A friend of mine and myself recently started a small company to fufill the web services needs of some local businesses. We used Swish to program our site, but realize that a .swf file does little for search engine placement or even indexing for that matter. Please look at our site and let me know if you have any ideas ou how this type of effect can be achived with a pure css layout. I don't think it can be done, but I figured it was worth asking.
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CSS as replacement for flash based site?
- Thread starter sfmfs
- Start date
The design is possible via css. The scrolling effect you get by clicking on the menu buttons can be achieved with JavaScript, though I would rather just use different pages -- easier for bookmarking and sending links to people. So, to answer your question. The layout as is, should be no problem for css.
As stated. The basic "look" of the site is entirely doable in CSS. The "feel" is not.
- The opening animations at the top of the page could be done by turinging it into a animated gif.
- I'd lose the side scoll when a link is pressed, because it'd be a pain to code in JS.
- The up and down scroll can be done with an iframe -- but frames are evil (see my other posts for maore on the evils of frames and JavaScript
The problems with embedding all your content in Flash are more than just search (though search is a big one).
1.) Users without the flash plugin will leave
A.) People who have older versions, and don't feel like down loading the new plugin right now -- so they leave
B.) People who like having a "crippled" browser -- possibly even text only -- can't see any content and leave
2.) Most flash sites use absolute positioning (like yours does), that means that if someone with a lower screen resolution or who is browsing in a non-maximized window will end up with scroll in both directions (which is a pain) -- and they leave (CSS word of advice too, use relative positioning)
3.) Flash files tend to get large quickly (costing you bandwidth), causeing long customer waits, leading to preloaders, preloarers get boring, people leave
4.) Searchability.
Remeber, you can be pretty without excluding anyone. Try to stick to the standards -- test in as many browsers as possible. Design with the lowest common denomenator in mind (don't worry if he can't see all the frills, but at least let him get to the content).
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- The opening animations at the top of the page could be done by turinging it into a animated gif.
- I'd lose the side scoll when a link is pressed, because it'd be a pain to code in JS.
- The up and down scroll can be done with an iframe -- but frames are evil (see my other posts for maore on the evils of frames and JavaScript
The problems with embedding all your content in Flash are more than just search (though search is a big one).
1.) Users without the flash plugin will leave
A.) People who have older versions, and don't feel like down loading the new plugin right now -- so they leave
B.) People who like having a "crippled" browser -- possibly even text only -- can't see any content and leave
2.) Most flash sites use absolute positioning (like yours does), that means that if someone with a lower screen resolution or who is browsing in a non-maximized window will end up with scroll in both directions (which is a pain) -- and they leave (CSS word of advice too, use relative positioning)
3.) Flash files tend to get large quickly (costing you bandwidth), causeing long customer waits, leading to preloaders, preloarers get boring, people leave
4.) Searchability.
Remeber, you can be pretty without excluding anyone. Try to stick to the standards -- test in as many browsers as possible. Design with the lowest common denomenator in mind (don't worry if he can't see all the frills, but at least let him get to the content).
[plug=shameless]
[/plug]
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