I have been spending time on templatemonster.com and i notice a lot of sites are done in or with flash.

I want to see what people think about that, is flash a good thing or should it be stright HTML because not everyone is on a highspeed connection or has flash!

Flash is great to highlight or emphasise certain points. If done correctly flash can proove to really give a wow factor. If done incorrectly - well i guess the page wont even load lol. Basically use it in moderation but also think what connection your target market has and what they would be more interested in super quick loading site or a nice flashy looking one.

I think flash is good, but only if it is small and without any sounds.

I don't really see what's so great about it. Uses loading time up.

Well the loading time is longer and if new costumers come to your site and it loads slow they will say this host is to slow better not host me site here

Well flash is ok when used to a minimum. Some sites that made completey with flash can get annoying and takes a while to get use to and loading time can take a while.

Flas is ok in moderation.

yes i agree, a little bit flah is good but too much takes too long to load

to point this out right away, i'm not an average user, and i have more control over what i see when i browse than most people do, since most people use ie (and i definitely don't :P).

i don't install flashwave, shock, etc because i've found that not many sites use them in an enhancing way. i'd rather not wait for large files to dl that aren't going to add anything to the rest of the page and more often than not usually turn out to be annoying, especially when i'm stuck with 56k. on most sites, i'm able to surf just fine without having the plugins, but if the site i'm viewing requires me to have flash to navigate their site, for example, i leave and don't go back.

my advice would be: if flash enhances your site, go for it. i'd agree with the small and tasteful comments given previously. however, remember there are people who will never see it, and have a workaround for them so they aren't alienated by their lack of options.

When I see Flash, I run. It's best left for a sites fun section for games or for demo reasons explaining how to use a control panel. It doesn't belong on the welcome page.

i think its ok as long as it does not take someone on dial up more than 10 to 15 secs to load.

Don't refuse progress. Flash like every thing can be use in a bad way. And if it's done right, it can be lighter and nicer than regular html/picture.
You can have ugly and heavy website only with picture/html, but you don't disable picture for that...

Flash is a nice thing to have if not used excessively.

Example of what I think is good with flash
- Small flash header with no sound. You click the "show presentation", "show intro", etc. option, it have a little show for you with some audio tweaked into it. Make sure the audio is not some overdone audio either.

Flash can be nice if used correctly. I personaly don't like flash. But that's just me.

flash is good, but if used correctly.

Flash is good if you maintain a fairly low filesize, if not you've got all the people on 56k waiting for something to load. By fairly low i mean it depends on what your using flash for, if its an intro filesize doesn't really matter, also it depends what kind of website, full flash sites can be big filesizes but most of those sites are viewed by other designers with DSL, or Cable. For a hosting site though i'd say the filesize would need to be kept as low as possible, since your gonna have people clicking through pages.

I dont think flash is too great these days, too many sites use the same/similar effects and its overdun.

Content is more important and structure anyday.

the correctly u used the fine you will get

I think it really depends on the design itself. If flash can be intergrated in it nicely, I would definately do it. Flash can give it the final touches. I know some of my favorites sites have flash in them. Can look pretty sharp if you put a lot of thought into it.

Yes. If used correctly like everyone says, flash can be an asset to a website. These days, flash can be combined with actionscript to give sites using flash more flexibility. If you use too much flash, then it can make your visitor turn away because it doesn't load or is taking too long. The same thing can also go for images on a website, if you have too many then the site can take ages to load.

You can also create flash which is dynamic, this is good if you include files into the design, this means that the flash file itself is smaller because it uses outside files for text/content.

It all depends on the designer and the sites design.

Small websites with little content could offer 2 versions of their website. One with flash and one without. This isn't a good idea for larger websites unless you fancy making all of them updates... unless you obviously use dynamic content (which would still take a while though). You could also use a flash detection script for this, if they don't have it installed, you can either ask them if they wwant to install it, or you can direct them to the non-flash version of your website.

I don't think that visitors without flash installed should be considered because they can always install it. And if they don't want to, then it's their loss. It's always best to offer a link to the free flash download just in case.

These are just my views on flash :)