Flash :: Best Approach...?

How Should I Approach This?
I'm building a site for a photographer. If possible, he would like to update photos himsels without having to call me every time he needs to add one.

There will be up to 21 thumbnails that load a full size image when clicked. I was planning on manually updating the thumbnails in the base movie and creating a separate SWF that loads for the large images.

Is ther a better way to update both the thumbnails and large images so that the client can create JPGs and drop them in a directory where Flash can pull them?

Not looking for somebody to do the work/code for me... just a direction I can research.

Thanks

What Approach Should I Use..?
Hello, I am a newbie to Flash. I just am to put togethor my portfolio site using Flash. I am just a bit confused about what approach I should be using.

Here is a brief info about what I would will be having in my site. So u can help me arrive at a decision. Basically the content won't be much. There would be just f4 sections. Home, My Profile, My Gallery & Contact me section. All sections other than gallery won't have any long content wheras the gallery would have about 30 or so of some of my works. I will be having small thumbnails of these 30 images which I would be able to scroll through. I would want these thumbnails to be viewed intantaneously on a small preview space while i pass my mouse over them. And when I click on them I want the full image to load on a new window.

I am a bit confused about whether using multiple swf files and then load into a master swf or just use a single swf file and split the timeline into sections. Also I am confused as to whether I would need to embed the preview images on the gallery in my swf file or whether to pre cache them as soon as my gallery section is clicked. (I want no delay for preview images as soon as mouse rolls over thumbnails)

Any advice is welcome..Thanks in advance.

[CS3] What Is The Best Approach?
I wasn't really sure how to search for this so hopefully this hasn't been asked before. I have a flash movie in which I will load multiple pages. To save on the overall load time I'm going to try to minimize the stress on the actual size of the swf. I've read about loading external swfs and also about loading xml content into my page. Each page will look strikingly similar having basically just textual content and a single image to the side. Is there a better approach to this goal between loading swfs or xml content?

Also, if I go the external swf route, is there a way to have a button in one of the external swfs that animates it out and then somehow unloads itself from the main swf? Thanks for all the help!

Ok Maybe I'll Try Another Approach
If you have 20 different Buttons on your Stage that are linked to 20 different images that will appear on rollover, can I make a script in one layer that will provide that function?

Based Upon this original Post

http://board.flashkit.com/board/showthread.php?t=771366

Best Approach For This...
Hi-

New to Flash basically. I have about 4 paragraphs of text that I want to rotate on screen.

I'd like to rotate these 4 chunks of text in one spot say every 35 seconds or so. I think I can revolve them by fading them out with tweening...

but it would be cooler if I could say for example take a single vertical line, swipe it across the text to change the paragraph out. Is this possible? What might be the best approach for that? OR...

The best approach in general for this project?

Any help is appreciated!

M

How Should I Approach?
i'm creating a slideshow presentation application and need to create a review wehreby I simply need it to randomly select a series of maybe 10% of the frames and display them with multiple choice on one side. That I get (the questioning that is), but I need to hide info from certain layers and disable certain button functions.

How would I go about allowing the user to view certain frames and compose their own sequence of frames to view.

Why This Approach?
Please take a look at this:
http://www.archway.com/services-promotion-management.asp

In this and other sections, the banner with large icon and section head seems to be Flash on the top and a static image on the bottom, split horizontally at the top of the aqua menu. That makes the Flash component a rectangle.

I would have thought the whole banner, including some white area below the bottom curve, could have been one rectangular piece, layered under the menu when the built the web page.

Did they do this to make the page load a bit faster, or is there a technical reason that my approach wouldn't have worked?

Best Approach To This?
Was hoping someone could advice me on the best approach in this scenario;

[doc] class
Has an instance of 'BgSlide' class addChilded

[BgSlide] class
Has a few instances of BgLoader class in an array (they get added after they are loaded)

[BgLoader] class
Loads a image into a sprite container.

Now.. There's a bunch of other stuff 'above' the BgSlide child back in the document class, and when an instance of 'bgloader' Loads, I'd like the mouse cursor to become the progress loader for that slide.

Not quite sure how to accomplish that.. I mean the listener is inside the BgLoader class which is nested in another class. How would I get access to something all the way out in the doc class and update it ProgressEvent.Progress?

Thanks guys..

Which Approach Is Better?
If you have an interactive movieCLIP that consists of just a series of shapes of varying colors/alphas/coordinates, etc. and you have a finite number of possible animations you want to create relative to a mouse event, how do you determine if it is better to use the Actionscript DrawAPI to draw the shapes and set their properties or to use the timeline editor to manually tween the shapes while using the mouse events to determine which frames to play?

If that doesn't make sense, let me know. I am having a hard time deciding what the pros and cons of pure-scripted Flash files are as opposed to timeline controlled flash interactions.

Any suggestions/advice would be appreciated.

What Is The Best Approach?
I am creating a large flash website, is the best approach to create it in 1 swf file or should I use multiple swf files and import them into a "index.swf" file and import the other swf files on the fly?

Best Approach?
Ok. So Im working on my second site and Im doing a bit different. The last one I did used a Kirupa tutorial to create it. I had everything loaded into frame 1 and then had the buttons on my menu load the different movie clips into the one designated movie clip which I named container. It was pretty basic stuff and everything seemed to work. The 2nd go around I saw a more linear site being done by an associate and I thought I would try that approach.

Well its sort of worked out. I have the timeline broken down and labeled for each section or page of the site. I have a different MC on each page that loads the different materials for each page.

However, There is one section of the site that is constant and never changes despite what the page is. On this section I want to have have a txt file load some basic information into a movie clip or Dynamic empty text clip. I have tried multiple avenues and nothing seems to work.

My first try I used this code to try to load the text from a txt file in the same directory into an empty text box which :

loadText = new loadVars();
loadText.load("data.txt");
loadText.onLoad = function(success) {
if (success) {
// trace(success);
compInfo.html = true;
compInfo.htmlText = this.myVar;
}

But nothing happened. It wouldnt load anything. So I made a seperate SWF that had the basic text I needed in it and gave the frame that had the MC that I wanted to load the name container. This is the AS I used to load it:

_root.currMovie = "contentCompInfo";
container.loadMovie(_root.currMovie+".swf");

Nothing happened...again. I tried a variety of things and variations. I tried to load an image using the second AS and it actually worked. But then when I tried to load text...nada. So after putting my head and my fist through the nearest wall and a few hours in anger management classes Im back to the drawing board. (Just kidding about the violent spasms)

I've scoured Kirupa's site trying to find a solution that would work with this type of site format. Ive seen most of the Kirupa "how to load external data or text" and Ive tried most of them. Basically I feel like Im close to solving it but no cigar. Can ANYONE give me a freakin clue as to what Im missing or what steps Im overlooking. I thought I was crossing every T and dotting every I. (and Ive been labeling all of my instance names correctly)..

Anybody.

How To You Approach This Doing This Idea.
Its probably not an original idea but it's something I need to do. How do you make a cord head drag so the lead moves behind it like a little rope.So that you pick up the cord head and move it with the mouse. Making it draggable it no problem but how do you make it so a lead follows behind.With the other end of the lead staying stil at the one piont?

Preload Jpg - Another Approach?
I have flash animation that dynamicly load jpg to mc with masking.
Mask movies are attached from library.
I want to preload jpg before attach series of mask movies.
My first approche was to attach mask movie with onLoad function
this.loadjpg() but this is no solution, because user must wait and animations inside this movie starts after loading jpg.
I want to preload all jpg to some mc and then reference to this jpg within mask movie. How can I do it?
I hope you understand

[F8] How Do I Approach This? Any Ideas?
Hey all,

Does anyone know what's the best way to go about doing the technique found on http://www.lynda.com/ ? I'm referring to the "Learn ..." animation that contains a vertical list of subjects that scale up/down depending on your mouse location. What's really stumping me is, how do they allow the animation to start of alphabetically with "3D" and finish off with "XML" but have the list be connected on both ends? Also, I was hoping to fill in my text using XML (because I can't imagine making that many movieclips for each of those items, right?)

Is there a tutorial on this? Is there one on lynda.com that I'm not seeing? I'm on Flash 8, AS2.

Any response is much appreciated!

Thanks in advance,

kirkarama =]

Approach To Map Function
I'm making a top down game which requires my maps to be loaded on the center of the stage and in every direction around it. Having made a movieclip with each section of the map on a different frame, what is the best approach to organizing the movieclips given my map will consist of several dozen blocks.

I'm Not Sure Which Button Approach Is The Best
I'm brand new here and I'm hoping someone can help me figure out which way is best & maybe even why things aren't working quite right.

I've been trying to create buttons with rollover animations. The first thing I tried was building a MC placing the button inside that. I wanted a fade in when you moused over & a fade out when you moused out. I created the tweens in the timeline of the MC & used AS3 to control the timeline & that all worked great except it was unstable. if you went too fast over the button or if it just felt like it it would get stuck in the "over" position.

So the second approach I took was to give up the mouse out effect and try just putting a mouse over MC on the "OVER" frame of the button. That works great but I can't seem to get the "DOWN" working correctly. If I take a graphic of the moused over state and put it on the down frame I get a little jump and the "OVER" MC plays again and when I release the mouse button the "OVER" MC plays yet again which I don't want because I'm technically still on the button.

So I'm stuck. I can see how putting the button inside a MC is much more flexible but it's not working for me yet.

Here's the FLA file.

Thanks in advance for the help.

Brad

Best Way To Approach SQL To Flash
Hello All,

I would appreciate some suggestions on the best way of generating XML on the fly from SQL to then bring the XML into Flash and generate List items.

The SQL database will consist of a one to many relationship of brand to products and then each product will have an image that will need to be called.

Basically, the first step is getting this information into an XML format from the SQL database so any suggestions on how to do that or is PHP is the only way to generate XML on the fly?

Conceptual Approach To This
I have a question as to whether there is a better via variable tracking or something to accomplish this.

I have a desk calendar movie clip. Upon an onRelease function on the main timeline, the clip will be loaded into an empty clip and will play the first few frames which will rip off the top piece, zoom the graphic to a bigger size and then populate two dynamic text boxes with the current date and a random quote.

Upon clicking a 'close' button in this movie clip, the calendar will zoom back down to the original size and just have the date visible.

From this point on, I don't want to replay the initial animation but rather just zoom the calendar to the bigger size where the date and quote is available.

So, I thought I could, via this new movieclip, upon the close just zoom down and then load a new movie into the clip which only has the animation I need and a label with the same name so that I don't have to have to worry about the newest movie clip to be named.

This way, once the initial animation is seen, it won't be seen again...unless of course they diable their cache and come back later on the same day but that doesn't bug me.

The other technique was to use:

ActionScript Code:
this.onRelease = function() {
delete this.onRelease;
}

Within the initial movie clip after all the animation but then I couldn't reshow just the date and quote.

Is there a better way to tell Flash.. "onRelease, load this movie clip and play this animation. But, if they have already seen the first part, just play the clip from "x" point on?"

Thanks

3D In Flash - What's The Best Approach?
Hi Guys (and gals),

I am planning out a site in my head, and i've got a great idea, which involves some simple 3D

okay, here's the idea in a nutshell. The website is for a cafe. The loading bar is going to be one of those coffee cards (y'know, get 9 stamps on your card, and your 10th coffee is free type cards), and once the site has loaded, I want the coffee card to flip over and on the other side will be the company logo. The flipping the card over is the 3D part. I don't need it to be overly complex since it's a short animation - but i'd like it to look as professional as possible.

I've had no experience in 3d, but i'm intermediate level in flash & actionscript. What's the best approach for the effect I want? Should I create the animation outside of flash - i.e. swift3d? Or should I be attempting this inside of flash??

Any recommendations/thoughts would be appreciated, thanks!

Whats The Best Way To Approach This?
I am creating an application in Flash CS3 with very little previous experience. I have decided to use Actionscript 3.0 as I will have to learn which ever one I choose from scratch, so might as well be the current one.

This is a shopping learning application aimed at youngsters where they will have to distinquish food items and answer basic questions. I would like each of those questions to appear randomly and the answers to be calculated, with a total being shown at the end. In addition to this I will have different levels for abilities which will be chosen to run at the main menu.

What is the best way to approach this, by using scenes or placing all of them in one scene. There are going to be a lot of pictures which will have to be loaded. Just need advice on the best practice to use.

Thanks...

Tilemaps - An OO Approach
I'm putting together the framework for a simple Flash sidescrolling game. However, all of the tutorials I've come across seem to take on a procedural approach, whereas I'm used to something slightly more OO.

Basically, I have a Game class and a Level class. Within my Level class, I'd like to iterate through an integer array and create an array of tiles according to that data. In my mind, it seems logical to create an array of instances to a tile class (or classes derived from a tile class). The thing I can't get my head around is actually loading MovieClips and allocating them to an instance of a particular class.

Here's what I'm hoping to do:

Within my Game classes constructor, I want to call: Level.loadLevel(); From there, I'd like Level to create a public array of instances to my tile class. So that eventually, within Game's onEnterFrame function, I can iterate through: Level.tiles to update logic and check tile data, accordingly.

Is this a poor approach? If not, how would I go about creating an instance of a tile and linking it with a MovieClip?

Newb: Way To Approach This
I'm using Flash Pro 8. I'm working on a flash app where some introductory type pictures fade in on the screen then after that is complete, I want to place a menu on the left side of the screen. The menu sort of "builds" the buttons and they slide into their final position. I want the "picture part" of this to finish before the button piece starts. Should I do this as separate swfs and then use loadmovie to bring them in? or something else? I'm looking for recommendations - I'll do the rest. Also, If I do use load movie, how do I make sure one ends before the other starts. Thank you very much.

Method Of Approach?
Hey all,
I'm about to embark on my first full flash site and I'm not sure about how I should approach this certain aspect of the movie......
In my main movie, the background will be a picture taken of my actual desktop.
This desktop will load external swf's into it. Im going to make the pic of the desktop grayscale. But, when a user rolls over a certain item on the desktop,(i.e. pencil, eraser, desk lamp,etc,) it will turn to color. I want these items as my buttons. Im just not sure how to go about making the item a button, and getting it to turn to color on a rollover. Should it all be done in photoshop? Import the items seperate into flash?
_in need of direction
Thank u all

How Would You Approach This Project?
The user is a student in a physical therapy graduate program. The objective of the project is to allow the student to view a brief video of a person in motion, have the student pause the video on an appropriate frame (at the "peak of motion"), and drag a small scale (called a "goniometer") from the lower right corner of the video frame onto the person's joint. The two arms of the scale are draggable in a circular movement. Since the scale is so small, a magnified view of the scale is reproduced to the right of the video clip. Please see an example in action here:

http://interactive.elon.edu/goniometer.html

Now here are some of challenges:

(1) the professor requesting this project is asking that the student be allowed to zoom in on an area of the video frame to better see the joint to be measured. If I enlarge the scale of the entire video component, it will cover up other parts of the interface, and the controller (play/pause) buttons will be off the bottom of the screen. So I thought maybe I could enlarge just the video frame separate from the controller, and mask it so that it doesn't cover up other parts of the screen, but there doesn't seem to be a way to separate the controller from the video frame. Any suggestions?

(2) I need to capture information about what frame the student paused the video on, because their judgment about where the "peak of motion" occurred will be evaluated. I can't figure out from the flv players I've examined so far how I can get this information.

Since it's possible (likely!) I am not going about this in the most efficient way I thought I would ask for some help! Any suggestions on how to approach this project with issues 1 & 2 in mind? Thanks!

Help With Approach To A Problem...
Scratch the original post.. it was premature.

I decided it was easier to use an onEnterFrame function to script my movement and I've figured out the logic for what I am trying to accomplish....

Here's some code:

Code:
var degrees:Number = 360 / containerArray.length;
var rotation:Number = 0;
for(var i:Number = 0; i < containerArray.length; i++){
containerArray[i].onEnterFrame = function(){
this._x = this._x + Math.cos(rotation * (Math.PI/180)) * 10;
this._y = this._y + Math.sin(rotation * (Math.PI/180)) * 10;
}
rotation = rotation + degrees;
}
In the above code, degrees is the number of degrees I want each item to move in relation to a circle, rotation is the actual angle I want to use in a particular movement...

the problem is that every clip is using the same (the first) value for rotation... how can I effectively update the rotation value so that each call to onEnterFrame() uses the correct value?

Any ideas?

Thanks again.

Funky Nav Approach
Hi folks, I am working on a project right now wherein the nav needs to work as it does here:

http://www.posttool.com/122302/index.html

It's a pretty cool approach actually and I am wondering if anyone has seen a tutorial anywhere that explains how I should best tackle this in Flash 5. Or anything that is somewhat similar?

Many thanks in advance for anyone that can point me in the right direction!

Zeep

Please Help Me Approach This Properly
I am working on a portfolio site for a swimwear designer. Here's a mock up for reference: CLICK HERE

Each swimsuit is presented in a "Mondrian" tile format, where the tiles animate in place and the photos fade in to fill the space of the tiles.

Somehow, I need each swimsuit to animate in and stop. That's the easy part. But when the viewer chooses another swimsuit or main menu option, I need the current swimsuit to animate out (reverse the mc timeline for each swimsuit?) and JUMP (or load?) the next mc depending on what swimsuit or menu item the viewer chooses.

That's where I am getting confused. I think there is a simple solution, but I want to avoid loading everything in scenes or loading all the options on a gigantic timeline just for the swimsuits Collection.

Can anyone suggest the best way to do this?

How Best To Approach This Problem ?
r

A Question Of Approach...
Hey Everyone.

Once again thank you for this amazing forum and all the help you give.

My question is as simple as a matter of approach. I'm about to start making a full site for a band I'm in. And my idea so far is to make a "main" page, which will actually just be a bunch of loaders positioned on the stage (full screen). Ie a loader for the menu, another for some graphics, one for the logo, one for the music player, and a huge one loading the content. (Or something like that.)

My reason for this, is the ability to program everything in different .fla's instead of working in a huge project. (As I've ended up doing before.) - making it easy to redo the menu for instance.

What do you think of this approach? Is there a better way to do it?
Programming the elements in Flash, but using XHTML to do the layout?

Also - will my menu (dynamically loaded in a Loader Clip) be able to change the content in the main content loader? (I can see one workaround being doing the roll-over fx in the 'menu fla' but placing "invisible" buttons in the main fla, and adding the onRelease there. - Or maybe this is not needed at all??)

As you can probably tell, I have the design in my head, but haven't started anything yet.
So any thoughts will be greatly appreciated, before I begin.

Thank you.

Stig

Best Approach For Learning AS2?
Okay, so I've done a US search, and this question has *kind* of been answered before, but not quite in full what I'm looking for.

I've been using Flash for years. I've done bits and pieces with AS based on my minimal needs at the time for each project (my work tends more towards the design end than the programming). But I'm sick of my own limitations and tired of learning AS piecemeal. I'm starting at the bottom with a beginner AS class and working my way up to get a strong foundation of overall capabilities so I can be creative in that realm rather than just doing the "solve this problem" approach. My boss has already told me that there are tons of AS projects I could do if I learn, so I won't be just limited by design stuff anymore.

I have AS classes in MX and MX2004 available to me. I own both versions of Flash. Should I take any/all classes available to me? I'm concerned about going from 1.0 to 2.0 and back, and how that might cause bad habits in my programming/design approach. I've already taken a foundations in object-oriented programming class, so I'm leaning towards just doing the MX2004/2.0 classes. But on the other hand, I really want to saturate myself with the stuff and ingrain it into my head so I have the complete understanding from this point forward...

So I guess the question is, should I only concentrate on 2.0? Or are 1.0 and 2.0 similar enough that I won't develop bad habits by learning stuff in 1.0 as well...

Thanks.

Nav Concept Approach.....Help
I am trying to build a nav system for an application that requires both x & y nav capabilties, without having to create 16 different MC's (one for each possible option). Here is a link to the first screen where you make a selection from the grid.

http://home.comcast.net/~sswoboda_99/matt_app.html

Now, based on the users first selction, I want to load a new MC with just a dynamic text-box that will pull some text from a text file, but I need to make the nav posibilities such that the user is able to select any one of the options/categories on the x or y axis and then have it load the appropriate MC with text.

For instance, if the user selects the option for Manager (x axis) and Focus on Results (y axis) on the first screen, it loads that MC with the appropriate text for Manager >> Focus on Results. From there if they selcted Director and Above (x), it should then load the MC with the text for Director and Above >> Focus on Results. Then if they selected lets say Character, it would then load the MC text for Director and Above >> Character.

I think I could build this type of app without having to create a MC for all the possible options but am not sure how I should approach it. I'm thinking I could split the nav into two MC's and have the big space in the middle load the MC with the text-box (or grid if they decide to go back to it).

Any assistance you can provide is appreciated.

[AS3] How To Approach Loading
I am trying to figure out what is the best way to load my assets. For each application/site the assets could vary in terms of linked library, css, additional xml files, etc.etc. Currently I have a main xml file "application.xml" which will have a node that contains the path to my linked library and if needed have nodes for images I will be using.

For optimization should I:

1. load in the application.xml first then on complete load in the linked library and then images if needed.

2. Have separate loaders for each assets like one for xml, one for linked library another for images and then just load them all in when I need them?

3. Should I just make a sequential loader that loads in anything I add to it all at the same time? This way I can have one preloader that will show the status for loading everything in.

I know in the past I created a thread about this, but I am just lost on how to properly tackle loading of all my assets while keeping things from slowing down too much.

Any feedback help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Need Advice On Approach
hi,
i have a FLASH banner i'm working on (see link to .swf below). there is an opening animation where the elements assemble & what will eventually be the nav. buttons animate in. when a button is pressed the photo currently showing needs to slide off to the right & be replaced by a new photo (determined by which button is clicked) that slides in from the left.

i'm not sure of the most efficent way to achieve this ... as the old photo is still visable while the new one slides in. so - if i use goto & play to jump to a frame that animates the appropriate photo in - what happens when the other buttons are pressed? can i make one section of the movie that has the animation of the old photo leaving & the new one animating on & use actionscript to swap the symbols?

or even better stated: how would someone who actually knows what they're doing approach this?

any help is appreciated as i can't seem to wrap my brain around this!

to see the swf go to: http://venusdesign.biz/elevations

Functions....best Way To Approach My Problem...
Hi there
I'm just trying to work out the best way to approach my problem....

I'm trying to move my duplicated MC's around.... There are several conditions, and I'm having trouble picking up a condition when u don’t know what its going to be (as its dynamic)

I've made a function

movefolder = function (path){
_root["subfolder"+path]._y = _root["subfolder"+path]._y+speed
}

Then I call it in my IF statement:

if(folderinstance == "_level0.subfolder1") {
//finds out which folder we are using
if (_root.subfolder1._y<item) {
//finds out if the folder below has moved
movefolder(1);
movefolder(2);
movefolder(3);
movefolder(4);
//moves all folders till bottem of project

gotoAndPlay("replay"); //repeats loop

}

}
---------------------------------
Example:
Movefolder(1) this then moves

_root.subfolder1

What I would prefer to do, is to have the function work out everything for me. The IF statement at present is limiting the 'dynamic ness' of my movie, as currently I'm using the above IF statement for each folder (subfolder1, subfolder2 and so on) - (you must be pulling your hair out!)

So...

What I need is for my function move all folders have an instance name above 'folderinstance'

So if folderinstance = 3 then I want the function to move down all instances names of subfolder that are above 3. I do know how many MC's there are which is defined by the variable 'amount'

Going back to my function:

movefolder = function (path){
_root["subfolder"+path]._y = _root["subfolder"+path]._y+speed
}

At present anything in the parameter 'path' moves down... So I'm thinking if I could put an array into that and not just 1 number??

I hope that all makes sense?

If you have any ideas on the direction I need to take or whatever?

Thanks

All help is v.appreicated!

Danny

Glow On Mouse Approach?
hey there. was wondering if anyone could help me out. i'm trying to make an object glow when the mouse approaches it; in other words that the alpha value of the target mc increases the nearer the mouse is to the object.... any help would be great, thanks...

Approach Checking Your Site?
How do you approach checking your site?
I am self taught in computers and web design, and so there are huge holes in my understanding. I do everything based on how it looks, which is not enough, since peopl view in many different ways.
I find that after I have created a site and then look at it on the net there are many surprises to how it looks on different computers (MAC,PC,Netscape,AOL,IE and so on)
I have a feeling that when people learn webdesign in a class they have some sort of step by step guide like
1.set computer resolution to this or that, depending on this or that
2. List of what the pros integrate into every site.
Flash movie size no more than...
Music .mp3 size no more than...
Page size no bigger than...
This message is a bit unclear, but I waste so much time thinking about what I am forgeting to do.

Falling Text - Best Approach
Thought I'd ask this before I go ahead with it - I am planning a movie clip where individual words - all different - fall from the "sky" and pile up filling up the stage. Initially I thought I'd make a separate graphic object for each word, then have like 100 layers (assuming I use 100 different words), and giving each layer it's own motion tween. Before I start using this approach, can anyone think of a better way?

Thanks!!!

=8-)

Understanding Approach And Methods
Ok I want to design my own site, for no other reason than I want to do it myself and learn while I go.

The problem i have is not so much how to do things as opposed to what to do. Ill explain what I mean. I designed myself a set of nice buttons for the top bar. Ok, fine suddenly I realised I dont really understand what to do next.

I want to do the work myself, I just need some advice on how I should be planning to make the site and whether it should be an all in one or lots of separate movies etc.

Heres the concept I have of the site.

I want the navigation bar along the top. Simple and effective, kind of like the navigation bar on the Macromedia site itself, although obviously my own design. But simple.

Below this I want the content area.
On the left of the screen I want a flash presentation style, some changing images and words appearing, a little presentation sort of thing.
On the right side I will have the content for that page. if its HOME page I will have the site introduction and vital text, you know usual text and content.

Now when I click on a button on the navigate i want to change the content on the left and right to something else.

My issue is how should I be approaching this.

I could make it all inside one movie, using levels and loadmovie actions as I understand it. Also i could make it all as separate content swfs and load them up using frames into an HTML set.
How would you approach this sort of final result?

Could someone tell me what they think are the pros and cons of these methods and what they would recommend?
I will do all the design myself and learn using tutorials and guides when I am stuck, my trouble is I simply dont know what approach I should be taking to it.

Thanks for any advice,

Text On A Button - What's The Best Approach?
I'm loading text into a load of dynamic text fields and it works fine. Now I want to re-do my movie so that the text appears overlaid onto buttons which are in my library, again this is fairly straight forward stuff I think.
What I'd really like though is to have an all inclusive button (movieclip?) which has the button graphic with 'hit' state, and associated text which I can blend in or animate in some way.
The text field has to remain dynamic as it's being brought in using xml at runtime.
Is it even possible to apply things like blending or animation to dynamic text?

ps. one last thing - I'm guessing there will need to be some kind of invisible button overlaying the text field on my button to receive all mouse hits etc?

Looknig forward to any ideas.. cheers!
Rich

Best Approach To Making Buttons
Hi all,

Just made an animated button by creating 3 different states on a timeline; 'over', 'down', 'return'. The TEXT animates (moves down) on mouseover, among some other things that happen. I was happy with the button so decided to duplicate it and rename all the copies bio, contact, etc. and when I drag the 'bio' copy onto the stage, and click inside the text field to rename it 'bio' to replace the word 'home', it changes all buttons to bio.

How can I copy the buttons, but change the text and make the text animate for each different button, all with different names? Do I have to create the button first without the text, copy a bunch of buttons, then add animating text to each one with different names? Seems a bit time-consuming..hopefully I'm just overlooking something that tells flash to treat them as different buttons, even though they share the same animating properties.

Thanks in advance!
-Casper

Best Approach On Image Loading
in finally trying to apply as3, i have a question. I have a slideshow. There are thumbnails as well, and if you click one, Flash sets all the big images' alpha to 0, and then fades in the one selected. Works if we have less than 23 images...hmmmm, ...so the question we are asking ourselves is: Does simply turning the alpha down still make the app heavier/ more processor intensive ?

and

isn't there a way to disable movie clips entirely so they don't take up resources? WE don't want to have to download each image over and over, so at present, the images load one by one, but with alpha set to 0.

Better approach? Any thoughts?

Best Way To Approach PHP To Flash Interaction
I am making a multi-user flash program. When one client makes a change, the other clients need to be notified. The simplest way of doing this would be a php file that returns whether or not there has been an update, and then just have the client repeatedly loadVars on it. The problem with this is that tons of unnecessary queries are made, and there is a maximum update time (ie: if the client checks every 10 seconds, it would take 5 seconds on average for an update to go though (disregarding latency), and it could take almost 10 seconds).

Best way would be to have a server, have all the clients connect to it, and then have the server send updates. Big problem with this way is that firewalls can break the game, and getting the server to work. I am not sure whether I’d do better to write the server in PHP (which I have never tried) or whether I should write the server as a C++ daemon, and then have the PHP scripts connect to it to send commands… (I might have answered my own question, typing seems to slow my sleep deprived thought processes enough for my sleep deprived brain to understand them). Plus I could use a hybred arch, where if the game can not connect to the server (due to firewalls, it having crashed), it can refresh through load vars - and players using load vars when the server was known to be working could only be allowed to play on slow settings with other slow players.

What do you experts think the best approach would be?

Need An Opinion On Approach To Problem
I believe I have a fairly simple situation that I need remedied, but I can't figure it out on my own so I'm wondering if anyone can give me input as to how they would approach it....

I have two buttons (one for left and one for right) and a series of images in between them.. i.e.

LEFTBUTTON IMAGE1 IMAGE2 IMAGE3 RIGHTBUTTON

And I want the buttons to control each image moving from position to position i.e. when you click RIGHTBUTTON, IMAGE1 is now where IMAGE3 was before, IMAGE2 moves to where IMAGE1 was andIMAGE3 move to where IMAGE2 was. Basically in a circular fashion.

The final stipulation is that I want each image to motiontween from position to position, not just simply appear there.

Can anyone give me ideas as to what the images should be stored in (movieclips, graphics etc.) and the what Actionscript I need to look into (using arrays, queues or any other data structure that Actionscript offers etc.)

Thanks for any help in advance.

Which Approach? Swap Layers...
Ciao!

In my current e-learning project I'm creating a solar system, with the planets orbiting the sun in a "3D" fashion. When the planets are passing in front of the sun, pluto is of course the top most layer, and also if a planet is between pluto and the sun, in line with the viewer, Pluto will make all of or a part of that planet hidden.

The same goes for all the planets that are on an outer path than an other planet, when passing in front of the sun.

But when being on the half of the orbit-ellipse that is behind the sun, the layer stacking should be different.

And this is where I need the input - which is the most intelligent way to achieve this effect?

Also note that the planets orbits with different time intervals, so that in the time pluto makes one lap, the sun makes a hundred or something