Best Flash website practices

Hi there,
I'm creating a flash website of my portfolio and, even though
I am not very good with AS, and I'm probably over complicating my
life the way I'm doing it, I would also know which is the best/most
usable way of creating a Flash website.
What I mean is, I was taught to do the browsing through
scenes, but I read somewhere that that's not a very good practice.
So I thought of creating each .swf separately and calling it
through a loadMovie, but I got stuck when it goes in the movie, to
call back another .swf (meaning, the different sections of the site
that are browsed through with the menu buttons).
Does anyone know which would be the best way to set up the
flash website?
Thanks,
N.

Thanks all!
Well, what Rob said is what I've been doing, but I get
confused. So, I have my main movie with all my loadMovie in
different frames, right? Once one of them plays, how does it go to
another one in the main frame?
I'm not sure I'm making myself clear.
Ok, let's put an example:
My main movie is, let's call it, index.
In it, I have 4 frames: home, web, photography and drawings.
I enter photography, where there's a button to go back to
home or photography or any of the other sections. How do I tell
that button to go to the movie within index and play a specific
frame? Is that possible?
Btw, Dave, what's the difference with MovieClipLoader and
loadMovie? I'm using AS 2.0, cos I am way unfamiliar with AS 3.0.
Thnx again,
N.

Similar Messages

NEWBIE - Best Practices for FLash Website Development

I've decided to try and build my own flash website, so to help me learn the basics I downloaded the following sample Dynamic Flash Template: http://info.template-help.com/pre-sale_questions/about_web_design_templates/article25.html.
I've been playing around with it a little bit, and feel like I definitely know a lot more than I did previously, but also feel like I may learning the most efficient and effective methods.
Basically, my questions are what's the best software / methods to do the following, as it relates to the template described above.
1) I want the site able to be viewed by people who have flash enabled and those who don't. I'd like for the default website to be flash oriented, but of the browser doesn't support flash or if there are no flash plug-ins installed, I want the HTML version of the site to display. What the best way to make this happen?
2) If I use the dynamic text option for the flash site, all text is pulled from the tfile_main.html file. Is this the best way to embed dynamic text into my flash file? Is it the most efficient way or should the dynamic text be embedded from the HTML pages of the Non-Flash site?
3) Is it possible to have the flash and non-flash versions overlay each other, where if flash is supported, the flash content is displayed, but if flash is not supported, only the non-flash versions are displayed?
4) What the best way of optimizing a site of this nature for search engines? If I were to upload only the flash version of the site, embedded in the index.html file, I think that the search engines would interpret my whole site as simply being one page, which I do not want. I want them to recognize each distinct page.
5) Should I use Static or Dynamic text? Should I insert any outgoing links with the flash file itself, or within the html files?
6) I've read alot about SWFObject2.x and it seems like it would help me do a lot of the things I'm wanting to do, but I have no idea how to use it. I downloaded the .zip file, but have no clue what to do with it from there.
7) I have Flash CS3, but also currently have a free trial of the Adobe Creative Suite Premium CS5, so I have FLash CS5, Dreamweaver CS5, etc. Should I use Flash CS3 or CS5?
8) How should I set-up my Publish Settings in FLash?
Sorry for such a long message and requesting so much info. If you can only help out or provide guidance on 1 of the above questions it would be very beneficial to me and greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance for everyone's help and let me know if you need additional information.

No one is going to answer 8 questions, I certainly can't be bothered.
Cut them down in to different threads, in the relavent Adobe forum
But:
Use CS5.
You can use JS to determine if they have flash and show a style sheet/site accordingly, google it.
You can optimise flash sites too

Can someone explain the structure behind this common practice in most flash websites?

I'm kind of a newbie with flash. I havent used it in a long long time and when I was using it, I wasnt really fully understanding what I was doing at the time. Anyways, it's been like 10 years now and I have to use it to make a website, but I can't figure out how others are doing this specific thing. I understand the basic concept of how flash works with making a website, and I've even built a very basic website with audio/video and mouse interaction, but now I want to step it up. I've seen many flash websites before and some have a lot of things going on at once and I'm wondering how you implement that smoothly while still allowing mouse interaction and navigation. I know this sounds confusing but basically, what I mean is:
let's say I have a website and on the website I have buttons that lead to different pages(frames) when clicked. On the main page I have something like a bird that flies from left to right. Let's say that the bird is in the middle of the screen and a user clicks a button. How do I make it so that the bird continues to fly off screen before switching pages? Obviously, I cant tell what the location of the bird will be when the button is clicked since it will vary from user to user so I am completely confused on how to structurally set this up. Would the bird be it's own swf embedded in the main swf? Or is this feature a massive keyframing project for every frame of animation that bird has?
Also, how do have multiple animations that run on different clocks looping simultaneously? What I mean by this is, lets say the previously mentioned bird has a 25 frame animation loop and a second element, like a sunrise/sunset has a 30 frame animation loop... how do I loop both of them so that they loop seemlessly at the same time? Will I have to animate both of them in a loop until both reach a common frame (150 frames from 6x 25frame bird loops and 5x 30frame sunrise/sunset loops)?
Thanks,
MorisatoKei

You will have to experiment to see what works well and what doesn't. You can have things animating along a timeline in parallel, but you can also have them be their own movieclips and animated when commanded to play().
In the case of your bird flying off before a button click is processed, you could manage that as follows. Have the button set a variable that is defaulted at false to be true. At the end of the bird's flight, you test that variable ( as in ... if(variable == true)...) to see if it is true, and if so, you process whatever command that button is intended for. If you used a timeline animtion for the bird, then that test would occur at the last frame of the animation. If you used a coded tween to move the bird across the scene, then you could use an event listener to detect the animation completed and do the test then.
There are almost always a variety of choices for achieving the same design goal. The key to determining a solution is knowing what tools you have to work with... and coming to know what those tools are and how to use them is where learning comes in.

Advice on how to keep Flash website small & fast

Hi, I'm developing my first Flash website (I know, I know, there are plenty of reasons to use other development products, but for now it will be Flash), and I envision a site with several pages and needing to load some large graphics. I'm doing the main design work in Illustrator and importing it into Flash. I'm not too concerned with animation except perhaps moving some buttons around. My plan so far is to use a lot of UI loaders to keep the main .swf small and to really try to keep the coding pretty simple as I'm a newbie anyway. I'm looking for general advice on how to prevent the main site from loading quickly - for example, I don't have a good sense of the best format to use for graphics, or which makes the site slower: using several UI loaders or just keeping the content in the main site? Is a lot of code or large graphics more draining on the load time? Any thoughts on what you think I can do or not do to keep it lean would be super appreciated, or any other resources you might be able to point me to.
Thanks in advance!

Nah... really really stupid questions only get asked in non-Flash forums. The size of the swf is not tied tot the size of the fla. The fla has alot more baggage that inflates its size greatly compared to the swf it creates. The swf will end up bearing the weight of whatever content you put in it.
If you want to see what's adding weight to your swf, go into your Flash Publish Settings and select the option to Generate Size Report. When you publish the file it will display a detailed report of each element and the weight it contributes to the swf.
As far as dynamically loading swf's, it is often a necessity, unless the swf is strictly an animation. If you import an swf into an fla file, all of the actionscript that might have been in it is stripped out.
Code will have negligible weight in a file. Images (large/heavy ones) can put lead shoes on a file, along with video and sound files.

Alternative ways to load Flash website

Hello, I have created a fully Flash website and as I continue
to add images to my swf file obviously it is taking longer to load
the site. I think I have created a pretty slick and straight
forward preloader, but as I continue to add images to my site it
will force the user(s) to wait longer and longer for the entire
site to load. Where I live and work I have a very fast connection
speed (20 MB/s +) so my site loads very quickly, but when visiting
a friends place my site seemed to take forever. Instead of creating
a low bandwidth version I want to keep what I have.
My main question- Is there a way I could load the entire site
up front to a certain point (say 25%) and allow the user to begin
to navigate through the site and anything that hasn’t
finished loading yet will just continue to load dynamically (or on
demand once the user selects a certain image). The user could see
the progress of items loading as they navigate around.
My website is:
www.abromphoto.com. I run a
photography business and am a beginner with Flash, but understand
web technology. My portfolio section of the site is about 90% of my
content. I would love for images to load dynamically as the user
begins to view images that have already loaded. Or, possibly
display all thumbnails for my images and then load the particular
image on demand once the thumbnail is clicked (so if they go back
to that image, it is already loaded). I honestly don’t know
how to search for this kind of thing.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

There are a variety of options that you can use/combine to
make things seem more streamlined. Preloading is always a good
thing when you have a sizeable site. As far as quitting at a
certain percentile, it can be a gamble. The on-demand route would
be a good approach where it's practical... but if you end up
on-demanding everything, it can be disruptive to the user's viewing
pleasure. You could also consider making separate swf's for
different sections and loading them as needed, possibly with some
lightwieght loading-time eye candy that makes it seem like more of
a transition than a waiting period. For image groups, you might be
able to incorporate a gradual one-by-one loading where each image
transitions into view after it loads, giving the impression of
being an intended gradual display.

Start to build my first flash website

I've learned actionscript form resources like video and
books. i read some serious tutorials and did many practices and
small projects. I'm trying to build my first flash website. do i
need to learn Flex? or anything else? do i need to study some other
courses? My problem is where to start. what's a structure of a
professional and serious full flash website? links? components (if
any)? and ... yes i've worked on small swf files. creating
actionscript effects, building some easy components before but i'm
sure they are not enough. and one more thing! is there any good
practical (and specially free!) tutorials based on this concept?
(i've already reviewed actionscript.org and kirupa.com, thx!)

Your first question: subjective to your skillset. http://Zen-Cart.com has their own tutorials/FAQ/Forum that has plenty of information on the subject. Make your determination from the information they provide. It's free... download it and try it yourself to find out, perhaps?
Second question: you would not build additional product pages. There's only one product page that is populated with data from, wait for it... you guessed it, a database. If you're unfamiliar with working with database data then familiarize yourself with it if you wish to work on dynamic shopping carts.
I recommend http://Cartweaver.com if you want to work in Dreamweaver on the design and coding of the cart. It is very easy to implement your design into a cartweaver shopping cart.

How to integrate new Facebook social plugins with a Flash website?

Facebook has just released a suite of social plugins which are supposed to be very simple to implement (one line of HTML is the promise, in the form of an iframe).
However this approach is not compatible with a full flash website. The iframe will not display. Any ideas how best to implement one of these plugins?

If the plugin is not designed for use with Flash and needs to be in an html page, then that's what needs to happen. Normally there is no such thing as a full Flash site. Most Flash sites are staged in an html web page, so it is possibly you can add the plugin on the same page, just not within the Flash portion.

Who makes the nicest, easiest to use Flash website design software?

Please forgive the beginner's question. I would like to build
a flash site like
http://www.hockaday.org from an
easy to use Flash template. You get what you pay for so my first
choice isn't something for free but a 30-day free trial version
would be nice.
What I like best about
http://www.hockaday.org is the
great menus and that pictures continually reload in interesting
ways.
Maybe a template is too restrictive. Who makes the nicest,
easiest to use Flash website design software that allows fast
creation of those fancy menus and with other fast features to do
nice things with pictures and motion?
I need to create a site like
http://www.hockaday.org
immediately so I don't have the time to learn Flash first. What's
my best bet?

you are in a catch 22 - you don't have time to learn flash -
yet you need to build an entire site
immediately - you can't - sure you can download a template
that is similar but if this forum is any
proof, you almost need more flash knowledge trying to
decipher most templates in order to edit them
- search this forum, there are several posts per week from
non-flash users who purchased templates
and have no clue how to edit them. Often times it is hard for
an educated flash user to
reverse-engineer a FLA made by somebody else - Flash
documents are blank canvases that can be setup
a myriad ways by different users making the same thing - some
developers are more organized than
others - most templates are not organized but rather thrown
together for a quick profit.
You will simply need to learn enough flash to understand how
it works or hire somebody to edit the
template for you.
hope this helps.
--> **Adobe Certified Expert**
--> www.mudbubble.com
--> www.keyframer.com
e.Shubee wrote:
> Please forgive the beginner's question. I would like to
build a flash site like
>
http://www.hockaday.org from an
easy to use Flash template. You get what you
> pay for so my first choice isn't something for free but
a 30-day free trial
> version would be nice.
>
> What I like best about
http://www.hockaday.org is the
great menus and that
> pictures continually reload in interesting ways.
>
> I need to create a site like that one immediately so I
don't have the time to
> learn Flash first. What's my best bet?
>
>
>

Adobe flash player 11 doesen't works on 10.8.1! what can i do? whats the best flash player for mac?

adobe flash player 11 doesen't works on 10.8.1! what can i do? whats the best flash player for mac?

First try deleting Flash Player by carefully following the instructions on Adobe's website:
http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/uninstall-flash-player-mac-os.html
Then install it again from this location only:
http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

How do you structure a full flash website without the timeline?

Hello there. I was wondering how to build and structure a full flash website using the OOP approach. I have an idea of how to structure an application using the MVC design pattern, but I cannot put things together in order to structure a whole website.

I'm nowhere near an expert on this topic, and I suspect that the overall purpose of your site would help guide the best approach to designing and developing it without the timeline. I've done a lot of this with Flash for a limited purpose - creating a client clip that has only one frame, but responds to user events with dynamic behavior. My suggestion would be to take a look at some of the books that cover this topic to get a better idea of exactly how you'd like to deal with this project.
Two books are in my library that cover this topic - ActionScript 3.0 Design Patterns by Sanders & Cumaranatunge, published by O'Reilly & Associates, check it out at http://www.amazon.com/ActionScript-3-0-Design-Patterns-Programming/dp/0596528469/ref=sr_1_ 1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254149170&sr=8-1 as well as Advanced ActionScript 3 with Design Patterns by Lott and Patterson which can be found at http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-ActionScript-3-Design-Patterns/dp/0321426568/ref=sr_1_3?ie= UTF8&s=books&qid=1254149170&sr=8-3
Both books have a chapter on implementing an MVC design pattern with ActionScript and provide some basic examples you can build on. Sorry to be so meager in responding, I hope this might help a bit. Good luck!

Can I make a sitemap of a flash website?

I am a Dutch writer and I've made my own flash website, with practically no knowledge of flash whatsoever. I hope you can help me with this topic. I was wondering: is it possible to make a sitemap of the different links integrated in the flash design? I tried using A1 Sitemap Generator 4, which does recognise the flash navigation, but this doesn't change anything in the sitemap it generates. Does anyone know whether it's possible to map the links and make the texts more visible for Google?
My website is www.shirakeller.nl, by the way. It's in Dutch, but I would be greatful if you'd like to have a look and help me with your comments!
Many thanks in advance!
Shira Keller
[links removed by moderator]

Nice site you have there, but I wonder why you have the need for indexing. I don´t see much content?
As for Google: if they didn`t change anything in the last 5 years for the worse. Google managed to index and make your content visible to its searchengine since 2008.
There are some Caveats, but if you stick to the standard formula (swf+html-wrapper you should be on the safe side).
Read this, if you want more details about this.

Starting A Flash Website

I want to create a Flash site related to the space tourism industry. I'm looking for some good ideas on the best way to develop an introductory page using Flash. Any suggestions?

You can go to www.flashmo.com and download the ready made free templates and you can edit as per your need only thing require is to have some knowledge of flash actionscript and you can easily create the flash website with the help of that templates
And you can learn also from that templates.

Flash website- problems with sizing on different computers- code to resize based on browser/screen resolution

Ok Guys-
So I have put up a trial of my flash website-
www.nicksdesign.com/flash
I'm new at flash- as this is the first project I've done in
flash, and the problem is...
I put the file in a simple HTML file in dreamweaver, and i
published the files, tested them on my computer, and it's great-
the size fits enough so that no scrolling is needed.
However-
I asked a friend to test it- and on his computer you are
required to scroll both vertically and horizontally in order to see
all the content on the 100% flash website.
My question-
Are there any codes that can resize the swf file or the HTML,
based on screen resolution/browser [however- we tested in the same
browser]
Any help would be SUPER appreciated
Best Regards,
Nick Smith

I took a look at your html source code, I notice that your
size of width sets at 1270 while height sets at 537. The width is
way too wide.
Secondly, flash-based website aren't that cool.
Finally, you probably get a better help from Flash forum
participants. This forum is all about Dreamweaver-related topics,
and is not about how to create or design Flash for the first time.
Hope that helps and good luck with your project.
Cheers, Brian
quote:
Originally posted by:
Livelife92
Ok Guys-
So I have put up a trial of my flash website-
www.nicksdesign.com/flash
I'm new at flash- as this is the first project I've done in
flash, and the problem is...
I put the file in a simple HTML file in dreamweaver, and i
published the files, tested them on my computer, and it's great-
the size fits enough so that no scrolling is needed.
However-
I asked a friend to test it- and on his computer you are
required to scroll both vertically and horizontally in order to see
all the content on the 100% flash website.
My question-
Are there any codes that can resize the swf file or the HTML,
based on screen resolution/browser [however- we tested in the same
browser]
Any help would be SUPER appreciated
Best Regards,
Nick Smith

How do I use Brige Web Gallery in a Flash website

How do you use the output of a Brige Web Gallery for use inside of a Flash Website?

Hi there -
I'd try posting your question over in the Flash general forum. You could also try the Flash site design forum. The folks over there will probably be able to help you solve your issue

Adding payPal shopping cart to a Flash website?

Hi there,
I'm a newbie, creating my first flash website and my first shopping cart, so be easy on me.
I've done a lot of research, however was unable to find any tutorials on how to set up a Paypal shopping cart or any other secured shopping cart in a website that was created in Flash professional CS5, actionscript 3.0. Paypal's tutorial is only for html (copy/paste the code in your html website and voila) but how to integrate shopping cart in Flash website? Any help would be appreciated.
This is my first time setting up a cart on a website. I have a "shop" button on my site (see picture below) that I would like linked to an external page preferably with my items that I would like to sale. Not sure if paypal's shopping cart can do what I want it to do. Once the user clicks on the "Shop" button, I'd like for my customer to be able to see a picture of the items I have for sale, price for each item, a box where the buyer can write quantity of item desired, add to cart button and then check out button. With paypal shopping cart, can I add pictures beside each item I am selling when entering the price on paypal's website or I have to add the pictures of the items I am selling directly in my shop section of my website and add a buy now button for each individual item and then copy/paste the email link provided by Paypal to each of my buy now buttons and add that code to my "Actions" layer within Flash? How would the script look like? And what if later on I want to add additional info to an item, change price or delete it completely...would I have to make the changes everytime within paypal only or I'd have to make the changes on both paypal and my flash file and upload new copy to server? I'd like for my cart to integrate with my site (keep the same look and feel, same layout/background color) preferably but what ever way is the easiest. Thanks for your help.

Any source that provides embed code to add to your webpage should work. So in other words if E-Junkie provides the HTML code that you simply embed in your own code it will work. If it requires a certain plugin be installed it may or may not.

Best Flash website practices

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