Fleka

Few months ago, considering I'm the one being responsable for technologies used inside fleka, I had discussion with Milos regarding the future of Flash in our company. In that document, the first thing I felt to declare was that HTML5 wouldn't have taken, at least in a brief amount of time, the place of the Flash applications. Six months have passed since I wrote that document, so now I feel free to publish and extend the contents discussed "privately" months ago.

Regarding fleka's projects since the appearance of HTML5, we have developed just a handful of things based on some of Flash technologies, and not a single project based solely on HTML5. However, this is common practice: HTML5 is not yet fully supported by all the browsers out there and, like all new technologies, it will take some time before it becomes a reliable tool which clients can feel safe about, because of compatibility issues on different platforms and different OS.

Last few months, fleka really got into so-called "web apps". As we speak, we're developing different applications that will be distributed on iPad. Furthermore, those applications are ready to be easily deployed on Android devices as well, covering the majority of the mobile platforms out there. I hope we can share with you some of these great applications in our Projects section soon.

So, where the heck is Flash gone?

One of the best answers I can give is in the form of Wired Flash Player we just developed: we were contacted by BlogTV to support them in the need to provide Wired's new website with a video player accessible on all existing platforms. At that time Wired had already chosen to utilize the native video player of HTML5, but soon they were faced with two big problems: fullscreen options and integrated subtitles features could not be implemented trough HTML5. Flash, perhaps due to its longevity on market, is able to manage these two problems easily. Of course, there's always a catch: if developers decide to use Flash, they have to develop an alternative for Apple platforms (Wired developed 2 video players, HTML5 and Flash based one). I hope that, in the future, HTML5 will provide a better way to manage videos and support streaming; this way developers won't have to develop "double" products resulting in a more expensive commission on the client's side and a more difficult managing process in the long term.

Fleka is developing its own web products with PHP, JAVA, HTML/CSS and Flash and that's not going to change any time soon. We are collaborating with professionals that can handle Objective-C projects (thanks guys!), so we can provide also apps dedicated to Apple devices - iPhone, iPod and iPad - and, thanks to the new Mac App Store, apps dedicated to the Apple desktop computers. We don't actually have, at the time being, projects that will be developed with Flash in the upcoming period, but not because we have given up on that technology. Reality is, projects developed with Flash cost more then projects developed with HTML (they also offer much more), and the market is asking for lowest price for best quality products.

I strongly believe that Flash is still superb way to create rich internet application; no other platform offers that exciting video and audio solutions, deep interactivity and multiuser logics. However, when creating websites that are based around managing great amount of content, like for example RentACar Delta, IED and SOS Niksic, it's better to use frameworks and already developed JS libraries that are easily re-usable, in order to rationalize developing time and overall cost. Despite current market&economy trends, fleka doesn't want to abandon Flash - developed software. On the other side, we are investing a lot to actualise new apps by constantly being up-to-date with latest web standards. Knowledge always was and will remain a value-added feature of our agency - knowledge of using right technologies within each project that results in each customer being provided with services that are tailored for his specific needs.

I hope this article may be an answer for all those who ask me  whether it's better to learn ActionScript or HTML 5, PHP or Java.

And if you wanna dive deeper into this topic, here are some suggested readings for further arguments relating to the web development and web standards:

- Designing with web standards third edition, by Jeffrey Zeldman, Ed. Apogeo
- Simple and Usable: web, mobile, and interaction design, by Giles Colborne, Ed. New Riders
- Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The-do-it-yourself guide to finding and fixing usability problems, by Steve Krug, Ed. Tecniche Nuove.