FLASH help

[Kaziarl]

I'm trying to get an LCARS style interface for my site, but I don't know very much about FLASH. I've muddled through it for the most part, and have a flash intro movie in the works, but I want to know if there is anyone who can help with getting the buttons and whatnot to work.

Here's what I have so far
LCARS

Can't get the darn thing to stop looping either. oh well, hopefully someone can help me.

 

[QuasarVM]

I'm trying to get an LCARS style interface for my site, but I don't know very much about FLASH. I've muddled through it for the most part, and have a flash intro movie in the works, but I want to know if there is anyone who can help with getting the buttons and whatnot to work.

Here's what I have so far
LCARS

Can't get the darn thing to stop looping either. oh well, hopefully someone can help me.

Did you put a Stop action script command on the last frame of your movie clip?

 

[Kaziarl]

Never used flash before, don't know what a stop action script is. But I'll look around.

 

[QuasarVM]

Action scripting is a kind of programming language that Flash uses to control the actions and to create commands/functionality in your Flash animations or Flash based website or presentation. The level of expertise required to use action scripting can range from novice to expert...and scripting can be a very complicated specialty skill all it's own.

In your actions tab you'll see an item called "Global Functions" and under that an item called "Timeline Control". Click on that to expand that out (if it's not already) and you'll see the stop command.

Then in your timeline, create a top layer and on the last frame of your movie clip in that new layer hit your F6 key on your keyboard to create a blank keyframe.

Then click on that stop command in the actions tab (described above). You should see a lowercase "a" in the keyframe.

Then do a test playback and see if it stops after the animation plays.

It should stop after it reaches the last frame with the stop command.

Hopefully you know how to create movie clip symbols and have those setup properly. There's no way for me to know for sure without looking at your clip setup...

But, when working in Flash -- think of your movie clips (do not confuse the stage as a movie clip -- a movie clip is a symbol that you can save to your Flash library and drag TO the stage) as a cup. You can fill that cup with all kinds of graphics (static or animated) or even other movie clips.

Hope that helps. Let me know how it goes...

 

[Kaziarl]

Ok, got the stop action thing to work. Haven't uploaded it yet, but will soon.
As for everything else.... well lets put it this way. I'm below novice. This is something I've never done before, so it's going to take a while before I have a functional interface for the website. Believe me, I understand that.

 

[OmahaStar]

Yikes, people are still programming sites in Flash? Why?

 

[Kaziarl]

I want the LCARS interface. It's for my trek fanfics, so it seamed appropriate. I don't know of anything else that can do it.

 

[Hitman]

Ok, got the stop action thing to work. Haven't uploaded it yet, but will soon.
As for everything else.... well lets put it this way. I'm below novice. This is something I've never done before, so it's going to take a while before I have a functional interface for the website. Believe me, I understand that.

Don't worry, you won't need to learn to much actionscript to have a proper flash animation working. I use very little in my site, and the ones I use is mostly to reduce load times - ergo making smaller file sizes, etc.

 

[QuasarVM]

Ok, got the stop action thing to work. Haven't uploaded it yet, but will soon.
As for everything else.... well lets put it this way. I'm below novice. This is something I've never done before, so it's going to take a while before I have a functional interface for the website. Believe me, I understand that.

Don't worry, you won't need to learn to much actionscript to have a proper flash animation working. I use very little in my site, and the ones I use is mostly to reduce load times - ergo making smaller file sizes, etc.

Agreed. I am by far not an actionscripting king myself...

 

[Kaziarl]

ok, so for a menu, what action scripts should I use? Is there a generalized list that I can use as a basis, then expand on if necessary?

 

[QuasarVM]

What kind of menu? I'm assuming you just want buttons that take you to different sections of your site?

You have to create button symbols for that...and then, yes, you'd apply action scripting to those buttons.

 

[Kaziarl]

I want it to be an LCARS menu, bringing up different parts of my site. It's not a very big site, so I'm not imagining it to be a very big flash file. But basically I want it to look like a console on a starship.

 

[QuasarVM]

I want it to be an LCARS menu, bringing up different parts of my site. It's not a very big site, so I'm not imagining it to be a very big flash file. But basically I want it to look like a console on a starship.

You do realize you're going to have to put a page up that says "This site uses Flash -- and if you don't have it, go here to get it".

Not everybody has Flash installed on their computers -- and maybe not the version required to play your Flash site.

Anyway, just something to keep in mind...

 

[Mr. B]

Flash is completely unnecessary for a successful LCARS site. I did one 6 years ago with just GIFs, tables and a pinch of javascript and it looked great. http://www.mewho.com/system47/ is a good example of minimalist LCARS. http://lcarscom.net may be the best case in favor of flash, although even without the flash elements there is still a great site there.

Something else you should think about is usability. I presume your site will mostly be a display medium for alot of text. With flash none of that text is searchable, it is completely inaccessible on many people's browsers and cannot be scaled for those who may wish to enlarge the text with browser settings.

 

[Kaziarl]

Flash is completely unnecessary for a successful LCARS site. I did one 6 years ago with just GIFs, tables and a pinch of javascript and it looked great. http://www.mewho.com/system47/ is a good example of minimalist LCARS. http://lcarscom.net may be the best case in favor of flash, although even without the flash elements there is still a great site there.

Something else you should think about is usability. I presume your site will mostly be a display medium for alot of text. With flash none of that text is searchable, it is completely inaccessible on many people's browsers and cannot be scaled for those who may wish to enlarge the text with browser settings.

Could the size of text be included in the swf?