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Milosav,
I've started a new post over at:
http://www.flashkit.com/board/showth...5&goto=newpost
I was wondering if you could check it out. I'm wondering how I could go about doing a picture gallery...loading PNG files from my library into an empty movie clip. Could you give me some insight on this? I'd really appreciate it..I just thought I'd ask you cause you really know your stuff and have never steered me in the wrong direction!
Let me know...
-Foochuck akd Chaunce Rodriguez
:smoov:
HI foochuck,
Good to see that you are still around.
Placed something on the other thread.
I await your reply.
Milosav
Milosav,
For the previous Flash you had helped me out with...you had show me this button action to put in the frame of my movie:
but1.onRelease = function() {
loadAudioFile("male1.swf");
};
How could I translate this to a frame action..instead of having the button call the function, I'd like the frame to play it...I'd like to have this action start at the beginning of my flash movie. Please advise...
Thanks!
-Foochuck
Milosav,
Hi! great thread, at the risk of going off topic, don't suppose you could explain why or when one would use layers..in an understandable form, been trying to figure out that one for a bit...what the benefits would be, if any.
Thanks!
HI fergsta,
I am wondering if you mean Levels and not Layers.
So just in case here is something on both.
Layers.
A Flash Movie is often made up of a number of Layers.
Layers are like sheets of transparent paper stacked on top of
each other. Each can hold graphics, text, Movie Clips,
Sound etc.It makes organizing and handling all your graphics
etc easier than placing them all on one layer. The .zip file
includes some files ... one of them is called "Layers" and if
you have a look you will see some graphics and text fields
on each layer. I hope this gives you some idea of how you
could use them. You will note that graphics in layers above
other layers will cover the contents of Layers below. You can
move a layers to a different position in the stacking order
wich will produce different visibility of our elements.
Levels.
Levels have many of the same qualities as Layers (stacking
order and transparent) plus a lot more. Many Flash developers
will break a large Flash movie
into a number of smaller Movies. This is perhaps the most used
method of reducing the size of the Flash file.
So if you had a big Flash movie say 200Kb you may break it
up into 10 parts (.swf files) each being 20Kb. Then you can
load them into Levels as you want (or when the user wants)this
solves the problem of long download times. Also this method
of building in "modules" makes updating or improving sections
of your project much easier as you do not have to mess with
one huge file but just fix or improve the module you need to
then it will just be loaded in as before. This also very
helpfull when working in a team ... where you may have different developers working on different modules which all plug together
to form the whole project.
Lets say your main page opens with a navigation of five buttons.
When pressed each button will display different content. Rather
than load all this content in at the start ... it can be loaded
into Levels later ... when the user wants to see it ... or when
your Movie needs it. You can also control some properties of
Levels which make this a very powerfull thing.
ie: the following actionscript can manipulate Levels.
_level1._visible=false; //makes _level1 invisible.
_level1._alpha=50; //makes _level1 50% transparent
There are lots more than just these two.
In the .zip file you will find the file called Levels and
the file called Movie1.swf. If you play the Movie called
Levels it loads Movie1.swf into _level1 ... with the
actionscript loadMovieNum("Movie1.swf",1);
Anyway hope this helps a bit ...
You may have many more questions after having a look at these
files so post back with them.
The files are Flash MX I hope this is not a problem.
It is the same in Flash 5.
Milosav
yeah, sorry..I am slow, but not that slow!... i am going to absorb what you wrote, Thanks for your response.
amazing what a little ../ will do
now i gotta figure out how to get my fading buttons to work again, they stopped as soon as i made the nav bars movie clips...
Well I must milosav you do seem to b one of the most clued up peps on this forum not to mention helpfull. I have a problem that I have been trying to get to the bottom of for months. I would b eternally greatfull if you could offer some advise or may b give me an example on my swf files. I have done the classic example of pulling apart a 200k swf and breaking it into lots of little ones.
Problem is is I have 6 sections with sub sections.
For each of the sections there is an animation.
If one of the sub sections is hit I want the animation to stay where it is for the rest of the sub sections in that section
I should disapear when another section is activated. And in turn the animation will start for that section.
It's easy to understand by checking it in action at my site www.forsite.co.nz ,this is how I want the site to work, but not as one big swf with a long preload.
Thanks heaps
dAvE
Hi fergsta,
Are you using a timeline motion tween to do your fading
or actionscript?
This could be a good place to try some actionscript.
The following is something to play with. Flash MX.
Lets say you have a Movie Clip with the instance name
navBar (which is on your main timeline). And you want it to
fade. Here is a function which would fade it from a 0 _alpha
to 100% _alpha.
//this starts an interval (timer) which calls the function
//fadeNav every 100 milliseconds
faderInterval=setInterval(fadeNav,100);
//this is the function which does the fading every 100
//milliseconds
function fadeNav(){
//check if navBar is at 100% _alpha yet
if(navBar._alpha>=100){
//if it is 100% _alpha then we stop our faderInterval
clearInterval(faderInterval);
}
//otherwise we increase the _alpha
navBar._alpha+=1;
}
You can see that all this can take place in one Frame ...
no extra key frames ... no timeline tweening. This all means
a smaller file.
Check out this site (it has an expandable database
of images)and even has thumbs that when pressed load in larger
images (it also has fading buttons)
http://www.trump.net.au/~Milosav/tgfx
... the original .swf file
was around 40 Kb with only 5 images in the image gallery.
It would have been huge with the current number of images. But with a little actioscript the Main .swf file is now around 7Kb!!! And
content is delivered to the visitor fast even at narrow
bandwidth.
Milosav
Hi interstella,
What version of Flash are you using and for which
platform??????????????????
Looked at your site and for me on a 14400bps s-l-o-w
connection speed it was a long wait.
Looking at it I guess your six sections are
about
contacts
services
mission
work
random
This would be a good start. To modulizing your site. But
if you have broken it apart and are now rebuilding it I
would be carefull to spend sometime thinking about future
expansion or additional content that you may include in
your subsections. Just so that when you do put it back together
there is a place to plug these into without pulling apart the
file again sometime.
Flash can both stream as well as allow you to preload (or
control the streaming) it is a good thing not to get stuck on
either. Often a combination of both will be the answer.
But the first step is to decide what bandwidth you are
designing for? Because there is no use streamling your
site for a narrow bandwidth if you know that your clients all
surf on wide bandwidths.
Of course you are a company which is IT related so I think
it would be bad PR to have a site that did not load at an
acceptable speed on medium bandwidths ... and like greased
lightning on wider bandwidths ... this alone could be your
best advertisement.
How large (bytes)
would your navigation menu be if placed in a Movie Clip of it's own ???
I can see a possibility here of loading the navigation bar
(as an external .swf) into the MainMovie. This would give the
user some fast content and also a picture of what is to come.
Each button would load in a .swf file that contained and
also controled that sections subsections.
You would need (I advise) a multi.swf preloader which would keep track
of what was loaded and what was not. And a function which
controled what content was active on the stage.
These are not overly complex.
If you want to get into the specifics just chose a starting
point.
Milosav
hmmm, so all that fading is done without tweening frames? that is pretty useful to know. would have helped me doin my site.
but what i am doing now is flying over the buttons in the nav bar and as they flyout the buttos fade back to normal. owrks fine on the one nav bar that is not a clip, but the ones I had to make a movie clip to interact with each other the fade stoped workin(although now I think I may have been able to use levels somehow instead). I think the problem is related to the path again as they are now movie clips, just haven't been able to figure out where the problem lies yet...not a big script, but lots a little bits.
I'll get it, I hope...if not you can be sure I will back herer moanin and groanin!:)
Thanks!
hey milosav, thanks 4 your linez.
my navigation is 20k
the animations range from about 20k to 60k
the individual pages (or sub sections) range from about 3k to 20k
I am a designer and am kinda new action script, have had a few different suggestions on how to do this. can get it all workin fine apart from animations playing again when a subsection of the same section is activated....It should only play once for a section.
Most client will be on at least 128k connections, but I would like it to load quickly on a 56 k connection.
I am a very visual person and can understand action script if I see it in action....so is there any way I could send you my ziped up source files to an address and get you to give me an example of how you would do it, on one of the sections?
Im sure I would have no probz applying it to the rest of the site from there.
Much appreciation.
Dave.
Hi interstella,
Ok ... you can mail me your .zip files to:
[email protected]
I will check them out.
If they are over 1 MB could you please send them in a
few lots.
Milosav
milosav,
I hope you get this, as once again I think I have hit the limits of my knowledge.
I am trying to load a horizontal submenu as you roll over a button in the horizontal main menu. I have created the submenus as seperate movie clip files.
Now I can call one easily, loading it into the empty clip, positioned in the right spot. But when i get to the second button, I can't think how to load the second submenu, as an error keeps coming up telling me have have to have it in an onClipEvent or something.
also, i don't want the roll overs not to work if the movie clips have not loaded. I tried the example you gave us on loading movie clips and levels, but I think i just confused myself further.
If you can understand what i am going on about please help!
Thanks!
milosav,
I hope you get this, as once again I think I have hit the limits of my knowledge.
I am trying to load a horizontal submenu as you roll over a button in the horizontal main menu. I have created the submenus as seperate movie clip files.
Now I can call one easily, loading it into the empty clip, positioned in the right spot. But when i get to the second button, I can't think how to load the second submenu, as an error keeps coming up telling me have have to have it in an onClipEvent or something.
also, i don't want the roll overs not to work if the movie clips have not loaded. I tried the example you gave us on loading movie clips and levels, but I think i just confused myself further, and i still want to have the button flyover states and sounds, and it needs to work with the Flash 5 plugin.
If you can understand what i am going on about please help!
Thanks!
Here is where i got, looks like it does what i want, but this is the version i get the error about the onClipEvent as i am not preloading any of the clips.
http://www.thefoundationsite.com/flash/slidingmenu.zip
Here are the files now...I deleted all the a/s...I was trying to use your example.
http://www.thefoundationsite.com/fla...ingmenufla.zip
hey milosav.
Just wondering if ya got those forsite flas I sent. If so, hope they wernt too confusing. If there was any probz, let me know.
dave
Hi, fergsta
I think that you can do your menu this way. See the attached fla's of your menu.
Hey, that seems to work great! very simple and elegant solution...I would have never gotten there! I think I see what you have done, I like to understand why things work.
I greatly appreciate your help!
ferg.
Hi,
First off, this is the best thread I've found yet at hats off to Milosav for sharing your knowledge and time. I've learned a lot and have had many of my questions answered.
Milosav, I have downloaded many of your files and since I am looking for simplicity I'll address
Part 3.
What helped me most is your use of functions to organize your code. I am starting to do just that in my project. I understand Part3 and it works find for my sub level navigation (nav), where nav is a MC of buttons on the same in the same lessontemplate.swf that loads in external .swfs. (L1video1.swf, L1text1.swf, L1anim.swf, .....)
What I'd like to do is understand how I can use Part3 for my main navigation which is in an external .swf and is loaded on the same _level as lessontemplate.swf but in a different depth.
So the structure looks like this:
main.swf
-loads mainnav.swf into an empty MC
mainnav.swf - contains buttons
- user selects a button
- calls function with "section name"
-checks to see if section already have been selected
-checks to see if the template has been loaded
if not loads tempate.swf
sets navmc.IsLoaded to sectionname
-otherwise
assigns template.IsLoading to section name
template.swf - loads component .swf based on the assignments of "template.IsLoading"
My question is about preloading the template first. Would I have to put the preloader for the template.swf in the MC that holds my buttons in mainnav.swf?
I'm thinking of preloading my template.swf at the same time that maninav.swf gets loaded and setting _visible to false till I want to show it.
Here is some code I have:
Code in the first frame of mainnav.swf
stop ();
//this variable is checked before a section is loaded to ensure the movied loads only once
IsLoaded = "false";
//sectname refers to the section selected (_name of the button)
function testLoad (sectname)
{
//remember to check to see if the template is loaded
switch (sectname) {
case "overview":
if ( IsLoaded == sectname ) //check to see if the section is already loaded
{ trace (" section is already loaded");
break;
}
if ( _level0.template.IsLoaded == "false") //template not loaded yet
{
IsLoaded = sectname ;
loadMovie ("sectionframeideacurr.swf", "_level0.template" );
\\do I have to call a preloader here and where would it live
gotoAndPlay ( intromc.overview ); //this plays an animation
break;
}
else { // set variable in templatemc "IsLoading" to section name
_level0.template.IsLoading = sectname;
break;
}
//repeat for case "lessons" , "resources", and "help"
}
Code for example button
on (release)
{
_parent.testLoad ("overview");
}
Hope this helps,
thanks in advance
Lisa