aren't as good as for content rich HTML sites.

Quentin
  • 914,110
  • 126
  • 1,211
  • 1,335
1

You can do that simply using traditional xhtml + css + jQuery (or any JS framework if you want to increase UX). Flex won't do much in your scenario.

coder9
  • 1,571
  • 1
  • 27
  • 52
1

In my experience, performance is not a real issue unless you play video - one can write bad programs in JavaScript, too...

Your pros are mostly on the development side: You can have a great looking site quickly, and you can almost completely forget about browser incompatibilites.
You rely on the customers having the plugin installed, though, and you rely on Adobe's technology for development and playing of the content.

If this is not important to you, and you can afford to do without all iPhone and iPad users, accessibility and standards compliance... go for it!

weltraumpirat
  • 22,544
  • 5
  • 40
  • 54
  • 1
    Thruth is, almost everyone have FP installed, and about iphone users.. not really my target right now. – Artemix Jan 08 '11 at 01:11
  • 1
    @Artemix - the latest "greatest" flash is always late on Linux and often runs poorly until it's been around a while. But based on your comments to peoples answers it sounds like you've already made up your mind, and that you don't mind (needlessly) limiting your audience. Just go ahead and use flash (you know that's what you want to do) but try not to be too surprised when people don't like it - for all the reasons SO users are mentioning in their answers. – Stephen P Jan 08 '11 at 01:48
  • I know, Im only saying that except for the SEO thing, everything else are not solid reasons to not to choose Flash. And, at least where I live (Argentina) everyone here use Windows, maybe more advanced countries use more Linux and Macs.. but here, is a different story. Actually, thats why iPhone and iPad users are not my concern either :) – Artemix Jan 08 '11 at 02:11
1

Flex is good if you want to install as an application using Air. ebay actually has a RIA version, or at least they did for a while.

There are several concerns with a Flash site, some of which Adobe has addressed in the last couple of years.

One is accessibility. It is more difficult to make a Flash site accessible to the visually impaired, who use screenreaders.

Related, people like to be able to copy and paste content, as well as print. With standard web pages, the developer need do nothing to support this, it just works from the browser. With Flash, you'll have to take care to make your text content selectable, and I'm not sure a user could ever select a section of text + images. I've never done it, but I can only imagine that implementing printing ability in your Flash site would be nightmarish, at best.

Another is linking and addressability. For most sites, you can copy or at least get a link that you can share or save to get back to where you want to be. With Flash, you usually go to a single address and then the rest of of your experience happens inside the Flash "window" and the browser isn't actually navigating any pages. It is far more difficult to implement this ability in a Flash site.

A Flash site is usually very slow to load, especially the first time, and page load times are immeasurably important to a site's success.

Finally, you've perhaps heard the furor over the last couple of years about different vendors supporting or not supporting Flash in their products/devices. An all-flash site would be completely inaccessible on any iPhone or iPad, for example, which do not support Flash at all. Furthermore, some employers do not allow plugins like Flash to be installed on work machines, so you'd eliminate that portion of possible traffic, as well.

Jay
  • 56,361
  • 10
  • 99
  • 123
  • 2
    Deep link make possible to navigate using SWFAdress like if you are browsing a HTML page. http://help.adobe.com/en_US/flex/using/WS2db454920e96a9e51e63e3d11c0bf69084-7cb6.html – Artemix Jan 08 '11 at 01:20
  • 2
    @Artemix As I said, it is more difficult. You have to actively and consistently set this up, and it is not supported in all browsers. – Jay Jan 08 '11 at 01:24
  • Actually it seems quite simple, but of course I didnt tryied so I cant be sure of anything right now. Did you try it or youre just assuming that it will be difficult to implement? (just curious) – Artemix Jan 08 '11 at 01:37
  • @Artemix: if it’s not supported in all browsers (I’ve personally got no idea if this is true or not), then it’s more difficult than your average HTML website. Addressability is pretty much why the web works, so any technology that doesn’t have addressability at its core isn’t going to work very well. – Paul D. Waite Jan 08 '11 at 09:49
  • Again, you (and I) dont know how deep link works in Flex, maybe its wonderful maybe it sucks, Ill google it later. – Artemix Jan 08 '11 at 15:29
  • @Artemix It is described in the link you posted above. Ironically, you have to deploy an .html, .css, and .js file to make it work (in supported browsers), and basically you have to call a method to update the browser URL and then parse URLs to figure out what state the application should be in. – Jay Jan 09 '11 at 03:10
0

Nobody has yet mentioned Silverlight.?

JBrooks
  • 9,901
  • 2
  • 28
  • 32
0

I mostly agree with Jay's answer concerning accessibility, but as a further note would like to add that development in Flex/Flash vs HTML/CSS/JS could be more costly not only in terms of money but also for maintenance. Many Flex/Flash devs typically charge a higher price and their dev tools, which are necessary for compilation, usually aren't free, compared to HTML/CSS/JS devs, who often use freely available text editors.

Ryan
  • 1,372
  • 14
  • 20