Modern Flash development

Flash is often said to be an excellent tool for interactive visual effects when applied properly, while it’s a pain when it comes to accessibility and semantics. There is also the issue with search engine optimization, since the Google bots don’t know how to index the binary files.

Fortunately some great minds have conceived clever solutions during the last years. Developers have endured the eternal struggle between the elements <Embed> and <Object>, the classic Flash Satay method (better but still flawed) and its modern successor SWFObject (a progressive enhancement approach) together with swfAddress.

In the last years, we’ve seen the birth of sIFR (scalable Inman Flash Replacement), a way to replace typeface text with Flash movies on the fly. Also, swfIR (swf Image Replacement) was using unobtrusive JavaScript, progressive enhancement and Flash to enhance existing images with visual effects. Faust is another example using a similar technique. Even the old issue with SEO and Flash has seen progress using unobtrusive Javascript.

However, most solutions come down with the same weakness. They rely on JavaScript to insert Flash content, and one cannot rely on Javascript being available. Graceful degradation must be provided. Or better yet, go straight for progressive enhancement. This is even more important these days with the Ajax hype.

Accessibility is still a problem with Flash, but I’m glad to see that some progress happens every year. I suppose that WPF/E will start the debate all over again in a year or so, but that’s another story.