The biggest hurdle with creating a Flex forum is that the PHP forums are fantastic, dominant, established, popular, they run on any OS, come with many Web hosting packages, and some of the best ones are free. Anything done in Flex is going to have to complete with the PHP offerings and it would be challenging to justify the investment.
I also agree with what Doug M. and Mike S. wrote. -Mike Chabot On Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 3:07 PM, Michael Schmalle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Well, > > Last year when the Services module came out for Drupal, I pipped into the > node/forum API and created a nice forum in flex. > > The problem with flex has always been RTE editing. We all know this. But, if > that hurdle was overcome and text rendering sped up, using an existing CMS > like drupal, there are no issues. You simply give two entrances to the > forum, google indexes your drupal/CMS site like normal. > > I tend to agree with Doug and others about 'right now' but, the "I'm > speechless" part goes a bit to far. > > Mike > > On Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 3:01 PM, Doug McCune <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >> I'm not trying to be a complete "glass is half empty" kind of guy, so >> if you want to build a Flex message board, go for it. But I do think >> there are substantial reasons that you haven't seen a successful one >> yet out in the wild (or has anyone seen one at all?). >> >> > Is SEO still an issue when writing a Flex application? I would argue >> > that it's not. >> > A) Google (Yahoo coming soon if not already) now indexes content within >> > a SWF. This includes dynamic content as well. Using dynamic deep linking >> > and >> > a site map that points to different content in the SWF helps a great deal >> > with this. >> >> Except nobody has gotten this to work yet (I assume it will work >> eventually, but right now it's basically a pipe dream in the real >> world). See: http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com/?p=1617 >> So yeah, in the future SEO might become less of an issue with Flex >> sites, but for now it's as big an issue as it's ever been, and for me >> is still a deal breaker if the site requires indexing. >> >> > B) If A isn't enough, you could always use mod_rewrite (or similar >> > technology) to take a link structure and pass parameters down into a SWF to >> > determine the view state and content. In addition, the server side script >> > could print an html version of the content in the background which would >> > allow search engines to index the content and give non-flash users access >> > to >> > the information as well. The only down side to this approach is you can not >> > update the URL bar while the user browses through the application since >> > anchor links are not passed through to the server (to my knowledge). This >> > can be compensated for by displaying a "link to this page" in the >> > application. >> >> Yeah, so this has long been the only real way to make your site search >> engine friendly, and it certainly works, but in the end you're >> building two websites, one for the search engine and a completely >> different one in Flex for the users. Why bother building the flex one >> then? esp if the application doesn't use anything that makes >> Flex/Flash stand out? If you have a forum that was based on sharing >> music or video, then maybe I could understand wanting to go with Flex >> (although I'd probably still argue for just embedding little widgets >> in HTML). But a standard forum works very well as an HTML app with a >> scattering of AJAX. Esp when you compare the text capabilities, stuff >> like HTML links, inline images within blocks of text, good support of >> rich formatting within text blocks. It's all stuff that's a no brainer >> with HTML, but either works sub-par or not at all in flash player. >> >> > Anyways, sorry I couldn't answer your original question better. But I >> > think the idea of a Flex based forum is definitely a realizable idea, and I >> > didn't want you to give up on it because of a few dissenters. >> >> :) certainly don't let me tell you what you can and can't do. If you >> want to build it, go for it, just be aware of what you're getting >> yourself into. And report back on your progress if you decide to take >> the plung! >> >> Doug > > > > -- > Teoti Graphix, LLC > http://www.teotigraphix.com > > Teoti Graphix Blog > http://www.blog.teotigraphix.com > > You can find more by solving the problem then by 'asking the question'.
