Carousel is a very hot effect among Flash and Silverlight. Although there are many readily available Carousel Class on the web, you may still want to explore the Mathematics behind. That is! Here is an example for your reference.
I will add a drill down effect to extend the functionality of the Carousel.
Vote for this sample
Comparison
Flash implementation: 20 minutes
Silverlight implementation: 40 minutes (Implemented First)
What’s the difference?
- Development IDE: FDT - Flash Development Tools [AS3] vs Visual Studio 2008 [C#]
Source codes
Image Carousel [Flash 9, AS3] (187 KiB, 3,136 hits)
- Image Carousel [Silverlight 2, C#] (241.4 KiB, 3,288 hits)
Flash
Silverlight
Development IDE: FDT - Flash Development Tools [AS3] vs Visual Studio 2008 [C#]
Today, I am going to talk about my working environment.
If you are Flash Developer, I think you will understand that it’s completely impossible to use Flash 9 as your coding tool. You will just like working as if using Notepad. Anyway, I am currently using a Eclipse plug-in FDT as my primary Development Tool. The reason I choose this one is because it has a very good library management and also the code completion feature.
Of course, Flex also provide the same features. However, Flex is an extensive tool which always takes up a lot of computer resources. Hence, the speed is much slower.
For Silverlight, I think you don’t have much choice other than using Visual Studio 2008. But you may not know that I did not use Blend for creating any of the samples in this Blog. The reason is very simple. I still haven’t installed the Blend.
September 20th, 2008 at 3:10 am
I am enjoying all the comparisons on your website. Keep up the great work!
Is there a way to capture the scroll events inside Silverlight / Flash (when they have focus) so it doesn’t bubble up and scroll the browser window?
September 20th, 2008 at 4:39 am
Hi mike. Thanks for you suport!!
I don’t think Silverlight itself can handle it since it even can’t handler mouse scroll event yet.
However, I think it still possible but may be you have to deal with the Javascript.
September 21st, 2008 at 11:13 am
Well seeing as the Flash version worked and the Silverlight version left me with an “Install Siverlight” button, I’ll say that the Flash version is better.
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:29 am
well, I’m a programmer of .NET , I study Silverlight now. I like the Silverlight version more.
thanks.
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:37 pm
hey guys
whats the difference between both??
I’m using chrome and silver light is completely unresponsive!!
what if user is on linux??
Flex/ flash is better !!
September 22nd, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Yo,
The only difference that i found from the samples above is Flash sample shown bad quality images. Let’s look at the red box named AW and compare both.
i dont think plugin is an issue. And soon Silverlight will be supported by Linux with Moonlight. I will prefer to make the Silverlight option larger because it is in XML form and it is Search Engine friendly. But Silverlight still needs alot of improvement in terms of integration. Even if it is between ASP.Net and Silverlight projects, they support different CLR…so they cant talk directly. I would prefer to use flash component if I would to display a flash based chart showing sales result.
Regards,
Chris
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:53 pm
Hissam,
You are right, Silverlight is not working in Chrome now.
Chris Par, I think you are right. Our goal is to choose the most appropriate technology to serve the needs of the client.
September 25th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
[...] Flash vs Silverlight: Image Carousel [...]
October 24th, 2008 at 3:06 am
The lower quality images in the flash version is a result of the method and settings used to create the swf. If you download the flash source file you will notice that the images are embedded in the swf. Now just open the properties for each of the images and change the compression setting from Photo (JPEG) to “Lossless (PNG/GIF)”, recompile the swf and you will see that image quality in the example above is simply due to a poor choice in settings within Flash.
October 27th, 2008 at 1:21 am
Nym, thanks for the suggestion. Acutally, I prefer to use a compressoin size of 85% to compress the movie. Through the resolution is poor, it makes the swf smaller.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
I was just observing comments by others above noting the poor image quality in the Flash version. the swf above is around what 34k or so? changing compressions settings in flash to “Lossless” increased the compiled swf to around 127k (only ~20k larger than the Silverlight xap) after tweaking the bitmap properties a bit more allowing smoothing and setting quality to 95 the compiled swf is only around 46k and the image quality significantly improved and becomes comparable to the quality seen in the Silverlight version. At 100 the visual quality is identical and the compiled swf weighs in at 81k still about 40k less than the Silverlight version.
I personally prefer the best visual quality possible. Of course clients are sometimes more concerned with file size. I believe the best thing to do in the end is provide a lower quality version of such an interactive piece that will download quickly for those poor souls still utilizing dial up connections but provide a higher quality (visually speaking) alternative to those that can handle it.
December 1st, 2008 at 4:22 pm
What i feel is flash is better,
bcoz i dont know y silverlight install page comes up even if i have installed it.
December 3rd, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Funny thing….even after installing the plug in and restarting FireFox, the Silverlight version wouldn’t appear on the page, however the Flash version did.
I’d say score one for cross browser.
December 18th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
I will understand if it is not possible to answer this question here.
For a newbie to flash is there an guide that can help me get the carousel flash demo to work using CS4? So that I can play around with it?
Thanks in advance,
Cliff
December 19th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Cliff, thanks for the question. Acutally, I dont’ have CS4 install. However, I believe you cant still open the sample I provided.
January 5th, 2009 at 7:01 am
Bonjour,
Je n’arrive pas a rajouter de lien sur votre carrousel en flash, comment faire?
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:04 am
Adobe started working with search engine companies in early 2008 and Google has been able to read swfs for quite some time. (even before Adobe started working with them) It is incorrect to say Flash is not searchable.
The responsibility for what search engines can or cannot index is the responsibility of the company operating the search engines. Adobe of course opening up their player has helped with improvements in this area.
It is also misleading to assume that since XAML is based on xml that Silverlight should be easily searchable. The fact is that any C# used is compiled as a resource so you essentially have the same issue in those parts that you would have with the Flash binary. Additionally any graphics with text and such would not be any more searchable than gif/jpg/png files on an html page without the appropriate tags.
January 28th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Cool carousel effect, works perfectly
I was wondering if it is possible to create a endless loop with this script.
So if the last image is called, the next image is equal to the first, endless scroll :) (flash version)
Somebody?
Thanks.
sand
February 9th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
hi..
Nice carousel…work perfectly…
Is it possible to call images through remote server in silverlight?
So if anyone has images on remote server, he can use this carousel…
Thanks.
Tweety
February 9th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
You may call the images remotely from the server. If those images are in the same domain with the application, it works perfectly.
If not, you have to setup cross domain policy. Please referece from the following article:
http://timheuer.com/blog/archive/2008/04/06/silverlight-cross-domain-policy-file-snippet-intellisense.aspx
February 10th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Hi..
Thanks for quick reply…
I have my images on same domain…But I am all new in silverlight.
So would you please give me some details to call images through remote server in carousel.
Thanks….
Tweety
February 27th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
the comparision is really good. i would like to know one thing. can the silverlight version be used to view the images stored in the computer memory i.e can it be used like the WINDOWS PICTURE & FAX VIEWER???
if yes then how.
March 22nd, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Hi,
I’m trying to build an application which will allow feeding real time text to the images and then rotate the images together with the new text around
Does anyone know if it is possible?
Thanks
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:23 am
Good demo and comparison. But for a better comparison, I suggest using an Animation loop in the Silverlight example. This is a best practice for Silverlight 2 and it will perform much better. An Animation runs on its own thread and does not compete with other UI events. This may apply to many of your other examples as well.
June 3rd, 2009 at 3:48 pm
I tried the silverlight part. looks really cool.
I modified it to include the click(forward and backward) in it.