An Architect's View

10 responses so far ↓

• 1 Kyle Hayes // May 18, 2007 at 3:48 PM

  Ew HTML? You guys should do this in Flash or Flex...It has been so bad in the past, you should definitely convert it to Flash or Flex! LOL, just kidding, looks and works great!

• 2 Derek Vadneau // May 18, 2007 at 7:49 PM

  Not sure why people would be happy about it NOT being Flash. Scrolling sucks.
  
  The Category dropdown is not the default behaviour for a dropdown in Firefox (fine in IE).
  
  The Filter options "link" isn't obvious that it's a link.
  
  I understand when there's a move to HTML for certain aspects of a site, but I thought the exchange was a pretty good place to use Flash. It needed work in some respects, but now it looks like it's taken a step backwards. Just my first impression ...

• 3 TJ Downes // May 19, 2007 at 9:53 AM

  I do not disagree with Derek. The "new" HTML version really seems to be a resurrection of the old version, before the Flash version. I also believe the Exchange would be an excellent use of Flex.

• 4 Calvin // May 21, 2007 at 2:33 AM

  It does feel like Adobe is taking a step backwards as they are removing Flash/Flex from a place that seems appropriate according to their own marketing materials.

• 5 Dan G. Switzer, II // May 21, 2007 at 7:04 AM

  @Derek:
  
  My biggest issue w/the Flash-based Exchange was finding the right plug-in was a real PITA. It's much easier for me to go through a search list and open each link in a new tab--which was impossible with the old Flash interface.
  
  This meant when hunting for something in Exchange, I had to view each item and click back. This was an extremely slow going process (as the Flash interface constantly had to reload all the information.)
  
  Because of this, I basically stopped using Exchange. It used to be something I'd frequently, but since moving to the Flash interface, I've probably only looked there for code snippets maybe a half dozen times in the past couple of years.

• 6 Sean Corfield // May 21, 2007 at 9:43 AM

  Folks in the community were always very divided about the Flash UI on the Exchange. A lot of CFers absolutely hated it and were extremely vocal about it. Users of the other products mostly didn't care either way. It's hard to tell how much of the noise was based purely on anti-Flash sentiment and how much was really based on actual usability.
  
  When the Flash UI was originally launched, it definitely had usability problems and a couple of UI updates were made to address most of the complaints - adding easy ways to navigate back and forth between detail page and search results, for example. I think a lot of people made up their mind based on the original UI and never looked at the updates. They just hated the Flash UI, period. Dan's comments are exactly the sort of thing I mean - the view item / click back workflow *was* improved and was lightning fast after the tweaks (because the detail panel was merely overlaid on the search panel - there was no "constant reloading" - but he's right that you couldn't open detail pages in new tabs and that was a drawback).
  
  But the points made above both pro and con are reasonable and very telling perhaps of how people's positions have changed in four years regarding Flash.
  
  Before I left Web Team the Exchange had been a hot topic for years. Several of us - me included - advocated for an HTML alternative to run side-by-side. A group of us also discussed the possibility of a really out there Flash UI that wasn't just a replica of an HTML application... perhaps the ability to drag extensions out into a "notepad" as thumbnails and then the ability to tile them so you could compare them side-by-side? Lots of interesting possibilities.

• 7 Dan G. Switzer, II // May 21, 2007 at 9:57 AM

  @Sean: I'm not anti-Flash. However, it was not lightening fast for me.
  
  Perhaps it's because I have my browser set up to not cache data, but whenever I'd click "Back" to a search results, it would take a good 3-5 seconds for the page to refresh and return me to where I was.
  
  This was definitely a huge hindrance to me. I just find I couldn't navigate and view information as quickly as I wanted.

• 8 Sean Corfield // May 21, 2007 at 10:10 AM

  @Dan, you were clicking the wrong button. There was a close button that simply removed the details overlay and revealed the search results - no reloading at all.

• 9 Matt Robertson // May 21, 2007 at 2:08 PM

  The html interface is a very welcome change. Whether a manufacturer is able to showcase a given product is entirely secondary to my being able to use the site for its intended purpose in as quick and efficient of a manner as possible.
  
  I learned to live with the Flash interface, and it did indeed improve, but it was never optimal and was always a step backward in terms of usability. Dan brings up a major problem with the new window/multiple choice issue.
  
  Another problem a lot of developers don't appreciate is bandwidth. I am often on site and restricted to either a dialup or -- hopefully -- cellular broadband. On a 49k the Exchange was not unusable... but it was close. Using cellular broadband I can get up to 600k connections, which is sufficient for Flash; but depending on the location I could be at 100k and there again we're at the marginally-useful point on the curve.
  
  You can clean up the scrolling -- I agree its too much -- with a little judicious restructuring of your grids. The beta is a great start and a welcome change.

• 10 Sean Corfield // May 21, 2007 at 3:36 PM

  And just a reminder that I don't work for Adobe so if you have feedback, you probably ought to fill out the feedback form (at the bottom of every adobe.com page) to let them know what you think!

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