Flash 8 - All About the Client

Flash media can be eye catching, interactive, smart, and attractive; such a great presentation tool for websites.

Visitors will have a wide variety of settings on their computers, and you should be prepared for this. Just because your site looks great in IE on a typical PC doesn’t mean it will work on another. There are the possibilities such as Javascript being disabled, the proper version of Flash has not been installed, or even various human disabilities, and all of these should be accounted for if you don’t want to loose potential clients.

Accessibility
Good news, Macromedia Adobe has stood up and addressed the issue that building to comply with accessibility is essential. In the new release of Flash 8, there is the ability to provide alternative content so screen readers and other accessibility applications can do their job.

With its new features, developers have the ability to design with accessibility issues in mind. It now allows for content magnification, mouse-free navigation, custom colour palettes for assisting with colour blindness, and sound synchronisation. Current assistive technologies supported include: Windows Eyes from GW Micro, JAWS from Freedom Scientific, Home Page Reader from IBM and ZoomText from Ai Squared.

Another issue with previous versions of Flash was text rendering. To the joy of flash developers everywhere, a new font rendering engine (FlashType) has been implemented. FlashType allows for correction of improperly displayed fonts.

Meta Data
Another step towards making Flash completely accessible is the added ability to incorporate metadata into the flash site. This provides search engines with information so they can better index your site. This is provided the search engine has incorporated the ability to read this new flash data, but no fear about Google, it already supports SWF metadata.

Flash Video Experience
The video experience in flash has been revolutionised. Now with a new codec available to developers, video can be professionally compressed in Flash. 8-bit alpha channels have been introduced, allowing for videos to be blended with other video and/or graphics for an even better visual presentation. Another great feature is the ability to add cue points throughout a video, providing for such interactivity as closed caption or interacting with other objects in the site. Other more enterprise level programs may be required for heavy jobs, but this is definitely great news for the general video experience.

Improved Flash Player Updating
When a new flash player is introduced to the market, it is a concern as to when developers should start using that version. Visitors may not have the latest version of flash and thus have to travel through the agonising and somewhat confusing method of upgrading. Previously this consisted of being redirected via prompt to a page on Macromedia. They were then taken through a few steps before finally being left with the flash player (hopefully), and having to find their way back to the original page that they were trying to view.

As of Flash Player 7, a new method has been implemented. A built-in auto-updating feature checks every 30 days to see if a newer version on flash player is available. For Flash 8 an ever newer detection kit, Express Install, has been released. This takes anyone viewing your site with Flash Player 6 r65 or higher and upgrades them to Flash Player 8 within the same window as your Flash 8 content. This removes the need for most visitors to worry about an installation file. Great news!

View Macromedia Adobe Flash Player Version Penetration

Filters and Effects
A great selection of filters has been added to Flash. As these filters intelligently render during runtime they allow for effects to be implemented into your site without killing your viewers processing time. Blurs, drop-shadows, glow effects, and bevel are just a few of the filters included. Simply put, more complex animations can be created in flash without dramatically increasing the file size.

File Upload
Some sites require files to be uploaded, and previously in flash sites, this would mean opening a new window which then led to the opening of a third window to finally browse to the desired file. This is a much more confusing approach than necessary. Flash Player 8 enables users to browse their system within flash, only popping up the single window to choose your file.

Bitmap API
Great, what’s that? Using minimal technical jargon they have given developers the tools to create advanced animation techniques.

Mobile Authoring
There is an increasing percent of people using the internet from mobile phones. Flash has already been built to provide for this market, but now they have added an interactive mobile device emulator. In my opinion, this will be essential for when we develop a flash application for a client needing mobile access.

Skins for all of the phones with flash capabilities (nearly 100 in total) are available to use as a testing environment. The emulator takes memory, screen size & other factors into consideration so an accurate application can be developed.

Choosing to use the new player
Cost – saves time for developers so they can charge less
Reliability – Each new release fixes previous bugs
Extended Features – Ability to use functionality that is not available in previous versions