Re: FLASH: Can active server pages be used for Flash?

[Nigel Randsley-Pena]

Sienna,


Quite a lot in your question, so the answer is a bit long.


"I'm working on a website for a news station and they want a very

complex

site with shockwave, live broadcasting and daily changes. 

The only way I can figure to do this is with asp.  Can I put shockwave

movies on an asp and call it into multiple pages and also, can it be

indexed by search engines?"


Yes to both questions. As for the first assertion about .asp pages it is

only one of the various way you can do this. Other alternatives include

.jsp, .php3, .cfm ... Shockwave.com uses .jsp for example.


"I want the top header to be a flash 3 banner with rotating banner

messages

and a main navigation.  That would be put in a page called heading.asp

and

called to every single page so each page contains up to date changes

for.

Can I do this with flash?"


Yes, you can. If you need to use Flash 3 then it's a Generator 1.0 job,

if the specs allow for Flash 4 then you can take a different approach.

As you know Flash 4 brings new capabilities that would be of use in this

situation, plus later you could probably make good use of Generator 2.0.

Try asking MM about Generator 2.0.


 

"I don't have a choice but to make this a flash site.  I'm not sure it's

a

wise marketing idea because all the successful sales sites I've seen are

single pages, text, very few graphics and no frames or plug-ins."


This is a call that depends on how you define your target. It's likely

that the marketing gurus have decided that the target has version 4+

browsers and are connected via cable or 56+ links. You can try and

confirm this.


"They want their site to have a shopping cart but they won't give up on

the idea of flash because they have seen eye4u's website."


Flash and shopping carts started being friends since the release of

Generator 1.0. Flash 4 allows the same without having to use Generator.

I suspect we'll see a nice Flash based shopping cart solution quite

soon.


"The page has 3 columns one for news, sports and featured items each

column

calls a separate asp page, plus the shockwave asp page for the heading. 

On

the same page will be the embedded windows media player.  Am I making a

mistake by including 2 plug-ins on the same page?  Will they lock each

other up?"

The 2 plugins you'll be using on the same page have a very high

probability of already being present in the users browser, so on this

side no problem.

You could have some sound related problems, but as Windows media player

uses DirectX and the new Flash player also use DirectX they should work

both work OK.


"I know this has a lot of questions to it but I'm really not sure the

best

way to market a site that has to beat CNN, CNBC news AND contain

shockwave!

None of the other 2 sites has shockwave that I can find."


CNN uses Flash, at least I've seen it used. Try looking in the sports

section, I think that's where they use it the most.

 

Nigel


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