Re: HTML for Flash movies

[Ben Rogers]

I should clarify...


I was responding to mail sent by Tommy Rainwater about Aftershock and how

slow it was.


Here's the story:


I found that Aftershock by itself did not allow me a complete solution to

the plugin problem, though it does generate some useful javascript code... I

used carefully selected & revised chunks of this code together with the

"Smart Button" concept. I spent *hours* over it, trying to make a foolproof

way to ensure that people who did not have the Flash plugin would be

detected correctly & have the minimum hassle downloading it.


The entire result worked perfectly, except that it was unacceptably slow. On

accessing the first page, a grey page appeared for 20-30 seconds (with a

33600 connection ). I put this down to the fact that the browser had to call

MM *as well as* our site -every time- regardless of whether the user had the

plugin or not...


Perhaps I should have been more specific and referred to the "Smart Button"

aspect of things, which is where the holdup was caused; specifically,

accessing MM... So apologies for that.


My impatience comes from the fact that I feel that I have wasted a great

deal of time, on and off, redoing the intro's for our Flashed sites purely

because of the plugin problem... And then to feel mislead by MM over the

"Smart Button" issue just sent me over the top.


I now have a mainly home-grown system which seems to work well (using a mix

of server-side perl, client-side javascript & a trick with a Flash movie)


That said, I sincerely feel that Flash2 is the greatest single thing to

happen to web site developers. Which is why I care so much about making sure

technicalities don't get in the way for those who browse Flashed sites.


I'm looking forward to Flash3...



Ben Rogers

Pepper Head Design (Hot Ideas) Ltd

http://www.pepperhead.co.uk


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-----Original Message-----

From: John Dowdell <

jdowdellmacromedia [dot] com

>

To:

flashershocker [dot] com

 <

flashershocker [dot] com

>

Date: Tuesday, February 17, 1998 11:30 PM

Subject: Re: HTML for Flash movies



>At 9:22 AM 2/17/98, Ben Rogers wrote:

>>It *is* too slow...

>>It's a bit much, IMNSHO, that MM did not warn of this when they

>>enthusiastically announced these two methods.

>

>

>What, specifically, is slow for you?

>

>Is it the browser detection? The browser dynamic writes? The retrieval of

>the external .JS archive for implementation? Is it the actual one-time

>process of creating the HTML?

>

>Right now I'm not well able to scan the comment... what specific piece of

>the process do you find slower than what you expect?

>

>jd

>

>

>John Dowdell, Macromedia Tech Support, San Francisco CA US

>

>Private email options: http://www.macromedia.com/support/priority.html

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>

>

>