Component Workshop Ltd

Well the problem of course isn't as bad as it may seem, most sites with this "problem" can be placed in to one of two camps, each with a common solution that will ultimately make for a better web (for everyone).

1. Sites that didn't need Flash in the first place.

So many sites that are entirely written in flash really don't need to be, I'm talking about many of the Luxury Brands, almost every Game or Movie site.

For example take a look at the Prada.com website (I know your always visiting that site anyway, right?)

It is one great big flash app, no HTML for the unlucky iPad user, but dig a little deeper, the site when running in a browser that does have flash is so simple it could easilly be written using standard web technologies that work on any browser (Never mind HTML5).

The site is basically a navigation element which has rudimentary transitions and a nice full screen background, thats it! Come on guys, why are you using Flash for this? It makes no sense! You are aleanating so many of the people that can afford to buy your products!

I can't believe who many site out there are like this, a small percentage of them are as bad as the Prada.com site a most don't have full screen flash content, but even if you have a small amount of Flash on your site, I suspect you put it there for a reason, and that reason will be lost on so many people these days.

2. Sites that don't need Flash anymore.

OK, times are changing, 12 months ago you needed Flash for the really rich elements of your site (or at least you think you did) but today we have things like HTML5 and CSS3 right? Well no, not really, HTML5 and CSS3 are great (and open) but support, even partial support is only available on the latest and greatest versions of  a handfull of browser and most certainly not on the most popular one Internet Explorer. So Flash is the right choice here then right? Well no, almost always not i'm afraid!

All browsers have the ability to render rich content the problem is, they all have different ways of doing it, Some (like Internet Explorer) have VML support and others like (FireFox) have SVG support, but for the most part they can all render vector graphics, and can all perform acceptable levels of animation and transitions, the problem is the differences in implementation, it makes it almost impossible to be sure that your content will render the same on each browser.

What we need is a common interface that abstracts away all this complexity, and believe it or not, we already have this, several open source projects exist that do exactly that, our favourite is Raphaëljs and without going into all the techy details it allows a designer to create rich vector based content that will work on all major browsers (yep, thats exactly what Flash does) including Safari on the iPad and other iOS devices.

OK, so why do i hate flash? Well i don't, I actually love it! Its been an amazing technology that has driven the web forward by an immeasurable distance, but like all great technologies its time for others to stand on its shoulders and take us even further.

I truly believe that adoption of pure HTML5 and CSS3 will be the next frontier of the web, but while we wait for the rest of the world to embrace this we should be moving to more browser friendly technologies that map closer to HTML5 and CSS3.

So, back to the post title, Converting Flash to HTML5!

If you need any flash content Converting to HTML5 please contact us, we have an experienced team of Web Designers and Developers who can generate iPad friendly versions of the most demanding Flash content.