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Author Topic: Flash or HTML for photo web gallery site  (Read 33026 times)

mediumcool

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Re: Flash or HTML for photo web gallery site
« Reply #20 on: January 14, 2012, 08:49:24 am »

The problem I see with JS is that there is a culture that is very close now to Flash: easy abuse of effects.
JS is not of course the problem, but its potential abuse.

Same set of temptations as Flash: its got all these features, and Im gonna use them all! The notion that Flash/JS/Silverlight etc. are tools, not destinations, is lost in the kerfuffle.

Useful quote: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/02/23/dhh-it-dept by Upton Sinclair: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

An honest and objective contractor (whether on the web or elsewhere) should recommend an appropriate technology approach that best fulfills a client’s needs.

I agree on Ajax. It's really a great option. I will probably based my own website in Ajax (but won't do it myself).
I didn't mentionned Ajax because that I know, there are currently no wysiwyg program to generate it and it requires serious knowledge to implement.

I am restarting web development, mainly for myself, so have just downloaded Komodo Edit to get to know Ajax functions a little better; it’s cross-platform which is good, but it may be crap on the Mac, which is not so good.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2012, 09:00:50 am by mediumcool »
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EduPerez

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Re: Flash or HTML for photo web gallery site
« Reply #21 on: January 16, 2012, 06:26:19 am »

Just my two cents:

When you design (both visually and technically) your site, put yourself in the place of a viewer, and think how does a viewer wants to visit your site; do not make the mistake of thinking how you want viewers to visit your site, because that will make visitors go away [I'm probably on the radical side, but I tend to immediately close any site that: has music, has a long (skip-able or not) flashy intro, resizes my bowser's window, ...].

So, back to the question at hand: what is the intended audience of your site? do they prefer flash sites?
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mediumcool

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Re: Flash or HTML for photo web gallery site
« Reply #22 on: January 16, 2012, 06:32:48 am »

Just my two cents:

When you design (both visually and technically) your site, put yourself in the place of a viewer, and think how does a viewer wants to visit your site; do not make the mistake of thinking how you want viewers to visit your site, because that will make visitors go away [I'm probably on the radical side, but I tend to immediately close any site that: has music, has a long (skip-able or not) flashy intro, resizes my bowser's window, ...].

So, back to the question at hand: what is the intended audience of your site? do they prefer flash sites?

Big tick.
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MrSmith

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Re: Flash or HTML for photo web gallery site
« Reply #23 on: January 16, 2012, 08:16:02 am »

"When I see a percent-loading widget, my heart sinks; unless the site has been very-well built to be small and load quickly, I usually navigate away. It should be remembered that modems are still in use, and that broadband users hitting a data limit (as is my case) can be slowed to 64kbps."

are you an art buyer/art director?  the people that matter usually have superfast fiber/cable and a 24-27in i-mac to view photographers websites on.
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BFoto

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Re: Flash or HTML for photo web gallery site
« Reply #24 on: January 17, 2012, 02:46:15 am »

Wait for CS6 and you will be able to design what u want in flash and convert with the touch of a button the site into HTML5...no coding required.

http://prodesigntools.com/the-future-of-adobe-flash-and-html5.html

mediumcool

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Re: Flash or HTML for photo web gallery site
« Reply #25 on: January 17, 2012, 03:53:38 am »

are you an art buyer/art director? 

Some of the time. What are you?

the people that matter usually have superfast fiber/cable and a 24-27in i-mac to view photographers websites on.

Whatever. And would “… the people that [sic] matter …” be using a computer from 2009;D
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Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: Flash or HTML for photo web gallery site
« Reply #26 on: January 17, 2012, 09:20:29 am »

When I see a percent-loading widget, my heart sinks; unless the site has been very-well built to be small and load quickly, I usually navigate away.
I'm just a simple amateur photographer with a decent collection of photographs, running a fast fiber optic line to my 2011 vintage Win 7 64-bit machine, which absolutely screams compared to previous machines (32-bit Vista, XP, etc., etc.).

Yet I am in 100% agreement with mediumcool here. If I see a percent-loading widget, or a flash intro, I'll close the tab immediately (unless someone is paying me big bucks to look at their site).

Eric
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Jeremy Roussak

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Re: Flash or HTML for photo web gallery site
« Reply #27 on: January 17, 2012, 12:54:17 pm »

When you design (both visually and technically) your site, put yourself in the place of a viewer, and think how does a viewer wants to visit your site; do not make the mistake of thinking how you want viewers to visit your site, because that will make visitors go away [I'm probably on the radical side, but I tend to immediately close any site that: has music, has a long (skip-able or not) flashy intro, resizes my bowser's window, ...].
If you're on the radical side, I'll join you there. I don't close the site immediately, but those things (in particular, music) certainly antagonise me greatly.

Jeremy
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EduPerez

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Re: Flash or HTML for photo web gallery site
« Reply #28 on: January 17, 2012, 02:02:31 pm »

are you an art buyer/art director?  the people that matter usually have superfast fiber/cable and a 24-27in i-mac to view photographers websites on.

And some spare time to spend watching a progress bar, I guess...

Perhaps your intended audience is composed entirely by people with fast connections and fast computers; good for you. But your server may have a bad day now and then, and be a bit slower than expected. Or your art buyer/director may be out of his office, far from his fast connection and fast computer. And the people that matters can have one of these days, and not be in the mood to wait, even if just for a few seconds.

If you are so high in the food chain that you can tell "go f*ck yourself off" to anybody out of your narrow intended audience, then big kudos to you, sincerely; but, do you really need to do that?

Another humble two cents: if you need to put a progress bar, you are probably doing something wrong.
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mediumcool

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Re: Flash or HTML for photo web gallery site
« Reply #29 on: January 17, 2012, 05:56:36 pm »

And some spare time to spend watching a progress bar, I guess...

Perhaps your intended audience is composed entirely by people with fast connections and fast computers; good for you. But your server may have a bad day now and then, and be a bit slower than expected. Or your art buyer/director may be out of his office, far from his fast connection and fast computer. And the people that matters can have one of these days, and not be in the mood to wait, even if just for a few seconds.

If you are so high in the food chain that you can tell "go f*ck yourself off" to anybody out of your narrow intended audience, then big kudos to you, sincerely; but, do you really need to do that?

Another humble two cents: if you need to put a progress bar, you are probably doing something wrong.

All good. Especially the last sentence. Another thought: there is the old saw *word of mouth*; somebody sees your work and tells others. That somebody might not be on a 27" iMac; they might be using a phone or an iPad. Even art directors use phones and tablets …  ;D
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Martin Ranger

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Re: Flash or HTML for photo web gallery site
« Reply #30 on: January 17, 2012, 08:44:47 pm »

I recently switched from an html site to a flash site (see my message above). One reason was my frustration with cross-browser compatibility and bugs. I am sure one can program it in a way that it works flawlessly on all browsers and has the functionality I wanted, but I could not and did not find a ready-made solution that had everything I wanted. In the end I went with a hybrid design: flash for those platforms that support it, html for others.

So far, I have made two observations. First, the bounce rate on my site has not increased. At least for my visitors the speed at which my flash-based site loads does not seem to be a problem. And I am stressing "for my visitors" here. Others may have a different experience. Second, around 5% of my visitors seem to be using mobile devices.

I am sure that in the future flash is dead, but right now the hybrid approach is working very well for me.
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Graham Mitchell

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Re: Flash or HTML for photo web gallery site
« Reply #31 on: January 18, 2012, 06:12:34 am »

I think Graham’s problems may lie in how he is generating the JavaScript code, but has has yet to reveal what he is using.

Javascript/Jquery. My developer walked out on the project today, as he can't resolve some of the cross-browser bugs, so I'm back to square one.
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mediumcool

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Re: Flash or HTML for photo web gallery site
« Reply #32 on: January 18, 2012, 06:31:33 am »

Javascript/Jquery. My developer walked out on the project today, as he can't resolve some of the cross-browser bugs, so I'm back to square one.

Not good! Do you know how he was creating the site and generating the scripting? Oops—missed the reference to Jquery! Any Ajax-y things going on?
« Last Edit: January 18, 2012, 06:34:42 am by mediumcool »
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mediumcool

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Re: Flash or HTML for photo web gallery site
« Reply #33 on: January 18, 2012, 06:36:09 am »

And was something like Dreamweaver used?
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fredjeang

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Re: Flash or HTML for photo web gallery site
« Reply #34 on: January 18, 2012, 11:26:02 am »

My fashion boss is using PHP-HTML-JS and HTML 5 for video (although for the moment there is just one making-of !). It's damn fast, friendly code and they have a control panel for each sections.
They used a pixelpost base they customized.

Graham, please could you be more precise about the code and where you have the issues? if you fancy to or can. (if discretion needed mail here) I could ask to the guy who did my boss website, it's a friend, no prob.
« Last Edit: January 18, 2012, 12:15:52 pm by fredjeang »
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mediumcool

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Re: Flash or HTML for photo web gallery site
« Reply #35 on: February 02, 2012, 11:23:35 pm »

Saw this today: MS is definitely signalling that they are moving away from plug-ins.

Whither/wither Silverlight?  ;D
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MarkM

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Re: Flash or HTML for photo web gallery site
« Reply #36 on: February 03, 2012, 12:26:56 am »

The arguments are really unnecessary. We all understand (I presume) that on the web quality, size, and speed are interrelated. If you have beautiful, big images that are slow to load, you may lose work to someone who has a faster site. By the same token, if you have highly compressed, small images, you might lose work to someone who has slower with more impressive files. We each need to find a balance and make a judgement call, and this requires making some assumptions about our audience and inevitably some compromises. I don't understand why anyone would think there is one right answer.
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mediumcool

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Re: Flash or HTML for photo web gallery site
« Reply #37 on: February 03, 2012, 12:44:37 am »

The arguments are really unnecessary. We all understand (I presume) that on the web quality, size, and speed are interrelated. If you have beautiful, big images that are slow to load, you may lose work to someone who has a faster site. By the same token, if you have highly compressed, small images, you might lose work to someone who has slower with more impressive files. We each need to find a balance and make a judgement call, and this requires making some assumptions about our audience and inevitably some compromises. I don't understand why anyone would think there is one right answer.

Um, your opinion. In fact, the OP was asking about the merits of Flash vs open HTML standards; the fact that Flash sites are often bulky is another matter.

Re file size of images, it used to be de rigeuer to offer alternative links depending on connection speed; there is no reason not to offer that choice, if desired.

BTW, I am writing this via a wireless modem slowed to 64Kbps, so I remember how agonisingly slow surfing used to be! And is, until next Wednesday.  :'(
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MarkM

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Re: Flash or HTML for photo web gallery site
« Reply #38 on: February 03, 2012, 04:35:28 pm »

Um, your opinion. In fact, the OP was asking about the merits of Flash vs open HTML standards; the fact that Flash sites are often bulky is another matter.

Re file size of images, it used to be de rigeuer to offer alternative links depending on connection speed; there is no reason not to offer that choice, if desired.

BTW, I am writing this via a wireless modem slowed to 64Kbps, so I remember how agonisingly slow surfing used to be! And is, until next Wednesday.  :'(

Considering that this is posted in the business forum, not the web ideology forum, it might make sense to look at the real world and see what is working for people and what isn't. I can find many example of big, beautiful sites (both flash and html) that would bring a dialup connection to its knees (i.e. http://danwintersphoto.com/ ). It's worth noting that Dan's site is from aphotofolio.com run by Rob Haggart who probably knows a thing or two about what photo buyers want in a website. These sites work fine on a fast connection, which most if not all of their potential customers are using.

If you are correct, that this is a bad business decision, that it hurts the bottom line, then you should have no trouble pointing out some websites of equally successful photographers with websites optimized for dial-up. I would be interested to see a website that is beating the competition by showing highly-compressed and/or tiny images.
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shotworldwide

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Re: Flash or HTML for photo web gallery site
« Reply #39 on: February 08, 2012, 07:32:39 pm »

Hi guys, I am writing my websites over ten years now and here is my new site I ended up with:

http://shotworldwide.com

From my experience, people are lazy to click on links or images, so I put everything on one page in one stream - as I did more than ten years ago :)

If you catch the bottom right hand side corner of your browser and drag it to the left, you will see waht is going to happen ... design will readjust smoothly and will keep the new wide of the browser. It means, that this design is viewable on all screens without scrolling. They call it "responsive web design."
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Regards, Filip

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