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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

#231

Post by anonymousab »

jchw wrote: post #75

This is true but it is a common misunderstanding imo. Nobody is arguing a tool like Flash shouldn’t exist; it should. People are arguing a runtime like Flash shouldn’t exist, and that HTML5 has all of the components that are needed to be that runtime and then some. A tool should give us what Flash did but with the HTML runtime. So why doesn’t that tool exist? Well... as far as I know it does. I’m pretty sure this is…

> So why isn’t it causing a Flash-style revolution?

From the animators I've listened to, the answer is that Animate sucks to work with and is a royal pain in the butt, so they either use different tools or stick to older versions of Adobe or even Macromedia Flash/MX.

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

#232

Post by ksec »

pjmlp wrote: post #186
danShumway wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I don't think the Linux audience in 1999-2008 was exactly who most of us were targeting Well, but... yeah. I know people weren't targeting Linux in the early 2000's, that was the problem. That's what I'm saying. One of the biggest advantages of dumping Flash was that it got replaced with a runtime that worked on every OS even if people weren't deliberately targeting it. I'm saying that's a big enough advantage…

The same audience still doesn't matter today, because most just use GPUs with drivers that get black listed by browsers, making WebGL useless.

Last time I was downvoted to oblivion for stating that. Not a popular view on HN for some strange reason. ( Along with no one use SSB on Desktop as with the Firefox thread. )

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

#233

Post by ksec »

fny wrote: post #174
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…

So Flash and HTML/JS are how I got into programming at the age of 8, and I completely disagree with your comment. All I needed to do was export the flash document as an exe and boom: it worked. The portability was amazing. I would just cut a release, put it on floppies, and take them to school. I never had anyone complain once about having an issue. Oh, and no one gave a damn about Linux outside of server admins back…

>All I needed to do was export the flash document as an exe and boom:

Yes there were huge Gaming communities around it. Flash at the time was like Unity today. And may be even better than Unity from ease of use perspective. Lots of interesting Indie games.

Sometimes I just wish Adobe had open sourced Flash.

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

#234

Post by pjmlp »

larusso wrote: post #218

Every few years this argument pops again that flash is still not yet fully replaced. And then the same arguments from both sides start up that the one side either has a rose colored view on flash and the other side sees stuff to Linux centric at a time where windows was king. I programmed in flash for over 10 years. I started flash in school after building a few HTML pages with Java script. My plan was to become a we…

I am having big hopes with Blazor and Uno.

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

#235

Post by pjmlp »

andai wrote: post #150
worik wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you not recall that flash was a the worst of the closed source rubbish. It never played well on any system I cared to use. The tools to generate it were unavailable to the likes of me and a lot of people here, who back in the day were second class citizens. Also it tried to make the the Web TV before there was anywhere enough processing power at the ends nor bandwidth in the middle. Designers on their expensive po…

Who do you mean when you say we?

Probably the GNU/Linux users that now jump of joy when given Electron apps or Wine/Proton based games.

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

#236

Post by fimdomeio »

There's a huge change in technology that made doing what flash did well very dificult and that's not html5 fault. We now live in a world of multiple screen sizes. one of the huge benefits of flash as a creative tool was the wysiwyg interface, but that worked well when you could optimize for 1024x768, when you start having multiple screen sizes that creates a dramatic shift on how things are designed. I know quite a few graphic designers that to this day cannot wrap their heads around the fact that you have to be designing to multiple screen sizes and proportions.

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

#237

Post by pjmlp »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #199

I love me some Flash games, and sad to see Flash go. I must disagree on one point here: accessibility. In HTML, accessibility is built in, and you have to do some stupid shit to break it, e.g. using divs and spans combined with CSS for fake "links". Many succeed, even Google has some on their search results pages, but it's not the default state. In Flash, accessibility is barely an afterthought by default, and if you…

WebGL/GPU + WebAssembly

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

#238

Post by ksec »

spyder wrote: post #143
jchw wrote: post #75

This is true but it is a common misunderstanding imo. Nobody is arguing a tool like Flash shouldn’t exist; it should. People are arguing a runtime like Flash shouldn’t exist, and that HTML5 has all of the components that are needed to be that runtime and then some. A tool should give us what Flash did but with the HTML runtime. So why doesn’t that tool exist? Well... as far as I know it does. I’m pretty sure this is…

Even for videos Flash was the best solution for a long time, almost every video sharing website used Flash video players until HTML5 video got developed.

And apart from Video Codec improvement, many HTML5 video are still not as good as Flash Video Streaming. Mostly an implementation issues and not technical. But no one has the interest of improving it.

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

#239

Post by Mindwipe »

chii wrote: post #228
irrational wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion, someone just needs to rebuild Flash, but based on modern web standards. We don’t need “productive conversations”. We already had the ideal tool - Flash. Just make a feature by feature duplication of what Flash was.

That already exists - it's flash's creative suite from adobe, and it exports to html5/canvas. Now of course, it's harder to pirate since it's a subscription service now-a-days (like photoshop). I don't think the problem is a lack of tools. It's more fundamental.

Adobe Animate claims to be this, but it's really, really not in practice.

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

#240

Post by velcro »

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…

My experience with Flash is completely opposite to yours - I'd say we're for the most part pretending that by letting Flash die we're better off today.

My fans spinning up every time I open a random website definitely disagree with you. Wasn't that the #1 argument for getting rid of Flash?

I started developing Flash websites in Flash 3 in school, transitioned into Actionscript 2/3 and did some complex projects over the years. Can't vouch for Linux but on my Mac and on Windows it was definitely great, it DID just work and it was cross-platform. People have short memories - but cross-platform back then was also mostly referring to huge JS/website inconsistencies between different browsers. I mean - when you say cross-platform, what are you even comparing it to?

I had a huge offline collection of different SWF files/websites for inspiration and that I could just start up from the filesystem and they also just worked (if it was a single-file project of course). I'd wager that 95+% of the people also had the full Flash Player installed.

Today I do some complex JS/React/webGL stuff - and let me tell you it takes like 10x as much (money, time, knowledge, effort) to develop stuff that's comparable to what I did 10 years ago in Flash. And this comes with more or just as many cross-browser and performance problems.

Blaming Flash for "fixing your computer" or saying it somehow had "hosting issues" I can't really understand at all.

The "mobile era" just started when Flash started transitioning into smartphones/apps - first results were not ideal but promising. Were Adobe allowed to have 10 years of iterations on those - I do firmly believe it would have been a #1 app development environment today. There would have been no need for Unity or even cross-platform frameworks like Flutter, etc...

But it is what it is - sorry, but anyone who thinks Flash dying was not primarily about Apple or even Google not wanting to keep their walled gardens for themselves is delusional. Adobe definitely has a good part of the blame for not recognising the potential and fighting for it some more.

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