Changes: Need Input?

[kirupa]

Hello everyone,
I've seem to have hit yet another stumbling block and am wondering if anybody could help. What more things can I add or improve to make kirupa.com better?

I'm open to all suggestions good and bad! :)

Thanks,
Kirupa

[ilyaslamasse]

All suggestions, good and bad ??? OK, so here are mine :

1.Lots of people don't have the necessary basis in Actionscript to understand the scripts. Why not set up some kind of Actionscript Workshop, little exercises or something like that, just to give people a start ?

2.Somebody should try to write a tutorial on how to make the structure of a website. From the menu buttons to the loadMovie things. That would be a great tutorial to have, and a great help for everybody. Including myself.
3.I don't know about you guys, but the thing I lack the most is creativity. So why not propose, every week, fortnight, month, I don't know, a theme, and all those who want it will make a small movie around that theme ?? Not a competition, but a creative exchange, if you see what I mean... Could be phun.

Hey, you said good AND BAD. I'm handling the BAD part. Anybody has GOOD ideas ?

pom 0]

[upuaut8]

Well.. my tutorials are coming along, and soon they will be added where they can be to Kirupa... but it's slow going. I'm working on the basics of the Flash environment and drawing tools, and it's SOOOOOOOOO hard to explain things like Bezier.

Improvements? I love the site so far. I think that you have little if anything to do to improve it.. or rather, at this point it's probebly getting hard to improve it. :)

[kirupa]

Thanks Pom and upuaut!
Pom, I agree; many people do not understand the very basics of ActionScript. I have had enough experience programming in VB and C++ that I did not have too much of a problem becoming familiar with ActionScript (I'm not good at it though haha). I think I can create a series of short tutorials that outline the _root function, the Action Window, difference between enterFrame, onLoad, and more!

Upuaut! A lot of people really like your Ray of Light tutorial :) I agree; creating tutorials can be, at times, painstakingly slow. Pom, you stole the idea right out of my brain! I am planning on adding a Usability section to complement Flash 5 and ActionScript. In it I will outline how to effectively create a good Flash site entirely using Flash. Topics I hope to cover are:

*Using External Movies
*Loading text from a text file (easier to update)
*File Size
*Navigation
*Menus
*Color
*Layout

The biggest problem for me is that I hardly have any time left over from my AP High School classes < screams loudly >. I do hope to, slowly, get all of the stuff I mention to get on my site :)

Cheers!
Kirupa

[I am not Jubba]

I agree with Pom, just a very basic actionscript workshop or something. I love the site, I'm still amazed that you are still in highschool, and you're running this site, you wrote a book...etc etc...good job. you seem to have an amazing future ahead of you.

[kirupa]

thx jubba :)

[ilyaslamasse]

"Je suis jeune, il est vrai, mais aux âmes bien nées
La valeur n?attend point le nombre des années"
(Rodrigue in Le cid by Corneille).
pom 0] Don't expect me to translate that, I can't.

[kirupa]

This is what altavista gave me for your translation lol:

" I am young admittedly but with the hearts quite born the value n?attend not the number of the years "

[time2design]

Glad you asked. :D

Personally, I would like to see more organization of the tutorials. I find it a little bit confusing when I'm in a tutorial to find my way around. I'm not saying like a strict numbered list because I like the freedom of choosing the tutorial that meets my need. It's just that I find myself lost a little bit when I'm in them. Maybe they should be categorized?

I love the "famous flash sites" page. There are some sweet sites on there. Maybe this could be expanded and categorized (?). For example, lynda.com organizes site links very well.

Perhaps a glossary of basic terms would be good also (that can be linked from inside the tutorials). Not just Flash terms, but html, java, and asp terms as well (?). I find that a majority of Flash newbies have little or none html, etc., knowledge.

On that note, some html lessons/tutorials would be fantastic if you're interested in going that route! I for one would be thankful. Maybe even a forum for this as well.

Well, that's all for now but I'm sure my mind will churn out some more. I really enjoy the site, kirupa! I wish I had started at your age. You make this 29-year old feel ancient. :-P

Edit: Oops, didn't notice the "general help" forum. However, it did make me think that separate forums for html (or other web-coding languages) and design would be great.

I'd love to help anyone with design problems especially with Freehand or Photoshop.

[ilyaslamasse]

I like your ideas, Time2design, even though I don't think that HTML is really the subject. Don't get me wrong, I'm a **** at HTML too, and I would certainly need some lessons.
pom 0]

[time2design]

Thanks, and good point about the html, pom.

Thinking about that, I think you're right; probably is off topic of the site. However, what I'd really like to see is html help that ties into Flash only. Or, actually, any web-programming language that ties into Flash. That would be great!

I'd really go for something like that and I think most Flash designers from a design background (rather than a programming background) would really like this.

[kirupa]

You do have a good point there time2! I'm studying like heck for my SAT (standardized exam) which will be in a few weeks; after that I should have enough time to incorporate all those changes. I think some of the tutorials could use better navigation between sections, etc!

Thanks,
Kirupa

[thoriphes]

i can help out with the actionscript workshop, maybe we can set up little "classes" to teach this foreign language. maybe a chat client will help with this?

[kirupa]

Hey thor!
That will really help, but I find that the chat room is mostly empty lol. Instead of using a chat room, maybe we can provide our AIM names and when any of us comes on, we can maybe provide some help?

What I was thinking was like an index like set of pages with some snippets of ActionScript, an example, and description. Kinda like what Moock did on his book ;)

Just an idea :)

[time2design]

Real quick (and I'm sure you've thought of this before), how's about a chat room with hosted events?

I know this seems cheesy at first but I can't help to think that it would be nice to chat to you or the mods for a quick half-hour or one-hour session on various topics.

?

t2d

[thoriphes]

yeah, that's what i suggested two posts ago, but it seems the chat rooms are open. now if we were to sort of advertise when a certain of us will be on, then we'll hold sessions.

[I am not Jubba]

you could just do chat rooms thru AIM. just a suggestion...:)

[ebuprams]

hello every one and once more kirupa u r doing a fantastic job i really love this site and i was never so deeply involved in flash before but after i visited ur site and posted some queries and i jus culdnt belive the reply i got and from that day onwards i was getting flash addicted.
Now i totally agree with pom when he said that we shuld have some tutorials on how to create a flash site coz itz really very important for us to know the very basics of createing a site abd where do we put the menus and buttons and things like that.
So i think that very soon u shuld be up with something like that.
And Once Again Great Job.
Ebu

[kirupa]

Thanks ebu! I'm glad you found my site a great source of interest in learning Flash. I will definitely create a tutorial on that topic!

Cheers,
Kirupa

[ilyaslamasse]

Hey Kirupa, I made something about the attachMovie function. A few images missing here and there, but it's there. Wanna see it ?
www.multimania.com/ilyasl...orial.html (http://www.multimania.com/ilyaslamasse/tutorial.html)
I took the presentation from Jubba, that's why you get that Angelfire crap...
pom 0]

[kirupa]

Hey Pom,
The tutorial is really nice! I will upload the animations you sent me shortly to my site; I don't mind the file size of the animations. It's good enough to justify the wait people will have to go through :)

Cheers,
Kirupa

[I am not Jubba]

KIRUPA! i posted in the ACTIONSCRIPT i have my clock tutorial done, and the url is posted in the actionscript forum too.

www.angelfire.com/dc/vidg...orial.html (http://www.angelfire.com/dc/vidgame/tutorial.html)


and Pom...thanks for stealing my source, but thats ok, I stole the basic layout and source from Thoriphes' Random Letter Cycling tutorial. :)

[ilyaslamasse]

Thoriphes, who took it from...
pom 0]

[I am not Jubba]

lol yeah...thats how it goes...the same code gets used 18,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,001 times.

[thoriphes]

WHAT?>!>!>!>! that is purely 100% homemade source code, there frenchy. that's my effect. i own that junx. i am its daddy. when you see something like that on the internet somewhere, it came from me (i get a lot of emails asking me if they could use it for their site, hm...sound like an idea there, jubba?). well i can't rant about it, it was open source as well, but should anyone ever ask who created such a thing...twas i, thoriphes.

ok, so maybe i'm getting a lil too far with this...hey, i'm bored. just promise me this: don't go around saying you made it up. that's the least anyone could do for me to keep the codes coming.

[ilyaslamasse]

:D :D :D :D :D ROFLMAO
Don't worry, Tho, I was talking about the HTML source, not the Flash source... Don't tell me that you made up that HTML by yourself !
pom 0]

[I am not Jubba]

i posted twice cuz i'm a moron

[I am not Jubba]

Yeah, we weren't talking about the flash, we was talking about the HTML. Thats the source that i stole, and i took it from Kirupa, just so that I could make my page in the right format so that it would be easier for Kirupa to put on his site. I realize that the Flash was yours and bravo cuz its amazing...

[thoriphes]

oh, my apologies. i definitely didn't do the HTML (and i'm not sure exactly what you're talking about). kirupa creates his own html with whatever i give him.

[I am not Jubba]

wut we were talking about::

I made a tutorial for the analog clock. But i didn't exactly know how Kirupa's page was set up, so I took a look at the source using Notepad and then just made my tutorial from the setup on your page. Then Pom (theif) took it from me. He just copy and pasted my code. :)

[kirupa]

ROFL
I guess I'll have to write 'code by Thoriphes, tutorial by Jubba, and idea by Pom'? :)

[ilyaslamasse]

You could also try to make a tutorial on how to make a tutorial for Jubba, and a tutorial on how to make the HTML of a tutorial for me :D
pom 0]