Site Check: students.washington.edu/akroll

[akroll]

This is my latest portfolio of design work and just about everything else. I spent quite a while setting it up to pull the content and links from an XML file since there are over a hundred images on the site. This is only my second project involving XML so I am trying to make sure it works as it should.

http://students.washington.edu/akroll

I would appreciate any comments that people might have, or suggestions. Also, please let me know if you encounter any problems.

Thanks in advance for your comments.

[steelbanana]

hi,
i like it. smooth and simple.

[Don Ramon]

everything is working well, i love your work mang

[mbrindley]

wow! very, very nice, and smooth! me gusta mucho amigo!

hey, i am kinda new to all of this, if you got time, could you explain a little on how you used XML? i have read a bit about and know what its all about...but how did you use it along with flash and make it an advantage etc...

THANKS!! great portfolio too dude!

[eightamrock]

IT looks like you make some very nice sites. I would add a lauch button for your sites so you can see them in action. From a client point of view I wouldnt be able to tell how good you work is unless i can see the product.

Just my 2 cents. Good Job over all

[akroll]

Thanks for the compliments, mbrindley

I am using XML to store the textual content for the site. For example all the project descriptions, the menu titles and organization, etc. If you take a look at http://students.washington.edu/akroll/content.xml you can see what the XML file looks like. The sub menus on the site are definied by the structure of the xml file, so for example if I wanted to add another project to my web work, all I would need to do is copy everything between two <projectNode> tags and change the content. That means I can update my portfolio without ever having to look at the flash file again. I love it!

I was forced to learn XML when I developed the site to accompany my design class's graduation and exhibition. Its an awesome way of setting up a system if you need to let others edit the content and such. It has its limitations such as: its very difficult to acutally have links within a body of text (if someone knows how to do this, please let me know). But its fast and works very well with Flash.

[akroll]

eightamrock,

There is actually a site launch button, but perhaps it is a bit difficult to find. On the left side of the images, there is a list of numbers which display different images. at the bottom of the numbers there is usually a little page icon, which has a project description and a launch button. Perhaps i failed to make that aparent enough. Other people seem to have trouble finding it as well.

[eightamrock]

I see it now. But I would never have found it if you didnt tell me. I would suggest that clicking on the image of the site would launch it.

Good lookin out

ps i just took a look again and found it you do some very nice work. Bravo.

[Don Ramon]

akroll,

can you post some links that can be helpful for learning xml and combining it with flash?

[akroll]

These are the tutorials I used to learn integrating XML with Flash. Good luck, and expect to spend some serious time perfecting it.

http://www.actionscript.org/tutorial...ML/index.shtml

http://www.macromedia.com/support/fl...xml/index.html

http://www.studiowhiz.com/tutorials/24/

[tinysuperbug]

Alden,
love the site. Clean, professional. You obviously have a good handle on what you're doing. You're style/taste is very similar to my own.
(and thusly I like it mucho.)

What is the story on the 'Diaries' Series. Where they a consumer product? I'm very familiar with Lake chelan, as I live very close to it.

Oh, and the nature of wildfires, is that they create lots and lots of smoke. Right about. . . now.

The 'About' page needs some looking into, the text info pages are slightly cut off on the left margin for some reason.

Also, the 'Background' Is simply an image. (might want to add some info or nix it. I sat there for a couple of seconds wondering.)

Ditto on making the launch/info page more user friendly. The first time I saw it was on the resume page, so I clicked it, saw that it didn't do anything, and completely discounted it for good until I read the other posts. Most would probably not notice it at all.


Good job

[akroll]

I think I may have solved one of the navigation problems. Now, if you mouseOver an image that has an associated URL, it will let you launch the site from there. I still need a way to make the numeric image listings more obvious. Anyone have a suggestion?

tinysuperbug, Thanks for the comments. The 'Diaries' was a series of documentaries produced by my client, Creek Productions. I made interactive CD's to accompany the documentary which had more information about the history, photos and all that good stuff. I think the resulting product ended up with the Chamber of Commerce as something they give to people looking to move into the area.

There is still a bunch of content I need to add, such as stuff in the "Background" section. Hopefully I'll get around to that when i have a break from projects.

Thanks again for all your feedback.

[eightamrock]

Portfolio is 1000 times better like that. Mouse over brings you the lauch section. Much much better. Good job.