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For
a long time, the language HTML has shown important shortages in all the aspects.
The HTML creates static web page, pages in which all the movement that we can find
is due to the animated images (GIFS) or to videos inserted in them... This language,
revolutionary then, quickly demonstrated its insufficiency in all the fields.
Alternatives started to appear soon:
Javascript was
created in an effort to create actions or short programs that could be inserted in
the web to animate it. Javascript, is not a programming language in the strict
sense, since only creates "actions" that will be executed later in the
browser, we can never create a program in Javascript,
but only complements to the web. This language presents various inconveniences; first,
its execution can be dangerous for someone who accesses the web, so many people
decide to deactivate "Javascript" from their browsers. If our web
page contains many Javascript code, the browser simply does not see it. Secondly and as usual,
there exist browsers (each time less, that is true) that do not support it and
it will be useless to seek to execute a Javascript code if the browser does
not recognize it. Moreover, Javascript does not fit to create web pages, only
complements them, that is why its general use is usually focused on some small “helps”
in the interactivity of the web, as for example to verifying in the formularies,
effects in the state bar...)
We
should also emphasize that Flash can work together with javascript and execute codes
and Javascript functions without problems, because Javascript is converted in a help
for all users of Flash 8.
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The
alternatives to Flash 8. CSS
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Although
it is not widely noticed, HTML has a very limited power in the treatment of texts.
In fact, the principal problem of HTML is the lack of precision rather than the
incapability to show and distribute texts throughout screen (the possibilities
that are usually more than sufficient for any ordinary user). So far, it is practically
impossible to assure that the text is going to appear in the desirable form in the browser
of another person, or for example, that HTML does not allow creating justified texts
or just leave a margin to the left of the document... For this Cascading
Style Sheets (CSS)
were created.
CSS
is very powerful, and has a number of advantages that have turned into a standard
(although one will always not be able to visualize a content, which is used a style
sheet). In addition, they allow to administrate texts and images
for our web
page in the desired way, "Style Sheets” is a magnificent form to
simplify the
code of the web page and to accelerate its creation, as its name
indicates. Once
the treatment to apply to one type of text (for example, to the titles)
is created, then all the titles that we create and identify by it will
have that
treatment (color, font size, font type...). Thanks to the CSS we have
gained control over our web pages, and perhaps in brightness and design,
but these are not
helpful for creating animations.
Why
do not use the Style Sheets within Flash?
For
it was not contemplated in previous versions of Flash. From the version 2004 (Flash
MX 2004) the style sheets are perfectly compatible with Macromedia Flash, just because
they can be associated with texts used in our movie by mere assigning the style sheet
that we want to apply. Moreover, the CSS have ceased being an alternative to the use of
Flash and have been integrated within it. That is one more reason to use Flash.
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We
have seen how the main problems of HTML are solved, but it is still unknown how
to eliminate this "static" feature of the HTML pages. The first solution
comes from HTML itself. It is called DHTML (or
Dynamic HTML) and as its name indicates that it was made to create contents in movement
in the web pages. Its functionality brings up to moving objects through the web,
and moreover, it is useed to create animated menus. For sure, that you had seen
a lot without noticing. It usually appears as:
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In
fact the DHTML is nothing but, a combination of HTML and Javascript (so that, we
will leave this to the end), although it is a good solution to create bright menus
without extraordinary animations.
What
is about its inconveniency? There are too many browsers that have problems with
the DHTML and its download can be slow or delayed...
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First
and foremost. What does Flash offer to us? Since Flash is the most powerful tool
of the market to create multimedia content for the web, but it presents two important
inconveniencies.
 
The
first problem is the compatibility with FLASH. Along with some browsers that do
not support javascript or cannot see contents of DHTML (or including CSS), in
order to see, FLASH has to have an special PLUGIN of Macromedia. A PLUGIN is
an special program that let's your browser identify the FLASH movies, download and
visualize them correctly. This PLUGIN is free. You can download it HERE.
Fortunately, each time more browsers have incorporated it and each time more people
know what it is and are not afraid when it is offered to them. So far, each time
more people have this PLUGIN. | ||||
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The
second problem is the size of the movies and their download time. Whereas
an HTML page can size about 10 KB on the average, a FLASH animation sizes much
more. Evidently it depends on the contents, but usually it easily exceeds the 100
KB, and in addition if it incorporates sounds it is obvious that the number drastically
increases. So the time that it takes to make the Flash
contents visible is still greater and not all the visitors are ready to wait ...
they just go to another page.
On
the other hand, the wide bandwidth connections each time become more numerous. That
eliminates the problem of the downloading time. But the day when all the people are
connected to the high-speed internet is still far away so the debate will continue
being open for a long time.
Here
you have some interesting pages made with FLASH
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You
can make really astonishing web pages with Flash.
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To
resume, nowadays it can be questionable: to insert or not Flash contents
in a web page, although it depends on many things, for example, just like to insert
DHTML. Still, keep in mind that Flash has much more features (the fact
that has made other companies try to get "clones" of Flash). For example,
the creation of interactive CDs (as those that are included in the informatics journals,
for example), the creation of advertising banners or the
creation of animated cartoon using Flash 8 (you will be surprised to learn
the quantity of well known animated cartoons created or animated by Flash). Moreover,
Flash has an industrial use, since it is useed for optimizing plans, creating designs
of interiors and working with vectored images in general. Do not fail to learn handling
the perspective program ... (at least with respect to web design)
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You
can test now your knowledge by realizing the:
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Unit 1 Test. 
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