Hi,

If you want to see a terrific multimedia website of a fantastic photographer and writer, log-on to Michael Young's addresss @ www.frogprintz.com

This guy truly is the Frog Printz. He uses a product called FlipAlbum by Ebook systems. His illustrated photo storybooks and use of music to enhance his photo layouts, animations, movies and commericals are one-of-a-kind. I ordered his CD. In a word, "AWESOME."

I bow to his talent.

Adrian

I can't believe that this wall all the respose you recieved from this industry. What you are asking is a very simple question which can be answered like this:

It is 100% perfect that your design team can go ahead and use dynamic content in flash. My only worry is that if you are trying to target a market that use Netscape then flash being dropped down over your normal content like in a banner wont display.

But generally using flash with dynamic is a way forward and is now becoming a standard these days.

I don't want to leave an inane message, but would like to comment on this nonetheless. I find flash and any sort of animation on a wesite utterly infuriating. Firstly, SA is not exactly known for its number of high bandwidth subscribers. As a dial-up, the faster a site is the better. If it's a flash intro I invariably clcik skip intro or close the site totally, kinda like changing the channel on the tv when a crappy ad comes on. This is not what you want. Just because it flashes, blips or moves does not mean it will catch my attention. All wesbites should be primed for speed for dial-up users. If you want people to see your fancy animation skills, then provide a flash version as a choice. Monitor the amount of traffic that version gets and I promise you will see that flash is not wanted by the end users. Stop pushing something that doesn't work. The only reason okes go for it when they commision a developer is because it is oversold and they go for the cool wow factor. Check our cool flash animation! Absolutely no consideration for the people it is actually aimed at pleasing. We need to seriously consider what we are doing on the web. If we want faster uptake of web use in this country we need to do away with superfluous technologies like flash. Flash should only be considered for mailers or done away with entirely. Waste of time and money.

I think flash should be perfect, the thing is you don't need to use animations etc to overload your site, if you get a good coder, the file sizes are sometimes smaller than the actual html pages. Integration with back-end programming languages is a breeze and thus a breeze to update content using CMS tools. The only concern for me, out of experience is that the development takes some time, much more complicated and little glitzes. But from a user point of view, I think it can work if you use the right approach...

Out of experience I can probably say that if you're designers don't know what they're doing, rather have the project outsourced or use dynamic HTML with a backend for CMS. Going on a whole R&D trip to do what would have been simple to do in dynamic HTML defeats the purpose. It depends on your target market, it depends on what you want the site to accomplish. Flash can greatly enhance your site, look at the new look 5fm.co.za site, BUT, it can very easily hog your bandwidth if not used correctly. Email me if you need more info. Just remove the NOSPAM_ part.

Cheers
Dirk