flipmoV2

[flamedude]

Hi Guys,

Its taken me a while but its finally completed (not enough free time). My new portfolio;

www.flipmo.co.uk

I'm very pleased with it. The site will resize to whatever size your browser is (though there is a limit after which it gets pretty garbled), all movement is driven by actionscript and all content is generated by an external datasource.

Server seems a little skitty though...

Hope you like it.

Steven.

[Indecisive]

Very nice...very nice indeed. I really like the transitions, I'm enjoying the whole experience of browsing your site. Nice job.

The only issue I can see so far is the animations are slowed down in your
Work page for me.

Other than that, I love it.

-Ind

[DDD]

very nice and refreshing....something different. Way to work the logo and branding into the whole experience. I really dig it.

[Indecisive]

I would like to know how you setup your news though as I'm looking to make a similar layout with photos and text ;)

So if you're up for maybe sending me in the direction to making something like it, then I'd be grateful.

-Ind

[flamedude]

Whoa thanks for the nice words. I do need to tweak the work section as its getting a bit bogged down with a few pieces of redundant code.

I guess I'll spend the next few weeks tweaking it until its as good as it can get.

Ind, I don't have any links to share I'm afraid. It all came from my head! Basically each item is based on a template item that is added dynamically, this template has actionscript that monitors and controls the next item.

Thanks again

[Battleman]

Very nice work - congratulations! Looks like all of that study paid off... I'm certainly glad you're not in Australia making me look bad :) I really like how you've thought about the transitions and how smooth everything is. First class work, mate.

A few questions for the eager student:

1. Are you using actionscript tweens for transitions and the movement of each entity or have you programmed all of this yourself.

2. Can you briefly discuss the software used to make your Freewriter application?

I've just found two things in the site that you may want to look at:

1. There's a bug when you use the mousewheel to scroll the news section... it scrolls one story too far. The story that was just off the bottom of the page scrolls off the top of the page - at least it does for me.

2. I'd like to see some sort of categorisation in your portfolio section to help usability. You're forcing the user to click on items without actually having any idea of what they might lead to - the thumbnails are often a little ambiguous. Cognitive Psychology tells us that short term memory can typically only hold 5 to 7 items... which means that we as developers should either rethink or avoid our long menus. In your case, it would really benefit from headings like 'games', 'websites', 'experiments' etc. I personally don't like having to click on everything to possibly find what I'm looking for and I don't think I'm alone on that.

But once again - really slick, novel and unique website. Something I'm sure you can be very proud of.

[mikken]

two thumbs up

[flamedude]

Very nice work - congratulations! Looks like all of that study paid off... I'm certainly glad you're not in Australia making me look bad :) I really like how you've thought about the transitions and how smooth everything is. First class work, mate.

A few questions for the eager student:

1. Are you using actionscript tweens for transitions and the movement of each entity or have you programmed all of this yourself.

2. Can you briefly discuss the software used to make your Freewriter application?

I've just found two things in the site that you may want to look at:

1. There's a bug when you use the mousewheel to scroll the news section... it scrolls one story too far. The story that was just off the bottom of the page scrolls off the top of the page - at least it does for me.

2. I'd like to see some sort of categorisation in your portfolio section to help usability. You're forcing the user to click on items without actually having any idea of what they might lead to - the thumbnails are often a little ambiguous. Cognitive Psychology tells us that short term memory can typically only hold 5 to 7 items... which means that we as developers should either rethink or avoid our long menus. In your case, it would really benefit from headings like 'games', 'websites', 'experiments' etc. I personally don't like having to click on everything to possibly find what I'm looking for and I don't think I'm alone on that.

But once again - really slick, novel and unique website. Something I'm sure you can be very proud of.

1. Ok, no I didnt use any tween classes in my movie. I basically have my own set of functions that allow me to move stuff how I feel. I dont think theres anything wrong with the tween class, but i personally always make my own stuff from scratch.

2. Freewriter was made entirely in Flash. If i had more time it would be connected to a database, and there wouldnt be so many bugs. To make it an executable for the pc I think I ran it through SWF Studio, but I'm sure that Zinc will also do the same thing for you. I think SWF Studio is made by Northcode and Zinc by Multidmedia.

Oh yeah, as for your critical points. Thank you. This is the stuff that I really will benefit from. I will definitely look into the categorisation of the work section. Thanks for the advice!

[danulf]

it doesn't load for me :(

[unclesond]

really nice stuff. I'd only suggest you consider your portfolio section as it expands...sectioning off certain mediums/topics for instance.

[theflash]

Very nice simple but something new... way to go..

But I really dont like the way your scrollbar is working with clicks... it would be really great if you can make it work on onPress event and not on release event...

[flamedude]

Ok cool! I changed the scrollbars to on press rather than on release like you suggested. Thanks for the advice.

[fudoki]

it's not loading for me either.

[Zaid_W1red]

WOnt load fer me either ...server error :(

[hkl]

tight as a ducks bum in a thunder storm

translating .. .. ..

that is a nice site.

[flamedude]

Sorry about all the server issues with my site guys. I'm onto it, it just seems like the server it is on keeps falling over every now and then.

[BoonDock]

Yeah sorry man, it's not working for me either ... complain to your server people! ;)

[flamedude]

It seems to be running now? anyone having problems?

[BoonDock]

I still can't access it ... the splash/enter page comes up but goes to nothing or the server won't work or let me pass after I press enter etc. :(

[flamedude]

Oh no this is so frustrating. It works fine for me in both FF and IE but it seems some people are having problems.

[SPAD3S]

lOve It VeRy MuCh!

[SlowRoasted]

Very nice work. I really love the transitions.

[GPP]

Very nice! I love it :thumb:

[thats all folks]

Love the site!!

[flamedude]

thanks for all the nice comments. real confidence boost!

[BoonDock]

Your site is amazingly done! I loved it once it worked! It's a little intense on the cpu but otherwise great stuff! Def. recommend you put it up for SOTW and other award sites! :thumb:

[flamedude]

Oh thanks a lot!

I really would like to submit for SOTW but there doesnt seem to be a new thread for this week! Oh dear..

[glosrfc]

Hi Guys,

Its taken me a while but its finally completed (not enough free time). My new portfolio;

www.flipmo.co.uk (http://www.flipmo.co.uk)

I'm very pleased with it. The site will resize to whatever size your browser is (though there is a limit after which it gets pretty garbled), all movement is driven by actionscript and all content is generated by an external datasource.

Server seems a little skitty though...

Hope you like it.

Steven.

No problems with it loading here but it doesn't appear to resize when I click the link. I've attached a couple of images that show the problem - one with the IE sidebar in place and the other without it.
It's only the home page as all the other pages are fine. It appears that the bottom logo bar stays the same size - approximately 180 pixels deep - while the top element is resized, cutting off the top in the process.

Again, also on the home page only, there's also a couple of invisible buttons about an inch and a half/two inches respectively to the right of the V2. I'm guessing these are supposed to be scroll buttons but no arrows are visible. These button hotspots don't appear in the contact page.

Hope that helps.

*edit* Just thought I'd add that my screen resolution is 1280 x 1024 and that the attached images are actually 800 x 600 pixels - this is the size at which IE opens to a _blank link. My graphic software has shrunk the attachments down 380 x 285 pixels to save filespace.
________
Pacifica (1999 concept vehicle) (http://www.dodge-wiki.com/wiki/Chrysler_Pacifica_(1999_concept_vehicle))

[flamedude]

Hmmm thanks for those images. I am aware that the site has a limit to where anywhere below a certain browser size the site becomes a bit messy with parts of the site hanging off the screen and what have you. I really do want to have it work in 800x600 but unfortunately this size is ridiculously small and I dont have a great deal of free time to cater for this minority.

A lot of the big client flash sites (that resize like mine) also do not work in 800x600 e.g. puma.com, it just seems theres this threshold which going beyond means a design that has to be compromised to work properly.

But thanks for the advice.

[glosrfc]

Hmmm....just noticed that the text on the Work page is cut off by the navigation elements as you can see from the attached picture.

And I've highlighted the Tank clip - every movieclip to the left of this position is clickable while the three movieclips to the right aren't - even though they appear on the stage! Hope you don't think I'm being hypercritical but, once they're fully visible on the stage, as a user I'd like to be able to click them rather than have to rescroll until they're closer to the centre of the page.

This behaviour occurs no matter what size the IE window is. When it's fully maximised, I can see every mc from RH onwards and that's clickable. Just can't click any other mc's until they're fully past the "recentwork/" text. A nice touch would also be to automatically centre the clicked mc too so that the user wouldn't have to scroll again to read all of the associated text.

Otherwise everything moves smoothly and fluently and I like the overall look of the site.
________
HERBAL SHOP (http://herbalhealthshop.com)

[glosrfc]

Hmmm thanks for those images. I am aware that the site has a limit to where anywhere below a certain browser size the site becomes a bit messy with parts of the site hanging off the screen and what have you. I really do want to have it work in 800x600 but unfortunately this size is ridiculously small and I dont have a great deal of free time to cater for this minority.

A lot of the big client flash sites (that resize like mine) also do not work in 800x600 e.g. puma.com, it just seems theres this threshold which going beyond means a design that has to be compromised to work properly.

But thanks for the advice.

Okay, no worries....just that on a 19" LCD, 800x600 isn't really that small at all - it's about 11 x 8 inches so a lot of screen estate to work with. And 19/17" LCDs are pretty much standard nowadays.
________
Weed tracker (http://dispensaries.org/)

[DDD]

Actually LCD's are not quite a standard as far as global users. But it is getting there. And 800x600 is just about out the door as a standard.

Anyway didnt read what is going on...so I could be repeating what someone already said. But I love this site....*bookmarked* good job.

[thats all folks]

Flamedude

It would be cool if you posted a tutorial on the flipping around effect, I would like to see how one could do this.

Nice work

[flamedude]

A tutorial? Yeah I would love to do that. If i get some free time this weekend i'll try and make a basic one, but the code involved is fairly straightforward. In a nutshell its a function that you feed new rotate values into and it runs an onenterframe until movieclip._rotation equals the new rotation value.

But yeah i'll try and do that.

[thats all folks]

Look forward to see it!

Thanks!!!

[flamedude]

Added some new items to my work section and ironed out a few minor glitches in the work section too. I would say its 98% done (for the meanwhile) despite a few glitches here and there. I have a list growing of things I would like to change or add but this will be for the next major revision will be.. i imagine.. a little while off.

Just so damn busy these days, i'm just glad i managed to finish my new site!

[SessionDesign]

Really like, very clean, simple and smooth! :thumb:

[flamedude]

The functionality of my site is complete. I'm happy with how everything works, however it seems there is some unnecessary cpu useage and i need to figure out whats happening. This weekend i'm going to have "fun" and cut out all the junk actionscript and get rid of any unnecessary cpu hog graphics..

[flamedude]

I was wondering if anyone knows how I can submit my website for SOTW here on the kirupa boards. I looked at the SOTW thread but it seems out of date and there isnt anywhere I can submit my site url.....

[Ineedsleep]

that is sweet!

I really like this site. its made me want to remake mine!!! again

nice work espcially the roll over rotating nav how did you get it to look like it was rotating?

[icio]

That is seriously cool ;)