Has flashkit declined in popularity?

I dont want to be flamed.

I remember when flash 5 was out this place was buzzing, the coolsites forums, people doing wierd experiments and stuff. Dont get me wrong this is a busy place, but even from what i remember werehere and this board were both packed at the same time and it was really easy to learn from.

At the moment im noticing there is very little members browsing the forums like me.

Flash is always growing, so why does it seem there is less people around now than there used to be or it because its became so complex and devided , theres different forums on the web people visit?

I just wondered for curiosity!

fk is full fo kids and a whole lot of bs.. most the old members have either moved on or stopped posting as much.. i lurk thru but conversation isn't the same with alot of th eold tymers gone..

and those of us who still do experiments.. argo, etc don't post them on here. Everybody is being more secretive so they can try to make a buck out of it. There isn't much going on in this industry that is just out in the open.

I don't post any of my work here not in several years.

Just a theory, but maybe because Flash itself is nothing new. I mean you are correct it IS always growing, but it's not such a specialized medium anymore.... it's pretty much mainstream. Most large sites incorporate some kind of Flash in their design. I think Flash 4 or 5 was when it really broke mainstream being packaged with the main browsers, maybe coinciding with the peak of FlashKit you speak of.

Just saying the buzz around Flash itself maybe has died down a bit since Flash 5.

Anyways, what took you so long to join? :)

I have to agree on some parts.. there seems to be an element of "puberty" here...where comments lack constructive criticism, or things get personal, instead of helpful.

I have noticed the HELP forums are largely "run" by members helping and contributing... although I do some mods helping in fairness, just NOT like they used to (daily, throughout the day..etc)

I have also noticed a trend of people PMing me for help..instead of postig on the boards.. (which I feel takes away from the search resource)

I havent been any other places really as I still (im my eyes) see FLASHKIT as a place of high traffic...so I 'HOPE' my thread(s) get attention.....

Is Flashkit on a decline? I'd have to say yes... slightly.

But the whole Flash Community seems to be in a decline... it's all become Flash Commerce.

Well it's still popular with me. I've had a lot of help from members, not just on Flash queries but a whole lot of stuff, and I've made a few friends. I try to give a bit back in the Newbies forum. Long may it continue.

Well, I just to be a kind of helpfull members in the other forums, then the coffee lounge turned me into the social disgrace I am now.

No, after you spend some time here and get to know your flash, you become helpful, but it gets rather boring when you check the help forums and the same newbie questions are posted over and over and over and over and over.

I think that's what happens The old members have seen all possible types of threads already 20 times (how to do a preloader, my if isn't working, my php wants to kill me). Even in the coffee lounge the threads have become so unoriginal you don't feel like posting anymore.

That's what I think, eventually old members get tired of seeing the same things happening over and over and just move on to another forum that represents a new challenge.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by argonauta

(how to do a preloader, my if isn't working, my php wants to kill me)

---

Lol im gulity of asking about the preloader, but dam it I couldent find a good working tutorial till I asked bout it here and someone pointed me to a good tutoiral. Google is great but its kinda hard to find good help cuz some tutorials arent that good. There needs to be like a flash wiki or some realy good source for flash newbies. Oh and dont even get me started on PHP, it realy dose want to kill me.

if only the google magicians could build a forum searching tool. The preloader is a perfect example. Yes it's been asked here a million times but what about narrowing down the results to exactly what your problem is ie. 'My preloader doesnt work and I think it's a scope problem.'

I think there's a general divide among web devs. Some like flash, most hate it. If there were another way, trust me, I'd use it.
I think once flash becomes better integrated into html and can respond to the back button, we'll get another flood of newbies. yippie

i dont know. i see it moving in the opposite direction. as soon as the public gets weened off the back button, sites will function more like interactive tv channels instead of templated documents.

i think admedia is right about the buzz dying a little for flash. there was initially a lot of excitement about flash because people (Joshua Davis for example) were doing things with it that not even macromedia anticipated. now that its gone through several generations of improvements its much more powerful but the newness factor has gone away somewhat. more powerful in many ways means more intimidating to new users. its not a bad thing, imo. just the maturing process of a technology and the establishment of an industry niche.

I miss the old days :(

You're back now E... so bring back some of the ol' days too.

It's not just about the back button, it's about linking, bookmarking, security paranoia and other factors. The internet will become more interactive and animated but I don't know if flash will be the solution, at least in its present form, and the 'gurus' at Macromedia have said time and again they don't want to change flash to work with a browser, but as a separate layer. Maybe Adobe will change their minds and produce a version of flash that doesn't break so many browser metaphor 'rules' and user expectations.

Standards based design has really soared the last couple of years, I think that coding with markup, javascript, CSS and the likes of PHP appeals to developers more than flash. A lot of people are using flash on the web only as a way of perking up pages, not for developing whole sites. Personally I think this is a much better use for it.

Flashkit is the old leviathan of web design communities, it's big, unwieldy and parts of it seem to be falling off. But still people come here and there are still a lot of reasons to do so. I miss the old days too.

I quit because my interests lay elsewhere and I was frustrated with the support for the community from the powers that be. Flashkit needs an overhaul, not a respray but an engine rebuild.

Enough metaphors already.

livemotion 2. ahem.

webcam avatars baby. That'll bring back the spice.

About what time did the old days end? I hope i was apart of it

What is live motion 2?

I did join here back in 2002 and got lost with MX along with other things and now im back into it but after a large gap. I mostly search now.

The problem i have found is the sheer limitless possibilities on how to code. I think it does need redone because i find it confusing searching AS2.0 stuff when its so mixed. I cant think of a solution to the problem, but even the movie thing above dont have a version 8 dropbox.

I still appriciate the time people take to reply and show me guidence but i was just thinking i always seen this as the place to be for my flash needs but now i feel lost. :(

Thanks

Adobe Livemotion... it was an attempt to create a Flash competitor before Adobe just bought Macromedia.

Either way, it was a joke meant for Aversion.

ahh :P

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by aversion

Standards based design has really soared the last couple of years, I think that coding with markup, javascript, CSS and the likes of PHP appeals to developers more than flash. A lot of people are using flash on the web only as a way of perking up pages, not for developing whole sites. Personally I think this is a much better use for it.

---

Hasn't been my experience at all. The amount of available flash work has exploded here and in particular, more so for projects involving complete flash sites or applications. Not to say this is the case for all developers but, often times, I've found the objections to it to be based not on preference but simply that they don't like to leave their comfort zone to work in a different environment.

In the end, flash is still gaining ground because it can be used in so many ways. When it comes to stylizing interfaces and building web applications that actually feel like applications, no other technology is really competitive in terms of qualified workforce and turn-around time/cost.