Best way to set up a movie with many different sections

Question

Hi - i am making a flash demo and have a bunch of different sections / categories that the movie will need to navigate to. I created a similar demo previously and used different "scenes" to keep track and organize the different categories. Should i keep using scenes to navigate to or is there a better, more professional way to do my movie?
Also, where could i find more information on properly organizing and setting up my flash files? ie: naming conventions, etc.
thanks!
- Pat

Answer 1

There isn't really a definitive answer as to how one should set up a file, though a frequent recommendation is to avoid the use of scenes if you plan to incorporate navigation between different sections.  While the concept of arranging separate sections as scenes is good, in reality, scenes can be problematic when it comes to implementing navigation into them.
Sometimes the set up choice is best decided based on how much content is involved and how that content is to be accessed (web versus pc presentation).   If there is potential for some heavy file size, it may be better to create different sections as separate swf files and load them dynamically.
If you want to have the whole thing within one file, then you can use the one main timeline, dividing it into sections, using labels to navigate to them, or you could create it all in one frame and use visibility to control what anyone is seeing at any time.  The latter of those two is handy if you have sections that need to retain information/settings in the event returning to them is necessary... if you just make them invisible, then they retain whatever state they were in.
And you can combine the various approaches if there is any utility in doing so.  It really boils down to doing what you reason to be suitable for the job, and sometimes it even boils down to what approach you are most comfortable following... design efficiency is not necessarily always a driving factor is getting results.
As for conventions, you might try searching Google using the terms you think best identify what you are after.  You might be able to find some beginner level tutorials that will go into some detail regarding coding conventions and whatnot.