Flash and Fireworks-worth getting? hard to use?

[Leo Robert Klein]

At 10:24 AM 7/31/99 -0700, Joan Graham wrote:

>I've seen postings about Flash and Fireworks. Librarians, are you using
>these products?

>Are they appropriate for library sites? Difficult to learn? Your
>opinions and experiences with either program will be much appreciated.

DHTML is a set of things including the use of layers and Cascading Style
Sheets (CCS).  They give you a lot more control over the appearence of your
page than plain vanilla HTML.  The fly in the ointment is that the two
major browsers implement these things differently and not completely.

Fireworks is a kind of crazy application that's a mix between an
illustration program and an imaging program.  It originally entered into
our workflow because it gave us greater control in exporting jpegs and gifs
than Photoshop.  With the integration of ImageReady into the latest release
of Photoshop, we may re-evalute this procedure.

Flash is an extraordinary program--we're doing our virtual tour in it (with
an html alternative, bien sur).  It's an animation program principally for
vector-based images and fabulous things are being done with it (see
<http://www.shockwave.com/static/shared/search/ssod_archive/>).  

It definitely has a role in the library and in instruction/education in
general since it's far more engaging than static html pages and allows for
a much more sophisticated level of interactivity.  (Ditto for Shockwave.)
The skill set required is somewhat steep which probably explains why these
applications aren't more widely used in the field of education.  You need
to be familiar with vector-based images such as what you might produce in
an application like Illustrator or Freehand to make best use of it.

It takes some work.  It took me about a year before I started feeling
comfortable in it.

I think the important thing is not to be afraid to try new things.  The
younger ranks, who are far ahead of us on this one, will appreciate you for
it.  And, oh yeah, don't forget to stick in the html alternatives for the
old codgers.

LEO



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Leo Robert Klein                     17 Lexington Ave, Box H0520
Web Coordinator &                    New York, NY. 10010
Digital Resources Developer          tel: (212) 802-2373
Newman Library/Baruch College        fax: (212) 802-2360
http://newman.baruch.cuny.edu        email: Leo_Klein at baruch.cuny.edu
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