The performance of embedded Flash movies on Mac OS X pisses me off. Several bugs exist, performance and otherwise. Apple and the Safari team even admit to an “archaic Mac plugin framework” yet we hear nothing from them on plans to address this issue.
One such bug that continues to plague me both in design and user experience is the issue of using DHTML drop-down menus (Suckerfish, etc.) on top of Flash movies. In Safari and under certain conditions in Firefox, the Flash movie will “flicker” after the drop-down menu has been initiated and mouseover’ed. After researching and testing possible fixes, I have found two successful band-aids.
The fix for Safari? Remove any CSS :hover states from your list-item anchor tags. Yes, hyperlinks are boring and less intuitive without a mouseover state but at least your menu will be functional. Obviously, a browser check or Safari CSS hack (if any still exist) would be preferred.
Mac OS X Firefox can also have issues with drop-down menus on top of a Flash movie, especially if the drop downs have any CSS opacity attributes declared. The fix for Firefox? Remove any opacity attributes declared on the drop-down menu list tags.
These fixes present an inconsistent experience for Mac users (like me) and require hacks and/or browser detection which makes web designers and developers cringe. In most cases, it will perpetuate the all-too-common occurrence of web developer(s) to give Mac users the middle finger and ignore the problem. If Apple wants to continue to attract switchers, they need to embrace the fact that the internet is the most important “iApp” to consumers.
I was just listening to Mike Doughty - Rising Sign