PC users please check......

[Tracy981]

hi,

can both users, PC & Mac, please check my site that I am working on. Im currently working on a Mac with a 1152x768 res monitor. When I checked my site on my PC, 1024 x 768 res, it was AWFUL AWFUL but on my mac, it looks great (even though it is slow and preloaders dont work, Im concerned right now on images and text)! I need as much criticism as possible, if images are to dark, contrasty, saturated, text is choppy, anything, it will be greatly appreciated. The site is for a wedding photographer so the images are very important. For PC users, if the site does look bad, how do i go about fixing this even though my swf file is done at 800x600??? thanks for everyones input and help!

www.geocities.com/luv98ca80

Tracy

P.S. its a free webhosting site, so dont mind the banners/ads

[SSC Cosmic]

Hi Tracy,

Sorry, couldn't get it to load. Got the splash, but the popup wouldn't load on my cable connection. You can't count on Geocities, they never intended their free service to support a designer's work. You can get yourself decent hosting for $5/month, maybe it's time to hook up. If that's not in the cards right now, then your ISP probably gives you 5 or 10 mb as part of your connection deal, and it usually turns out to be of pretty good quality. It may also have been your java code that wouldn't load it properly, you can compare yours to the code generator site at http://flash-db.com/PopUp/ and see if that fixes it.

Also, I think it's probably unrealistic to look at site quality issues when you haven't optimized your images and so on yet. I'm looking forward to the lighter version.

G/L!
John
Specs:
P4 2.6, 768ram, radeon 64, IE6, cable at 2800 kbps d/l.

[Tracy981]

thanks John for looking or at least trying. I do intend on buying space but I just wanted something free just to test it on both platforms. I posted this thread on a few forums and they said its ok, so im kinda lost on why it wont connect for you! but thanks anyways for giving me feedback =)

Tracy

[CheyenneWay]

the site worked for me. the pop up was lower right corner of my screen so i had to move it to the center manually. 1024 rez here. the graphics were crisp and clear so no problems there. only thing i would add if it were me would be some ambience music to set the tone but thats just my opinion. thanks for sharing your work and good luck to you friend

[jhg1226]

The site worked for me but when I went to enlarge a picture I got the ole file not found. I agree with Cheyenneway about the music. But do like most and make it so loud it distracts. Something simple like Pachelbell's Cannon discretely in the background. The site exudes class and makes me feel the photographer is truly a professional. Good work! However the text is a little too small and tends to blur a little. And I have a 19" LCD monitor with an excellent graphics card. Which makes me wonder what others are seeing. Otherwise Very Very nice!

[Pooper O'Mackie]

worked good for me. I'm on a pc running 1152 x 864. the site was very elegant, however I might consider speeding up the transitions a bit.

Nice one

[Tracy981]

Thanks to everyone looking at the site. I just recently figured out how to change the FPS and use easing, before i had it at 12, now I have it 30.

O"mackie....wut do u suggest with the transitions? are they to slow for you?

And yes, none of the pop up works b/c it is a free hosting site and Im not going to load over 100 jpg's into the server =)

Jhg....you say my text is small, I had it smaller then wut it is now and currently its at 14pt, any suggestions on why this my be happening on ur comp? Im have a nervous breakdown trying to fix this site so its compatible to most PC monitors and im banging my head against the wall b/c it looks wonderful on some and not on other and most of my clients customers will have an "average" computer.

Cheyenne & Jhg....I do agree about the music, I will let her know ur suggestions. Her goal is to have the site look different then most wedding photographers and ALL of them have music ( but really bad music) so maybe since the two of you, my fellow "flashers" thought it would be nice, maybe she'll listen

Thankyou to everyone for their help and suggestions, this is my first professional site, VERY NERVOUS. but you guys help tame my nerves =) take care everyone

[Pooper O'Mackie]

maby they are just slow for me, I duno. The whole site seems to move in slow motion. This works well with the elegent gd elements, however I think i would speed it up a bit for useability. all in all, it's a chery site, slow or not

nice one

[Tracy981]

thanks for ur help, i'll tell my client wut u suggested and see wut she says, shes very picky on speed. Thanks for all ur help and advice! take care =)

Tracy

[theswedishtiger]

1 - Loading text is real hard to read (using 1280 rez), it is blurry
2 - Hope no ones looking at this on dial up. I am on 56kb and it has taken three minutes so far
3- Now I am there, I have clicked "About the photographer, there is a blank screen for the longest time, then a load bar which does not move, or text that does not change, I think the load bar script is not working. Again the font is hard to read. I would chose a pixel font or any san-serif font.
4 - Now clicking the other options and it seems that none of the load bars work
5 - There are no prices on the packages (?)
6 - Nothing happened on helpful wedding tips, a blank screen. I waited but lost patience.

Elegant site though

[eightamrock]

I think the layout is very nice. Runs a bit too slow for me. Text size is fine I can read it clearly. I would speed up the transitions a little.
my setup
1152x864 rez
pc 1.8g athalon, 512mb ddr, 128mb ddr video
cable modem

runs very smooth but very slow.

A good thought would be on the plash page set one for broadband using the highest export setting and one for dial up using low export setting to reduce file size. this will solve the loading issues with low bandwith users.

[Roxannej77]

The site looks good visually!

I agree makes the photographer look like a class act.

The transitions are too slow for my taste. The first one was good for effect but after that it just seemed a little slow. Smooth though!

I thought the button boxes in front of the name were a distraction.

Excellent job, Elegant.

[Tracy981]

eightamrock.....forgive me if this is a stupid question but by setting up the high/low versions, do you mean setting up a basic html site and flash version OR when i export the movie set my quality low on my swf files?? B/c i do have a basic html site setup but toooooo many files to upload just for a test. Im having alot of problems with the speed, some people suggested increase the FPS and my client wanted the images clear which increases the file size. Before i had my FPS @ 12 now I have it @ 30. Do you think the reason why u and roxannae think its slow b/c of my FPS or the fact that im on a free hosting site and their server is awful!

thanks =)
Tracy


P.S.
thanks Roxanne and theswedishtiger.....yeah none of the popups work, hints page doesnt work b/c i have no content for it and my preloaders dont work b/c im loading external files and for some reason they dont work like they do for the main swf file. I'll def look into the text, wut is the standard font for a PC??

[PRIMO_2004]

Looks great to me, the layout and colors and the overall feel is very classy. The only thing I might suggest is using a finer looking preloader. The one you have on there is a little rough, takes away from your design. Cheers Trace

[Tracy981]

thanks primo for the advice and comments, I do agree with you, the preloaders dont go with the design and they are boring/ugly =) but i cant get them to work! but thanks for the comments and checking out my site, i saw ur site and its amazing so your comments about the design layout made my day! =)

Tracy

[PRIMO_2004]

If that makes your day, I can stop by and post more comments periodicaly and we'll keep you happy that way for a loooong time

[eightamrock]

I think that the transitions from page to page run slow. The site is running very smooth so I am not having a problem getting the information from the server. It loads perfectly fine on my machine as well I didnt wait long at all. I was more talking about your fps. You need to shorten the transitions from page to page. If you are running 30 fps then you can shorten the animations and still have it very very smooth. It just takes too long for the fade out of the current to the fade in on the next then the buttons fade in its just very slow process. But as far as file size I dont have a problem getting into the site and it loading.

What I was talking about was lowering the quality on the swf's for a dial-up connection. It will decrese quality in the images, however it will load faster for the dial-up users. I would recomend a html site over all for dial-up so as not to compromise your artwork. But with the growing number of cable modems, dsl, and T3 being installed across the globe its becoming less and less of a problem everyday. So if you dont want to lower the quality of the site go html for dial up.....and the site that posted is perfectly fine (file size) for broadband. Just speed up the transitions Hope that clears up what i was talking about in my earlier post.

[Tracy981]

Primo, you are awesome, that would make my day,week,month, etc =) Building web pages are so stressful in regards to the design, layout, speed, how its viewed on different platforms and when u feel like u wanna give up and just press delete, there are wonderful people like you, eight, roxanne,theswedishtiger, omackie, jhg,CheyenneWay and everyone else that has helped with this *@#$% site and has givin me motivation to back away from the delete button =) very greatful thankyou!!


Eight.....yes now i completely understand wut you are saying, I do have a html site setup and ready to go so i guess im safe with that, woohoooo i did something right Now the fading problem b/w sections, that i dont think I have control over, b/c I am loading external files into the main swf into a window target. this is wut i have on my frame:

_root.window.loadMovie("about.swf");
_root.window._alpha=100;

this is wut i have on my button:

on (release) {
_root.window.onEnterFrame = function() {
if (this._alpha>0) {
this._alpha = Math.max(0, this._alpha-10);
} else {
delete this.onEnterFrame;
gotoAndPlay("about");
}
};
}


this was the only way I could get the fade in/out effect throughout the sections, do you know of a way, or point me into the direction to make this better?
thanks for all ur help!!!!!!!

Tracy

[eightamrock]

I am no actionscript guru so you might want to get a second opinion but this is what it looks like to me.....

_root.window.loadMovie("about.swf"); //nc
_root.window._alpha=100; //nc

this is wut i have on my button:

on (release) {
_root.window.onEnterFrame = function() { //nc
if (this._alpha>0) { //nc
this._alpha = Math.max(0, this._alpha-10); // this is where i would change it it is lowering the alpha 10% when you enter the frame since you are running 30 frames persecond it takes 10 seconds to lower the alpha to zero. I would increase to (this._alpha-20) cut the time in half. //
} else {
delete this.onEnterFrame;
gotoAndPlay("about");
}
};
}

Now I am not fully learned in the art of action scripting i would have taken a tweening approach myself but I do use action script for many commands. So this might do it but I would get a second opinion

[thefuzmixman]

well i dont want to just repeat what everyone else said, and i didnt read every post, but this site does move very slow. id like to see how it moves now that you've changed the frame rate. The download speed however was almost instant. I have no gripe there.. It has a nice and simple design, and everything looks good. I read a post about someone criticizing the size of the text, but im on 1280 x 1024 and i can read it, so i dont see the problem. my only suggestion is maybe change up the transistions.. its the same one for everything pretty much. still its cool, good job.

oh and music. i agree. it would really compliment the mood of it all.