Personal/.Professional Flash/Comics Site

[johnpolacek]

I am a flash developer who draws comic books in my spare time. I created this site for me to post about my projects. Plus, it was an opportunity to try a couple things I've been meaning to learn more about.

http://johnpolacek.com

[Dan0]

Love it! Never seen a blog in flash before. Makes me think I should try it :)

Yes Colin Moock is the best ^,^

[Templarian]

Nice work, my only critique is that the scroll seems to be too much. One scroll increment jumps way to far.

[bear]

Pretty cool. Especially for a blog. :D

[marnix]

i really like it, the style is quite awesome and well... it runs smooth and i really have this weakness for that "scribbly" style.

[johnpolacek]

Nice work, my only critique is that the scroll seems to be too much. One scroll increment jumps way to far.

I made an adjustment and it scrolls better now, thanks for the crit

[HalfDog]

hmm you make some really fun stuff, good work

[IQAndreas]

I made an adjustment and it scrolls better now, thanks for the crit
Hm... Still jumping very much too far, but that's probably because my screen is so small (about 600 pixels of actual viewable area)

Perhaps you could detect how large the screen is (stage.stageHeight), and scroll based on that, perhaps exactly one half of the screen height?

[shane-c]

It still scrolls way too far for me, too.

I'm also going to be "that guy" and ask why this was made in Flash... I understand you're a Flash developer, but the site could have easily been made with (x)html/css. The only animation I see is the simple tween when the elements are loading - something that could easily have been done with js if you wanted. I have nothing against Flash sites, but this doesn't seem to take advantage of any of Flash's abilities. It's just a really simple blog.

Not trying to sound overly negative - I do like it, I just think that in this case you're gimping your site by building it in Flash. I'm guessing that since you're a Flash developer, you do want a Flash site - so I would suggest that if you're going to go that route, you should try getting more creative with it and really take advantage of what Flash can do. At this point it has the weaknesses of a Flash site with none of the strengths, and the simplicity of an (x)html/css site with none of the advantages.

[Anogar]

Totally agree with Shane. This is a bad use of Flash.

[excogitator]

Pretty nice blog.
Even If he knew xhtml/css, I really doubt he would have then implemented those tweens.
I suppose the Gaiaflashframework helped him finish it fast.

Overall I very much like this site. I won't point at why the technology is used or misused as long as the end users don't have any qualms regarding usability.
:thumb:

[Anogar]

...as long as the end users don't have any qualms regarding usability.

Well, I like comics, flash development, and blogs -- I think I'm a potential reader for this thing, but I hate how slow it is to load, I hate that it animates every time, and I hate that I can't use browser features like search to navigate the page. I'll certainly not be reading this blog; due solely to the Flash. :no_love:

[johnpolacek]

You guys are absolutely right that I could have done this site in html/css. The reason for doing it in flash was really just for my own learning. I actually set out to emulate some of the functionality of a wordpress-type blog. I agree that I am not taking advantage of the possiblities of flash at this point, but I have some ideas on that front that I hope to implement somewhere down the road.

Thanks for the great feedback. Eventually I want to get the site to a point where provides a good user experience for people like Anogar (less animation/faster viewing, adding a search field, category browsing, etc), while also taking more advantage of the fact that it is in flash.

[johnpolacek]

Made a couple quick updates to the site. The animation transitions are shorter and quicker, so the pages should come up significantly faster. Also decreased the scrolling amount on the track click from 75% of stageHeight to 50%.