[bernician]

Hi all,
Due to the way this forum is organised I'm having to post this in the flash forum but I hope it won't spoil the honesty of any replies due to the vested interest folk will no doubt have!

I've got an idea for a website which I think is rather good and I'm wanting to have a go at making it. I'm not a amateur with computers, I know a fair bit of PHP, javascript, basic, java and vb.net. I don't however know any flash or anything that would let me make ....'flashy', 'pretty' websites- which is what I'm going for.

A big part of my idea would involve a map which would incorporate data added by users; basically along the lines of there are 10 people who x in county y sort of thing. All presented rather pretty with a map rather than just a nasty text list (which is about all I can manage right now)

What should I be looking into learning so I can implement this type of thing?
Is flash still the way to go?
I wonder as I've heard flash is on the way out with the new version of html including flash like functions by default?
Is there anything else which would be easier/more effective for this?
As said I know nothing about flash coding, I've never done it before, I do however know a fair bit about coding in general so I'm not a complete beginner.
And yeah, fully realise my goal is quite lofty for a beginner. I would be looking at learning the basics long before I have a crack at the website floating around in my head.

[Sogo7]

Don't be so tempted to reach for the FLASH option, Javascript has come a long way over the last couple of years and now with the features that HTML5 offers has almost become a complete alternative.

Try these javascript demos on for size
http://labs.hyperand...particles-html5
http://www.benjoffe....de/games/torus/

As for the map idea, Google has an API for just this sort of thing.
Again that's all javascript/Ajax driven.

[bernician]

The trouble with javascript...isn't it commonly blocked by default?
So the new html can do the sort of thing flash can?

Google maps- I have considered that option but I'm not big on the idea. I'd like a simple map with a few toggleable overlays and solid colours for different areas. Not so much just a standard member map sort of thing.

[Sogo7]

From my experience javascript is seldom disabled completely by users, those that do tend to be either using a text only browser (most likely due to some visual impairment) or just cautious to the point of being paranoid.

[BlueDreamer]

Bear in mind that there's a huge swing to usage of newer devices such as smartphones and tablets. An aweful lot of these will not will display flash, but will be happy with javascript.

Also with javascript you have a graceful fallback to plain text data for browser where it's not enabled.