[thelist] Flash + forms

[John Dowdell]

At 1:41 AM 11/28/2, Eveline wrote:
> I wanted to put a form on top of a flash animation...
> only list or menu elements are visible....

Recap: The 4.0+ browsers do a pretty good job of layering static unchanging
content, such as HTML text or GIFs/JPGs. They don't usually handle the
layering of things which actively redraw themselves, such as applets,
plugins, controls, even some FORM elements.
   Historically the exception has been IE3+/Win, which offered a
"windowless control" API for offscreen drawing. The Macromedia Flash Player
accessed that through its "wmode" attribute. Newer Macromedia Flash Players
can also take advantage of this in newer browsers such as recent
Mozilla-based in Windows of Mac OS X, and in recent Microsoft browsers for
Mac OS X.
   More info: Search Macromedia docs or technotes on "wmode"; see current
Flash Player beta page.




At 12:43 AM 11/28/2, someone wrote:
> Flash *should* always come out on top - last time i tried there
> was no way round this....

As noted previously on Evolt, that's not quite so. I'm not sure why (a)
this layering thread appears so often and (b) why in each fresh instance
someone asserts that it is never possible to do so.




At 10:16 PM 11/28/2, aardvark wrote:
> what happens if the user doesn't have Flash?  what about
> alternative browsers?

That's actually one of the nice things about a widely-deployed,
browser-neutral extension... it works in a standard way across various
environments.

In this case, Eveline was already using SWF in the page, so Aral's
suggestion of also putting the form entry in the SWF is quite logical and
valid!

You could of course choose use to use HTML text, and perhaps a graphic or
script, in a specific presentation for a specific audience, of course. If
"kicking up text" is big, and you don't wish them to zoom on a SWF, then
that could be a dealbreaker, true. Whatever floats your boat.

But I'm more concerned about what happens if they don't have a browser, or
even a computer for that matter....  :(

(btw, your first 7K fisking was about the same size as Aral's untrimmed
quotes, and your second was even larger than that! ;-)





At 12:09 PM 11/29/2, Shoshannah Forbes wrote:
> a very good friend of mine is blind. He accesses the net via IE5
> that is translated to a Braille display. Is it possible for him
> to access flash content? If so- how?

I'm not sure. Does he only use tactile input, or can he also use auditory
input? WindowEyes and JAWS screen readers both work with the Macromedia
Flash Player 6 to expose text and other elements in a SWF file.

(Detail: Installing the current players along with MSAA-compliant screen
readers will expose material in any SWF. The current authoring tool,
Macromedia Flash MX, also lets you optimize a presentation for speech --
it's similar to using explicit ALT content instead of just hearing "image".
Old files will be exposed, but new files can be exposed better.)




At 12:35 PM 11/29/2, Paul Bennett wrote:
> .. um so how does Flash address text only browsers, screen readers
> and spiders again?

Text-only browsers: Why use SWF? If designing for PDA, try text. (At least
until the next generation of devices kick in.... ;-)

Screen readers: See above info on current support.

Search spiders: Most actively-developed search engines have already
included abilities to spider into SWFs. Try Googling "'search engine' swf"
to pull citations.


> > Since over 90% of users have Flash 5 and above....
>
> This is problematic (not only from the stats point of view) in that as
> the Flash technology changes, old versions of Flash will become
> unsupported, I think you'll find a large proportion of "joe user"'s that
> will click the cancel button rather than install any new software over
> their dialup connection.

If you're asserting "I believe people will be slow to update their
Macromedia Flash Players" then such an assertion is in clear contradiction
of the facts. Player update has actually accelerated with each version.

Contributing factors include: small size of player and ease of downloading;
progressive increase in ease-of-installation; vast number of high-profile
sites which use SWF; the high number of *interesting* sites which use SWF
in interesting ways.

Beware assumptions! Test against observable reality!


>> For all intents and purposes you can pretty much ignore Flash 4
>> and down from now.
>>
> so in a few years we'll be "ignoring" Flash mx, Flash 7, Flash 8?

uhm, faulty rhetorical device. Aral was pointing out that the number of
people who can view only SWF4, and no later versions, is quite small, so
there is usually little need to optimize to them. (An exception might be if
your audience includes large number of baked-in players, such as with
WebTV, PalmOS or other devices.)


jd





John Dowdell, Macromedia Developer Support, San Francisco
(Best to reply on-list, to avoid my mighty spam filters!)
Technotes: http://www.macromedia.com/support/search/
Column: http://www.macromedia.com/desdev/jd_forum/
Technical daily diary: http://jdmx.blogspot.com/