Removing Flash from Homepages

As the world shifts more and more to mobile technology, the sad fact is that Flash has become the victim of Apple-based mobile technology.  Native web browsers such as Safari cannot play Flash files on iPhones and  iPads without a specific app installed or the device is jailbroken.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t make sense to feature Flash on homepages if they don’t play on all browsers, so for the time being, we don’t recommend using Flash on homepages.

The good news is there are some great jQuery scripts out there that allow for linkable slideshow presentations, and offer nice transition effects and sexy display options. For examples of some non-Flash sliders, check out Helly Hansen, Newport’s site, which uses the “Ultimate Fade-in Slide show,” available here.  Or look at my own site makeover at www.theatriumdesign.com, which uses the jQuery Easy Slides v1.1.

Many newer WordPress and Joomla themes are taking advantage of jQuery sliders, such as the one you see on my blog homepage.  The theme for this blog is called Highlight, and it offers no less than 4 different jQuery slider options!  Sweet!   Made it very hard to decide which one to use.  In the end, I chose the Content Slider, which allows you to add html text directly to the slider.  In my opinion, this makes it even better than Flash, since the text is now SEO friendly.

There are plenty of great jQuery sliders out there, and I’m interested in knowing which ones you like.  Leave me a comment and I’ll check them out.

Meanwhile, I still like Flash, and hope that someday it will be in favor with Apple… why can’t we all just get along?

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