Should I use Director or Flash?
by Dan Mingo
on
Jun 27, 2008 at 2:11:02 pm
I am in a pickle. I work for a College and I am looking to design a new idea for a web application and can't decide which is better to use, Flash or Director. Here is what I plan to do: I want an interactive display with links that take me to information about the college and then links that take me to the areas of study at the college, in this section I plan to have a 2 minute video for each degree program offered, so in all maybe 60-70 minutes of video footage along with several interactive menus and some minor animation.
My dilemma is this: How easy is it to embed and get shockwave players on most standard computers vs a Flash player, and does Flash even do a good job creating an interactive environment including video footage embedded in the program.
I am very familiar with Director and would rather use that, but only if shockwave is easy to use embedded in a web page and runs smoothly. Please give me some opinions.
Re: Should I use Director or Flash? by William McGrath on Jun 29, 2008 at 5:11:49 pm
It looks like most of the stuff you could do with html, pure and simple. But if you want the bells and whistles, if I were you I would use Flash. First of all, because the whole point of Flash is the fact that it works with vector graphics, which makes for resolution-free files that are a lot leaner. Second, there's less of an issue with plugins: the Flash plugin is fairly universal, whereas I think the Director one doesn't come as default in most browsers (correct me if I'm wrong, anybody).
I personally hate actionScript and am a Lingo man, but for something like you propose, I think Flash wins hands down. My own personal opinion.
Re: Should I use Director or Flash? by Dan Mingo on Jun 30, 2008 at 1:18:25 pm
Thanks. Do you know of a good training manual for flash? I am familiar with Director, minus the Lingo side, but am not familiar with Flash to much. That would help tremendously. Thank you for your insight.
Re: Should I use Director or Flash? by David Richter on Sep 18, 2008 at 10:54:56 pm
Deans got it right. Total Training is the best Flash training I have run across. For your Flash/Director issues. Go with Flash. I prefer Director as well, however for relatively simple web applications Flash is the way to go. Using Director here would be like using sledgehammer to pound a nail.
