MAC OSX type menu

[curtisrollo]

Hey friends,

I'm currently working on a navigation system similar to the Mac OSX menu (where icons expand?). I've seen it done on the web in flash, but was never too impressed with the effect, so I programmed my own which I thought is the best I've seen. Please check it out in the beta version at

http://www.curtisyee.com/chineseposters
www.curtisyee.com/chineseposters (http://www.curtisyee.com/chineseposters)

The rest of the page is being built, but I want feedback from others to see how my magnifying thumbnails for your approval. Is it intuitive? Is it smooth? Does it remind you of the good times you've spent with your Mac OSX?

sincerely,
curtis

[Rockstar]

It's totally smooth dude :) nice work!! I don't use MAC tho

[giles]

really really nice and smooth, very much like the mac type style, well done!

( i havnt got a mac either, but i do stil use them :) )

[prstudio]

very nice version - very smooth - i did one of these at one point - the examples on the web - you are right - arent very good at times.

good job!

[jdl]

That's very impressive - the only difference between yours and the one on my mac is that mine doesn't shake when the icons expand. What do you think that is in your script or lacking in it which could fix that?

[curtisrollo]

Hey thanks for testing it out,

What do you mean 'shakes' when it expands?

Is it that the thumbnails have a hairline border, and when they expands, sometimes the border gets covered up? So there's a visual shaking? Without the border for the thumbnail, this menu doesn't look as nice. Maybe I could expand the frames a bit? Is this really a big problem?

curtis


That's very impressive - the only difference between yours and the one on my mac is that mine doesn't shake when the icons expand. What do you think that is in your script or lacking in it which could fix that?

[Krilnon]

Looks great! They should use that as navigation on Apple.com

[Dj-Studios]

Isn't that just the tsunami flash effect on the side? Nothing new...

[jdl]

Hey thanks for testing it out,

What do you mean 'shakes' when it expands?

Is it that the thumbnails have a hairline border, and when they expands, sometimes the border gets covered up? So there's a visual shaking? Without the border for the thumbnail, this menu doesn't look as nice. Maybe I could expand the frames a bit? Is this really a big problem?

curtis

The picture when in it's expanded form doesn't remain still and clear, it sort of agitates very quickly so the picture is unclear. That is how it looks in Safari on Mac OS X on my computer. I don't know why???

[curtisrollo]

hey,

jdl, I'm not sure why there's a glitch with your machine, but on most people's it appears smooth. What version flash plug in are you using?

Someone on another forum asked how it was done, so I thought I'd also post the iner workings here. Here's the breakdown of how my scroller works. This is totally done in actionscript with no actual tweening.

1)From an XML file, I generate a list of thumbnails to be loaded, and arrange them in a row
2)for each thumbnail, there is actionscript that detects how close the mouse cursor is to itself, and if it is closer than a certain number of pixels, it will ease/expand dynamically.
3)there is a movieclip on Enterframe that constantly spaces each thumbnail a certain number of pixels apart, after taking into consideration the size of each thumbnail (as they could have expanded).
4) another on enterframe movie clip makes sure the entire scroll bar is always centered on stage.

I guess the hardest part is finding the right math formula.

sincerely,
curtis

[[uber]]

sweet!