Question

when building a simple swf file, is there any good reason why i shouldn’t make it compatible with flash player 6 and actionscript 2.0 so that I can maximize the compatibility across all browsers?

If there is a good reason why I shouldn’t do that, what would be the oldest version that I should use?

note: I am using progressive enhancement for the web site, but I’d like to get the flash movie on as many browsers as possible.

Thanks

Answer 1

First off, you’re not distributing Flash Player. You’re making a swf which will work in Flash Player. In which case, you can author for the oldest that supports the methods you’re using. Current Flash players are backwards compatible.

You can get an idea of which versions of Flash Player people have, here: http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplatformruntimes/statistics.html

If this just a video, then consider using HTML5 as well, with something like video.js to switch the video based on the platform. I don’t really consider Flash to be a “progressive enhancement” – CSS3 or HTML5 would be “progressive enhancements.”

I wont question your use of Flash as I don’t know what your goals are. I will just suggest that, if you haven’t, put a lot of thought into why you’re using Flash and if there’s a better alternative. Also, make sure you’re not causing problems (eg AS2 sluggishness) for the majority of your users, just to be able to function for a small minority of your users.