HTML or flash?

[aaronkneile]

I hope I'm posting in the right place for this question, but what is the general opinion about photography gallery websites: Do people prefer flash, or is html a better option? What do people see as the advantages/drawbacks to flash and/or html? Thanks!

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[Joey_Ricard]

I use a combination on my website, HTML as basis and flash banners and slideshows mixed in.
I started out doing it all in flash, then realized I was wasting my time so I chose to create small and simple flash animations for areas that needed a little more info without extending the page down (scroll).

This way, I can freshen up portions of the site without having to change the entire file or have to edit the master file for the changed portions. (example, changing the slideshow with updated images, news etc)

Some full flash sites are amazing (think Rock band websites), but for my photography business, I felt the need for it to be a little more simple for viewers.

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[2WheelPhoto]

Mobile devices are a significant consideration nowadays regarding site traffic, I suggest your site is optimized for them too.

[aaronkneile]

I've seen sites that had a mobile version without flash, but the regular web version with flash. For the galleries, do people prefer flash or no flash?

[EchoingWhisper]

I think it's best not to use flash cause' I think it might be obsolete soon.

[Joey_Ricard]

2wheelPhoto brings up a good point but I can only speak for the type of images I work which may differ from other tyes of photography and sales thereof.
I sell fine art images and client based work and I would not think they are proofing or making decisions while viewing on a small phone screen.
A tablet may be a different story though.

Although there could be one somewhere on the internet, I know of no poll where people say they like one over the other or the functionality on a certain viewer better. If there is, that could also be affected by the mobile connection they have at the time where flash sites in some cases take longer to load.

So who knows, but either way, you can't go wrong by keeping it simple.

[aaronkneile]

I agree about keeping things simple. I'm putting together my website and had heard that Flash wasn't good for reasons that go beyond the question of playback on an iPad. I wasn't sure what those reasons were, but when I look at commercially available gallery templates, many of them seem to use Flash. I was curious what the reasoning might be. Thanks for all the considered input!

[MLeeK]

The obsolete concern is very valid as Adobe is abandoning flash or so I hear.
A combination of both is fine, but straight up all flash isn't such a hot idea. Not good for SEO either because the crawlers don't get squat out of a flash site.

[o hey tyler]

Not good for SEO either because the crawlers don't get squat out of a flash site.

A lot of the reason to not go with flash has to do with this right here...

The other reasons being, HTML5 and CSS3 are really bridging the gap between static web content and interactive (flash) elements. It's not impossible to SEO a flash site, it's just not as straightforward.

[2WheelPhoto]

Yeah, I mentioned flash because if your clients/viewers use ipad or iphone its toast. The second reason I avoid it is due to the mad pow-ah of apple, adobe will be abandoning it anyway.

[aaronkneile]

This is great feedback everybody! I am trying to make my site have images that scale, but do so using javascript. What is the general feeling about scaled images? Do you like to see the image larger in a larger browser window, or is it a big deal for you? Thanks for all the help!

[davisphotos]

HTML. Flash is dead. Anybody who says otherwise is clinging to a technology that is in its death throes. Adobe has discontinued flash for mobile, Apple stopped supporting it ages ago. Images that scale with the browser can look very nice-I have a full page slideshow on the main page of my site, which is HTML and Javascript, and driven by Wordpress. If you are hosting your own site, definitely look at building it in Wordpress, it's a great robust platform, and not just for blogs.

[Beast95]

Flash is very quickly becoming useless. It uses more bandwidth compared to good HTML code. Unless your going for really cool effects (which nobody cares about anyways), go with just the good ol' well coded HTML. Key words: "well coded".