In today’s world the language of computers are considered as equally as essential as the language we speak today. From its beginnings to the present day computer language has become an even larger part of the web world. Two well-known applications used in web development are jQuery and Adobe Flash.
jQuery is a new type of fast and concise JavaScript library which emphasizes the interaction between JavaScripts and HTML, whereas Flash is a multimedia platform which can control vector and raster graphics and even support bidirectional streaming of audio and video. The functionality of these two applications helped to create popular animation and interactivity to a plain and simple webpage, which was not possible before. There are many additional intriguing things that one can do with these two applications, which is slowly taking over the world.
Since its release in the year 1996, Adobe Flash has become quite a popular way of incorporating animation and different types of interactivity to the web pages. Thanks to its scripting language called the ActionScript, Flash took animation to a new level altogether. Then in the year 2006, jQuery came into being and took over as the most popular JavaScript for use by the web developers. Designed to make navigation round a document easier and faster, jQuery enables the user to very effectively find and manipulate HTML elements with minimum lines of codes. Even though it isn’t known to be the best solution for 3-D and vector based graphics, the flexibility of jQuery is really quite impressive which makes it a lot better alternative to Flash.
Regarding Flash, some of the positive factors include its extensive features, 3D capabilities, unfailing appearance in supported browsers, built-in User Interface and other features, supporting vector artworks, lots of font options and off course many free and commercial tools are also available here. Whereas in jQuery, the file size is comparatively much smaller, there are numerous free professional quality programs that one can use, one can add various types of interactivity to the webpage elements and its tags and its compatibility is much higher compared with that of Flash, which includes iPhone, cell phones, PS3 and PSP.
Based on the unique abilities of these two applications it’s important that you understand when you should use one over the other. For instance if you are planning to create a Slide Show, Form Validation, Drop-down Menus, Tabbed Panels, Pop-ups & Tool-tips, and Expandable & Collapsible Elements then it’s ideal to use jQuery. On the other hand Flash is the better choice for working with Video or Audio Player, complex Animations, 3Ds and other forms of complex Multimedia . As more plug-ins are made available it can become a lot more hard to know what to use but you can make a decision by first analyzing your needs and then choosing the technology that can be used to achieve your goal.
With the continued expansion of the internet developers are continuously creating new technologies to supply alternatives that are simple and user-friendly so that users can get the best results from the software that they use.
If you need more information about flash components or you want to get some flash components, don’t forget to read my previous articles.