Comments on: Flash, JavaScript, UX, standards, apologia, apologies, and one man’s opinions

By: Accessibility: standards versus testing — lucid plot

Accessibility: standards versus testing — lucid plot — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 21:23:09 +0000

[...] If we work around all the non-standard behaviour we can find, simply for the sake of people who are using broken technology, we’re not really helping them in the long run. Adaptive technology vendors aren’t going to start following standards unless we can demonstrate that their current implementations are not good enough; and the only way that’s going to happen is if they see modern standards-compliant code that doesn’t work. This is closely related to the recent WaSP debate about how to embed Flash: should user experience always come before web standards? [...]

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By: Michael McCorry

Michael McCorry — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 23:32:12 +0000

My contribution: not so useful, but miplementation (see article intro) is my new favorite word. :)

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By: karl

karl — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 23:07:29 +0000

There seems to be an agreement in principle amongst the participants in this discussion that W3C was a bad actor on this, because they insisted on sanctioning an element for plug-in inclusion that ran counter to the most common contemporary implementation. What we’re looking at, then, is an artifact of the Browser Wars.

That is a common belief which is not true. The history of embed/object is available in the archives of www-talk (the benefit of having public discussions.). Embed element was not disqualified because of browser wars, but because of patent issues which finally hit the community as a whole last year. Another reference about the patent discussion is given by Dale, the change of name was specifically to try to avoid what is happening now. Here there is another detailed analysis of the claims. All these troubles these days show the benefit and the need to have came up with a royalty-free patent policy for W3C work, which was not the case at this time, and is still not the case for many organizations :/.

By: bhenick

bhenick — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 21:40:20 +0000

Odders writes:

“But these [suggestions to modify the script] are just semantics – and I ranted again. I should really stay outta these things…”

Are you kidding?! Stuff like this is exactly why we finally enabled comments!

You’ve been making a terrific contribution to the thread, man.

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By: Ravi Khalsa

Ravi Khalsa — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 11:57:56 +0000

I have been irritated by Flash based sites for a long time. Thanks for speaking for me!

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By: bobby van der sluis

bobby van der sluis — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 09:14:29 +0000

Sorry to comment again, this is nothing personal, I just think that it is a useful discussion. An earlier made comment about not knowing if Flash should be discussed on this website at all is very illustrating: you should discuss it. If plug-ins are not on the map of the WaSP, make sure you put in on there, because you miss out on a big opportunity to inform and educate people. Now the message sounds something like: it’s pretty dirty, we don’t know and we don’t like to know.

One of the strengths of the WaSP has always been to come up with practical advice for people who have to do their everyday work, on how to build websites the right way. E.g. the WaSP has helped me out enormeously on the XHTML MIME-type discussion. Just by the WaSP’s clear position and helping guidelines, it took away my confusions and I never had any questions about this subject later.

There are a lot of confused clients and developers out there who would like to be informed by an independent standards based institute on how to implement Flash the right way. If you like it or not, plug-ins have become a part of our daily lives and their use is rising.

Now I am sorry to say that the contents of this page are again far away from practical advice. Personally I think it is time for something like a new manifest, including some guidelines and best practices on plug-ins and Flash in special:
1. When to use it and when not to use it
2. How to include it in a valid or otherwise most optimal way
3. How to create alternative content

Another thing that was bulldozered over in this discussion sofar, however should be accentuated when using plugins, is how you define your alternative content. How do you make content of type ‘black box’ or ‘rich media’ (like Adobe likes to coin it) visible and accessible to people or automated code that don’t have the right technology support. Even if the object element would have been supported perfectly, this should be a valid question to be answered.

If people who favor web standards close their eyes for other technologies because they don’t like their nature, they will too end up being responsible for breaking the web into different camps. There are a lot of people like myself who like both web standards and the correct use of plugin’s like Flash. And for some projects we do have reasons to make 100% Flash sites, however we also like to use all technologies is such way, that we are respectful to the web’s underlying markup based foundation.

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By: Odders

Odders — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 08:55:21 +0000

Heh, I hate being the bastard here (sometimes like it though :P), but on the SWFObject home page Geoff does link to a nicely formatted, readable version here.

The only blatent lack of DOM API usage I noticed from memory (and a quick once over as well heh) was the use of innerHTML for the final write, as opposed to the createElement, way of doing things. (Please correct me if I have missed something more sinister). But once again, this all stems from a desire to to be as compatible as possible.

Regarding the DOM node creation methods, it is only a small minority of older browsers that do not support the DOM node creation methods. But the beauty of SWFObject is that it has been graciously provided under the super flexible MIT license, and has been written using some nice OO javascript. There is nothing stopping anyone from inheriting SWFObject, changing the method(s?) in question, and voila – WaspSWFObject :P

But these are just semantics – and I ranted again. I should really stay outta these things hahah.

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By: ROBO Design

ROBO Design — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 08:28:56 +0000

I agree with with you on the inertia factor. There’s an endless loop trying to convince some web developer who always coded for IE to try other browsers. He’ll always complain “this is what most visitors use anyway”, “why is the other browser rendering differently?”. You know the rest.

I also agreewith your point on Atom and feeds in general. This is a quite interesting development of the web. Feeds have gained a lot of popularity quite fast. (X)HTML won’t be alone.

As for the main subject of the post: SWFObject. I haven’t felt compelled to use it yet. I myself use the tag, without and without JavaScript. It’s not perfect, but it did fit properly in my projects.

Flash would have a lot to gain if they’d publish some specs of SWF. Flash is good for some sites (I am thinking of movie sites, entertainment and related).

I also dislike those sites made with Flash just because their authors use Flash for everything. It’s rather stupid to see a simple Flash site which could’ve been done entirely in (X)HTML+CSS much better, and accessible.

As you said, the mindset is the problem. It’s just like with CSS: when you switch from table-based layouts you have the completely change the way you think of a layout if you want to use CSS to its full potential.

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By: bhenick

bhenick — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 07:56:24 +0000

Odders writes:

“…This shows SWFObject does comply with the spirit of web standards to highest degree possible, while providing essential functionality.”

I distinctly recall two impressions from reading the source code: annoyance at the removal of whitespace, and the complete absence of DOM API methods. Stuck etween that rock and the nearby hard place, I remember asking myself, “surely this sin’t the best that can be done?!”

Which is one of the things that makes the apology that much more overdue. If I’m so damn smart, I should’ve tried to make something better instead of complaining a bunch. ;)

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By: bhenick

bhenick — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 07:44:27 +0000

Sir Lancelot writes:

"On a side-note these last few entries have really made me lose respect for WaSP, and yes I know that these entries express the opinions of their individual authors..."

That's author, in the singular version. If you want to identify a bad guy or raise the point of lost respect, it should be on account of me and no-one else.

"...But I always believed that WaSP and the people within tried to promote the use of web standards, accessibility and usability in a positive way instead of making harsh criticism about things like Flash."

...And as a rule, they do. I would say more, but I've already stated that I'm not gong to qualify my apology.