XHTML, CSS…and Flash?

So yes, Flash has its drawbacks and XHTML can be bias some times. But, "cant we all just...get along?" Perhaps one day we will.

There seems to be to be a huge misunderstanding among web standards conscience designers that XHTML/CSS and Flash just dont mix. I’ve seen over the years a greater and greater split between the full flash/full screen site designers and the XHTML/CSS designers.

Almost to the point where if you have a hint of flash on your site, your not a purest XHTML designer and are shunned from the CSS Design community.

And if your site doesn’t have any intro that takes 5 minutes to load, has tantalizing text scrolling effects and a virtual light show contained within your 15” monitor, your site isn’t interesting and dull.

Now granted its very difficult (if not impossible for some instances) to even validate the XHTML in site with Flash object embed tags. But Flash has its benefits and its drawbacks for a “Beautiful CSS” website.

Likewise, the content within most full non-dynamic Flash sites aren’t easily picked up by search engine crawlers, thus reducing them to simply images that look cool on click.

A great article about this topic was written by Dan Mall for A List Apart called, “Semantic Flash”. Dan speaks of the new merge of the once two distant technologies in to today’s important websites. Websites Like Google maps, Flickr, Google Analytics, and Yahoo Maps all now use Flash as a part of their markup and functionality.

So yes, Flash has its drawbacks and XHTML can be bias some times. But, “cant we all just…get along?” Perhaps one day we will.

Filed in: CSS | Posted on: May 22, 2007 | (3) Comments → Add yours

Respiro, the logo design guy
May 25, 2007

You’re right, Flash animations can be used in CSS/XHTML sites, they won’t compromise them. Of course, in this case, a 100% Flash work is out of discussion…

Marshall
May 26, 2007

Thanks Respiro. Some of my friends in Germany http://www.drweb.de/weblog/weblog/?p=845 had concerns about animating logos in Flash, like mine; but I believe even a flash logo still can work. But you absolutely must ALT/Title tag them for accessibility.

free style
August 25, 2009

I like flash,..:)