I finally fixed my site enough to post it here for constructive criticism. But not just constructive criticism, I need help with a problem. First off, here’s the link:
Tell me what you think of the design. For bandwidth purposes, I didn’t include some crazy flashy intro, since the interface itself sucks up a lot of space. Now focus on the following:
Is it too painfully large to download?
Is the menu too hard to figure out?
Does the animation get stuck sometimes (and does the clear button help “restart” the thing?
Mac users: is the site properly loading and playing for you guys?
And now, here’s my problem. Toggle Portfolio section (left-most orange button thingy) and click on either the Photoshop button (Graphire tablet icon) or the Web button (mouse and pad icon). Click the Launch button and a scrolling menu will appear. I’ve been trying to make the skewed scrollbar work properly and I have found no solution. If you click on the scrollarrow thingy, you might notice that the scrollarrow tries to jump back at it’s original Y position. I tried to make this less obvious by adding a mask to the layer that contains the button (so it simply disappears instead of obviously jumping up and down). You can totally tell it’s jumping when you scroll it to the right just a smidge. All the stuff moves by multiplying the _x or _y of each with the scrollvalue determined by the following code:
scrollvalue = Number(slider:_x)/trackWidth;
slider = label of the scrollarrow thing and track Width = the width is how much to the right I want it to move.
You still with me? Sorry it’s sounds crazy - but the jumping up and down thingy is driving me moreso over the wall. First of all, is the jumping arrow very obvious and annoying? Anyone know how to fix this, successfully attempted a non-conventional scrollbar, or know of a tutorial to point me out to?
Thanks for the time and patience guys. If you can’t answer any of the complicated stuff, just let me know, overall, what you think of the site.
HI,
I’m on cable (finally), so download times are no issue…
I LOVE the site, ponystuff too, really really nice!!
There is indeed a pb on your scroll-arrow thingy, if you try’n move it fast enough, it s’times even disappears! It seems to flicker…not really anoying though…hard to tell what’s wrong without a look at the fla…
Menu system is cool, simple as can be (if you’re used to other flash sites at least…)
Like it! Different, nice design, great colors, no bloody pop-up, in a word, great work!
Oh man, I hate sites that place the main interface in a pop up! There’s just no need for it, and just makes my desktop really cluttered! At any rate, as soon as I find the .fla file that I used to make the skewed scroler, I will upload it here and hopefully some of you kind souls will help me disect it.
Also, I added a “Loading Text” animation while the .txt files are loading into the textboxes. I just hated it when it would go blank because it was taking its dear sweet time to load…
i love the navigatoin. Very impressed. Easy and enjoyable to go where im going. Just hope u dont need to clutter the belt with more content in the future! I bow down to you.
Thanks everyone for their feedback! FlashFish: I don’t think anymore sections on the conveyor belt itself will be added, but new artwork will be added to the portfolios sections - if it get’s too much, I will likely stick everything in an archive and just display the latest works. But since I’m slow as molasses, that area won’t grow too much most likely.
I don’t know if anyone noticed, but I managed to fix the nasty side scroller snag. Now for some reason, the loading text animation won’t show up!! As old problems are solved, new ones seem to be cropping up…
Rennygirl,
I really liked your site. It was fresh and well done. the download wasn’t bad at all with a 56K here. The inside was just refreshingly different. Very nice!
Phil
BTW, I have to ask you, is your body really that tiny? Or is it a morphed image?
I mean, if it’s that tiny, I am not trying to make you pheel bad or anything or self conscience, but I am curious, ya know?
I really like that site. I was wondering : how did you design it ? Flash all the way down or did you mix pleasures ?? Anyway, that point of view, slightly from above (3 quarters in French, no idea how to say that in English) is a great idea. And that little rolling carpet (???) is definitely the most intriguing thing.
pom 0]
Aside from the imported jpegs done in Photoshop, it’s all flash baby! I really have no knowledge in director or any 3d programs to mix in with it. Actually I tried rendering some 3d images in 3D Studio Max, but that just didn’t work out well.
is sound missing from your site or am i deaf btw, the text you (want) to load never showed up…Sometimes loading info from a txt file lags…for some reason.
There is no sound Paranoid - I’m not a fan of sound coming from websites since it disturbs the current tunes to which I am jamming to. Plus, I didn’t want to add to the already enormous download.
Yes, I am actually having problems with the text thing (you’ll see above that I posted it). The text took a while to load so I added a “Loading Text” anim (to check if the text variables are empty), but it won’t show up for some reason. I have been trying to fix it, on and off, or weeks!
with your metaphor (machinery, conveyer belt etc) you’d be remiss not to add sound i’m afraid. For me, sound is one of the things that FLASH exemplefies in the new media–creative use of sound.
would’nt you say that one noticing the lack of sound draws attention to the fact that it may be worthwhile to add it to your site?
I think forgetting sound in flash is akin to using straight bitmap grapics…it defeats the purpose.
But quite a handful of people have told me or responded to a site check thread that they liked that I didn’t a) have a pop-up for my interface and/or b) used sound. But you are right: maybe a “doing” when a button is pressed or “ting” when content is loaded or “buzz” when the conveyor belt rolls would be effective. I do want to fully utilize flash’s capabilities after all. I’ll look into it as soon as I fix this loading text thing.
using a program such as Soundforge, and export correctly, sounds will barely make an impact. As always you can use shared libraries, in a separate file, downloaded after the main content appears, and link sounds from there. All the best sites in flash do use sound though
btw, the text you (want) to load never showed up…Sometimes loading info from a txt file lags…for some reason.
