*Originally posted by SureShot *
**Sen - maybe you could help me.
We are about to finish a Training CD here at work… we did it all in Flash MX. I am wondering - with all this talk of Director and how it’s good for interface and cd authoring, what are the advantages of using it instead of or with Flash MX. I am sorry to sound so stupid but I am just curious if we made the right decision to do it all in flash… **
I dont think Id ever author a CD in Flash if I was able to do it in Director instead. You have a lot more control in Director and can even (as Im sure you know) use Flash within it. The only reason Flash would be desirable is if you had mostly vector content to begin with and the requirements for the CD we minimal (as in you dont need much control in doing things - nothing beyond that or normal web play with Flash).
… of course if you’re dealing with a tight time schedule and you are more experienced with Flash (and the CD isnt too demanding technically) then Flash just may be the way to go. MX offers a lot more than 5 did so its not AS bad. heh
BTW is anyone else peeved about the lack of consistency between the MX insterfaces? I mean the whole collapsable bar thing is cool when you get used to it but things like… ok
Flash - the Right panel group isnt collapsable inward (to the right) like in director or dreamweaver. Directors left panel group (basically just the tools) is even collapsable, while in Freehand the tools arent even dockable… well they are but not in the same manner as the other dockable tool panels… it becomes long and crazy-like, like a ‘main’ toolbar, which in Flash docks to the side well, but like the tools, freehands main toolbar remains long (single column) when docked to the side - making it not easy at all to have both the main and tools bars docked to the one side in Freehand (whereas in Flash thats where they both sit comfortably for me). Directors main toolbar isnt even removable. Its either docked or not there at all. Then, in the collapsable panels themselves, in flash, clicking on them anywhere will open or close them, whereas in say director, clicking on them in an empty space will ‘select’ the panel (some highlighting blue) where to open or close the panel you would need to click on the name of the panel itself. Then you have the tabs. Tabs in freehand and director are nice even, aligned tabs. Tabs in dreamweaver and fireworks are askew, each occupying its own ‘level’ or height, meaning the more tabs you have, the fatter the tab bar gets - just getting in the way more… Freehand btw doesnt support rightclicking on panel bars either :-\
They’re all close, but not quite the same. They could all be great, but each one is missing something one of the others has… though that one is missing something that yet another has. GRRR
What I want:
Flash’s use of docking, namely with the ‘main’ toolbar maintaining a nice two column dock on a side grouping and flexibility in positioning.
Director, dreamweaver, freehand’s use of collapsable panel groups to the side
Director’s panel highlighting so you know where window focus is
Freehand, director’s aligned tabs for better use of space
Director’s collapsing scheme where the word is needed to collapse a panel - then its easier to select a panel without it collapsing on you
Director, dreamweaver, flash’s ability to rightclick on a panel bar to get the panel menu
a different default application background color so I can see where Im draggin my windows! (director, fireworks, freehand)
Freehands properties menu which does NOT collapse or expand the information portion when double clicking (often a mistake when trying to select a text area)
The mouse NOT locking up when trying to scale a non scalable panel (as seen in freehand).
Macromedia Studio MX…mostly just flashmx and fireworksmx…but can use all of them profficently…also use discreets plasma like 3dstudio but strickly meant for flash
Good observation Sen , didnt notice that, well all except the director docks to the side. Hmm :-\ maybe in flash MX 6.5 lol
Sureshot
One major advantage director has over flash is that it can handle quicktime movies (you can also include The quicktime play controls). Like sen said when using flash you are usually working for the web, so then you keep the Kb’s down, compressing bitmaps and sound, but while working for a cd base , director is powerful enough to handle hi-res images, video , sound. The file size will be large but working on a cd you have 700mb to play around with. You can even authorise for DVD format, if i remember correctly.
:: but be warned If you are using a complex flash file in director all might seem great on a PC but when viewing on a Mac, umm lets say its Freakin slow! lol bringing back painfull memories.
just flash MX really, i have the whole studio, but i detest dreamweaver because of the atrocious code it writes. and i’m tryin to get into firewoerks, but i prefer adobe so far…
*Originally posted by golgi *
**just flash MX really, i have the whole studio, but i detest dreamweaver because of the atrocious code it writes. and i’m tryin to get into firewoerks, but i prefer adobe so far… **
if you take the time to get to know what DW is doing, and why, then it doesn’t write awful code… It actually will write code without any extra garbage, if you do it right…
i took a whole class in dreamweaver, required credit for major blah blah. i learned it. i hated it. no offence. wysywig is nice and fast and fun to use. but i like strict XHTML, and i could never get the **** thing to write nice clean code. thank god for tidyGUI, it got me through that semester. :beam:
I know you took a class, but when a teacher has not learned from version 1, a lot of times they don’t really know the prog, they just go thru the motions…
I could prob take the same task as someone, they do it in Notepad, I will do it in DW, and chances are, I will be done first, and the code will look the same… But then, not many people have been working with DW since version 1, and know how the prog writes the code. You have to know what to select, and where, in order for the prog to know what you actually want it to do…
I know a lot of people who hate DW, but I also know a lot of people who use DW correctly, and it saves a ton of time… especially if you are using a lot of ASP behaviours that you use all of the time…
Again, it is all what you are used to , and how much time you want to take to learn a new prog. Especially if you already know a way to do the job without it…
Rev
BTW - if you think DW writes obnoxious code, don’t go near FrontPage…
hehe. well, i respect your opinion, and believe that you 99% chance do know better then my teach did. so i am sure that your right, and i can write immaculate XHTML with it. but i’m happy with my wordpad code. and front page can kiss my bunz. DW is by far the least obnoxious html writer imho.
I worked with a guy once who wrote all of his DHTML in Notepad (a Mac version actually)…
This guy was at a design house that turned the site over to us once it was live… I couldn’t figure out this guys code for anything… ended up redoing anything I wanted to modify… All custom functions, etc… aaaaaaarggggh!
about the whole handcoding vs dreamweaver… if you look at some of dreamweavers code, it makes some really nice compact usable scripts. Some of the formatting can questionable depending on your style, but under the circumstances, they’ve done a nice job with it… I myself used to (and still occasionally now) use notepad to do everything. Its fast, easy to use, and an instant to edit with just by viewing source. The only drawback to that is time and conformity. It takes time to write personalized code when in dreamweaver all you need to do is push a button and its done. In situations where time is of the essence, you need to take the quick route even if it isnt exactly the route you want to take. And like with what Rev was saying, you lose that conformity - or probably a better way to put it is portability? At least on the developers side. If you make a site in dreamweaver, anyone with dreamweaver can edit and change it. Actually the code spit out by dreamweaver is easy to edit enough on its own… GoLive can suck my white arse for the crap it puts out. But in terms of coding things like that on your own, other people may have no clue on how to handle or treat that code, especially if they dont know anything about coding those kinds of things without the aide of dreamweaver (etc).
I started out hand-coding in Notepad, and moved on to Dreamweaver around version 3 - 4. That way I had a good knowledge of the code before I even looked at a WYSIWYG editor, so if anything wasn’t quite right, I could just go in and alter it.
Plus, you ever tried doing the Merge Cells in a table thing by hand?
dreamweaver 3 (And 4 a little, but not as bad as 3) had HORRIBLE html editor refresh. I couldnt use it because I used the html editor so much and couldnt stand the refresh lag - I kept with notepad/textedit MX is by far better than the prior versions (yay)
