I am back again (rip me a new one!)

[hanratty21]

I posted about a week or two back in here, and said I would repost when changes were complete. They are.

Please rip me apart as much as you like.

www.marshmallowpie.com

The services page is still not up and the version detector is not up (you need version 6)

Updates since last version:
1) Cleaned up animations
2) Cleaned up some looping code which was causing slow transitions.
3) Fixed buttons (all pixel - monochrome now)
4) Cleaned up contact page logic - Enter button will not send the email while you are in the text boxes.
5) Added dynamically created XML-fed content and button links in Portfolio Page (this is my baby - I am pretty proud of it.

Again, feel free to RRRIIIPPP me a new one. I am looking to make this one as good as I can.

RH

[Mr. Tackle]

I remember the first time you posted this and I was gonna ask how you did the squres into picture transition, i liked it.

And i still do.

I like your images (they capture new york nicely) and everything flows smooth, i dont really have any room to RIP on a site, and yours is pretty good. Cant wait to see whats in the gas pump.

[hanratty21]

Thanks Tackle. I am being nit-picky and trying to get this one right on the money -- this is why I am asking for RIPS!

The squares in the transitions is a simple tween MC which is duplicated as many times as necessary in a mask layer to create the appearance or disappearance of the image beneath it. It's a nice piece of scripting, but I had to chill out on it in some places--with all of those little duplicated MCs, it was causing the frame rate to suffer some.

Again, thanks.

Anyone else?

RH

[SSC Cosmic]

Hey that's pretty slick!
It would be nice if the text in the input boxes on the contact page would clear out when the user wants to enter their text.

I would probably like the slides/thumbs in the portfolio to have longer intervals before switching to the next screenie. The eye doesn't really have time to digest it that fast.

The thhammin' color scheme rocks!

Are you going to share your transition secret? The boxes-to-pic ones? That's great stuff.

[sk8Krog]

Great improvement on the icons. I love them. On the subject of the buttons, I like the rollovers but the cursor is too big, it really makes the user wish the text was of relative size to it.

Very smooth animations, esp on the transitions and preloaders. The portfolio animations seem as if they are running really slow (perhaps framerate?). either way, try to make that match the speed and quality of the motion.

Your transitions on the blocks of text (not where it has box masks but where it mimics a cuve motion like thing) is really not that good. I can pick out where you streach the mask due to portions staying still. It also drags out too long and causes tension. Not the thing you want on a site like yours.

Thats all I can think of, I hope thats the kind of stuff you were hoping to hear.

[supermud]

really nice site
the background was a bit bright for me. it seems to sit on the same plane as the site. maybe darker, maybe let saturation. not sure if it is better but have a look.
check it
ps. i haven't slept for 32 hours and my eyes may just be out of wack.

[hanratty21]

SSC Cosmic - 1) I will work on clearing out the text on the input boxes...I agre, that would be a nice add-in.
2) I'll work on the slides in the preview section. I am still not even sure I like the way it works now. Maybe I'll add a pause button too. We'll see.
3) Thx on the color scheme. (I think?...thhammin'?)
4) I will clean up the transition code and post it here for you later today. I will make it a little more plug and play-like first.

sk8Krog - 1) Thanks on the icons - I will work on the cursor - my girlfriend agrees with you completely on that one!
2) Like I said above, I am still playing with the preview animations in the portfolio. We'll see how that goes.
3) Hmmm..you don't like the shape tween thing, huh? Is it that you don't like that style? Or it just doesn't fit in my site?

Supermud - I agree with you on the BG - I have been playing with that pattern for a week now...perhaps it's not the pattern at all, but the color! Thanks!

All - thanks for the feedback...this is still a work in progress, so there will be additional work done on it. I also plan on having a release 2, with more features, and goodies.

Like I said above, I will repost the masking thing for you later today, too.

RH

[hanratty21]

Originally posted by supermud
really nice site
the background was a bit bright for me. it seems to sit on the same plane as the site. maybe darker, maybe let saturation. not sure if it is better but have a look.
check it
ps. i haven't slept for 32 hours and my eyes may just be out of wack.

Supermud - I have a question. It looks like you took a screenshot of my image and tooled around in p-shop or something to get this look (which I love by the way - with the drop shadow)

Question - how would I get this effect in Flash/HTML layout? I mean, I have the textured BG as a gif in the HTML. Then, I have a table where the flash is sitting. It seems like it will be very difficult to let the texture "bleed" through the drop shadow as you have done in your image.

I am totally stumped.

RH

[SSC Cosmic]

You would lose that salmon (thhammin is the lispy pronunciation )pattern bg? Both look good, the original gets my meaningless vote though.

[supermud]

hanratty21- send me the background image in the color you want and the size of your swf. I will give it a try. I have done it with other bg patterns in the past but it doesn't work the best with all of the them.
email me here

[Nionicle]

well

the name sounds yummy

[hanratty21]

Ha! Thanks, Nionicle. I spent days checking domain names for an appropriate lyric from a Beatles Song. After my exhaustive search, this was the winner! I'm glad you like it.

RH

[J-Luv]

very nice site. i like the transitions, i have seen them in about four other websites done almost the exact same way. is this a swish transition or something?

[hanratty21]

It might be in other sites...but not mine, brother! Home grown AS for me. it's actually not that tough. A simple shape tween box duplicated as needed through AS to cover the upcoming loaded content MC.

RH

[J-Luv]

i dont know hanratty21, i may have to get the flashkit police to investigate this one to see if you have took the easy route and snok some swish up in there....




nice site overall though.......

[hanratty21]

You know the funny thing here is, that I have never even used Swish. The only thing I know about it is that it seems to have some negative connotations like your "taking the easy way out" comment. Incidentally, I've never really seen a Swish site that I was terribly impressed with.

Sounds to me an awful lot like drinking "near beer."

RH

[J-Luv]

Originally posted by hanratty21
It might be in other sites...but not mine, brother! Home grown AS for me. it's actually not that tough. A simple shape tween box duplicated as needed through AS to cover the upcoming loaded content MC.

RH

but how did you get your shape tween to be a transparent box tween? did u mask it or something?

[hanratty21]

Yes...the shape tween is a MovieClip in the library, which also utilizes an Alpha tween while the shape tween is happening.

Then, from a mask layer, I duplicate that movie clip with a for loop in order to unmask the entire size of the image beneath it.

Then, during the out transition, i use another for loop to play the rest of the animation in order to fade the image beneath out.

I am going to try and recode this thing so it is a little more re-usable for someone else, and then post it on my site. If you want, shoot me an email from my site, and I will send it to you when it is ready.

RH

[J-Luv]

that's great, i will email you....you are a kind soul.

[moot]

good work, you know what you're doing

i have an impression that may or may not help. when i first opened the site i didn't want to read the text on the front page. you have the bright colorful background, a white page coming forward of that, bright icons on white, then there's a picture in the middle that's got a dusk brown feel to it, and in that picture there's an even darker box with little paragraphs. that text was the last place i wanted to focus on.

on the portfolio page i pointed and clicked on one client and looked at the first screenshot, then the next one came in and i wondered if i did that by pointing at something, it took a minute for me to know that those were screens of the same site

once you're done with this do mine next please