About

When we set out to build FluidHtml, we had four basic goals in mind:

1. Address the search and deeplinking problems of Flash� so we can use Flash for websites.

2. Development, operation and support of RIAs should be ordinary, intuitive and consistent with the normal, best practices of the web

3. It should be easy to create rich media websites, content and applications (RIAs, for short). Everyone that can code HTML should be able to build RIAs.

4. Make it possible to build large, complex websites with rich, fun, entertaining user interfaces.

Before FluidHtml, we've all been faced with a really annoying set of tradeoffs between elegance and complexity; and between design objectives and business objectives. We wanted to fix that.

So, we took a new approach.

Markup should be easy and hence our markup language is patterned after HTML. In fact, it's basically an extension or a superset of HTML and learning FluidHtml will be easy for most HTML developers.

To make our markup work in Flash, we use an interpreter � FHTML.SWF � which reads the FluidHtml markup served on the browser page, and then renders the layout, effects, behaviors and instructions in the markup.

The markup language supports very powerful commands (tags) and can do remarkable things that take enormous development effort in Flash. Importantly, the FluidHtml interpreter has been written to essentially eliminate latency typically associated with interpreted code.

Within the language, you will find our liquid layout engine, which applies the concepts of cascading style sheets, but is also a kind of update of CSS with more flexibility and power than traditional CSS.

You'll also find our animation engine, which provides you with an easy way to build very powerful animations with relative ease.

FluidHtml has no server-side dependencies. You can use any back-end technology that you like.

FluidHtml is modular by nature - it only uses the modules requested in the markup it interprets. So, if you want a mediaPlayer, it will load that module.

FluidHtml is a partially open language. This means that while the core FluidHtml kernel cannot be expanded by other developers, the effects and animations, buttons, sliders, style sheets, and layouts can be shared publicly (if you choose).

Additionally, developers can extend FluidHtml and make their own modules. FluidHtml is free on a development or lab basis for registered developers. We impose a watermark on content in development mode. To remove the watermark and deploy FluidHtml live, you will need to upgrade your license to a production license.

Benefits

Searchable Flash - RIAs created in FluidHtml are as searchable as HTML. Please see our tips for SEO.

Deeplinking works - Now your SEM team can run marketing campaigns that link directly to the content, product or service that they are promoting.

Easy to use - FluidHtml makes it much easier to build RIAs. Whereas ActionScript, the authoring language for Flash, is hard to learn and requires serious programming skills, anyone that can code HTML can code FluidHtml.

Lower development costs - FluidHtml RIAs can be developed by less expensive programmers and require fewer man hours to build than Flash.

Lower support costs - Changes and updates to compiled applications are a costly pain in the butt. With FluidHtml, changes are as normal as HTML updates and have associated, much lower costs. Change your site daily if you like.

Dynamic content generation - 1,000s of pages assembled from assets in a CMS � like the normal web � and these pages can be assembled based upon user data, input, changing of the seasons,� any computed element.

Faster time to market - RIAs, by their very nature, tend to require more effort in design. With compiled applications, this can be very time consuming because each design iteration requires multiple time consuming steps. FluidHtml greatly improves upon this because our served and interpreted approach makes rapid prototyping a snap.

Power and efficiency - Developers can now apply important concepts such as style sheets and theming to the development of rich media applications. Up til now, that has not been possible.

Animation - FluidHtml has a remarkably powerful animation engine that allows you to generate scripted animations on the fly.

Complete Animated Websites - Complete websites with thousands of pages can be built in FluidHtml - this is unthinkable in Flash.

3D - FluidHtml makes complex 3D animations easy - something that's exceedingly difficult in Flash 10.

Runtime Databinding - FluidHtml supports databinding so that one object's behavior can be linked to another object dynamically.

Websites within websites - FluidHtml supports Flash-within-flash and can display websites within websites.

Liquid Layout - FluidHtml has a liquid layout engine which means that objects will maintain their relative position to each other as the page is re-sized and modified.