Learning Flash
I just bought CS3 Web Premium (or whatever it's called) and it comes with dreamweaver, photoshop, illustrator...and all the other goodies. It also comes with my arch enemy, :eek: Flash. I have avoided it like a plague for years, but their comes a time in every man's life where he has to figure out flash. I have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to use it, but to no avail. I think I will have to open up a book, do you have any recommendation for a book on flash? Any good tutorials that helped you figure it out? Did you learn it on your own? How?
teammatt3 posted this at 16:00 — 16th May 2007.
He has: 2,102 posts
Joined: Sep 2003
Nobody?
Megan posted this at 16:09 — 16th May 2007.
She has: 11,421 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
Hi, sorry I didn't see this question sooner. I'm trying to remember how I learned flash. Mostly through trial & error for me. It helps to have a specific task you want to accomplish. There is really a lot to Flash - there's the drawing/animation part and then there's the scripting. The scripting is very similar to Javascript so it's not too hard to learn.
I never did come across a lot of good web tutorials for Flash, but I wasn't really trying to do that much fancy stuff with it either. If you want to learn without a specific tasks to do, buying a book would probably be best. We had some at my old office but I dont' have access to them anymore so I can't check and make a recommendation. Just not the Bible series, but you probably know that they're all majorly bloated.
You can also download a lot of samples from sites like flashkit to see how they work.
I hope this was somewhat helpful!
Megan
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Michele78 posted this at 17:13 — 16th May 2007.
They have: 19 posts
Joined: May 2007
I learned by tutorials, once you get the basics down your good to go. There is a specific order to do things... that was where I had issues, I hate having it like that but I made notes and now I can remeber it all.
I googled flash tutorials+beginners they have tons there.
Good luck and hope you succede!
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Designing is a vision from your soul.
Emphatic posted this at 06:04 — 17th May 2007.
He has: 6 posts
Joined: Oct 2006
There are some really good video tutorials that you can purchase online.
http://www.lynda.com is a wealth of tutorials that go from basic to advanced including the evil actionscript!
shobuz99 posted this at 14:51 — 27th May 2007.
They have: 42 posts
Joined: Oct 2006
I'm also beginning to use Flash MX 2004 Ver 7.0. I found a step-by-step instruction
how to do a simple animation using multiple graphics and the "Tweening" feature of Flash..
Here's the link: http://journalism.berkeley.edu/multimedia/tutorials/flash/keyframes.html
However, I've run into a problem trying to replace a file.js that runs a marquee (text),
with a flash graphic animation (.swf)
It doesn't appear to be the fault of Flash, though... I think....
Basically, I have 3 file.js installed in my main page. Two of them are related to
a dropdown Menu, done in javascript. The third is the marquee.js that simply runs text
over and over...
I wanted to remove the marquee.js and then put the Flash (.swf) there instead.
What happened has me perplexed. I removed the marquee.js and the 2 dropdown Menu.js files
stopped working... The menu no longer displays, as long as the marquee.js is removed.
As soon as I put it back, everything works.. Of course, that's not acceptable because having
the marquee and the flash, both is redundant..
I noticed that even if I don't include the flash (.swf) file, and remove the marquee.js,
the other two menu related js files quit working... At one point I thought it was
because I was using div's instead of tables... I found that doesn't seem to matter either.
And all I wanted to do was replace the marquee.js with a Flash (.swf)
Anyone have any suggestions?
Rick (Shobuz99)
Emphatic posted this at 22:32 — 27th May 2007.
He has: 6 posts
Joined: Oct 2006
Can you post a copy of your code? That might help
shobuz99 posted this at 14:10 — 28th May 2007.
They have: 42 posts
Joined: Oct 2006
Emphatic,
Well... I'll post the code, but like I said, this involves 3 .js files and an HTML main page.
Would you need all the .js files, or just show them listed in the HTML main page file?
Also, I have to say that I didn't write the .js files. They are both part of an HV Menu- by Ger Versluis,
submitted to Dynamic Drive for use. The marquee_menu.js is part of a Peter Gehrig menu, I found
on http://www.24fun.com.
These menus have worked together fine. When I first installed the HV Menu, the Peter Gehrig marquee
menu was layed out within the HTML page. I decided to clean things up and I created the marquee_menu.js
file and then called it out in the HTML like the other two.
I never had a problem with this coexistence until I removed the marquee_menu.js.
The reason I removed it, is because I wanted the flash swf file to replace it...
Anyway, here is the HTML code with the marquee_menu.js file still in there.
This works, but I don't want the marquee_menu.js in there... you get the idea..
// --->
(I left out the head code because it is irrelevant)
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and everything in between.
What's
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Urban Dictionary says:
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- the pimp daddy of all pimp daddys.
You know who I'm talking about!!
<script language="JavaScript" type="text/JavaScript">
//HV Menu- by Ger Versluis (http://www.burmees.nl/)
//Submitted to Dynamic Drive (http://www.dynamicdrive.com)
//Visit http://www.dynamicdrive.com for this script and more
function Go(){return}
</script>
<script src='marquee_menu.js' type='text/javascript'></script>
<script type='text/javascript' src='shmangymenu_var.js'></script>
<script type='text/javascript' src='menu_com.js'></script>
</script>
End of code
shobuz99 posted this at 00:21 — 29th May 2007.
They have: 42 posts
Joined: Oct 2006
It has the flash. Right after layer 2.. BTW.. the layers are out of order in this file.. it goes 1 3 2..
Emphatic posted this at 00:07 — 29th May 2007.
He has: 6 posts
Joined: Oct 2006
So this html code, is it:
shobuz99 posted this at 00:23 — 29th May 2007.
They have: 42 posts
Joined: Oct 2006
Yes, the javascript is working, BUT.. if i remove the marquee_menu.js
from the group.. it stops working for the menu..
Thanks for the review..
Rick (Shobuz99)
Emphatic posted this at 00:28 — 29th May 2007.
He has: 6 posts
Joined: Oct 2006
Sorry, pc was slow to respond, and therefore I repeated myself a few times.
I'll go over the code to see if I can uncover why it's stopping.
I'm no expert, and maybe other ppl can offer some insight.
Emphatic posted this at 06:27 — 29th May 2007.
He has: 6 posts
Joined: Oct 2006
I found your site on the net, and can see the marquee in action.
It's possible to use css to duplicate your navigation bar, which would allow you to use flash fo your marquee and do away with javascript altogether.
Have a look at this example: http://www.cssplay.co.uk/menus/final_drop.html
And the other examples of what can be done: http://www.cssplay.co.uk/menus/index.html
shobuz99 posted this at 13:11 — 29th May 2007.
They have: 42 posts
Joined: Oct 2006
Emphatic,
Thanks for your advice. The CSS menu idea is attractive to me; however,
I'm less than a novice when it comes to CSS.
I really would like to figure out why the 2 menu javascript files stop working
when I remove the marquee javascript file..
It just bugs the hell out of me.
I checked out a few css menus from the links you provided.. they're pretty cool.. I just wonder how long it would take me to understand how they work and how to change them when I needed to.
Thanks again..
Rick (shobuz99)
shobuz99 posted this at 20:32 — 29th May 2007.
They have: 42 posts
Joined: Oct 2006
Emphatic,
Eureka! I fixed it. I'll tell you what I discovered in the code.
There were two pieces that were associated with the marquee_menu.js
lodged within the area.
Both pieces had to be removed along with the marquee_menu.js
because they were apparently interfering with the menu.
The two lines of code were:
onload="dynAnimation();" language="Javascript"> ( within the )
function Go(){return} - also within the .
You can check out the corrected page: shmangyboys.com
Thank you very much for all of your advice and help. I may still consider
using css for the menus, in the future. It's a good idea.
As for the flash, I think I will be going back to my auto-didactic approach
to learning Flash and getting better at using it on web sites that I design or maintain (currently 6 and growing).
I''ve been asked to design a site for someone, that wants SOTA (state of the art) designing and soft components.
My skills aren't there yet to do that. Hopefully I can do something fundamental to satisfy the customer until they find someone who can or until I learn enough to do it myself.
I'm still learning a lot about Web site creation, design and mantenance; even though I've been doing it for over 10 years....slow learner:rolleyes:
thanks again for your help
Rick (shobuz99)
Emphatic posted this at 23:13 — 29th May 2007.
He has: 6 posts
Joined: Oct 2006
Well done!
CSS isn't that tricky, it's more understanding the XHTML side of things that will slow you down.
If you pop on over to http://www.opendesigns.org/view-designs/
You can see some sweet open source designs that you can download and play with. If your clients want something smooth, and polished, these templates can give you a "leg up" towards a professional look, and the designers are happy for you to use them, as long as you link back to them somehow.
A powerful freeware text editor can allow you to make the changes.
I've been using one called Notepad ++ which highlights the syntax for you. You can pull up the index.html file of a template and the style.css and make a few changes here and there to margins and padding, and see the result in a browser.
I too am a slow learner, but I found that a few tutorials here and there can answer questions for you. It's also good to see what the current trends are to keep ahead of the game, and improve your skills.
projectx posted this at 10:29 — 28th May 2007.
They have: 5 posts
Joined: Oct 2006
Try flashkit.com you will learn alot there from beginning to the advantage level.
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