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Getting character moving without using flash

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  • 04-04-2011 11:28am
    #1
    Mike_Eile
    Registered Users Posts: 124 ✭✭


    Hi there,

    I have been asked by a client to do a website for him. I'm going to do it in Wordpress. One of his requirements is to have a picture of a frog moving on his website. When i say 'moving', he has basically supplied me with 6 photographs with movements in the frog's mouth, so basically his mouth is opening and his tongue is coming out and then going back in.

    I'm trying to stay away from using Adobe Flash as it's not good for SEO and is not supported by Apple. Have I any other options in relation to this and getting the frog moving? How about HTML 5? Any advice would help. Thank you.


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    #2
    pixelburp
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 35,941 CMod ✭✭✭✭pixelburp


    Tasteful! ;)
    Avoiding flash for SEO reasons is only relevent if text is going to be lost within the flash; naturally you want all your text and static imagery to be HTML goodness.

    But for a small animated widget sitting in the corner of your website, it's fine to do the frog as a flash SWF if the rest of the page is standard mark-up.


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    #3
    Placebo
    Registered Users Posts: 8,070 ✭✭✭Placebo


    could make that a gif if its only 6 frames?
    will look awful either way


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    #4
    Mike_Eile
    Registered Users Posts: 124 ✭✭Mike_Eile


    Thanks Pixelblurb.

    It's actually going to take up about 3/5 of the page above the fold. It's going to be quite a large part of their homepage. It would be grand if it was just a small widget on their home page.

    Gifs never really do the job to be honest. Quality is very poor.

    Any other thoughts would be appreciated.


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    #5
    pixelburp
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 35,941 CMod ✭✭✭✭pixelburp


    Uhm, pixelburp Jeez... :)

    well flash's really the only way to go for per-frame animation; I think you could do it with HTML5 and messing about with the canvas tag but tbh that's more trouble than it's worth.

    Best idea off the top of my head would be to output the flash into a div using something like SWFobject, then layer / position your HTML text over it (using position absolute et al).


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    #6
    Mike_Eile
    Registered Users Posts: 124 ✭✭Mike_Eile


    Thanks Pixelburp! :) Apologies.

    I'll probably give that a go and see how it pans out. Thanks again for your help. I do appreciate it.


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    #7
    Deliverance
    Registered Users Posts: 1,674 ✭✭✭Deliverance


    Have a look at jQuery and see if you can use it to swap the images in sequence to create the effect...

    http://api.jquery.com/category/effects/

    Depends on how the animation is triggered I guess. Is it a rollover effect or does it just happen without user interaction?

    The useful thing about a jQurey solution is that it is compatible with mobile as well;)


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    #8
    cormee
    Registered Users Posts: 1,801 ✭✭✭cormee


    This is one of those rare occasions when Flash is actually the most suitable tool.

    You won't be able to SEO an image (beyond the filename and alt text - both of which you can add to your Flash animation) anyway so regardless of the technology used you're not losing any optimisation.

    Put the flash animation in a div whose background image is the frog, that way when it's not rendered on an Apple device the static image will show.


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