

Adobe makes CS5 preorder form Flash only. Alt title: Worst use of Flash ever. - toisanji
https://store1.adobe.com/cfusion/store/index.cfm?store=OLS-US&storeRegion=CA&pid=3668640&nr=0#categoryOid=4434037&loc=en_us&view=ols_prod&category=/Applications/DesignPremium&store=OLS-US

======
cpr
They've been Flashizing their entire web site for years; their online store
has been Flash for a while.

And, yes, now we can all see why we hate Flash so much.

Adobe's attempt to create a proprietary web platform is destined to fail.

~~~
tjmc
Ex-Macromedian here. It was the release of Flex (which generates Flash UIs by
default) that started this trend. It was clear to me from the start that MM
(now Adobe) had made a bad move with Flex because all the examples
reimplemented basic HTML form + JS functionality in Flash, with a bonus
"Loading" window at the start.

I know a lot of otherwise bright devs that were drawn to Flex by the MVC
paradigms that littered the tutorials. Classic 'Architecture Astronaut' stuff
as Spolsky would describe it which really didn't translate to delivery of
better sites for users, especially once the JS frameworks took off.

In my view, the decision to trade off user experience and established
standards for developer convenience is never the right one, but I guess it's a
temptation if you're in the dev tools business.

------
edj
Talk about lock in. I wasn't able to back-button back to HN.

~~~
tzs
It also breaks scrolling with the scroll wheel.

It's almost as if they are trying to prove Jobs was right when he said code
written non-natively sucks. (In this case, native would be HTML + Javascript).

~~~
RyanMcGreal
>It's almost as if they are trying to prove Jobs was right

If the Flash compiled to crappy HTML+Javascript I'd agree with your analogy.

~~~
tdmackey
Flash CS5 allows you to export your flash to html5 canvas so in the not to
distant future it will be a reality.

------
mcodik
The best part is that even Adobe can't get their own flash working well... A
"TypeError: Error #1034: Type Coercion failed: cannot convert
mx.collections::ArrayCollection@2377c381 to Array" exception popped up in a
modal dialog when it loaded (I'm using the debug version of flash). Awesome.

------
chaosmachine
I guess eating your own dog food doesn't always taste that great.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
More like force-feeding your dog food to potential customers.

------
wizzard
I had an empty dialog box pop up on load that just had an "OK" button. No text
ever loaded so I finally just clicked it.

The whole page took like 20 seconds to load and I can't use my scroll wheel.
How annoying. And yeah, I can't use the back button.

~~~
pinstriped_dude
When you change the first value from "Full" to "Upgrade" or vice-versa, an
empty dialog box pops up, with no text and a Ok button. I have to clcik on it
twice to dismiss it. IE on Win XP!

------
billjings
Jesus christ! Something in the order form wants to chat with me!

~~~
pyman
That was scary, I have to admit.

------
ilike
That page crashed Firefox 3.6.3 on OSX 10.5.6! You need to have some
ridiculously embarrassing development skills to build something like this.

Learn to use Flash, Adobe.

------
jeff18
I'm not seeing the Flash form in Chrome on Mac OS X.

~~~
tvon
Interesting, Chrome is directed to an HTML page, but Safari and Firefox show a
full-page swf (which is piss slow to load, and clunky as hell).

It's not just the form though, it's the whole page. They have even replaced
the browser scrollbar with a Flash-based scrollbar.

The page is basically a poster child for why people hate Flash.

~~~
pavs
I have tried Chrome, FF, IE, Opera and safari on windows, none of them give me
flash page.

~~~
tvon
Mhm, do you have Flash installed?

I just tested in IE (in VMWare) and it gave me the flash page.

edit: maybe a/b testing?

~~~
pavs
Yes I have flash installed. Also, on latest Chrome builds Flash is integrated
into Chrome, so even if I didn't have it should have worked on Chrome.

Its possible they are doing a/b testing, obviously some of you guys are
getting flash.

~~~
tvon
I was thinking the failure for Chrome was UA-sniffing related, but it could be
a/b testing as well.

------
samratjp
Ah darn, too bad there isn't a Silverlight version for the rest of us :p

~~~
hackermom
Or just an HTML version from the start, for the entire world, regardless of
what/where/who.

~~~
prodigal_erik
Nah, they're buying Flash, therefore it's better to remind them how badly it
sucks when something important to them can't be done without Flash.

------
radley
Not sure when they switched to a Flash-based store, but when CS4 was released
the store was so overloaded you couldn't load the site. If you disabled Flash
you could visit the HTML version just fine.

------
pg
It broke the back button for me.

Why is the kerning so bad?

I don't have an unusual setup (Firefox 3.0.1 on Mac OS X 10.5).

~~~
samratjp
It broke mine as well (Firefox 3.6.3 on OS X 10.5).

------
aarongough
Interestingly if you view the page source you will notice there are 2830
characters of whitespace before the DTD. There are lots of weird tabs in
there... It looks like the tabs are for some sort of server-side code that is
being parsed/removed but the whitespace is being left in the rendered
document.

That might seem like a small issue, but imagine how much traffic their site
gets. ~2.8Kb of wasted bandwidth for every request...

~~~
maukdaddy
Reminds me of old-school FrontPage sites.

~~~
aarongough
Yeah, in this case the page is rendered by ColdFusion. Which i'm guessing is
the root of the issue!

------
oconnor0
Is that alt title commentary or is it actually in the page? I couldn't find it
in the source, at least.

~~~
seiji
Yeah, it's a misleading HN title. I thought the page was from a disgruntled
designer too.

Though -- why does the source of their page start with 100 empty lines? Do
they think it'll stop people from scrolling down and seeing the source of the
page?

~~~
prawn
Unless you suppress whitespace (not sure if it's always a default setting),
ColdFusion will render blank lines where CFML has been run.

------
mortenjorck
Think of the poor devs.

"Hey, guess what part of the site you AS3 guys are going to be working on for
a Q2 launch! Yes, technically it does involve animation!"

------
Karzyn
The HTML page, for comparison:

[https://store1.adobe.com/cfusion/store/html/index.cfm?store=...](https://store1.adobe.com/cfusion/store/html/index.cfm?store=OLS-
US&#categoryOid=4434037&loc=en_us&view=ols_prod&category=/Applications/DesignPremium&store=OLS-
US)

------
sketerpot
I clicked on the form wrong and suddenly the tab was filled with Chrome's "Aw,
Snap!" error. I'm impressed at how Flash is enhancing web usability with rich
graphics and multimedia experiences. (Error messages are an experience,
right?)

------
jsyedidia
If you run top while you're there you can see Safari and WebKitPlugin (I'm on
Mac OS 10.6) start churning away in the %CPU column, even while you're doing
nothing but reading a page.

~~~
mattlong
Firefox (on Windows 7) only uses 1% CPU while idling.

------
dbrannan
It has been an Adobe Flex form for quite a while now. I have used it several
times in the past and have never had a problem. Personally, I kind of like
RIAs.

------
icco
Umm, I don't have flash and I was able to go through the purchase process
fine. (I'm on the firefox Nightlies on Linux)

~~~
tvon
Does not _require_ Flash (Chrome seems to be directed to HTML), but if you
have Flash you will see the entire page is a Flash swf (except some people
aren't seeing it, but it seems that most are).

------
tuxychandru
It is not flash-only. It degrades well to a HTML page if you don't have flash.

~~~
somebear
Except I have Click to Flash installed in Safari, and it still insists on that
full screen flash monstrosity.

~~~
tvon
ClickToFlash behaves as if Flash is installed and working, it just prevents it
from being displayed.

In other words, you will always see that gray 'Flash' box with ClickToFlash
instead of getting any no-flash fallback content that may be setup.

Unfortunately I don't think there is an easy way to temporarily and completely
disable Flash in Safari for sans-Flash testing.

~~~
mattdw
> _Unfortunately I don't think there is an easy way to temporarily and
> completely disable Flash in Safari for sans-Flash testing_

Prefs -> Security -> Uncheck "Enable Plugins", refresh.

~~~
tvon
Damn, it's right there isn't it? Thank you.

------
pyman
Friendly fire?

------
hackermom
Oh boy :D Sorry, I have no other words.

------
Zakuzaa
Facepalm. :|

------
tomlin
A company used their own product to do something on their website. Oh no!
Let's all cry about it.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
More like: a company's use of its own product to do something on its website
demonstrates how poorly the product is suited to that particular activity.

