[Textbook-l] flash animations

[Daniel Mayer]

Karl wrote:
>IN a textbook I could see a place for some small 
>flash animations, for example to represent some 
>organic reactions. I poked around the site but 
>found nothing definitive, except a lack of mention 
>of flash usage. Could using flash animations 
>in some contexts be a viable option?

Heavens no! Macromedia Flash is a proprietary software
program that users would have to install separately
from their browser. In many cases this is difficult or
impossible (thinking of Linux and other
non-MS/non-Apple OSes). Animated GIFs are much better
because they work in nearly every browser without
requiring the user to install a plug-in. But all GIFs
have possible patent issues and are therefore not a
great option either. Hopefully MNG (the animated
version of the open source PNG image format) will be
supported by IE soon (users of IE need to install a
plug-in to see these last time I checked). Heck I say
we should use MNG for the textbooks since by the time
any one textbook gets any type of attention IE will
probably be able to display MNG animations out of the
box.  

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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