On a similar track, I’d highly recommend taking a look at the X2O Framework (www.x2oframework.com). It’s not exactly like Gaia because its more geared toward database-driven Flex and Flash CS4 apps, and solves the problem of database-Flex/Flash integration as opposed to Flash architecture.

X2O is a web-based data modeling platform for Flex (and Flash CS4) apps that generates the server-side infrastructure (database, server-side, web services) as well as generated AS3 value objects in a SWC file. You don’t have to do any rpc or remoting integration. It handles all the backend integration for you and you get strongly-typed AS3 objects in your SWC. It also has nice features like file uploading and email object (all the server infrastructure is already set up).

Instead of having to build all the tedious database/server-side backend that comes with a db-driven Flex app, it lets you focus on Flex programming. You have all your data management built automatically. Its a much cleaner and higher-level solution than something like direct PHP/MySQL or SQL/.NET to Flex setup…since there’s no need to work in another language.

this will also benefit your SEO as google etc will also see the accessible pages and hence index the content

The topic of accessibility is certainly important, and merits discussion…but it is definitely off-topic.

I have started developing with GAIA on a client project here at work. I chose it because the typical Flash workflow can be very cumbersome. I think that speaks to David Arno’s original point that Flash is harder to work with than HTML (although cross-browser CSS gives me cold sweats sometimes). I find it ironic that GAIA is intended to be a solution to Arno’s original complaint. If you know somebody with a disability, you probably understand his verve however.

Accessible Flash makes me cringe a bit. I had to do some of that for a big client and it held up well until we started iterating through new releases. We would suggest to many clients that they create an HTML alternative page, so that folks with disabilities (and Mr. Arno) get redirected to more suitable content. I know its a cop-out when you consider that we could be developing Flash for the broader audience, but when there are budgets and deadlines involved…I think thats a win-win. Would I like to see accessiblity added to GAIA? Sure. But I do not think it should be a priority.

If your goal is to make accessibility in Flash easier to achieve, I invite you to bring the discussion to the Gaia Feature Request forum, where you can explain in detail the challenges involved in making Flash sites accessible, where the pain points are, and together we can all try to come up with a way to make accessibility in Flash less painful.

If your goal is to argue that Flash shouldn’t be used, then I’m afraid I can’t help you towards that goal. The best I can do is hear your concerns, which I do, and try to find a way to meet the needs of those whose needs are not being met. There has to be a way to simplify accessibility in Flash, and I’m definitely open to making Gaia more robust by adding such a valuable feature. You appear to be an expert on the subject, so your input is probably the best way to make this happen.

Your entire first comment was nothing but logical fallacies. Your ad hominem “so many brainless people in the world”, and your poisoning the well “Flash is eye-candy” and “hideous nightmare”. How about your appeal to pity with “tell that to some poor sod”? I could go on, but what’s the point? We’re arguing about the argument and not the issue.

As a counterpoint to your original post, and in the spirit of keeping this discussion positive and on-topic, I would like to point out that Gaia makes developing Flash sites so much easier and quicker, that by using Gaia, you will have a lot more time to make sites accessible. Hence, Gaia is a potential boon for blind people on the web. Short of doing away with Flash, which isn’t going to happen, would you not agree that having more time to put towards making your Flash sites more accessible is a good thing, and therefore you should be embracing tools that help you in your goal, as opposed to looking for opportunities to denounce Flash as a platform altogether?

Whether this is the right place to debate the merits of certain (mis)uses of flash, is for Aral to decide. One thing is very clear though: no forum is ever the right place to construct and attack strawmen as you do.