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HTML5 still doesn't replicate what mattered about Flash

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Re: HTML5 still doesn't replicate what mattered about Flash

#41

Post by the8472 »

olyjohn wrote: post #11

The tweet mentions that you could 'just' send an SWF file to someone and it played. Well, if anybody had to fix a computer, or hosted anything Flash-based during that era, then they would know that's bullshit. Sure maybe with the standalone Flash player it worked allright, but that's not how people really used Flash. Even in my experience, a single SWF running locally didn't always work across all versions of Flash p…

> but that's not how people really used Flash

4chan's /f/ would disagree, they're posting stand-alone flash games and animations just fine and those also worked locally.

Re: HTML5 still doesn't replicate what mattered about Flash

#42

Post by CyberDildonics »

nicolas_t wrote: post #33
CyberDildonics wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The title says HTML5 but you seem to actually want better tools.

The point is that flash was both the technology and the tools and that the tools for flash were refined and easy to use for a lot of people who were not necessarily deeply technical.

HTML5 is just the technology, so saying it doesn't replicate flash's tools is not reasonable.

Re: HTML5 still doesn't replicate what mattered about Flash

#43

Post by hackmiester »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #13
amelius wrote: post #8

> For 95% of applications you can just distribute a single SWF file You can do the same with HTML5+CSS+JavaScript, all in a single file. You can even include images, audio and video e.g. with data urls.

As what, MHTML?

No, just, like, an HTML file.

Put the JS in elements, and the CSS in elements, all within the HTML (in the , or at the end, as appropriate).

Re: HTML5 still doesn't replicate what mattered about Flash

#44

Post by gfxgirl »

jan_Inkepa wrote: post #5
bmcahren wrote: post #3

Is he ranting that Adobe Animate doesn't exist? Because it does and seamlessly exports HTML. I'm pretty sure if they aren't already you could get a bundler configuration for webpack that would build a single file data uris and all.

Lars is a game developer, so is presumably talking about interactive/multimedia content rather than pure animation. I fully agree with him that JS doesn't hold a candle to Flash even now (for rich media apps in the browser). But I don't think Flash could exist nowadays online anyway in the same way - the hardware ecosystem is much more diverse, you can't make a keyboard/mouse game and call it quits so easily, because…

People still do this even without flash. Lots of people post tiny online games that require dragging the mouse with the left mouse button pressed and it's clear they forgot/ignored that the majority of people are on laptops

Re: HTML5 still doesn't replicate what mattered about Flash

#45

Post by kennu »

amelius wrote: post #8

> For 95% of applications you can just distribute a single SWF file You can do the same with HTML5+CSS+JavaScript, all in a single file. You can even include images, audio and video e.g. with data urls.

But when you share some HTML in practice, e.g. send a HTML game exported from Godot to a friend, they will need to unzip it and install a local web server to actually play it with appropriate permissions.

Whereas .swf files could be opened directly in the browser without any preparation steps.

It was also possible to read metadata from .swf files (background color, canvas size, etc), which made it very simple to automatically embed Flash games on web pages with the correct layout.

So there are a lot of small practical details that made .swf a very convenient format for sharing games and multimedia content.

Re: HTML5 still doesn't replicate what mattered about Flash

#47

Post by dpcan »

rickyc091 wrote: post #34

The closest thing I ever found to Flash was https://scratch.mit.edu . You can draw vector graphics and attach code onto the individual sprites. It has the concepts of scenes as well, but no where near the power of what Flash had to offer.

Scratch is still programming first, where Flash was animation first with the ability to add programming.

The Flash IDE was probably the best part of Flash.

Re: HTML5 still doesn't replicate what mattered about Flash

#49

Post by hackmiester »

olyjohn wrote: post #11

The tweet mentions that you could 'just' send an SWF file to someone and it played. Well, if anybody had to fix a computer, or hosted anything Flash-based during that era, then they would know that's bullshit. Sure maybe with the standalone Flash player it worked allright, but that's not how people really used Flash. Even in my experience, a single SWF running locally didn't always work across all versions of Flash p…

I don't really have any way to refute what you are saying, but I don't recall the difficulties you are describing. I supported Windows desktops for many years during the heyday of the Flash Player.

Re: HTML5 still doesn't replicate what mattered about Flash

#50

Post by gfxgirl »

amelius wrote: post #8

> For 95% of applications you can just distribute a single SWF file You can do the same with HTML5+CSS+JavaScript, all in a single file. You can even include images, audio and video e.g. with data urls.

Even if you did that it wouldn't repo flash. Flash streamed the file, executing it and making it interactive to the user long before the entire file was downloaded.
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