Weird Machines

IMPORTANT EDIT!
As it turns out, it's actually just Adobe's store that's all crapped up, but the point remains!

"What's that," you say? "Surely Adobe.com Adobe's store could not be a bad example of Flash, for they are the stewards of Flash, and would never abuse its power." But I think they have. I'm not going to delve too deeply into this, since it's an exercise in frustration, but I believe that Adobe has fallen into the trap of replacing HTML/JavaScript with Flash where it's not necessary, and is indeed a worse choice.

I present the following three reasons as proof:

1. Because the MouseEvent.MOUSE_WHEEL event is broken on Macs, Adobe has destroyed Mac users' ability to casually scroll through a page, instead forcing us to revert to the arrow keys or, god forbid, actually dragging the scroll bar.
2. Many of the things I love about Firefox (my web browser of choice) are completely broken on this site. I can't open links in a new window by middle or right clicking, as Adobe decided that links must behave exactly as they would on an HTML page by opening a page.
3. There is nothing I have found on this site that cannot be done (perhaps better) using HTML and JavaScript. The only Flash-related effects I've seen are rudimentary transitions and overlays that would be just as easy, if not easier, outside of Flash.

There's something to be said for using your own product. After all, if the cook won't eat his own food, something is amiss. But honestly, why go to such great lengths to emulate something that needn't be emulated and ultimately fail to improve upon it? There isn't even any AJAXy-type stuff (which, incidentally, works just fine as actual AJAX).

Don't get me wrong. I love Flash and ActionScript, but I love appropriate use of Flash and ActionScript even more. Inappropriate use of Flash is what makes some people hate it, and given Adobe's stature, their misuse of Flash is correspondingly huger.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 9th, 2008 at 10:01 pm and is filed under Bad Flash. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.