Simplicity is the goal...but have I gone too far?

[crunge82]

Let me know what you think. I want the work to speak for itself, so I've gotten rid of all color in the site itself. Thanks.

http://kkelly.threefound.com

This is my brother's site. I'm a designer, he's a developer. This one's still very much under construction.

http://www.threefound.com

[MagnusVS]

Very clean and nice!
One tip: When you hold over the buttons and the words appear, maybe you should ease the motion tween out a bit, so it becomes a bit "smoother"? And maybe work a bit on the frame that appear when you push a button...

But really nice site

Magnus

[MyFriendIsATaco]

you definitely need to bump up the frame rate and make your hit zone on the buttons a bit bigger so they are easier to click on, other than that, itll look fantastic

[crunge82]

sweet. thanks for the help, guys.

[baronmunchowsen]

...and liked the transitions into the different pages. But remember to create some transitions out of the pages. At present when you're browsing one page and hit another, then the page you're viewing just abruptly disappears... Good job though.

[crunge82]

how would I do that? I can't assume that people will go in the order of the buttons, so I can't just tell it to play at a frame...I'd have to say "play frames 15-30, and then play frames 50-65." How does that work?

[baronmunchowsen]

This is how I go about creating transitions. It's a little labour intansive, and I'm sure that some of the more expert flash users around here may be able to give you some better advice, but here goes:

1. Create all the transitions (all the different permutations), and label them accordingly so for your site I'd have:

HOME (shows homepage)
ABOUT (shows the ABOUT page - no transition)
PRINT
CONTACT

HOMEtoABOUT
HOMEtoCONTACT
HOMEtoHOME

ABOUTtoPRINT (shows the transition from ABOUT to PRINT page)
ABOUTtoCONTACT
ABOUTtoHOME

PRINTtoCONTACT
PRINTtoABOUT
PRINTtoHOME

CONTACTtoPRINT
CONTACTtoABOUT
CONTACTtoHOME

2. I have a global variable called 'currentPage' or something like that (which is set to, say, 'ABOUT' if you're on the ABOUT page). On the first frame of the _root timeline I set the variable to the homepage:
e.g. _global.currentPage = "HOME"

3. When a button is pressed, I would have a script something like:

PRINTBUTTON.onPress = function(){
frametoplay = currentframe+"to"PRINT;
gotoandPlay(frametoplay);
_global.currentPage = PRINT;
}

4. at the end of each of the transition frame-chunks I have a script saying gotoandStop(currentframe);

So basically, when someone hits the print button from the homepage,
the variable 'frametoplay' is set to HOMEtoPRINT.
The timeline is played from the frame HOMEtoPRINT, and at the end of that it tells the timeline to stop on currentPage, which has been set to PRINT.

then, when the next button is pressed it will be PRINTtoABOUT say, or PRINTtoCONTACT.

Does this make sense, or have I confused the issue.

[crunge82]

hmm...I understand the logic, but I"m not sure about the technical side. Currently, I have the animations in the main timeline. Are you saying that the new animations should be movie clips? Also, the line of code that you gave me--does that go on the button itself? Thanks for your help.

[mal pacino]

ok - page transitions - this is how you do them:

http://www.kirupa.com/developer/mx2004/transitions.htm

I dont like buttons that appear not to be buttons untill you click on them - but thats just me

[baronmunchowsen]

...I knew a senior member of this site would be able to be alot more helpful than me! I've just read the tutorial and it makes much more sense than my method (although my method does work!!).

Just to clarify, the code in my previous post isn't actually a copy of code that I have used, I just wrote it out ad hoc, as an example - so ignore the text, but try to understand the logic (or ignore it completley and read the tutorial).

Hope your transitions come to you with ease

[crunge82]

thanks for the help!