Okay so it’s been a while, but here comes another rant about Flash. Recently we launched a decent mapping integrated content site at ninemsn, http://rateyourplace.com.au/.
In cross browser testing we found that the autocomplete on IE6 just wasn’t working. A whole day’s troubleshooting later and we found out it was the CPU intensive flash animation (which used some 3D rendering engine) that took out the jQuery bindings on the text box.
Turns out, CPU intensive flash, in a transparent wmode embed will take out text boxes immediately around it, and this is a known issue.
There’s no fix, just a bunch of work-arounds, tone down the amount of CPU intensiveness, or try changing the wmode to window (no more html layered elements over the flash if you do this). We were lucky enough to be able to go to a window wmode, as there were no hovering html elements, but this is a real lame issue if you ask me.
Flash is wmode window by default. You would have saved a day debugging if you didn’t set it to transparent to begin with.
Don’t blame flash, blame yourself
I like your map.
I think you missed the point of the post. As with any non-trivial web site css layering and overlays are an important part of the user experience. The only way to get the flash component to obey the css layering of the page is to have it transparent (i.e. un-windowed). But being able to do so makes flash so CPU intensive that the issue above arises.