Anyone out there have a problem with ActionScript? Probably not. I think it's just me. I spent the last couple days constructing a new website for the wind quintet 5 for Dinner. I am going for clean, organized design with simple functions, but like when I learned HTML, I want to do as much of it as I can "by hand."
For some reason I swear that the ActionScript I added should have worked, but for the longest time my stop commands and my button ActionScript just weren't doing what I wanted it to do.
I had a breakthrough tonight, though I swear (again) that I applied the same script as before and in the exact same place.
I guess it doesn't really matter as long as it works and I learn something, right?
However I can't tell you what I did wrong because it looks exactly the same as before.
So I am not going to figure out how to make a photo album for the site. Wish me luck!
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
What If Flash Were Alll Crazy!
So I was searching around for something random, like why are some pigeons are a really nice white color and others look just like their own droppings (the genetic disposition of bird coloration?) and came across a site that has a great flash movie. If you work with Macromedia Flash, you will see the beauty of the movie. Check it out here. If you find it great, leave a comment!
Monday, June 05, 2006
Macs Everywhere: My visit to the Apple Store
Hey kids, I am finally at the Mac store. Quite hot. Busy with all the web access you could ever want. I'm still looking for that perfect iPod accessory though I'm not sure what it is yet. I'll keep you all posted.
So, it's nice here. Just like the pictures, but with much more people around. Bright, spacious and clean with tons of people to help you. Ok, back to shopping. this MacBook Pro has a very nice keyboard.
So, it's nice here. Just like the pictures, but with much more people around. Bright, spacious and clean with tons of people to help you. Ok, back to shopping. this MacBook Pro has a very nice keyboard.
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Moving On in Bryant Park
Hi friends, I am moving on with the development of my site. Today I am in Bryant Park about an hour before it actually closes for the night. A strange man is sitting really close to me and rocking in his little green chair. It disturbs me a bit. Though it isn't as disturbing as when some guy ran into me and I fell down at Penn Station. I have never fallen down like that ever...even when I played field hockey. Seriously, I didn't even see what happened, but now my butt hurts a lot. Call me if you want the whole story.
If you have checked back in lately, you will notice that it looks even better than before. I have a nice mask effect that frames the page with black so it seems as though the text/content is a nice rounded square. I'm not sure why IE doesn't have the background as black since I set the html file and the flash movie's background as black, so if you want to see what my intention is, check it with firefox.
Today I added some button sounds so when you click the menu bar you should get a nice little .wav sound that was provided by one of my tutorial books. About a week ago I figured out how to easily add behaviors to premade buttons in the external library so all of the links have nice visual buttons to click.
Hopefully some of the text is a bit more interesting to read, though I am not sure who exactly would be reading this stuff anyway.
I'm in the process of adding some more photos, too.
If you have checked back in lately, you will notice that it looks even better than before. I have a nice mask effect that frames the page with black so it seems as though the text/content is a nice rounded square. I'm not sure why IE doesn't have the background as black since I set the html file and the flash movie's background as black, so if you want to see what my intention is, check it with firefox.
Today I added some button sounds so when you click the menu bar you should get a nice little .wav sound that was provided by one of my tutorial books. About a week ago I figured out how to easily add behaviors to premade buttons in the external library so all of the links have nice visual buttons to click.
Hopefully some of the text is a bit more interesting to read, though I am not sure who exactly would be reading this stuff anyway.
I'm in the process of adding some more photos, too.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Taking All Things into Consideration
Ok, to answer some questions about how I did the site I will do this in a couple posts because I have to go back through my work and figure out what I did. (I am posting this and updating as I go through the site).
My goal with lishlindsey.com was to challenge myself by working with a couple new programs demonstrated in CAI class and incorporate the skills learned in last semester's Tech class. My old site (geocities.com) was done by hand using html coding, so I wanted to keep the clean look with easy navigation but with some added flare that only flash can do.
So let me talk about the specifics.
Books, Tutorials and Such
The programs utilized were the Adobe Suite 2, specifically Photoshop and Macromedia Studio 8, specifically Dreamweaver 8 and Flash 8. I also worked with Audacity to edit the convert all sound clips. The graphics were from Full Moon Graphics, one of my favorite sites out there.
In class we were given excellent tutorial instruction on using these programs, but I also spent much time online and ended up purchasing resource materials since there is so much more I want to learn to do. Some favorite books I used were the Adobe CS2 for Dummies, Macromedia Studio 8 for Dummies, Macromedia Flash 8 Bible, Dreamweaver 8 Bible and Photoshop CS2 for the Web Hands-On-Training. Some interesting online sites were Tutorialized.com, Mccannas.com and Entheosweb.com. There were many more, but I think you get the idea.
Hosting Information
The hosting information is as follows. For my geocities site I did upgrade awhile ago so I would not have any ads on the page. That is about $4 a month. My flutespace site is a free geocities site. My new domain is through godaddy.com and my total was around $22 for two years which includes a $6.00 fee to make it a business capable site and then there was some $3.00 discount which was from signing up for two years. My site is hosted by lunarpages.com but at a reduced rate because I am piggybacking on my friend's account. In total I pay $30 a year to have my site hosted there. I believe for my friend his total is $170 per year for all 4 sites he has. I guess you can say they are bundled. I get tech support as well as email addresses. Right now I am only using lish@lishlindsey.com but I could have anything@lishlindsey.com. The ftp program is aceFTP which is freeware.
Back to the tools used to build this site.
To create my main.swf movie, I used one main timeline, rather than multiple scenes so I could manipulate my information easier. The background, heading, content, side markers, actions, etc. all have their own layers. I wasn't sure if there was a better way of getting rounded corners of the textured background graphic, so I just made a mask layer with rounded corners and made sure the swf's background matched the html file's background.
The majority of text I used is Blackadder ITC at 25 for the menu with some variation on the contact page. The smaller gold font (#ff9900) is Franklin Gothic Medium at 12. The original size was 640px x 480px, but since I couldn't fit in as much text information as I wanted, I ended up changing it to 1024px x 768px.
Hot Tip
I found that the snap to, rulers, grids and align and distribute panel were essential to organizing the site. I highly recommend them!
Menu Markers and Text Buttons
The marker was tricky because I wanted to have the text be a button, but I also wanted to have some other type of visible action to happen when a menu button was clicked. I used the button that was provided in the button library and manipulated its shape via Photoshop. You can see that the marker will show you which menu item is selected since the text button returns to it's original color. To make the marker move, I just inserted a keyframe, dragged the marker and inserted the next keyframe.
To create the menu buttons I converted all text into button symbols. When selected, I inserted a blank keyframe on the hit frame. I used the onion skin button to see the text so I could place a hit area over the actual text. The free transform tool was helpful to create a hit area big enough for the longer words. The hit area itself was converted into a graphic symbol. After placing the hit area over the text, I inserted an identical keyframe as the one on the hit frame on the over state of the button. Then I changed the text color to gold so I would see a change when the mouse was over the button. The one step that I constantly forgot was to add the actionscript so that the marker would work with the text button! An example of the script is: on(release){this.gotoAndStop("links"); I made sure that I had a separate layer with just the marker frame names set up with keyframes so that this would work.
Other Stuff
The moving text pages were all motion tweens and the photo album was also created by using different frames and actions on the buttons to navigate from one picture to the next.
I also included a component text area for my concert schedule.
Overall I tried to incorporate many different things into this site. From here I have an udea what works and what I could add to it in the future. Check back because I might just blog about the additional changes.
My goal with lishlindsey.com was to challenge myself by working with a couple new programs demonstrated in CAI class and incorporate the skills learned in last semester's Tech class. My old site (geocities.com) was done by hand using html coding, so I wanted to keep the clean look with easy navigation but with some added flare that only flash can do.
So let me talk about the specifics.
Books, Tutorials and Such
The programs utilized were the Adobe Suite 2, specifically Photoshop and Macromedia Studio 8, specifically Dreamweaver 8 and Flash 8. I also worked with Audacity to edit the convert all sound clips. The graphics were from Full Moon Graphics, one of my favorite sites out there.
In class we were given excellent tutorial instruction on using these programs, but I also spent much time online and ended up purchasing resource materials since there is so much more I want to learn to do. Some favorite books I used were the Adobe CS2 for Dummies, Macromedia Studio 8 for Dummies, Macromedia Flash 8 Bible, Dreamweaver 8 Bible and Photoshop CS2 for the Web Hands-On-Training. Some interesting online sites were Tutorialized.com, Mccannas.com and Entheosweb.com. There were many more, but I think you get the idea.
Hosting Information
The hosting information is as follows. For my geocities site I did upgrade awhile ago so I would not have any ads on the page. That is about $4 a month. My flutespace site is a free geocities site. My new domain is through godaddy.com and my total was around $22 for two years which includes a $6.00 fee to make it a business capable site and then there was some $3.00 discount which was from signing up for two years. My site is hosted by lunarpages.com but at a reduced rate because I am piggybacking on my friend's account. In total I pay $30 a year to have my site hosted there. I believe for my friend his total is $170 per year for all 4 sites he has. I guess you can say they are bundled. I get tech support as well as email addresses. Right now I am only using lish@lishlindsey.com but I could have anything@lishlindsey.com. The ftp program is aceFTP which is freeware.
Back to the tools used to build this site.
To create my main.swf movie, I used one main timeline, rather than multiple scenes so I could manipulate my information easier. The background, heading, content, side markers, actions, etc. all have their own layers. I wasn't sure if there was a better way of getting rounded corners of the textured background graphic, so I just made a mask layer with rounded corners and made sure the swf's background matched the html file's background.
The majority of text I used is Blackadder ITC at 25 for the menu with some variation on the contact page. The smaller gold font (#ff9900) is Franklin Gothic Medium at 12. The original size was 640px x 480px, but since I couldn't fit in as much text information as I wanted, I ended up changing it to 1024px x 768px.
Hot Tip
I found that the snap to, rulers, grids and align and distribute panel were essential to organizing the site. I highly recommend them!
Menu Markers and Text Buttons
The marker was tricky because I wanted to have the text be a button, but I also wanted to have some other type of visible action to happen when a menu button was clicked. I used the button that was provided in the button library and manipulated its shape via Photoshop. You can see that the marker will show you which menu item is selected since the text button returns to it's original color. To make the marker move, I just inserted a keyframe, dragged the marker and inserted the next keyframe.
To create the menu buttons I converted all text into button symbols. When selected, I inserted a blank keyframe on the hit frame. I used the onion skin button to see the text so I could place a hit area over the actual text. The free transform tool was helpful to create a hit area big enough for the longer words. The hit area itself was converted into a graphic symbol. After placing the hit area over the text, I inserted an identical keyframe as the one on the hit frame on the over state of the button. Then I changed the text color to gold so I would see a change when the mouse was over the button. The one step that I constantly forgot was to add the actionscript so that the marker would work with the text button! An example of the script is: on(release){this.gotoAndStop("links"); I made sure that I had a separate layer with just the marker frame names set up with keyframes so that this would work.
Other Stuff
The moving text pages were all motion tweens and the photo album was also created by using different frames and actions on the buttons to navigate from one picture to the next.
I also included a component text area for my concert schedule.
Overall I tried to incorporate many different things into this site. From here I have an udea what works and what I could add to it in the future. Check back because I might just blog about the additional changes.
Thursday, May 04, 2006
So...how did you do that?
I had a couple questions from people checking out the new websitelishindsey.com since I did it in Flash. I am in the process of trying to discuss what I did exactly, but you might have noticed that it is still going through changes.
I really don't feel that it should be a stagnant site, but rather something that can include new information. For now I can just say that the site has two parts, the intro movie with is embedded in the index.html file and then the main movie which is located in the main.html file. I only created one scene for the main.swf movie, too.
I hope that makes sense.
I really don't feel that it should be a stagnant site, but rather something that can include new information. For now I can just say that the site has two parts, the intro movie with is embedded in the index.html file and then the main movie which is located in the main.html file. I only created one scene for the main.swf movie, too.
I hope that makes sense.
Favorite + Icon =Favicon
I failed to mention this during my presentation on yesterday, but I created my own Favicon on my website. If you do any search, you can find information about creating your own, but I used the favicon.co.uk site because can create your own then embed the code in the head portion of your html page.
This icon will come up in the browser window and often when bookmarked, it will appear there, too. Rather neat! I tried to upload it here, but I don't think blogger supports the .ico file. If you check out my website, it will appear as a red treble clef. You might have to try different browsers to see it and sometimes you have to bookmark it instead.
This icon will come up in the browser window and often when bookmarked, it will appear there, too. Rather neat! I tried to upload it here, but I don't think blogger supports the .ico file. If you check out my website, it will appear as a red treble clef. You might have to try different browsers to see it and sometimes you have to bookmark it instead.
Sunday, April 23, 2006
So the Podcast Thing...
Well folks, the podcast thing never really panned out. I've been watching a lot of video podcasts and have been really entertained. My favorites right now are ABC News, Ask A Ninja, Fluffy TV and Flash TV, though I think I subscribe to every one, even the ones in languages I don't understand.
Even the non-video podcasts are enjoyable to listen to. NPR allll the time.
The most intimidating thing that may have prevented me from actually doing it (other than the time and planning it takes) was just finding a good idea to explore. I brainstormed for quite awhile, weeks infact and ever found an idea that I really liked.
It's difficult being witty in a planned-sort-of-way. I guess I am going to have to put the project on the back burner and figure out exactly how I can justify messing around with my website ideas and then just breaking them down because it just wouldn't work. Arggg.
Even the non-video podcasts are enjoyable to listen to. NPR allll the time.
The most intimidating thing that may have prevented me from actually doing it (other than the time and planning it takes) was just finding a good idea to explore. I brainstormed for quite awhile, weeks infact and ever found an idea that I really liked.
It's difficult being witty in a planned-sort-of-way. I guess I am going to have to put the project on the back burner and figure out exactly how I can justify messing around with my website ideas and then just breaking them down because it just wouldn't work. Arggg.
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