Cape Breton website design and multimedia development.

If you are reading this article because you're in the market for a new website or looking to update your existing website, the first thing you might ask yourself is "why does this matter to me?"

The answer would be, "it does… and it doesn't."

The most important statement to preface this article is to note that Flagship, in all cases, will recommend and choose the proper tools and techniques to develop and design your website.

So, why does it matter? Well it's important to realize that these are two very different approaches which are in many cases trying to achieve the same thing.

You may have heard of FLASH and know it to be the 'plugin' that makes websites move and look cool. And while it does that, it does much more. FLASH technology has advanced and evolved in ways whereby it's no longer just a way to animate a website, but it can be a fully immersive, interactive experience that can control and drive both the front end (user interface) of a website and the back end (server). FLASH, over the last 5 years, has become so pervasive that it's really not a 'plugin' anymore and is integrated into most popular browsers. Versions of FLASH require updating, however to properly view websites using the latest features.

DHTML (or Dynamic HTML) is an umbrella term used to describe a group of technologies which together can create an interactive, engaging and animated user experience. While combining a set of technologies may sound like a more complicated approach over using just one (FLASH), it really isn't. In fact, the DHTML approach can actually provide more choices and flexibility by letting the developer (us) combine different techniques to satisfy the requirements laid out by the client (you). Static markup (HTML), look and feel (CSS) and scripting (JavaScript) are a few of the common elements you might have heard of that are encompassed within DHTML.

Both techniques have their strengths and weaknesses.

FLASH for example has mastered the delivery of video on the web. The term 'Rich Media' is basically synonymous with FLASH as its 'animation' and 'persistent presentation' features are second to none. And a proprietary built in scripting language sews it all together for a fully interactive experience.

DHTML on the other hand is like cooking a world class meal the old fashioned way. To this day, it can be created and maintained with a standard text editor. In many ways it can achieve similar objectives using less code and simple solutions. Proper development practices can make it more accessible and compatible with nearly all operating systems, browsers and devices. The separation of techniques (code, design, scripting) makes maintenance and updating, in many ways, quicker and easier. Last but not least, websites and content developed with DHTML are more accessible to search engines and web crawlers.

So, before this article gets too full of tech babble and geek speak, we'll finish with this - if you don't want to think about this anymore, quite frankly you don't have to. We think about it all the time and in the end, Flagship is more than happy to be told, "This is what I need it to do" and you can rest assured we'll know how to do it (in more ways than one).