The introduction of Silverlight 1.0 and its following versions has sparked a fiery debate amongst web developers and designers. Some believe that as compared to Silverlight, Flash design possesses more interesting and user-friendly features. Others, however, believe in the opposite. To help people to take informed decisions, we discuss the differences between Silverlight and Flash.

1.  Animation

Most people are aware of the fact that Flash utilizes the frame-dependent animation model. This means that we develop a single object for every frame for creating an animation sequence.

Let us assume that you want to shift an object across the screen in 4 seconds. To create the animation sequence, you have to figure out how many frames 4 seconds will require. Thereafter, you have to find out the matrices needed for every frame.

Consider the fact that to allow the player to maintain the frame rate, you have to insert a blank audio track. If you fail to do so, there are high chances that 4 seconds would turn out to be 3 or 7 or 8.

Silverlight, on the other hand, uses the WPF animation model. Since the model is time-based, one can state the start and stop conditions. Unlike Flash, Silverlight discounts the need to handle Matrices. Additionally, you do not have to gauge the location of objects in different frames.

2.  Size of Files

Flash opts for a compressed format, where pictures and content are placed in the movie. For this reason, size of files of a Flash element is comparatively small.

Silverlight utilizes XAML for its description language. It is non-compressed and therefore, size of file of a Silverlight element is comparatively larger.

3.  Accessibility

Flash offers rich accessibility features to people who have vision and hearing difficulties. Video caption feature of Flash solves accessibility difficulties of deaf people. However, people with other disabilities, such as blindness or low vision require video playback controls to use assistive technologies, such as screen magnifiers and readers, properly.

Users who depend on keyboard access can opt for various familiar shortcuts for controlling the video. Buttons, such as ‘Mute’, ‘Rewind’, ‘Stop’, ‘Play/Pause’ can be tabbed to the spacebar.

Silverlight 3.0 is considered the first browser plug-in that allows the user to access all system colors. This means that people who suffer from partial blindness can opt for normal operating system controls for performing necessary actions, such as shifting to high-contrast colors for easy reading.

When it comes to accessibility, Flash offers more features, as compared to Silverlight.

4.  Image Formats

Flash usually supports nearly all image formats. Silverlight, on the other hand, supports JPEG and PBG file formats only.

5.  SEO

A major complaint against Flash website design is that they are not user-friendly. However, recent modifications have allowed search engines (only Google) to index Flash. Google has associated itself with Adobe for simplifying the process of indexing Flash files.

In case of Silverlight, search engines can easily search and index the content that has been developed with the help of Silverlight applications.

Evaluating your requirements will help you to make the perfect choice between Flash and Silverlight. For example, if you think that majority of your visitors use Linux, go for Flash. On the other hand, if you are interested in increasing your rankings, Silverlight would be a better option.

Remember that choosing the proper technology is important for increasing your rankings and conversation rate.

In the 21st century, mobile gaming has become the ‘IT’ thing in most countries. According to a survey conducted by Geekaphone, (a company that provides users information about mobile phones) value of the mobile gaming industry will reach $54 billion within 4 years.

Considering the popularity of mobile gaming, designers are coming up with interesting and user-friendly games. We provide you with some useful tips about developing Flash Lite games.

1. These days, mobile phones are available in different resolutions and screen sizes. To simplify things, select the base build and thereafter, port the game. ‘Base build’ and ‘porting’ are technical terms and therefore, we will explain their meaning.

Base build refers to the specification that the industry follows, while launching a product. Porting indicates the process of modifying the game, according to the requirements of a particular platform.

Why Should You Consider the Base Build and Port the Game?

• The importance of selecting the base build lies in the fact that it will enable you to cover a greater range of handsets. Additionally, it will make porting the game easier.

• Many believe that porting is unnecessary because vector images automatically scale for a larger screen. However, automatic scaling can result in several problems. These can include distortion and pixilation.

2.  If you have created Flash designs in the past, you must already be aware of the fact that user interaction is an important aspect of website design. This is true, in case of mobile gaming as well.

When people press a key on the phone, while playing games, it performs a particular action. People adjust themselves to this particular pattern and therefore, look forward to standard rules of joystick manipulation and key presses. For this reason, providing them with unusual patterns may not be a great idea. Rather, opt for popular navigation systems, while creating mobile games.

3.  If you are associated with a Flash design company in India and have been asked to design a level-based game, you should know the fact that providing users with incentives is critical. This is important because users love to track their progress regularly. Additionally, they prefer to compare their scores against that of other players. Scoreboard is a crucial aspect of mobile gaming because it challenges the user and provides him/her with a sense of achievement.

You can place the scoring system locally on the phone or store it on the global system. If you are creating games for versions above Flash Lite 1.1, opt for shared objects to fulfill this goal. Shared objects maintain scores and track progress, even in the midst of multiple game sessions.

4.  Pixel fonts are perfect for mobile phones. This is because of the fact that as compared to laptops or PCs, mobile screens have limited resolution and color. Since pixel fonts are smaller, they adapt themselves beautifully on mobile phone screens. Furthermore, if you use them in Flash Lite games, they will take up limited space.

If you are planning to choose pixel fonts, consider the following suggestions.

• Do not set the pixel font to the bold style

• Choose Bitmap text as the font rendering procedure.

• Keep the content aligned to the left.

5.  Testing the game is critical. This strategy will ensure that your game does not fall prey to bugs. If possible, test the game on target devices. Of course, a person cannot own every handset of targeted devices. In such a situation, share the content with your family or friends and evaluate the feedback.

If you are already familiar with Flash website designs, you may find the process of creating Flash Lite games easier. Still, you should consider these tips for making your game interesting.

HTML 5 has clearly had a supernova effect on the web, but like black holes left after star bursts, Flash is the unavoidable truth of the Internet. Flash is here, doing well and will be so for quite some time in future.

Flash Designs have been around for many years now, best used to make attention-grabbing and dynamic website designs, and abused to create irritating, over-the-top advertisements that hijack our screens during website visits. However, where presentation is concerned, none does it quite like Flash.

Flash experience is wholly entertaining and captivating. One doesn’t have to be a web designer to appreciate the intricacies of Flash designs, nor a naïve web user to gawk at what Flash(es) on screen. For anyone who enjoys active interaction, Flash still offers enough to look forward to.

But change is constant, isn’t it? And so enter HTML 5, the newest addition to the web family.

HTML is the web’s lingua franca and anyone even slightly involved in producing web content, or blogging, should be fluent in HTML. Frankly, if you do not know HTML, you simply don’t belong to the Internet. And, where HTML 5 is concerned, it’ll certainly be easy on you if you already know HTML.

HTML 5 is quite the celebrity of the moment. The current favorite of the Internet, many web designers are making the switch from Flash to HTML 5. For designers, HTML 5 is easy to work on and code with. It is extremely user-friendly too.

Thus, if HTML 5 gives you a dynamic scripting option that makes navigation through pages easy, I don’t see why you can’t leverage on that. However, when it comes to creating truly beautiful websites, Flash outweighs HTML 5. Sure, HTML 5 will be fun, but Adobe Flash isn’t going anywhere yet.

Lets face it. Flash sites are heavy and they take time to load all its content that may include sound, animation, text, video and so on and that simply means, it requires a good deal of patience from the viewers. However, it is your moral responsibility to inform the visitors how much time is actually left to get the website design components loaded completely. Previously, website designers usually feature a clock or something of that kind to inform the readers but time has changed and so are the visitors. Visitors are no longer interested in watching a watch clicking. They are now looking for something more interesting and engaging. And the only way, you will be able to make intro of your website interesting is by adding a fascinating flash preloaders that are powerful enough to give your flash site a facelift.

Do They Serve Any Purpose: Yes of course. Besides adding a startling visual twist to your flash website, they serve an aesthetic purpose. If you can make it look interesting, it quells the urge of closing the window and this is exactly what you need the most. Use of growing bar, percentage value or incrementing counters are passé. You need to make it look different so that viewers do not lose their focus while your site is getting loaded in the background. A boring look of flash preloader can serve as a deathbed to your marketing campaign.

Now, if you are running short of creative ideas, just check out some of the best flash preloaders to get some creative nourishment:

Water Filling Flash Preloader: – The approach is mind blowing. Though the concept though not novel, it is still good enough to keep the viewers engaged by creating a suspense. The structure of the design is something to take note of.

A Smooth Flash Preloader: This flash preloader is mainly aimed at its consumers who are looking forward to healthily nutritious collections of smoothies. This flash preloader goes perfectly with the theme and the animation is good enough for retaining the interest of the viewers.

Flash Preloader With Numbers: – This preloader is starkly different from the rest of other of its clan since its numbers do not give any ideal of the loading time but the animation is dame good to keep you hooked on to it until the very end. The cleaver use of numbers is the in thing of this animation that you can hardly ignore.

Flash Preloader With A Smile: – Say hello to happiness with this amazingly designed flash preloader that will certainly give enough reasons to smile. Though it takes time, it really worth it. It does not have any grand animation and it mainly rides on its simple message and interface which is a good riddance from the others clumsy and over-crowded flash preloaders.

Simplicity At Its Best: This is what you may term as super simple. However, we found it too simple to keep the attention of the viewers for a long. We believe that this flash preloader is seriously lacking a creative touch.

A website created in flash attracts people most easily. Its colorful presence with animated items add to the beauty and splendor of the flash website design. With technological development, even the content in a flash supported website can be customized with the help of the Flash CMS or Flash Content Management System.

Know about flash CMS:

CMS is a specially designed application that is used to manage the flash content in a website. CMS is used with the core purpose of generating browser environment in a flash content website. It helps in editing and managing various Adobe Flash supported items such as texts, images, animations, sound, actions and movies. Very user friendly and easy to use, flash content management system don’t need any programming skill to edit contents.

There is an array of Flash CMS web development software available in the market that promise to provide you a lot of facilities and benefits. But picking out the right one from the crowd is the most important and hard work to do. Here we help you with some guidelines that are sure to assist you well in choosing the right flash CMS application according to your need. Continue reading ‘A Guide to Flash CMS (Content Management System)’ »