Zeus Design v2

[dr_zeus]

Just thought I'd let you guys take a look at the new version of my portfolio, codenamed 'High Voltage.' This one is more streamlined than before, and features my growing Flash skills. If you're interested in the Flash open source movement at all, take note that this was made using only open source tools.

http://www.zeusdesign.net/

Any suggestions for small improvements are welcome.

[Kurve]

Looks good... i like the minimalistic design... good color scheme too...

[Dae]

I like the color scheme, and simplicity of it.

Using only open source tools? So.. sorry, does that mean you didnt use Macromedia Flash? Also.. its a pretty basic site so exactly how many tools did you have to use?

[TheCanadian]

I like it :thumb:. Only a few things I'd change:

The font on the buttons is terrible.
The buttons randomly vibrating and buzzing is annoying if you want to keep the site open in the background. For that I guess I could turn the audio off but I think it would be better without.
Otherwise, great job :hoser:.

[dr_zeus]

No, I didn't use the Flash IDE. Everything is done in code. Eclipse (http://www.eclipse.org) with the Actionscript Development Tool (http://sourceforge.net/projects/aseclipseplugin/) (ASDT) was my IDE. I used Swfmill (http://iterative.org/swfmill/) to build the library and MTASC (http://www.mtasc.org/) for compiling my code.

That might be a lot of tools to keep track of for some people, but each tool does its job well, and I find it to be a better environment to work in than the regular Flash setup. Of course, my day job as a software engineer helps with that sort of workflow too.

Hopefully at some point an open source visual design plugin will be created. I don't really mind drawing everything with code, but sometimes things can be pretty complicated.

[eurosickwitit]

i like it except for the fonts, they are hard to read for my eyes

[Theros]

No, I didn't use the Flash IDE. Everything is done in code. Eclipse (http://www.eclipse.org) with the Actionscript Development Tool (http://sourceforge.net/projects/aseclipseplugin/) (ASDT) was my IDE. I used Swfmill (http://iterative.org/swfmill/) to build the library and MTASC (http://www.mtasc.org/) for compiling my code.

That might be a lot of tools to keep track of for some people, but each tool does its job well, and I find it to be a better environment to work in than the regular Flash setup. Of course, my day job as a software engineer helps with that sort of workflow too.

Hopefully at some point an open source visual design plugin will be created. I don't really mind drawing everything with code, but sometimes things can be pretty complicated.

So wait, u didnt use the vanilla Flash? U used what to code the site??? huh?

[dr_zeus]

No vanilla Flash. Just the tools I mentioned in my previous post. If you're interested in learning more, check out http://www.osflash.org/ or do a Google search on FAME or FAMES.

[BoonDock]

Hey great site. Not too much to it, but it's nice and simple. The only thing is that the font is real hard to read. Just fix that and its all good.

[danulf]

nice job! The only thing is the button-font... I don't get that...

[SPAD3S]

great colors and good sound tone xD

[info@rkirby.com]

Think of me as the black sheep deserving the shot gun, in the sea of white sheep.

So in the light of that past comment I shall launch into this....

Colors a little dark, design is cool and it works well together. Which is almost enough to say, great site...

Almost.

- It's small, too small, most customers are going to want to see the beef
- The menu dissapears on many pages, forcing the user, on even this small site to click twice to navigate, a big no-no
- The font is incredibly hard to read, blurry and tiny.
- Why-oh-why was this not built in Flash completely. I would'nt care if it was built by an army of one armed midgets, if it isn't doing anything obviously different, why bother.
- I am using 5mb/sec and still getting a lag on page change. Not good
- The text makes no sense e.g. 'I worked with 50 below sales and marketing'?

[Zach-E2]

nice stuff, man..
i dig the simple stuff..

[dr_zeus]

Thanks for the good comments, info@rkirby.com. Here are some of my thoughts.

- It's small, too small, most customers are going to want to see the beef
I'll admit, it's small, but not really any different than a lot of the top Flash sites out there. I focused on simplicity, and as a result, I didn't need anything bigger. The average user has 1024x768 resolution, and the text is quite readable at that level. Maybe a little harder with higher ones, though. I'll live with that. If you're talking about what's in the portfolio, I wanted simple portfolio images for mere attention grabbers. I don't think a user will be so tired of clicking that they will mind opening the link to the actual site.

- The menu dissapears on many pages, forcing the user, on even this small site to click twice to navigate, a big no-no
The menu disappears when you enter any section. I think I may consider adding text links on other pages. We'll see. Too many links floating on the side of the content might not look good.

- The font is incredibly hard to read, blurry and tiny.
Yes, I've noticed the font is a little blurry. I'll look into fixing that a bit.

- Why-oh-why was this not built in Flash completely. I would'nt care if it was built by an army of one armed midgets, if it isn't doing anything obviously different, why bother.
Why does it matter what I used to build it? I'd understand your problem if I demanded that everyone use my method, but it doesn't affect you if I choose not to use the Flash IDE. I believe I actually built the site more quickly this way. Plus, the site stands as proof that someone doesn't have to pay a lot for tools to build a decent Flash site.

- I am using 5mb/sec and still getting a lag on page change. Not good
I too am on a 5mb/sec connection. There is the tiniest lag on the portfolio as it loads an xml file. I haven't noticed any lag for loading the section images. I even tested the site on a 56k connection. The lag was a second, maybe two longer. Acceptable.

- The text makes no sense e.g. 'I worked with 50 below sales and marketing'?
The company I used to work for is named "50 Below Sales and Marketing." I think I'll put quotes in the site too in case it confuses anyone else.

Thanks again.

[Theros]

Think of me as the black sheep deserving the shot gun, in the sea of white sheep.

So in the light of that past comment I shall launch into this....

Colors a little dark, design is cool and it works well together. Which is almost enough to say, great site...

Almost.

- It's small, too small, most customers are going to want to see the beef
- The menu dissapears on many pages, forcing the user, on even this small site to click twice to navigate, a big no-no
- The font is incredibly hard to read, blurry and tiny.
- Why-oh-why was this not built in Flash completely. I would'nt care if it was built by an army of one armed midgets, if it isn't doing anything obviously different, why bother.
- I am using 5mb/sec and still getting a lag on page change. Not good
- The text makes no sense e.g. 'I worked with 50 below sales and marketing'?

So far Ive seen all ur comments negative... :worried:

Anyhow, Great site, Nice to see that somebody didnt use vanilla flash to make it... Though, Id think its harder to do without the IDE... Anyhow, Its small but I like it. Slick and Modern :D

[buckcee]

I like it, maybe you could alias the text?

[evilgoo]

I like the site a lot. It's simple and compact. And, I like the fact that you didn't use the Flash IDE to build it. I would consider a font change, something that is not all caps. BTW, thanks for the OSFlash link.