And here i was thinking a good percentage of what i said was outright
wrong, and here you are saying my info is merely dated ;)
I'm extremely jaded. I'm one of those guys that think Flash should stay
the hell away from what already works on the web and rather add to it
instead of restructure it. I think flash sites beyond the conceptual
(ie. the Donnie Darko site for instance) are so deeply and profoundly
annoying they're actually upsetting. In particular the sites that simply
emulate what's already doable online but with some extra bells and
whistles; ie the sites that don't even try to be special. I'm sure
there's an enormous market out there for Flex, but i'm tempted to say
the market is more with the clients that want fancy graphics than with
the end users.
For every interface i've done i do my own private "focus group testing"
with my parents and girlfriend. I've had long discussions with all three
(who i'll term "utilitarian" online users. They get online to do
something in particular, not to have fun and experience the web or
whatever). They use ebay, amazon, search engines and forums for the most
part. It took my mom ages to get used to how the web works, and when
she's faced with functionality that acts differently, especially when
paired with functionality that already functions the way she's used to,
it screws up her foundation for usability and has made her actually give
up on some occations.
I think it's nice that we add accordions and whatnot to forms, but it's
going to be hard outdoing ajax style RIA (white crane stance!) with
flash style RIA (monkey stance!) simply because ajax for the most part
merely surprises the user with responsiveness as opposed to visually
altering the user interface and thus the experience.
Drag and drop webshops are not intuitive to the end user. Drag and drop
actually isn't intuitive on the web at all, a structure that's very
final in how it performs actions. A user clicks on a button, they expect
that button to do something and complete doing it. They don't expect the
page to flip over and have more buttons fade in or whatever. People say
page reloading is unintuitive, but they forget that the page reload
signifies a completed action in the mind of the user.
The web has a distinct symbology that has taken users a long time to
grow accustomed to. You could say that the Flex approach to the RIA is
the next logical step, but my opinion is that ajax does a very good
thing in keeping the transition gradual: I believe Flex RIA can be too
dramatic a change at this point in time.
This is just my relatively uninformed opinion however, i'd love to hear
counterargumentation when it comes to the usability issue.
- Andreas
David Mendels wrote:
Hi,
Andreas's info is dated...there is a lot of new news this week that changes
much of what he said.
Flex is a product line from Macromedia for building applications that run in
the Flash Player. It includes a framework, an integrated development
environment, and a server. (The server is not required, but adds value for data
rich applications.)
At a high level here is the way I think about it:
The Flash Professional authoring tool is a rich visual environment for
multimedia authoring. The development metaphor is based around a timeline, and
it is highly approachable by folks with a design, video, or multimedia
background. Its design center is around the creation of very rich interactive
content.
The Flex product line includes an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for
building application front ends. The development metaphor is tag and code
oriented, and it is highly approachable by folks with a computer science,
object oriented programming, Java/JSP/CF/ASP.NET, or enterprise application
development background who may be working with designers as well. Its design
center is around the creation of rich internet applications with dynamic data
coming from a back end data source.
The two overlap a bit--both output SWFs and Flash Professional can indeed be
used to create Rich Internet Applications. The difference is the design center
and focus of the two product lines. The two can also work together---many
people creating applications with Flex also use Flash to create assets that
they bring into the Flex application.
It is important to note that the Flex product line is in the beginning of a major transition right now (see the alpha builds at labs.macromedia.com).
Paul wrote: "I am about to begin developing a large website in Flash and was
planning on just making it in Flash 8 in the way I normally create Flash stuff."
I think that is almost definitely the right choice based on the limited info
you provide:
* You are creating a large "website". Generally, if someone is creating a "site" I'd steer them to Flash.
If you had written that you were creating a large "application" my first inclination would be to suggest using Flex.
(Yes, I know, it is a blurry line between a "site" and an "application" but I am trying to be helpful based
on limited info and the most basic differentiation between the products.)
Regards,
David
Macromedia
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf
Of Andreas Rønning
Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2005 6:25 AM
To: Flashcoders mailing list
Subject: Re: [Flashcoders] What is Flex?
http://www.macromedia.com/software/flex/productinfo/brz_overview/
Better description than my jaded cynical self could provide.
Keep your bs filter in the "on" position though.
- Andreas
Andreas Rønning wrote:
Paul Steven wrote:
Been using Flash now for many years to create online games, CDROMs
and websites. I have always used the Flash program itself
to create
all my content because that was the only option I had
available to me
(with the exception of creating swfs in illustrator and the adobe
flash program (whatever it was called))
Anyway I see alot of talk about some program called "Flex"
that seems
to be something to do with Flash development. I have
obviously had my
head in the sand as it appears to have just appeared out
of nowhere
and everyone seems pretty clued up on it.
So I am asking for a simple decription of what Flex is and
for what
sort of content I should be using it for and why. I am not that
familiar with the terms RIA or IDE so please keep the
explanation in
laymans terms.
I am about to begin developing a large website in Flash and was
planning on just making it in Flash 8 in the way I normally create
Flash stuff.
If there is a better way to do things using a different
application
then I would really like to know.
If there is a different list that would be more appropriate to my
question then please let me know.
Thanks in advance.
Paul
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RIA = fancy and completely useless buzzword that pisses me
off to no
end, mostly because it IS a buzzword, and developers who
work in that
field throw it around with insane abandon even though it means fuck
all. "Rich Internet Application". To the "untrained eye" it
could mean
anything from a site with a video player through a flash game to a
dhtml riddled search engine. It's such an open and generic term it
actually angers me. It's the synergy craze all over again.
In practical terms, Flex is a serverside compiler solution
that lets
you use actionscript in tandem with mxml (fancy pants xml) to throw
components around. What it means for the end user is they get fancy
alternatives to web shops and other things that might as well be
handled with ajax or even old fashioned no frills html
pages. It's a
framework for stuffing sites full of components and things that go
bing when you hit them, presumably to avoid reloading pages
and give
instant feedback, which is an attempt to improve usability,
but in a
lot of cases do the exact opposite by forcing users to be
accustomed
to YET ANOTHER set of buttons and sliders.
Company line: "The Flex product line delivers a standards-based
programming methodology and runtime services for developing and
deploying the presentation tier of applications that combine the
richness of the desktop with the reach of the web: Rich Internet
Applications."
What the hell does that mean, other than an attempt to get you to
throw cash at them for the sake of cool. This reads to me
like another
ColdFusion, a syntax so contrived and painful it
effectively locks the
CFM developer to specialise in a platform that offers
nothing to the
greater good. When i do AS, that same script can be moved
to php and
java, even c++ and c# with little alteration. CFM syntax is an
abomination. In some cases conformity is a good thing.
Anyway, i digress.
By "presentation tier" they mean the user interface. In a web
application like google, this is the part where you put in
the search
parameters and press "search". In RIA terms, this means the
part where
you put in the search parameters should glow when you're
typing, and
have audible sound effects for each keypress, in addition
to a happy
fanfare and a fade transition when you hit "search". Even "richer",
let's add a dropdown menu for the last 10 searches, one
that "unfolds"
like a chinese fan with an accompanying rustle of feathers sound
effect. I kid. But it's not completely untrue. The idea is
to supply
users with more intuitive and direct feedback to their
choices through
Flash.
I think it's a completely unnecessary product line that
propagates a
design paradigm that's actually detrimental to the internet, in
particular usability issues. You could say the same for Flash, but
Flash isn't necessarily there to "improve" on the existing
content as
much as it's there to add to it.
If you're comfy with the component framework and is willing
to invest
a lot of time in stuff you'll find no use for whatsoever in other
languages, go Flex yourself out, i'm told it's great fun.
- Andreas
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