website question

[JenE]

I'm a newbie that's not a newbie, I've been a lurker for a long time and I have always noticed that people say that flash is bad, but then when I look at other sites it seems that is what everyone has. Is flash really that bad if you have a photoblog that is not hosted on the same site? It's like having a place for those that dislike flash and a place for those that do like flash. I am really torn over this. I really don't know how to create a site and used a flash site but I also set up a wordpress blog and learned how to use CSS coding (minimal CSS coding). Is this a bad idea? What are your thoughts?

[IABoomer]

First, flash doesn't work on the iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, so you lose those viewers immediately. Flash breaks the standard browser controls by removing the helpful "visited links" highlighting, back/forward buttons, etc. You're at the mercy of the flash designer's interface skills, which sadly often leave something to be desired. Flash also destroys bookmarking, which makes it nearly impossible for a user to share a link to a particular image.

With an HTML interface, the user can tweak things to their liking while still getting access to your content. If your images are posted at 800x600, but the user has bad eyesight, they can zoom on the page to see things larger. Granted that introduces a little distortion, but that's better than the user not seeing your images at all, or just seeing a colored blur because they can't zoom a flash interface.

[OsmosisStudios]

Using Flash to create a website is a pain. A) it takes forever to load, even on fast connections, B) takes too long to navigate, C) doesnt do well with search engines, D) is a pain to update E) doesnt work on all platforms (namely the iPhone/iPad).

It's pretty, but it's a pain.

[Peter Ahrens]

With CSS, everything should load a lot quicker. You should be able to do a lot things with CSS than you can do with flash.

One thing I extremely dislike about Flash - the page not loading when you're browsing other sites on the web, which is what I do a lot of the time.

If you want people to stay on your website without getting bored by long load times, don't use Flash.

[JenE]

I would love to just make my blog my full website, it would save $$ each month since I already have it hosted. The only problem I have is I have yet to figure out how to put a portfolio on there. I wish I had more time to spend on building the site but I am a full time student and I am taking classes and doing online stuff to prepare me to become a certified photographer. I am open to suggestions to what you guys have used. I really don't want to use zenfolio and would prefer to have the portfolio on the website (wordpress) that I am going to use.

[IABoomer]

If you're already using Wordpress, search the plugins page for "portfolio" or "photography" and you'll find many plugins that make integrating a portfolio easy.

WordPress › WordPress Plugins

[Indigo November]

Try jitZul.
I am having them make my website. It's free, non-flash and designed for artists.
It requires little of your own time, they do pretty much everything.
There is only one requirement on your part, you have to keep a blog. I think you have to post at least once every ten days or something like that. Not a big deal.......

They are very nice, and really try to make sure you are happy with your website. They sent me the first draft and I LOVE it!
And they didn't mind me changing my mind a million times!

[JenE]

this is what I have done on my blog so far to change it, if anyone want's to take a look and tell me if it looks ok.

The Photography by JLE Blog

I still need to change the domain name since I am changing it from a blog to the site.

[BuddhaPi]

As web developer by trade, I think all of these replies have covered all of the bases....Stay away from flash, you'll be much happier in the long run and you'll save some serious cash!

[ShantDotMe]

Hi Jene, I'm a web designer/developer & here are some hints/info

The Q about to flash or not comes to why you want to do the website. if you want to impress your current clients, go Flash... if you want new clients, leave flash alone! Flash sites are not Search Engine Optimized & hence won't bring new clients in (from search engines).

this does not mean that you can not use some flash in your site, like a slideshow or an animation, tho these days jQuery will do some very pretty slide shows that you might want to consider. Any flash should have an alternative solution if the user does not have the plugin installed &/or uses iphone/ipad/ipod!

Sites should load fast, yours is not. cause the photos are not optimized for web & they are on various domains (your site, photobucket, blogspot...). for example your header alone is 250KB & if it optimized for web use it filesize can be reduced to 100KB (and far less too). this means that the image will load a lot faster.

You should consider the total size of the web page too. note that the two animated gifs do add 400KB+ to the site.

The total size of your first webpage is 1MB & even on a T1 connection it will take 9+ seconds to load, on 512 connection about 35seconds & on 56kbps 223 seconds. that is a "bit" too much.


Also do keep in mind that the max width of the site should (usually, today's standard) not pass the 960 980px width so it fits well in 1024px screen resolution.

Just my two cents (or a bit more).