I was recently asked to produce a Flash animation—but without using Flash. The client wanted a series of images with a narrative, like you see on many web sites, but they wanted to avoid the necessity of the Flash plug-in. Instead, they wanted to use ordinary static images.

It is said that more than 80% of browsers are equipped with the Flash plug-in. I can believe this, because most of these will be using Internet Explorer and are used by the sort of people who just agree to any plug-in installation. The rest will either be using proprietary browsers, or have a plug-in problem, which prevents Flash from installing or working correctly. Some will even conscientiously object to its use. Even if the figure is higher than 80%, that still leaves a lot of people without the ability to see Flash animation.

So, I set to work looking for a DHTML solution to the problem. I attempted to write a Javascript module to switch a jpeg image, but stumbled upon an existing script before I’d wasted too much time. A colleague had directed me to the Dynamic Drive web site—one of those web sites full of scripts and applications of varying quality and compatibility.

I found a script which was ideal. It’s called Fade-in Slide Show, and produced an ideal effect, straight out of the box: not only will it rotate a series of images, using a simply-configured Javascript function, but it also gives the option of fading the transition smoothly and having clickable slides. Couple this with a multi-layered Photoshop slide show, with several layers of text dialogue, and you can simulate a typical clickable (and pausable) Flash banner or side-advert, as long as you have Javascript enabled in your browser.