Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Pro Business Discussion => Topic started by: aaronkneile on January 10, 2012, 09:47:24 am
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I hope I'm posting in the right place for this question, but what is the general opinion about photography gallery websites: Do people prefer flash, or is html a better option? What do people see as the advantages/drawbacks to flash and/or html? Thanks!
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Funny!
There are commercial photo gallery templates that seem to use Flash, but I'd read that Flash was not as good for some reason. I wondered what people preferred. Often the pictures don't scale very well, regardless. I thought it might be nice to have the pictures scale up and better fill the browser window. What is it that makes Flash be less desirable, besides not playing on an iPad?
Thanks!
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I do have a couple of hours, but don't want to overstay my welcome! It sounds like there may be numerous reasons that flash is not desirable. But not playing on an iPad is the only issue I'm aware of. But on the other hand, flash can scale images very nicely without anti-aliasing. I don't want to be a drain on people's time, but am confused as to the pros and cons. Thanks for all your help!
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Having just redone my own website, I might be able to help. From what I understand and what I experienced myself, it goes like this.
The main disadvantages of flash are this:
1. It doesn't display on some devices, notably the iPad and iPhone, and doesn't display well on most mobile phones.
2. It is resource intensive both in download size and (not entirely sure about this) processor resources, making it much slower to display than a html/javascript website. This might make people skip your website if they have slow internet or old hardware and don't have the patience to wait. Most photoeditors are said not to like flash.
3. It is not good for SEO as bing and google cannot see inside of the flash content. That means all text information in your website cannot easily be indexed by the search engines. If your business relies on people finding you on google or bing, a flash-based website will not work for you.
The main advantages of flash are this:
1. It looks the same on any browser and works with legacy browsers. With html/java your website might display differently depending on which browser people use, and look horrible on some old browsers. Sure, you can code it in such a way that it works almost universally, but it is a huge pain in you behind (at least it was in mine) unless you go with fairly simple design and menu elements.
2. Image scaling works, and the scaled images look great. I could not get it to work as properly with a html website, but that might have been due to my lack of coding skills.
After struggling with this for a long time, I decided on a hybrid approach. My main website is flash based, but has an html version for search engines and flash-hostile devices. There is also a separate ipad version. An attached blog helps with the SEO. Since most of my business doesn't come from search engines this works for me. It might not work for you if search engine ranking is what you are after. I tested a few companies when I looked for a new design and in general, it seems to be the case that the initial loading time is longer than a html site, but once the site is loaded navigation is quick (and depends mainly on the size of your image files).
I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any more questions.
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Many thanks for all the insights! Super helpful.
I am doing my website with images that scale using javascript. It's been difficult so far, but see the potential. How much does everybody think scalable images matter?
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How much does everybody think scalable images matter?
I seem to remember a survey the people at Photoshelter did a little while ago. One of the things they found was that art buyers don't like huge photos. Something along the lines that for editorial purposes 750px and for advertising 900px was the upper limit, if I remember correctly. For that you wouldn't necessarily need scalability. On the other hand, none of my clients has ever complained about the photos being too large... maybe because the ones who find them too large (and slow-loading) never become my clients ;)
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With the advent of html5 and the fact that more and more people are using mobile devices to surf the web flash is on it's last breath. Even Adobe admits to this and is offering flash to html converters. Even in it's prime flash was mainly a tool for highly interactive and media-intense websites, like promotional/advertising stuff, not something that would benefit a photographer where you mainly want fast and easy access to your photos. Making a new website/portfolio in flash today is probably the stupidest thing you can do and is mostly regarded as a nuisance by potential visitors.
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A few years ago, pre-iPad, I would have recommended Flash for the reason that it can do more than HTML and it is MUCH simpler to deploy across various platforms. That's why I built mine in Flash back then. Now HTML can do more, and there are more devices which can't run Flash.
At the moment, I am re-building my site in HTML so that the iAddicts can visit the site as well. Took 10 hours to rebuild it, and another 10 hours so far trying to fix cross-platform bugs, and we're only a third of the way through the bugs. Overall it's going to be a LOT more work than the Flash site was.
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Thanks to everyone for their input! And that's a lot of hours! Why not go with something commercially available? Do you think it's bad form for a photographer to use a commercially available template? Or should your site look different as a part of your strategy?
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A few years ago, pre-iPad, I would have recommended Flash for the reason that it can do more than HTML and it is MUCH simpler to deploy across various platforms. That's why I built mine in Flash back then. Now HTML can do more, and there are more devices which can't run Flash.
But Flash has long been slow and buggy on all platforms apart from Windows. And Adobe is abandoning Flash for mobile devices—Android and WP7.
At the moment, I am re-building my site in HTML so that the iAddicts can visit the site as well.
Sounds like you’re a Windows user, and are toting some angst. Fine, but web stats for many years indicate that Mac users have more disposable income and spend it more readily (same sort of thing is showing up in Android vs iOS). To lock out iOS is crazy, but of course you are remedying that.
Took 10 hours to rebuild it, and another 10 hours so far trying to fix cross-platform bugs, and we're only halfway through the bugs. Overall it's going to be a LOT more work than the Flash site was.
If you are writing good code, cross-platform bugs should only apply in older browsers; Microsoft have made considerable strides recently in getting Internet Explorer to observe standards, and should be commended for that effort.
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Graham, would be interested to know what sort of show-stoppers you have encountered in using HTML5; placement of elements, CSS rendering etc.?
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But Flash has long been slow and buggy on all platforms apart from Windows.
Yet not a single user of the site has ever experienced a bug, not matter what their browser or platform. I am not dropping Flash willingly, but the world (including Adobe) seems to be dropping Flash so the writing's on the wall.
And Adobe is abandoning Flash for mobile devices—Android and WP7.
Yes, that was the final nail in the coffin for me. I started my new site development the very next day after that news was released :)
Sounds like you’re a Windows user, and are toting some angst.
Not at all - a happy Mac user (though I've used Windows for years as well). My iAddicts comment was aimed at the iPad and iPhone crowd mainly. If there's any angst, it's aimed at those trying to assess a photographer's work on a tiny phone screen. But that's what some people are apparently doing, so I will cater for that.
If you are writing good code, cross-platform bugs should only apply in older browsers; Microsoft have made considerable strides recently in getting Internet Explorer to observe standards, and should be commended for that effort.
'Should' is a dangerous word. I have tested the site so far in Firefox (Mac and PC), Safari (Mac), Chrome (Mac), IE (PC), iOS3, iOS4, iOS5, iPad, iPad2 and Dolphin Mini (Android), and even that's not enough. The site behaves differently in every single one of those! That's extremely time-consuming to fix.
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Graham, would be interested to know what sort of show-stoppers you have encountered in using HTML5; placement of elements, CSS rendering etc.?
All sorts of things really, mainly javascript-related of course.
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I have tested the site so far in Firefox (Mac and PC), Safari (Mac), Chrome (Mac), IE (PC), iOS3, iOS4, iOS5, iPad, iPad2 and Dolphin Mini (Android), and even that's not enough. The site behaves differently in every single one of those! That's extremely time-consuming to fix.
Sounds like you're doing something very wrong.
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I hope I'm posting in the right place for this question, but what is the general opinion about photography gallery websites: Do people prefer flash, or is html a better option? What do people see as the advantages/drawbacks to flash and/or html? Thanks!
My main site is in Flash (it is a livebooks.com site) butthey produce an HTML site site that runs on machines like iPads & iPhones.
A Flash coded site does not have to be bloated or an awful viewing experience. I hate soundtracks on websites so I don't use one on mine, which is http://www.ellisvener.com
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I think that this question is answered by the circunstances themselves: Adobe will not continue to develop Flash in the future. It's more or less like they announced the cease of it.
They will concentrate in the future apps in HTML 5, probably within a Dreamweaver platform.
Therefore, building right now a site in Flash is IMO a "mistake", independently of its pro or cons. The Flash system has reached to an end and would be a closed road, with the bonus to
have to re-do all the site soon or later.
HTML is reaching a good maturity and flexibility, HTML 5 will be integrated into wysiwyg and growing. That's the current way to go.
Included for motion players.
But of course, Flash will not die just like that tomorrow, it will (and is) progressive and will probably remains optional and operative where it is already today. Just that devs won't use it anymore.
As for I.E meeting finally the standards, they did an effort but we're not completly there yet.
From a user point of view, when I view sites built in Flash, I generally give-up earlier. The interface is "nervous", slow quite a lot compared to html. It gives the sensation to be "unstable" and there is always a silly animation somewhere in the menu or the way the images are loaded. The loading bar, symbol of Flash, is now very unfriendly to me.
I'd be cautious with Java, it could easily fall into the same abuse than the early Flash. The less it's used, the better IMO.
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A Flash coded site does not have to be bloated or an awful viewing experience.
Well, bloat and awful often seem to be compulsory. ;D 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.
There should be an Interpol alert out for this character Skip Intro (probably an alias) to be arrested and charged for bloat and very poor taste in the ICUE (International Court of User Experience). But seriously, the existence of skip intro shows that a lot of Flash is merely flash, and not meaningful content. :D
(http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/7924/flashdef.png)
The level of scripting power that Flash ultimately achieved is remarkable, but I believe one of its problems as a run-time environment is that it contains old code for compatibility, and is bulkier and slower than it could be (its hooks into Windows graphic cards make that the only reasonably-performing platform for Flash; my Macs can and do crash even scrolling a page with Flash).
B/G: I taught animation at a tertiary level in the late ’90s and early ’00s, and Flash was just about the only game in town, so I came to know it well. But never love it. And there are many many Flash programmers out there who will have to adapt to change which they will resist strongly.
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I think that this question is answered by the circunstances themselves: Adobe will not continue to develop Flash in the future. It's more or less like they announced the cease of it.
They will concentrate in the future apps in HTML 5, probably within a Dreamweaver platform.
Adobe has conceded (http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/adobe-surrenders-to-apple-in-mobile-flash-war-20111110-1n85p.html) defeat. They have a number of irons that they are and will be pushing into the fire—they are a bit like Microsoft in that they try to offer many solutions in an attempt to cover the market, but are slow to see shifts (look up Adobe operatives slanging Apple for their—now demonstrated to be prescient—stand against Flash on iOS devices).
Therefore, building right now a site in Flash is IMO a "mistake", independently of its pro or cons. The Flash system has reached to an end and would be a closed road, with the bonus to
have to re-do all the site soon or later.
Absolutely right; the appropriate word here is obsolescent, aka falling into disuse. The factory is still there, but there are fewer lights on.
HTML is reaching a good maturity and flexibility, HTML 5 will be integrated into wysiwyg and growing. That's the current way to go.
And AJAX has been around for quite a while.
Included for motion players.
YouTube has been doing this without fuss for some time, seamlessly substituting an HTML5 deliverable if Flash is not sniffed.
But of course, Flash will not die just like that tomorrow, it will (and is) progressive and will probably remains optional and operative where it is already today. Just that devs won't use it anymore.
Some will keep pushing Flash because it’s comforting and financially rewarding; it’s all they know.
From a user point of view, when I view sites built in Flash, I generally give-up earlier. The interface is "nervous", slow quite a lot compared to html. It gives the sensation to be "unstable" and there is always a silly animation somewhere in the menu or the way the images are loaded. The loading bar, symbol of Flash, is now very unfriendly to me.
Flash can be used to make very good interactive games, but the sorts of things photographers need are not exclusively served by Flash.
I'd be cautious with Java, it could easily fall into the same abuse than the early Flash. The less it's used, the better IMO.
Java or JavaScript? JavaScript is an essential part of HTML, including v5, and is vital for interactivity. Microsoft’s JScript and Flash’s ActionScript are supersets of JavaScript. All related. 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.
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Very polemical post (http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2010/03/30/the-fallacy-of-flash-why-adobes-ideological-war-with-apple-is-bankrupt/) on Flash vs HTML; Adobe vs Apple.
Somewhat less polemical post (http://blog.benward.me/post/128294973), with swearing.
And something light (http://xkcd.com/386/) for balance. ;D
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Yes, I meant Javascript.
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.
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.
As you pointed, Flash is still powerfull for some applications like games, heavy interactive content, but not as a website solution where it's counter-productive.
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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: it’s got all these features, and I’m 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.
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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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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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"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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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
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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?
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And was something like Dreamweaver used?
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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.
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Saw this (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2012/01/31/web-sites-and-a-plug-in-free-web.aspx) today: MS is definitely signalling that they are moving away from plug-ins.
Whither/wither Silverlight? ;D
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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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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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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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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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What is it that makes Flash be less desirable, besides not playing on an iPad?
Extend that to not playing on most mobile devices in the near future, and performing fairly badly on many of them now. The latest news is that
1. Adobe has stop development of Flash Player for mobile devices.
2. Microsoft has said that it will not support any plug-ins (such as Flash Player) on the mobile version of Windows 8, intended for tablets
3. Google has just released a version of Chrome for Android, which looks to be a far better replacement for the current Android browser, and it has no Flash Player support, due to item 1.
On the other hand, some desktop browsers do not support HTML5, and so might do better with Flash. To be specific, the problem browsers are Internet Explorer before the current version 9, still used mostly by:
a. People still using Windows XP and its originally installed default browser IE 6, and who never update the browser despite Microsoft pleading with people to make the free upgrade and rid the world of IE6.
b. People in a certain large Asian country running pirate versions of Windows XP which cannot be upgraded.
So, decide which group of customers you would rather miss out on: the people who buy and use the latest mobile devices, or the ones using obsolete software on aging hardware.
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First thing: In a way HTML is always there in some form or another, even when masquerading as XML, JS or PHP. Even if you use flash, you still need an HTML/PHP page for your index, analytics and SEO. It's not a question of Flash vs HTML.
There are two ways to look at this:
1. You have enough money to hire a professional to design and execute your site
Build your site in flash, and when flash is no more, pay to get the site redone. Flash is on its way out, but no other standard comes close to matching its 'user experience'.
2. You don't have enough money to hire a professional
Build your site using Javascript, CSS and HTML.
You might want to start with Wordpress or other CMS tools to build your site. The advantage is, they are always optimized for the latest technology. Plus you have the added advantage of adding your own Javascript code or CSS modifications to suit your needs. If you don't like a template, you can build your own, and never have to worry about the 'back-end' too much.
I fully recommend Wordpress.org for professional photographers. Hope this helps.
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Hi aaronkneile,
I was a web designer and got some prizes about what I have done. In my opinion I will go with HTML. Flash is Adobe alone (Macromedia before) idea so it would not natively support by main browsers. You need a plugin in order to view flash sites. On some devices such as Ipad or Iphone one can not views flash sites at all. In contrast HTML is something standard and all major web browsers support it natively.
In general if the flash site developers are good at their job then the site will be loaded quite fast otherwise it will take a lot more time in order to load. In today busy world no one would like to wait. What the users of your site want is information not the fancy things that need flash to performs.
At the early time I spend months in order to make my sites look cool in terms of technique. Some of my sites really inspired other developers in terms of techniques and fancy things. I also learned flash to build some cool/fancy site that HTML/JavaScript could not perform. But the real users of my sites sometime feel my sites not user friendly (usability problems). 13 years a go when you create a website you have a lot of things to consider in order to make it look right on main browsers and platforms (crossed platform). Today when design a site you still need to take care about it but main HTML tags are crossed platforms. That said, if you use simple HTML then your site will be OK on any browser/systems.
One more thought is if you are photographer then what you really would like to show is your photos not the *cool* site with lot of music and effects. IMO the more simple your site is the more pop up your photos will be. If you know a little HTML and Dreamweaver then there is a site (projectseven.com) that you can find some good pre-made html site with which you just need to input your photos and the rest are some clicks to go. You can check sample here: http://projectseven.com/products/galleries/hgmagic/insects.htm
Hope this help and good luck with your new site.
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Revisiting this topic....
I would certainly not recommend anyone creates a new website in Flash any more, but I really miss how well Flash worked across all browsers.
My first developer actually walked away from my first Flash->HTML migration 6 months ago, because there were just so many bugs peculiar to just one browser and he couldn't work out most of them.
Now I have a new company rebuilding my site. There were plenty of browser issues again but at least these guys are slowly getting through the list. But it's a damning testament to DHTML that it takes 3 times longer to get the site working for the last 10% of visitors than it took to build the site.
At the moment, the browsers to consider are:
IE 7, 8, 9
FF 3.6, 4+5, 6+7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13
Chrome 18, 19
Safari 5
Opera 11
iOS4, 5
Android 2,3,4
Anyway, nearly there.
If anyone would like to try the latest test version, you can visit gmitchell.net. If you do find any issues, please report back with device, OS and browser and even a screen shot if possible :)
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it works fine (latest firefox OSX 10.7.4), i prefer the transitions in the flash version though.
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HTML 5
/thread