Posted by SpaceGirl on 09/20/07 22:05

Onideus Mad Hatter wrote:
> On Thu, 20 Sep 2007 02:01:52 -0700, SpaceGirl
> <nothespacegirlspam@subhuman.net> wrote:
>
>>> ...why not? I mean, recreating the Google site in Flash would be
>>> exceeding simplistic, it would require almost no effort nor ingenuity
>>> at all since you're pretty much designing it with no complex
>>> interface. And the form would be VASTLY superior in that it could be
>>> made perfect liquid in design, scaling the search result text and
>>> properly anti-aliasing it to look its best on your monitor.
>
>> Without sacrificing usability?
>
> ...huh?
>
>> How do you use Google?
>
> I type shit in the lil box I hit the lil button...how the fuck more
> complicated do you need it to be? o_O

That's not what I meant.

>> I tend to shift click links that I'm interested
>> in so that they open in new tabs so that I can read them all when I've
>> trawled the first few results.
>
> ....DUH!
>
> http://www.backwater-productions.net/_images/_Usenet/Spacey_Duh.png

So you're asking the user to change the configuration of their browser
for just your site? What if they want it some other way for all
non-Flash sites? You've taken the option away from them if they are
"forced" to check that box.

> *shakes head*
>
> I wish people would THINK more before they start typing...it would
> make my life a lot easier.

....not to mention when they reply.

>> I also quite often use the Google cache
>> (clicking cached results) so that google highlights the search terms
>> in the selected document.
>
> ...and how exactly would that functionality be lost?

A function that I use (content being highlighted) is no longer
available. How many ways can you describe "functionality lost". LOL.

> DUH!
>
> Seriously Space, I don't know if you just woke up and took stupid
> pills today or what, but I KNOW yer smarter than this.

Explain to me how to achieve the effect I demonstrated would be lost, in
Flash. Given that Flash cannot re-render a web page... Now if we were
talking about AIR, it would be a different story as AIR can render full
HTML. So I could pull up someones web page, with the bits of text I'm
searching for highlighted, and their web page still be correctly
displayed. Not possible in Flash itself.

Again... functionality lost.

>> I also use the mousewheel to scroll through
>> results,
>
> ...and how exactly would that functionality be lost?
>
> DUH!

Because I can no longer scroll with my mousewheel... which is
functionality I have and expect with all scrollable content, such as
lists of search results.

>> and I sometimes right-click and save images found in google
>> images.
>
> ...and how exactly would that functionality be lost?

Lost the function to right-click and save the link, or to search on the
word I have selected, or to save the image...



>
> DUH!
>
>> So, to go through this list:
>>
>> 1) Flash cannot open content in tabs. So you'd have to create your own
>> tabbing interface
>
> Flash doesn't need to, that should be the job of the browser.

Only if you force all links to behave like that in the browser. You're
perfectly in your rights to demand that a user sets up their computer is
a specific way to use your site, but I would not actually expect them to
do it. The result? Loss of functionality.

>> 2) As Flash cannot render HTML properly, there is no way it could
>> display cached results with the search term highlighted in them.
>
> Oh ye of little brain. Maybe by DEFAULT Flash can't render HTML so
> good...but then what the fuck is stopping you from doing it yourself?
> A nice lil collection of CSS scripts and something to parse all the
> tags is all you need. How the fuck do you think this works:
> http://www.backwater-productions.net/_test_platform/Forum_Template/index.swf

Flash only supports about 10 CSS attributes... out of many hundreds. So
you'd have to write your own CSS parser from scratch... not to mention
and HTML parser to go along with it. Possible, but heck of an overhead.
You'd sacrifice a great deal of speed.

So, now we have to write our own web browser inside Flash, along with
CSS parsing, before we can even tackle the business of matching Google
Searches Cache view. Tell me how Flash can also support any JS that is
running on that page? It can't So you have to write your own JS engine
too. What if the page has video? You have to write your own video
engine... LOL. Flash cannot re-render external pages with all the content :)

In other words... not going to happen. Means we cannot match the
functionality of Googles Cache view. So we're up to three things now
Flash cannot duplicate that Google Search can do.

> What do you think that loaded message is coming out of the fuckin sky?
>
> DUH!
>
>> 3) Mouse wheel only works in Windows, it's not supported in the other
>> players (so much for cross browser)
>
> http://blog.pixelbreaker.com/flash/swfmacmousewheel/
>
> DUH!

Requires JavaScript to work, which is reliant on the client browser
supplying it. So much for Flash being cross platform...?

Hopefully Adobe have fixed this issue in the newer builds of the player
(there are lots of changes in it), because it IS a pain. I don't want my
Flash projects having to run JavaScript on some machines to get around a
bug in their player... that's back to the old coding for specific
browsers thing.

> ...although really, who would waste the fuckin bother for, what, 5% of
> Mac lusers? LOL

10%, of a market that is growing. Mostly home users, and home users with
money, who are more likely to buy products online (rather than users
with cheap PCs, lower tech, less money to spend or they would have got a
better computer... horrible generalization I know :P)

> You know Spacey...just because no one feels that whatever piece of
> shit you're running is important...yeah, that doesn't mean that it's
> not possible, it just mean...where's the fuckin motivation?
>
>> 4) No right-click at all in Flash 9 player, on any platform.
>
> http://www.adobe.com/devnet/captivate/articles/right_click.html
>
> DUH!

That's Flash 8 honey. As far as I know, right click has been disabled in
Flash 9, all versions. There is again a JS trick to capture the event
from the browser and pass it back to Flash, but from what I've seen it's
very hit and miss (some browsers don't fire the event, or at least not
in a way the Flash player can understand). It's another Flash bug, and
I'm hoping they fix it in the up-coming builds of Flash 9 (I think 120
is in beta?). At least I hope it's a bug!

>> 5) Flash won't work on my cell phone - it only supports Flash Lite,
>> but is very basic. Flash is also very very slow on my phone. Google is
>> lightening fast.
>
> I never said the thing would be for your cell phone, or for your

Google Search works on my phone. Flash doesn't. That's another loss of
functionality (not to mention another blow for cross-platform support).

> fuckin toaster or for your gawd damn shitting vibrator or whatever the
> fuck else they're trying franken-bitch into a computer these days.
> Not that it matters, I'm more than confident that within the next five
> years they'll have the full version of Flash for cell phones, toasters
> and even yer lil vibrator, Honey Bunny.

Absolutely, we're not far off that at all. But for now all we have is
Flash Lite, which is pretty limited in functionality.

>> Flash is great - it's what I do for a living - but it's not perfect
>> and not applicable to all sites.
>
> WRONG! You're not perfect...

Of course I'm not!

> but that's not really a short coming of
> Flash so much as it is YOU.

Black and white limits of Flash won't change until they fix the player,
or release updates, and fix the cross platform glitches (which to be
fair they are getting to).

> And trying to bitch that you can't use
> Flash on your cell phone makes about as much sense as bitching that
> you can't use Flash on your barbeque. Let me know when they manage to

That wasn't the point. I don't expect Flash to work on my phone. My
phone is crap! But even a crap phone can display regular HTML pages, so
google works just fine as it is.

You claimed that Google can be recreated in Flash without loss of
functionality. I'm just pointing out why this is not possible.

> turn any one of those into a REAL, actual computer with just as much
> functionality as a desktop or laptop and maybe I'll suddenly develop
> the urge to give a rats ass.
>
> I deal in COMPUTERS...not fuckin lil handheld wannabe pieces of shit
> (read fashion accessories).

iPhone perhaps? It's running Unix (OSX) after all. With limited Flash
support...

Anyway once again that's not the point. You said Google can be recreated
without loss of functionality :) Now you are throwing in caveats! To
anyone who uses Google on a mobile device, being no longer able to use
it because it's in Flash sounds like a pretty large loss in functionality :P

>
>> You could not replace Google with a
>> Flash UI without sacrificing usability on some level.
>
> Is that a challenge? He, he, he...

Sure! Why not? I don't think it can be done at all, but as usual with
these things I'm very open minded. I really think Flash is The
technology right now, which is why I work with it so much. Anything that
proves it can replace HTML *and* be better at the task is a Good Thing
as far as I'm concerned.

If you crack the google cache trick, I'd be intrigued. I'm pretty
confident that until Flash gets a full HTML render, it's not possible
though.

>> However, you could argue that you could add new functionality instead.
>> Personally I think Google Search is very very good at what it does;
>> I'm not sure what Flash could add to that.
>
> Believe me, I'm not surprised. I mean, you haven't even figured out
> how to save yourself the effort of holding down the shift key when you
> click a link fer Christ sake.

I dont always want links to open in new tabs. How stupid would that be?
I'd rather have the choice of when it happens. If I want a new tab, I
middle click a link and the link opens in a new tab. If I want it in a
new window I shift+click which opens a brand new window. if I'm casually
browsing I just click and it replaces the current window.

What you are suggesting is I loose all that functionality and force all
links to open in a specific way, which is exactly what we were discuss.
HOW can you build this WITHOUT loosing ANY functionality. Even if it's a
click, or a scrollwheel, or a cache display.

>>> I don't understand why you and many others think that porting
>>> something so uber simplistic as Google would even be anything more
>>> than a sneeze of an effort. In fact...you know what...I think I will
>>> actually.
>
>> Because you've complete ignored how people actually use Google, and
>> that it works on everything (requiring no plug-in). It's not half as
>> simple as you think it is, for the reasons I listed earlier. Getting
>> search results IS easy, the rest of it is quite hard.
>
> *pats you on the head*
>
> Think outside the Google box, Kiddo. Just because YOU can't do
> something doesn't mean it can't be done.

True, but just saying it CAN be done doesn't make it true either :) If
you can demonstrate any of the stuff we've discussed in this thread at
all in an actual working Flash movie, I'll believe you :)

If you can replicate just one set of google results I'll be impressed.

>> Put your money where your mouth is Matt - I really doubt this can be
>> done, but I'd be a very happy chick if someone managed WITHOUT loosing
>> any existing functionality. I'm a strong advocate of Flash as you
>> know, but I also have to temper my excitement over this technology
>> with the reality of the user market; for some things usability is far,
>> far more important than anything else. Google Search is a great
>> example of this.
>
> I think I'll go ahead and do it, I think it would be a good way to
> establish myself as GOD of web development...and I kinda like the
> sound of that. `, )
>
> I mean, just think of the bragging rights alone!

:) looking forwards to it!


>> Oh I remember. For my sins I still have to maintain a few DHMTL sites,
>> which I hate. It's not so long ago that I was working through client
>> sites fixing them for IE7. Blah.
>
> Yeah that's the other wondrous thing, every time a new browser version
> comes out, oh, back to the drawing board, time to redo the whole damn
> thing. LOL

I know :(

What if the next browser releases break the cludge code you have to use
to get mousescroll to work in Flash? :( That worries me. One of the
justifications on one of our large projects for Flash was that we had no
reliance at all on the browser (other than having the Flash Player
installed)... then we discovered the scrolling didn't work... and we had
to use JS to work around it... nightmare.

>> But this stuff only matters to us; designers and developers. Users
>> don't care at all what technology you are using, so long as it works.
>> Who cares if something is rendered in WFP or Flash? Chances are they
>> would look identical.
>
> Yeah, maybe if YOU were doing it, however in my lil project to port
> Google to Flash...oh, oh I'm gonna exploit every last little thing
> that makes Flash superior to other forms. Perfect liquid design baby,
> gonna be awesome.

We have a mini search engine in BSJ, and BSJ is 100% Flash. While it's
not pretending to be google, it seems to work okay. It'd be interesting
to share techniques.

>> The differences are all behind the scenes, and
>> the users never see that. So rather than being precious about how you
>> build a project, you use whatever technology best achieves the goal,
>> and the users machines can actually display. 99% of the time I use
>> Flash, because that best suits the sites we build, but we build all
>> our Admin tools and Content Management stuff in HTML.
>
> Yeah, but only because you don't know how to build them in Flash, or
> you don't know how to build them WITH Flash in order to enhance what
> they can do.

We *could* build them in Flash... Flash comes with some excellent
pre-built form components. We may eventually try integrate the admin
into the magazine itself, full editing in place... that would be
amazing. But time is an issue. Quick and dirty is sometimes perfectly
fine; allows us to focus on the magazine itself rather than admin tools
post people will never see.

It's pretty much impossible to do quick and dirty in Flash forms :)

>> Take BiteSizedJapan - the front end is a bleeding edge Flash 9 stuff,
>> packed with video and nice animation and stacks of lovely content. The
>> back end is WordPress (PHP), an in house content manager (ASP classic,
>> HTML, XML) and a .NET XML bridges (C#, XML). It would be a complete
>> nightmare to build all those tools in Flash - not worth the effort
>> when we can plug in free things like WP, or build our own server-side
>> stuff easily.
>
> Like I said, use Flash as the front end, use other stuff for the
> backend. But using antideluvian forms like HTML for your backend
> instead of say XML...that's just fuckin retarded.

?? Um. XML is a data container.

We have HTML admin pages (forms) that post all the content to the
database. Flash request the data from the database and gets and XML
stream in return... which is nice and easy for Flash to digest.

You really expect our writers and content providers to write XML!?
You're crazier than I thought :)

> It's a good solution when the upgrade can be done automagically in
> seconds with no real effort at all on the users part.

Yep. A rare luxury, most people will allow Flash to upgrade if it asks.

>> Thankfully Flash is small, so it doesn't bother most people. But guess
>> what? If you are pushing Flash 9 to the edge, you will have to do all
>> that "browser check" stuff... checking what "build" of Flash 9 the
>> user has, what platform they are on... all the old Browser issues are
>> back :(
>
> Not really, you just need to have it check for the latest Flash
> version...no cross browser checking needed at all. Wouldn't take more
> than a couple lines of code and that's it.

The current latest versions of Flash still have the mousescroll issue
(Macs/Linux) and no right-click (all versions). I *think* the latest
builds may have addressed some of this, but they are in beta. So I guess
yes; you do have to just make sure they have the latest version... and
then check they are not on a Mac or Linux...

>> It would be nice if *all* the features (mousewheel please!! the AS3
>> event is ignored!!) were supported in linux, and osx... which account
>> for 10% of all computers.
>
> Once again...
> http://blog.pixelbreaker.com/flash/swfmacmousewheel/

Requires JS... Flash itself is broken in this respect so have to rely on
browser technology. Plus... doesn't seem to work on my Mac even with
that... try again.

--

x theSpaceGirl (miranda)

http://www.northleithmill.com

-.-

Kammy has a new home: http://www.bitesizedjapan.com

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