I began working on a new personal website about 3 weeks ago that would be totally Flash. I am coming along nicely…but I just wanted to get a few opinions, comments, or suggestions about the site. It is geared toward providing people on the net a place to download “open source” files for flash, examine them, and use as a learning tool. I know, there is an abundance of sites like these out there…the only thing different is these are my personal creations.
Anyway, enough jabber. I haven’t got all content up yet, matter of fact, there are no files to download at this time, as I have just now finished the site layout. Can anyone give me comments, critique, whatever about the site? It would be appreciated.
Also, I have noticed as of tonight that the “Home” and “About” buttons are acting strangely. Maybe it is just something on my computer. Anyway, if anyone notices it, please let me know and I’ll do what I can to correct it.
So if someone would please critique the site, it would be very much appreciated. Thanks.
www.davidgreer.home.dixie-net.com
David
Here is what your site is missing:
-
A consistent layout, you have stuff everywhere and everything looks so busy and cluttered. Try to reduce so much clutter and organize your layout.
-
You don’t have a color scheme or theme at all, I don’t see how your layout has to do with anything you do.
Overall it looks like it was thrown together real quick with out any planning.
i’m not trying to be mean, but the bg image is better than teh site
itself. why didn’t you try to incorporate that instead? I think that
alone would boost your site’s goodness instantly.
Well, just so you know, electrongeek, it wasn’t thrown together real quick, even though that might be your opinion. The way I see it, especially for someone if it is their 1st flash website, is for you to have positive criticism, instead of only throwing out negative remarks, like you’ve done on everyone else’s thread.
Thanks alot.
The whole point of a site check is to get feedback for your site.
It may be good or bad… It may be something that you don’t want to hear.
Electrongeek said that it “looks” like it was thrown together real quick… That’s just his opinion.
Just because it’s your first flash site, that doesn’t mean you should only receive positive criticism.
The negative remarks are there to help you improve. Especially, since you’re new to flash, you’re gonna need alot of it.
He’s obviously giving you recommendations on how to make your site better. He’s not saying that to make you feel bad or anything.
Honestly… If you can’t take the negative comments, I don’t think you should be posting your site up to the public…
(and that’s just my opinion.)
Ok… now to the topic…
I think it’s pretty good for your first ever flash site.
I did worse when I first started. =)
But there are couple of things you can improve on… (in addition to what electrongeek has mentioned)
-
If you’re gonna keep that bg, make it fixed and centered. On my 22", I see 4 of them.
-
Make the content area the same size as the navigation bar…
-
Also some nice pictures or something might be great for the look.
Just tweak things around… here and there… and everything should be all right.
Relax, since it’s your first site… there’s no need to try to make it perfect… Once you hit your 3rd , 4th and so on… It’ll be much better. =)
If you think EG is harsh, you should have seen how we treated him with his first site… and he took our comments to heart, redid his site, and is a much better designer because of it, and getting better every single day (the young little bastard 
).
this prob isn’t the place to fish for compliments.
Rev
Thanks enyceexgloboi. I will keep these pointers in mind. I like the way you went about it…see at least you do give encouragement. That was what I was meaning by the last thread…I understand showing you things that you need to correct, that is what I need. My point was just be courteous about it, and not EVERYTHING negative.
Anyhow, I have changed the background again. Maybe this one won’t be as bad on your monitor. Also, quick question…Can you tell me exactly what you meant by having the content area same size as navigational bar? That was a little confusing to me.
Thanks again.
David
this bg is much better! fits teh site well now, colors and all. I’d
seriously think about trying to incorporate that first bg into the
flash layout somehow. It’s a nice graphic and would be well
suited for a header of some sort. Or your content bg on a lower
alpha setting.
the only thing about the new bg, is it’s not tall enough. Maybe make it at least 1280px tall, becaue on my 19" i see it doubled at
the bottom.
also, I think you should have the home section load from the beginning… because the main content section in the beginning looks empty. =)
Thanks for all the advice. I’ll see how I can incorporate the 1st graphic somehow.
Also, regarding the last post, I have tried getting the home page to load in the content area as soon as the movie loads, but for some reason, I cannot get it to work. It makes my navigational buttons not work at all. Maybe someone can help.
The actionscript I have tried is
[AS]onClipEvent (enterFrame) {
_root.content_show.loadMovie(“homemovie.swf”, 1);
}
[/AS]
where “content_show” is the instance name of the empty movie clip on the main stage, and “homemovie.swf” is the external home movie.
Maybe someone can tell me what I am doing wrong. Anyway, thanks for all of the advice.
David
where is this code placed?..
On the empty movie clip stored on the main movie…I gave the movie clip an instance name “content_show”.
Hope this helps.
David
hmm… it’d be helpful if you can post your source fla…
I’ll see what’s wrong… fix it… then reup it. =)
Sure thing. Maybe you can tell me what I am doing wrong.
Also, to UNFLUX, I took your advice and took the original background and used it as a background for the content area. I really liked the outcome of it. Thanks alot. You can check it out and tell me what you think.
David
Oh man, sorry…I didn’t realize the .fla file was the big…it is 531KB.
Sorry :*(
That’s not big… (I guess it is, cuz you don’t have all that much content yet)…
You can email it to me.
Also, try to save your fla as a different name…
Then erase the original fla -> then save again to the original name… (That should cut down some size)
Like this… (assuming fla name is flashindex.fla)
Save as flashindextemp.fla
Erase flashindex.fla
save flashindextemp.fla as flashindex.fla
Erase flashindextemp.fla.
See if that does anything…
(email : danny@protelecom.net)
Hey man…thanx…that fixed it.
I knew I had to have a loadMovie action somewhere, but I wouldn’t have figured out it would have been on the last frame. And I was trying to put the action on the empty movie clip.
Anyways, thanks alot. I really appreciate it.
David
