Another option for an MC plugin

[Richard Gaskin]

When most clients or marketing types say they want to be able to run MC
stuff inside a browser window, what they're not thinking about is the need
to download, install, and support a new plugin.  What they're really
thinking about is the Flash or Java experience, in which pre-installed
components simply run whatever you put in the page.

If you walk them through the practical ramifications of requiring end-users
to download and install a new plugin (in which a large majority of any user
for whom the plugin is not critical to their work will simply bypass the
media that requires it and surf on), the next question they'll have is
likely:  "Why not just build it in Flash?"

In thinking abut this further, it seems the benefits of MC and the
limitations of an MC plugin can both be accounted for by turning the problem
on its head:

How about generating SWF files from MC?

The file format is openly available, and with the subset of things one would
do in a plugin I suspect the task of translating relevant MC bytecode to
ActionScript bytecode would not be as daunting as it seems.

Making a plugin woud satisfy a marketing bullet point, but in a way that
would rarely be used in practice.  Generating SWF satisfies that bullet
point in a much more efective way, and rather than competing in the plugin
wars with Macromedia they would instead become a comarketing force for it.

What are the downsides?

-- 
 Richard Gaskin 
 Fourth World Media Corporation
 Developer of WebMerge 2.2: Publish any database on any site
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