Flash Site Design - Newbie needing some site building guidance

Author

Newbie needing some site building guidance - how to

melissa_v

2007-01-10, 6:39 pm

I need a little help - I am designing an art portfolio in Flash, and so I need
it to be a site that has a few different pages that are linked between each
other - you know, common sense. I really have no idea how to go about
structuring that. I've been doing well at animations and buttons and
ActionScript and all kinds of things in Flash, but I just don't understand how
to make several pages that are part of the same document. Do you use scenes, or
different "projects" within the document, or what? And then how do you link to
them - just like it was any other URL?

I GUESS I mean, how do you design in Flash using a home page and then other
pages to navigate to?

aniebel

2007-01-10, 6:39 pm

Try to stay away from using Scenes. Instead, I use keyframes but there are
other ways to tackle it too.

Get in the habit of using your top layer for your actionscript as it's pretty
standard and will keep things organized and easy to get to. Also, try to keep
as much of your code there as possible instead of inside movieclip and button
timelines.

You can use frame labels on keyframes for your "pages". For instance, set your
home "page" up on frame 20 with a frame label of "home", about page on frame
40, etc.. Then you can reference those labels in your button events.

For instance:

home_btn.onRelease = function() {
_root.gotoAndStop("home");
};
about_btn.onRelease = function() {
_root.gotoAndStop("about");
};

melissa_v

2007-01-10, 6:39 pm

Thanks - I would have never thought to use keyframes for it. I'm still getting
ActionScript under control but that's just a matter of time. Do you have any
tips for keeping animations out of the movie clip timelines and on the main
timeline? I've been used to doing it within each symbol.

beliy333

2007-01-10, 6:39 pm

Doing it within each symbal is good. it helps to keep organized. Just keep the
different pages in each keyfram on the main timeline, get what im saying?

Oh and Aniabel. I see on your site you have the high lite of white drawing
itself. Like a line drawing but you cant see the pencil itself , u know? How do
you o that?

aniebel

2007-01-10, 6:39 pm

Animations in mc's is how it's supposed to work. You're good there. It's the
Actionscript you should try to keep on the main timeline. By that I mean button
events (like the one I recommended), mouse events, etc. Lookup "Handling
Events" in your Help menu in Flash for a good description on that because
chances are, you'll use them frequently.

Also, make sure you put a stop(); on each keyframe that you set as a "page".
If you don't, the SWF will just keep going to the next one without stopping.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

aniebel

2007-01-10, 6:39 pm

Geez, I don't know why I've posted my site.... it's soooo not finished yet.
Anyway! If you're talking about the tree "growing" bit on the work section,
it's a mask made from a circle that's tweened to reveal all the image.

Tetraktys

2007-01-27, 10:29 pm

Another way to structure your pages, which is nice because you can keep your
file to one frame, is to create your pages as movieclips, and load them
dynamically from the library as needed into the same depth. If you load a
movieclip into a depth already occupied by another movieclip, the new one will
overwrite the old one. So for example, you could have something like this:

contactButton.onRelease = function(){
_root.attachMovie("contactPage","contactPage,1)
}
bioButton.onRelease = function(){
_root.attachMovie("bioPage","bioPage",1)
}

so any button that is pressed attaches it's related movieclip into the same
depth, overwriting whichever one was there before. It's a nice method I use
alot, which avoids keyframes, frame labels, or frames at all.