Flash vs. Ajax

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I’ve been hearing a lot of Flash vs. Ajax arguments lately, and unfortunately, they almost always start off in the wrong way.

It’s very common to hear people argue about Flash websites or RIAs vs. Ajax websites or RIAs, but this is always the wrong way to approach building any website. Would you have an argument with an architect about whether to build a house out of wood vs concrete? Of course not, they would use each material to build the parts of the house that the respective material is best for. Sometimes you might want to build a shack or barn out of all wood, sometimes you might want to build an all brick house, but many times you’ll want to use the best material for each section of the house. Build the foundation out of concrete, the walls and roof out of wood.

Websites and web applications should be treated the same way. Break things down to a component level and go from there. Use the right tool for each component. If you can do it well with HTML/Javascript, go for it. If it would work out better with Flash, then why waste time recreating something with Javascript that you could build 3 times faster with Flash? There are plenty of great examples of this today around the internet:

One of my favorite examples is Google Finance. They use HTML and Javascript for the stuff that is best suited for that, and then when they need to show a nice graph, they drop in a great interactive Flash graph and talk to it using Javascript as needed. The Flash controls the Javascript, and the Javascript can control the Flash as needed.

Another example is Flickr. They started out using Flash to display all of the images, including the image notes and the other toolbar options along with each image. While this might have been a good choice as the site started out, it was soon replaced by a more efficient HTML version of the toolbar and notes system that works just as well as the Flash version. They did end up keeping one small bit of Flash so users can rotate images and see a preview before they save it.

So the next time you start planning a website and you start thinking: “Hmm, Flash or Ajax?” Instead of looking at it from a site-wide perspective, try thinking about your site as a series of components, and then choose Flash or HTML/Javascript for each individual component instead.

Using progressive enhancement with Flash

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There’s a fantastic article on Adobe’s devnet site that Bobby wrote (he’s the guy who wrote SWFObject’s biggest competition, UFO*). All about progressive enhancement with Flash. It includes helping your Flash content get picked up by search engines, supporting people without the Flash player, and a ton of other good info. Go have a read.

* But hey, it’s not really a competition, use whatever works best for you.

On embedding Flash content using Web Standards (yes, again)

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Lately there’s been a bit of buzz around embedding plugins while adhering to Web Standardsâ„¢. First this ALA article came out and said “bye bye embed”, then yesterday one of the WaSP nerds posted something about “Valid Flash, video and audio embed (object) markup”.

It’s understandable to want to try and force browsers to display your plugin content in a way that adheres to “Web Standards”. It’s a very popular subject, and it’s been covered a few times before. These two recent articles don’t uncover anything new, other than bringing to light (via the comments on them) that Javascript is the only viable method of embedding Flash (and other plugin based) content on the web today.

Now I’m going to say something here that might seem a little controversial, but I really want to get the point across, so I’m going to use some ‘shock and awe’ tactics:

Using only the object tag to embed your plugin content (especially Flash content) is fucking stupid.

There. I said it.

You may say that I’m a bit biased because I wrote some fancy pants Javascript Flash embed script. Maybe I have a hidden agenda of world domination based on plugin detection. So while I no doubt would like to dominate the world, let me say that my reasons for advocating the use of Javascript are much more mundane.

This post was originally going to be titled “Flash Satay considered harmful,” and since the main topic are these “Web Standards” compliant ways of only using the object tag to embed plugin content, I’ll focus on the issues with doing so:

  • “Click to activate” in IE. The only way to get around this is to use Javacript.
  • No plugin detection. While Ben says ‘meh’ to this, it’s a very important aspect of the user experience. If I have Flash Player 6 installed, and I visit a site that uses Flash 9 content, my player will go ahead and try to play that swf anyway. I could end up seeing half of the content, or broken content, or who knows what. Do you really want to show your users broken content?
  • Issues in older Safari versions: Safari pre 1.2 will completely ignore param tags, which are often used to pass information to the plugin. This means broken content for your users.
  • Support for the object tag varies widely from browser to browser. Do you think that just because you work around all the quirks in the 3 main browsers today, it will still work when the next new browser is released?
  • A bug in Flash Player 9 can cause the browser to crash if you have more than one swf on the page and are using ExternalInterface to communicate with Javacsript. While this isn’t specifically related to how the swf is embedded, SWFObject does include a fix for this issue.
  • Using Flash Satay or other ‘object only’ methods will not stream your Flash movies to the user – this means extra work for you in creating a ‘loader’ swf
  • JAWS will ignore it.

It’s a pretty long list, right? Now if you compare that to the user experience when using SWFObject (or other Javascript based techniques), you can see a noticable difference:

  • The only time a user doesn’t see Flash is if they have Javascript turned off, or they don’t have the required version of the Flash Plugin. This one is a two parter: One, do you think that people really turn off Javascript but leave Flash on? Consider the type of person who turns Javascript off. They are probably the über nerd user who considers anything that isn’t text to be completely evil. They browse the web using Lynx. They probably stay a mile away from the Flash Plugin anyway. The beauty of the way SWFObject works is that even these people get content if you set it up right. Since you put alternate content ‘under’ your swf, they will just see the alternate content. As long as you set it up right (you do, don’t you?) they may never even know they are missing out on Flash content.
  • They don’t have to click your movie once to ‘activate’ it
  • Their browser doesn’t crash just because you had two swfs on the same page that use ExternalInterface
  • They only see Flash content if their browser and plugin support it.

Taking all of the above into account, the choice is very clear: Javascript wins hands down. Any questions?

Now that all of that is taken care of, I wanted to address a couple of things:

First, these types of posts are not good for the Web Standards community. Basically what’s happening is highly visible people (even if they aren’t that well known, they still carry the WaSP name, or have articles on well respected online publications like A List Apart) are posting information that is bad for your users. Even worse is that they are doing it in the name of “Web Standards” and not taking into consideration any of the other options outside of pure HTML. This is extremely bad for the Web Standards movement. It makes the standards advocates look like crazed zealots who don’t care about user experience, but only care about adhering to the written rules exactly how they are stated even if it hurts them.

Second, you may be saying “well, if I can’t use the object tag, then what good is it?” and that is a FANTASTIC question. What good is it? Beats me, because the object tag is completely and utterly broken in nearly every web browser out there. Want to do something about it? Maybe you could join WaSP and create a task force to fix how browsers handle plugins?

UPDATE: I added this as a comment below, but wanted to put it in the main post as well: I want to say that as for Flash Satay: It was fantasic for the people who use(d) it, and in it’s time it was great. But now that certain big issues with it have been discovered, and Flash has changed over time, it’s time for it to retire. This is something I’ve been meaning to mention for a while, and it was sort of implied on the SWFObject page. So, since we are on the subject, it’s time to give it up.

UPDATE (8-17-2006): Ben has posted a follow up.

FlashObject to become SWFObject

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A couple of months ago I was asked by Adobe to write an article about FlashObject for their Devnet site. I happily agreed, as the Devnet site is pretty high visibility in the Flash community, and it would really get the word out about FlashObject.

So I wrote the article – nothing too spectacular, just a spiffed up version of the existing FlashObject page. Then I waited. Then came a very odd e-mail: their legal department didn’t like that I used the word “Flash” in the project name, and asked if I would be averse to changing it. Well, I’m not really attached to the name, so I considered it for a bit, but decided that changing the name would be too much hassle, especially since so many people are already using the script and it’s gained quite a word of mouth following. So I imagined that all the people that know about it would hear all about this new great script called SWFObject and think it was some new thing. I can see the conversation now. “No thanks, I don’t need to use SWFObject, I already use FlashObject, and it’s just fine.”

Well I asked Adobe to compromise, and possibly give me permission to use the Flash name. I offered to place a little tag-line along with all the information about it, something like “Flash is a registered trademark of the Adobe Corporation, used with permission.” (Or something like that, you get the point).

Well, a few weeks have gone by, and tonight I finally got the response back: No deal. Apparently Adobe is really clamping down on the people using the word “Flash” in their projects, even if they are open source. I’m not sure how this will affect other projects, or Flash communities (My guess is that communities like OSFlash and Flashcoders will be fine, but anything that distributes a product with the name “Flash” will need to change – but this is just a guess).

Needless to say, I’m slightly annoyed by all of this, but in the end it shouldn’t really affect the project all that much (I hope). Soooo starting immediately, and as I find time to update the documentation and code downloads, FlashObject is now known as SWFObject.* I’ll be updating the main page to redirect to http://blog.deconcept.com/swfobject/ in the next day or so. If you have links pointing to the old page, feel free to update the links and change your link text/other info to SWFObject.

* I’m not really a huge fan of the name SWFObject, but I want to keep the ‘Object’ part in there to at least keep some semblance of recognition in there for the users who are already using the script, or have already heard about it. I also hate when people pronounce SWF as “swiff”, but since this is the internet, it will be hard to force people to call it S.W.F. Object. And that takes more time to say than “S.W.F. Object” anyway. So feel free to call it “Swiff Object” when talking about it “in real life.”

UPDATE (4-27-2006): John Dowdell posted a bit more info about this on his blog. Go read the Adobe Trademark guidelines.

A modern approach to Flash SEO

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Search engine optimization is one of the most popular subjects when nerds sit around and talk about Flash. “Does Google index your swf files?” seems to be the most popular question, usually garnering plenty of ‘yes‘ and ‘no’ and ‘maybe’ answers. The real answer to this question, once and for all, is this:

It doesn’t matter.

To understand this answer, you need to understand what Flash is. And to do that, you need to understand modern web development philosophy. First off, you need to embrace web standards. Semantic markup and separating content from style and behavior is the only way you should be building your sites. Many web standardistas have been recommending this method of web development for years, and rightly so. However, this post isn’t the place to go into the whys of this type of development, so I’ll skip that part and just say this about how it’s done: There are three areas of front-end web development: Content, Style, and Behavior. You should always keep these three things separated as much as possible.

That brings up the question: “Where does Flash fit into this three pillar method of web development?” Is it content? Is it behavior? Is it style? While it could be considered all three, most professional Flash developers will remove the content from their Flash movies and load it in using Flash remoting or XML files. That leaves us with style and behavior.

Style is added using CSS. Generally when you add images to your HTML that are purely presentational (no text or required content in them) you should add them in using CSS. In most cases you don’t want Google to index them because people don’t search the web for ‘top left rounded corner gif.” They search for content. Even if Google upgrades their crawler someday to read CSS files and index the images, they probably wouldn’t use the information for more than statistical analysis because of this.

Behavior is generally added using Javascript. Maybe you want a new window to open set to a certain size, or you want to use some fancy Ajax to let users rate something without refreshing the page. This should all be added unobtrusively, and if the browser doesn’t support Javascript, it will hopefully still work. Unfortunately, not everyone considers this, and these days Javascript is becoming more and more of a requirement to use most websites. So you should always provide some sort of alternative for non-Javascript users. When it comes to indexing behavior, Google will for the most part not index your Javascript files. Even if it did, most web users would have no idea what the .js file they are looking at actually does. When using Javascript to change your document, Google will not read the ‘final’ page, but only the raw HTML file. Google does not render Javascript 1.

Now that you know all of this, it’s time to look at how to treat your Flash content. Since we’ve determined we don’t want Google to index our swf files, but we do want it to index the content displayed inside them, what is the best way to go about this?

As stated before, if you are building Flash sites professionally, you probably move all your content out of your Flash movie and into an XML file or keep it in a database. This makes it much easier to allow Google to index this content by using progressive enhancement.

Progressive enhancement is a method of web development that goes hand in hand with Web Standards. You start with your HTML (your content), then add CSS (your look and feel), then add in additional behavior (Javascript, Ajax, Flash, any other interactivity that isn’t handled automatically by the browser).

The best way to add Flash progressively is by using Javascript, or more specifically, a script like FlashObject. First you lay out your page as if you aren’t using Flash. If you are using a database for your content, you can spit out that data as HTML where the Flash movie will go on the page (or maybe just a preview of the content, it’s up to you to show Google the content you would like indexed). Then you use FlashObject to replace this content only if the user has Javascript enabled and the required Flash plugin version.

Here’s a small example of what that might look like:

<div id="flashcontent">
    This is replaced by the Flash content if the user has the correct version of the Flash plugin installed.
    Place your HTML content in here and Google will index it just as it would normal HTML content (because it is HTML content!)
    Use HTML, embed images, anything you would normally place on an HTML page is fine.
</div>
<script type="text/javascript">
    // <![CDATA[
    var fo = new FlashObject("flashmovie.swf", "flashmovie", "300", "300", "8", "#FF6600");
    fo.write("flashcontent");
    // ]]>
</script>

This causes Google to skip the Flash swf files and only index the HTML (the content!) you place on the page. You can place links to other pages, images, whatever you want Google to index, and when a viewer with a browser that supports Flash visits your site, they will then see the Flash content. This gives you full control and much greater predictability over what content Google will index. And if your content is pulled from a database that is editor controlled, your pages will update and be re-indexed as the content changes without the need to re-publish all your swf files.

1 Currently Google does not render the Javascript on a page, but there are rumors that they are developing a new crawler based on Firefox (they employ a number of Mozilla foundation members) that will index pages based on how the browser sees them, instead of the raw HTML content. This means HTML hidden by CSS may not be indexed, and pages that are altered by Javascript after they load will be indexed how they appear to the user. However, this is all rumors and until it happens Google will ignore your Javascript content.

Note: In this article I use the ‘Google’ name often, but it can be interchanged with any search engine, as they all work roughly the same way.