Flash MX or SWiSH?

programming flash
1

Greetings,

I found SWiSH to be quite good and probably able to suit my needs for the forseeable future, but after seeing that I can get Flash MX at student discount, it seems a crime not to get such a powerful program…

Issues include the following:

  1. SWiSH created a useful animation for me in one morning (the same morning I “learned” it!)

  2. I do know C++ and might someday be wanting to use the sophisticated features of Flash MX, but it seems that if most of what I’m going to do is really emphasizing content (e.g., the animation at www.med.unc.edu/~greena/iraq which I used as a background for a presentation to my medical school class), that it would take longer to do stuff in Flash MX than in SWiSH and that I wouldn’t use certain “fancy” text effects built into SWiSH b/c they would take a long time to recreate in Flash MX (unless there’s a set of extentions or macros or something that would make Flash MX quickly provide these fancy text effects without my needing to recreate the wheel?)…

  3. I have already run into a bug (?) in Flash MX illustrated in the SWF and FLA files at www.med.unc.edu/~greena/flash : it’s a moving symbol (that happens to be text) that rotates. When run in the Flash MX environment, it works perfectly, but in the SWF file, it’s a mess (the object flashes on only for fractions of a second, maybe at the start or end of every rotation?)…Would love any info on whether I’ve made an error in what I thought was a very simple operation. Running into a “bug” this early scares me and prevents me from doing something that SWiSH can already do with no problem!

Love the site and the links! Amazing job!

Thanks in advance for any advice,
Aaron

2

You can’t compare the programs. It really depends on what you’ll do. You’ll get bored with Swish in 3 days, when you can have fun with MX for years, especially if you know C++. Go for MX.

pom 0]

3

ilyaslamasse,

Thanks for the advice. But one thing that would make me feel better about the decision would be if there were some “shortcuts” to doing SWiSH-like text animations quickly using MX (e.g., via a plug in or something).

If I need to do something that’s a simple presentation and just get content up fast (like www.med.unc.edu/~greena/iraq, which I got up very quickly), are there tools to help do that very quickly?

Thanks again,
Aaron

4

Not as quickly, but quick enough. there’s a new feature in MX, that allows you to break a text apart in separate letters very easily for instance. Then you can programm in Actionscript your effect, and apply it to all your letters. Which is quick if you have the script, or if you know AS a little bit.

pom 0]

5

Thanks, POM. Will probably get MX–how could I resist :slight_smile:

I’ve just got so many projects…and oh yeah, I start residency this fall :stuck_out_tongue:

Aaron

6

Flash MX… SWiSH is just for text effects…Flash MX creates good looking sites…i am a newbie to this webdesign world, and even i use Flash MX…I am learning actions scripts at the moment. Flash MX is so much more powerful than SWiSH and much more profensional… Get flash MX
www.Darren.za.net will be up soon…
Darren :slight_smile: