Creating Subpages in Flash Templates

Many people have been wanting to know how to create subpages in existing flash templates. Finally, butterfly studio template has arrived to show you a good example for creating subpages in flash contents. The main idea is simply to create a movie clip for subpages which can easily be put into a specific frame inside “flashmo contents” movieclip.

§ All main pages are located inside “flashmo contents” movie clip as usual.
§ There is subpages layer which stores all subpages movie clips, each frame has a subpage movie clip for a specific main page.
§ Inside each subpage movie clip, there are different layers which have subtitles, text contents, menu buttons, menu labels, and a pointer. Those elements can be easily modified according to your needs.
§ If you need new subpage movie clip, you can simply duplicate existing one in the library and apply it to another page.

Hope this information should be helpful enough to guide you to understand how things are organized effectively and apply for your own flash websites. Feel free to drop a comment if you have any question.

Slogan Contest from Templates.com

This is about a slogan contest from Templates.com. You just have to come up with a Kicking Slogan for Templates.com, leave a message in comments onTemplates.com blog post, and you’ll stand to win $100 in cash or credits from Templates.com!

The contest starts on July 15th 2008, and the results will be announced at the beginning of August. Each participant of this contest who has an account on Templates.com will get 4 credits, so everyone will win! Don’t worry, you canregister an account for free if you do not have one.

What is Templates.com website about?

They create 3D Clip Art, 3D Models, Illustrations, Icons, Website Templates,Flash Templates, and they love what they do. So, they have thought it would be great to involve their customers, friends and guests who no doubt are creative people into the process of slogan creation.

Prizes

• 1st place: $100 in cash
• 2nd place: 100 credits from Templates.com which can be used to purchase our products
• 3rd place: 50 credits from Templates.com which can be used to purchase our products

You just have to visit Templates.com website, and get some ideas for slogan text.

Good luck everyone!

Editing buttons in flash templates

This is a quick solution for those who wanted to assign some buttons to go to web pages or URLs in existing main menu of flashmo.com templates. Button action scripts are usually located on first frame of actions layer.

First, you need to use the separator | between button label and URL. e.g. “Services|service.html”, “Company|http://www.flashmo.com” for buttons which are pointing to other web pages.

PLAIN TEXT

Actionscript:

1. var menu_label:Array = new Array(“Home”, “Services|service.html”, “Testimonials”,
2. “Company|http://www.flashmo.com”, “Contact”);

Second, add a few lines of codes for splitting button label and URL.

PLAIN TEXT

Actionscript:

1. var each_substring:String = menu_label[i].split(“|”);
2. menu_item_group[“menu_item”+i].item_label = each_substring[0];
3. menu_item_group[“menu_item”+i].item_url = each_substring[1];

Third, add if else statement to check the URL exists or not in button onRelease action.

PLAIN TEXT

Actionscript:

1. if( this._parent.item_url != undefined )
2. getURL(this._parent.item_url, “_parent”);
3. else
4. _root.change_page(this._parent.item_no);

Here is the complete source codes.

PLAIN TEXT

Actionscript:

1. menu_item_group.menu_item._visible = false;
2. var menu_label:Array = new Array(“Home”, “Services|service.html”, “Testimonials”,
3. “Company|http://www.flashmo.com”, “Contact”);
4. var total:Number = menu_label.length;
5. var distance_x:Number = 124;
6. var i:Number = 0;
8. for( ; i )
9. {
10. menu_item_group.menu_item.duplicateMovieClip(“menu_item”+i, i);
11. menu_item_group[“menu_item”+i].over = true;
13. var each_substring:String = menu_label[i].split(“|”);
14. menu_item_group[“menu_item”+i].item_label = each_substring[0];
15. menu_item_group[“menu_item”+i].item_url = each_substring[1];
16. menu_item_group[“menu_item”+i].item_no = i;
17. menu_item_group[“menu_item”+i]._x = i * distance_x;
18. }
19. function change_page(no):Void
20. {
21. for( i = 0; i )
22. {
23. menu_item_group[“menu_item”+i].flashmo_button._visible = true;
24. menu_item_group[“menu_item”+i].over = true;
25. menu_item_group[“menu_item”+i].flashmo_button.onRollOver = function()
26. {
27. this._parent.over = false;
28. }
29. menu_item_group[“menu_item”+i].flashmo_button.onRollOut =
30. menu_item_group[“menu_item”+i].flashmo_button.onDragOut = function()
31. {
32. this._parent.over = true;
33. }
34. menu_item_group[“menu_item”+i].flashmo_button.onRelease = function()
35. {
36. if( this._parent.item_url != undefined )
37. getURL(this._parent.item_url, “_parent”);
38. else
39. _root.change_page(this._parent.item_no);
40. }
41. menu_item_group[“menu_item”+i].onEnterFrame = function()
42. {
43. if( this.over == true ) this.prevFrame();
44. else this.nextFrame();
45. }
46. }
47. delete menu_item_group[“menu_item”+no].flashmo_button.onRollOut;
48. menu_item_group[“menu_item”+no].flashmo_button._visible = false;
49. menu_item_group[“menu_item”+no].over = false;
50. _root.page = no + 1;
51. _root.play();
52. }
53. change_page(0); // the default page on load

Edit the timeline in menu item movie clip for rollover effect for modifying the button effect.
Edit menu item label movie clip for embedding characters in your language font. See the example below:

Flash Best Practices

When you work on Flash documents, it is important to keep the structure neat, clean, and accessible in all aspects of flash environment no matter you work alone or as part of a team. This post is to give you some guidelines about Timelines and the library.

Flash Timeline structure

• Name layers in meaningful way (see the below samples to compare good and bad Timeline structures) and avoid using default layer names (such as layer 1, layer 2, etc.) which cannot tell you anything.
• Use layer folders when there are more than 10 layers.
• Try to keep the number of layers as low as possible.
• Put all actions and frame labels in one layer: e.g. “actions” layer, do not put any other object on this layer.

Flash Library Structure

• Name objects in meaningful way (see the below samples to compare good and bad library structures) and avoid using default object names (such as Symbol 1, Symbol 2, Tween 1, etc.) which cannot give you any information about the object.
• Use library folders and group related objects when there are more than 20 objects in the library (see the below sample to compare bad design and good practices)
• Delete unused items to keep the library clean.

It is always necessary to have a good structure for both Timeline and the library. This way you can get a lot of benefits than you can think of such as reuse flash assets effectively, save time, and no more frustrations about finding needed objects.

If you are a flash beginner, you should have read A Flash Journalism Presentation by Mindy McAdams which covers very good points about the Timeline and motion tweening. It is very easy for you to learn as the presentation is clearly demonstrated by screen captures.

If you wish to learn further about flash best practices to become a flash professional, there is also another great article written by Jen deHaan from Adobe which covers quite a lot of things in term of organizing ActionScripts, behaviors conventions, screens conventions, video conventions, accessibility, version control guidelines, and optimizations for performance. The article is suitable for beginner or intermediate level.

10 Beautiful Landscape Wallpapers

This post features a collection of 10 beautiful landscape wallpapers for your desktop.

Create a Photo Gallery using Flash Slideshow Maker

Did you know that you can build a flash photo gallery without any knowledge about Flash or ActionScripts or XML? There is a software which can easily create a photo gallery or slideshow for you within a few minutes.

First, select some photos to put in your photo gallery. Second, select any theme from presets and add a background music if you wish to. Moreover, you can customize the properties in advanced mode. Third, publish it into a folder which stores an HTML file, an XML file, a SWF file, all thumbnails and photos. You just need to upload it to your web server. You can also publish a standalone SWF file to share with your friends via email.

You may take a look at some sample screenshots below. Click on each thumbnail for full size preview. Download free trial version if you wish to try it in action. Then, you may consider buying it for $49.95 if you like it.

3D Flash Websites part 2

Although 3D development in flash is still at the early stage, it is really amazing to see interactive flash websites in 3D environment. This post features some of the creative 3D flash websites for your inspirations and ideas. Enjoy!

13flo.com

Nck Design

Ten years VAIO

100 Best Films

Ecsw.pl

Honda Accord 2008