music site crit

[Henry]

This is a site i have nearly completed... it lacks some content

http://www.hnoe.co.uk/

firstly i would really appreciate some opinions on the whole thing, visual concept and useability and secondly i have a few technical issues i would love some help with, mostly to do with streaming downloading music.

as ever all help/comments appreciated
thanks

Henry

[frizzle fry]

i like the site. its easy to navigate and has a nice feel. the streaming issue does need to be fixed and you should also have a visible loading bar for the song as well as showing what song is currently playing while your viewing other parts of the site.

[Henry]

thanks for your comments...
i definetly want information relating to whats playing as your navigating but at the moment the music clips are loading in swf that load onto there own layer. so, how can i get any information to dissappear when the music has stopped playing?
i also want a loading bar but am not sure how to do this with music content. I basically know nothing about music in flash and i want to get it working the simplest way possible. In the music/mixes section I want to be have a streaming function thats just a link that opens up whatever music software the user has (itunes or equivalent) ive seen this done but dont know how to do this. Any ideas?

[Theros]

I like the site a lot, smooth and actually the changing background suits it! For the stuff ur looking for, its probably part XML, i dont know anything about that but i would maybe do a forum search then a Flashkit or Actionscript.org search for a tutorial on a streaming Flash music player, think i saw one b4

[Moo.]

I think it would be nicer if everything was a bit smaller:D

[slinkyart]

I really like the site...very, very nice!!! My only comment would be to maybe use a cooler font for the navigation, and even for the content...the font now is just kind of blah. It looks like standard old Verdana or Arial. But great site though!! Very clean and easy and smooth :thumb:

[Henry]

thanks for your comments guys, i agree about the fonts. the problem is i have quite a limited collection and have had big problems importing fonts. This leads to a lot of my sites looking pretty simialr typographically.

Slinkyart - do you know somwwhere I can get some decent fonts that are web suitable and a lot more interesting?

My other question - how do you stream say an hour of music with just a link in flash? Ie. onRelease I want the mix to open in the users music program.
I guess this is something I should post in the Flash pages...

Again many thanks for all the comments, really appreciated.
And the sun is shining here today... thats unusual trust me!

[treatkor]

My other question - how do you stream say an hour of music with just a link in flash? Ie. onRelease I want the mix to open in the users music program.

you could use a streaming playlist.
you simply create a text file with the path to the mp3 files.
each file on a separate line.
save the file with a .m3u extension
then you could just link to this file from flash.
.m3u and .pl files should open in users' mp3 player application.

more info here:
http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?threadid=65772

& here:
http://www.mickwood.com/articles/streaming.shtml

[slinkyart]

thanks for your comments guys, i agree about the fonts. the problem is i have quite a limited collection and have had big problems importing fonts. This leads to a lot of my sites looking pretty simialr typographically.

Slinkyart - do you know somwwhere I can get some decent fonts that are web suitable and a lot more interesting?

My other question - how do you stream say an hour of music with just a link in flash? Ie. onRelease I want the mix to open in the users music program.
I guess this is something I should post in the Flash pages...

Again many thanks for all the comments, really appreciated.
And the sun is shining here today... thats unusual trust me!

How did you build the site originally? Did you build it all in Flash? Because I know that Flash has a good list of fonts. I was just thinking making the font a little bit smaller and clicking the "anti-alias" button to make it so the edges of the text isn't smooth...in my opinion, I think that would look cool ;)

[BoonDock]

I like the nav follower and the loader(s) ... but the overall site seems somewhat empty ... and the layout is eh, so so...would it look better just with solid color, rather than what you are using in the border right now?