well. flash and i arent getting along very well. i have very minimal experience with it. i have plenty of experience with dreamweaver and html and such. i feel the need to expand though and create a flash based website. i’ve printed out 100s of tutorials and have a good idea of what i want to do. I’m using flash mx 2004…my first main problem is i tried creating a drop-down menu (tutorial on site) and well it doesnt really work…at all. i dont know how to quite explain it…any help, tips, tricks whatever would be greatly appreciated…thanks
start simple. then grow. the more basic your first site is the easier it will be. then over time ad features.
very true. take it only 1 step at a time. even advanced developers get ahead of themselves and make silly mistakes and have to spend hours backtracking to find simple syntax errors.
your background in html is great and flash is a natural extension of your current abilities. even when tackling simple projects, i cannot stress enough the preproduction process/software engineering approach. write on paper what you want the application to do, do a flowchart, etc… then when you sit down to write the code it’ll be quick as you transfer English into code. believe me, the more you adhere to this approach the better off you’ll be.
and if you’re having problems with the dropdown menu you could either start again or post exactly what type of problem you’re having in this forum. the more exact and precise you are in this forum the better and quicker we’ll be able to help you.
welcome to flash. you’ll be just fine.
I personally always think of what I want to do with my website - if I don’t know how to do it, I look for tutorials on the subject, and ask for help on kirupa 
- I’m a lot more comfortable now, and its great because you don’t feel you’re learning tutorials which you may never use.
Hope that helps a little
Insomniac
keep at it, started flash a year ago, at first i was very frustrated. but i read tutorials, browsed this board, bought lots of books, looked at other sites for inspiration and saw what i could do if i stuck with it, and although there’s a lot to learn i’m glad i did. and if i and hundreds can do it, you can do it.
good luck,
chris
i created a circle and put type on it. i need to make this set a button. i selected both the circle and the text and created a new symbol blah blah. when i go to my library it has it saved as the correct file name but no actual symbol…how do i get it to appear? would it be easier to do make a symbol with text in photoshop then transfer it?..
nevermind that last question
books books books, especially ones published from macromedia. They have helped me so much…i reccomend u go to barnes and noble and pick up one of their latest editions.
yah i got “flash mx 2004” hands-on training…its amazing what a book can do in 2 hours…its helped a ton so far…i hope this was a good buy?!
my navigation bar/drop-down menu thingy. as far as i can tell everything is perfect. it appears correct in all frames/instances/whatever but doesnt work when i test it. when i click on the base button nothing drops down…i’ve tried everything i can think of which isnt much
In response to that question earlier about making the circle a symbol, it sounds like you clicked insert new symbol rather than convert to symbol (but it looks like thats sorted now). As for your 2nd question, post your .fla
I have never learnt from a book… I don’t know why. I started with web languages (I learn’t javascript before HTML) then worked through them all and can write in most anything from XML to PHP. After A while I got into flash from a friend and bang I was hooked and have loaded it up on an almost daily basis since version 5.
I learnt by reading tutorials and doing simple things. the first thing I coded was a classic “make the circle walk” and just moved on from there. I still don’t know everything but I’m confident.
p.s. I learnt most eveything I know from Flash Kit but kirupa appeared later and is one of the best boards you can find.
and for your questions, yes the best way is for you to post your .fla.
good luck.