Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
No-Flash Backup
It
s probably because of being a Flash Platform developer, but I
don
'
t completely understand why some users choose to disable the
Flash Player in their browsers. I hear their reasons, but I still think
they
'
re just missing out on so much of the truly rich, interactive
Web. At any rate, it happens and we need to be prepared for it.
There are several options to choose from when it comes to a no-
Flash backup, so let
'
s discuss some of them and you can decide
which is best for your project.
One option is to present users with an image or some text that
lets them know that they need the Flash Player to view your site.
Although you may choose to take this route, there are some down-
sides that go along with it. If you limit your site to Flash only, you
limit the potential reach of your client
'
s information. Your clients
are trying to sell their product and they are relying on you to help
them do so. If you have any control over it, you should avoid this
option and save it as a last resort.
Another option is to have a landing page that gives the user
an option of a Flash site or a non-Flash site. This option at least
lets the Flash-disabled person get to the content of the site. But
who likes the old
'
landing page any-
more, right? All the more reason to take advantage of SWFObject.
If the user
“
choose your own adventure
”
llgettoseetheHTML
you placed inside that div that we keep talking about. Well now,
you
'
s Flash Player is disabled, they
'
ve just saved your audience from an extra click and took care
of it for them while also making sure they were able to get to the
information they were trying to find in the first place. That
'
'
s
mighty thoughtful of you. So what about the fact that you
ve only
built one page worth of information within that div? Build a
menu into that page for access to other pages. In other words,
build it as if it
'
'
s the home page to a non-Flash site (because it
really is).
With this site behind the site, you
re allowing full access to all of
the information that you are trying to get to the user. Also, by using
the same information in the non-Flash site that you use in the
Flash site, your information can be found by search engines and
that
'
s obviously another plus. In order to handle the links that will
be indexed by the search engines, you
'
ll want to include some
form of deep linking into your Flash site. Let
'
sjumpintoanother
scenario real quick: Pretend for a moment that a user is searching
for a product that your client sells. The user presses the search but-
tonandalinktothemicrositeyou
'
ve built is within the results.
This link could appear in many ways depending on which language
you
'
ve chosen to write your non-Flash site. One example might be
PHP where the link looks something like this: http://www.yoursite.
com/pages.php?p=prod. The important part of that URL is the
'
