[Resolved] [Resolved] [Resolved] [Resolved] Flash MX causing me a dilemma

Ok, here goes

Im a poor student, using flash for a bit of extra cash on the side... I have just got two large clients, very recently... great you think... however, the things the clients want are, although acheivable in Flash5, a little tricky to do... now as it SOUNDS, FlashMX will make things a helluva lot easier...

My dilemma;

Do I;

- do the sites now, in FLash 5, taking the extra work like a man and hope for the best

- Wait and buy FMX (hoping my clients dont take their business elsewhere in the time it takes me to buy the damn thing), learn whatever i need for the new gizmos (again hoping this is a speedy process), use that and make my life easier, publish, hope to hell everyone has instantly downloaded Flashplayer 6 so i am not left with red-faced clients...

So macromedia, o thou of multiple software releases what should i do?

feel free to add options, or comment on what u guys are doing now... it wud be interesting to see what u pros are thinking of doing...

'Q

First off, be sure your getting a down payment from your clients (that way you can get the upgrade). Now, as for upgrading, start working on your project in pieces. Do everything you can in Flash 5 that isn't difficult and then when Flash 6 comes out use it to get the job done.

good idea

as far as a downpayment goes, i think its just ettiquette (sp?) to be payed upon completion round here...

but anyway...

thanks for the advice..

etiquette? it all matters on your contract. I have a fee that I require before I show the first piece of work from them.

yes, very true - but remember im nowhere near a pro, im not an amateur, because the stuff i produce is good, but i'll charge a tenth of what is feasibly expected for a site, because for me it's still good money... if i ever get to your level gerbick, im sure i'll do the same thing :D

it took a year and a half for the Flash 5 player to reach over 80% saturation. I remember when Flash 5 first came out, for about 4 or 5 months after, we were still producing for Flash 3! Simply because the penetration of even the flash 4 player was not high enough for our clients.

If you are going to be deploying your work on the web, make sure the client knows what's going on. Give them some stats on plugins and let them know what the options are. Make sure they're ok with putting up a screen that says "you must have Flash 6 to view this site." Or, if they want the vast majority of people to be able to view their site with no problems, make it compatible with the Flash 4 player.

There is no way for everyone in the world to simply update their players to version 6 overnight.

Quote:

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Originally posted by white_pony
yes, very true - but remember im nowhere near a pro, im not an amateur, because the stuff i produce is good, but i'll charge a tenth of what is feasibly expected for a site, because for me it's still good money... if i ever get to your level gerbick, im sure i'll do the same thing :D

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nothing to do with pro/amateur. it's mostly that I don't want to be taken advantage of... something that's happened when I gave posted a site and they refused to pay :mad:

however, kraken has some VERY good points. the saturation of the Flash 6/MX web player will most likely be a slow thing... not instant nor overnight. Yeah, most of us here will do it; however, we represent a small percentage of "core" users. it's what some of us do to make our money/livelihood.

either way, good luck to you :D

wait ,wait just wait,bro :)


D:)S

i hear ya gerbick - that must be really annoying for someone to do that to you...


kraken you are absolutely right, im gonna go ahead with the development of the sites in flash5, i'll just have to put up with it's little idosyncracies for now...

the last thing i want is an unhappy client not being able to view their own site...

Thanks for all the tips again guys...

white_pony:

I'm curious on what f6/MX would do that will make things a lot easier for you. could you give me an example, pls.

well i know that most of this stuff can be done using flash 5,

but the client wants to update a lot of the site themselves, this will involve taking digital photos etc. and having them come up on the site automatically. They have very very little knowledge of anything technical, but could probably manage to upload them to a given directory using cuteFTP or something. So i hear FMX can dynamically load in jpegs without the use of generator... that would make things a hell of a lot easier for me... actually i've just realsied i have hardly any idea how to do this using F5... i'm sure i'll figure it out though...

Other things are stupid stuff like layer folders etc. that will just make authoring so much more painless... like i sed, its not such a big deal but it is a consideration...

thanks

ok, now I get it. tnx gor explaining things :)

white_pony, If you have the Flash6 player, you will now and again see a jpg saying "Xenisis" on a blue background loaded into my siggy. I made the siggy in Flash5, but one of the things that can be laoded in its list is a jpg, and Flash5 doesn't no the difference. From that aspect, if your clients have the F6 player, you can make the generator features work in F5 without a problem.

Maybe this takes away the need for FMX, but your viewers still need the F6 player. Perhaps, if they have the F5 player (find that out inside F5) then when they want to see the pics, send them to a dynamic html page with the pics (maybe in a popup eh?) that fits in with it all. F6 players can load an extra .swf that does the work of the html page, and gets shown instead of the popup. That would pretty much cover things (If they are in F4 player, they may aswell go get F6, you can stress "This site will look better in F6, so get it now you bums" you know, that sort of thing :))

good idea Ed_mack... trouble is, im makign the site for a primary (kindergarten) school... primary school children in fact, and as such i dont want them to haev to go searching thru macromedia's site etc. I would much rather it were all contained in the one F5 movie, as they have the F5 player at their school... i will defintely consider using your suggested technique on some more adult sites that are comign up though...

thansk again