Building Flash Web Sites For Dummies,9780471792208

Building Flash Web Sites For Dummies

by
Edition: 1st
ISBN13: 9780471792208
ISBN10: 0471792209
Format: Paperback
Pub. Date: 2006-05-08
Publisher(s): For Dummies
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Summary

You can get Flash-y with your Web site -- here's how! Know your audience, plan your site, and make it both interactive and cool Gone are the days when you could get by with a boring Web site. With Flash, you can add interactivity, video, an exciting and easy-to-navigate interface, and eye candy like custom cursors and flying text. This friendly guide makes Flash fun and easy, so you can have your site up and running in no time. Discover how to * Build an interface with custom buttons and menus * Include animation and soundtracks * Dress up your text * Create tween animations * Create ActionScript objects * Test and publish your site

Author Biography

Doug Sahlin is a photographer, videographer, and Web designer living in Lakeland, Florida. He has written 16 books on computer graphics and office applications and co-authored 3 books on Photoshop and 1 book on digital video. Recent titles include Digital Photography QuickSteps and How To Do Everything with Adobe Acrobat 7.0. Many of his books have been bestsellers at Amazon.com. Doug’s books have been translated into five languages. He uses Flash 8.0 Professional to create Web sites and multimedia presentations for his clients.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1(1)
About This Book
1(1)
Foolish Assumptions
1(1)
Conventions Used in This Book
2(1)
What You Don't Have to Read
2(1)
How This Book Is Organized
3(2)
Part I: Building the Perfect Beast
3(1)
Part II: Fleshing Out Your Design
3(1)
Part III: Adding Bells and Whistles
3(1)
Part IV: Sharing Your Site with the World
4(1)
Part V: The Part of Tens
4(1)
The appendix
4(1)
The color insert
4(1)
The companion Web site
5(1)
Icons Used in This Book
5(1)
Where to Go from Here
6(1)
Part I: Building the Perfect Beast
7(32)
Creating the Perfect Flash Site
9(12)
Flash versus HTML . . . The Winner Is?
9(2)
Setting Goals for the Design
11(1)
Planning Your Site
11(1)
Gathering Assets for Your Site
12(1)
Building the Interface
12(3)
Simplifying your workflow with symbols
13(1)
A tall tale of buttons and navigation menus
14(1)
Adding text and other delights
14(1)
Adding the WOW Factor
15(3)
Making your site interactive with ActionScript
16(1)
Get a move on with animation
17(1)
Soundtracks and other operatic delights
18(1)
Optimizing and Publishing Your Site
18(3)
Testing your design
19(1)
Getting the bugs out
19(1)
Optimizing the beast
20(1)
Publishing and uploading your brainchild
20(1)
Before You Build Your Site
21(18)
Knowing Your Mission
21(3)
Working with clients
22(1)
Making it crystal clear with a client questionnaire
23(1)
Defining your target audience
24(1)
What's the Bandwidth, Kenneth?
24(2)
A tale of two bandwidths
24(1)
Do you need Freddy the Preloader?
25(1)
Put Your Ideas Down on Paper
26(4)
Mind mapping your brainstorm
26(1)
Creating a storyboard
27(3)
Gathering Your Assets (Or, Wool Gathering)
30(9)
Creating and optimizing your images
30(3)
Rounding up sound bites for your site
33(1)
Adding vexing video
34(5)
Part II: Fleshing Out Your Design
39(90)
Creating the Interface
41(24)
Creating a Bandwidth-Friendly Flash Site
41(4)
Creating Symbols
45(4)
Flash symbols 101
45(1)
Creating new symbols
46(1)
Converting objects to symbols
47(1)
Creating instances of symbols
48(1)
Editing symbols
49(1)
Working with Color
49(5)
Mixing solid colors
49(1)
Using the Ink Bottle and Paint Bucket tools
50(1)
Creating colorful gradients
51(1)
Using the Color Mixer
51(2)
Using the Gradient Transform tool
53(1)
Fleshing Out the Interface
54(11)
Creating Symbols for Content
55(4)
Creating a template for content
59(1)
Working with layers
59(6)
Getting the Word Out
65(18)
Using the Text Tool
65(10)
Creating static text
66(1)
Making text pretty
67(2)
Formatting paragraph text
69(1)
Checking your spelling, Aaron
70(3)
Adding text hyperlinks
73(1)
Creating an e-mail link
74(1)
Active Text for Fun and Profit
75(4)
Breaking text apart
75(2)
Creating input text boxes
77(1)
Creating dynamic text
78(1)
Stuffing 50 Pounds of Text in a 30-Pound Bag
79(4)
Adding Site Navigation
83(22)
Button, Button, Build Me a Button
83(5)
Building a basic button
83(2)
A button with many states
85(3)
Saying Goodbye to Boring Buttons
88(4)
Creating animated buttons
88(1)
Building a noisy button
89(1)
Creating an invisible button
90(2)
Hanging Out at the Navigation Bar
92(13)
Bellying up to the nav bar
92(1)
Duplicating buttons
93(1)
Building a navigation bar
94(2)
Assigning actions to buttons
96(2)
Assigning the proper event to a button action
98(1)
Creating a drop-down menu
99(6)
Get a Move On and Animate the Site
105(24)
Animation 101: A Tale of Frames and Keyframes and Blank Keyframes
105(3)
Working with frames
106(1)
Working with keyframes
107(1)
Animating Symbols with Motion Tweening
108(7)
Removing a motion tween
111(1)
In search of the perfect motion tween
111(1)
Creating custom easing
112(2)
Taking an object for a spin
114(1)
Editing your animation
114(1)
Animating along a Motion Path
115(4)
Creating a guide layer
115(1)
Creating a motion path
116(1)
Getting objects to follow a motion path
116(1)
Orienting a symbol instance to its motion path
117(1)
Linking additional motion tween animations to a layer guide
118(1)
Animating Objects with Shape Tweening
119(6)
Removing a shape tween
121(1)
Modifying a shape tween animation
121(2)
Creating a shape tween animation for complex objects
123(2)
Animating Image Sequences
125(4)
Part III: Adding Bells and Whistles
129(122)
Making Your Site Interactive
131(24)
Adding Sizzle to the Steak with ActionScript
131(10)
Introducing ActionScript classes, objects, and methods
132(2)
Using the Actions panel
134(7)
Loading External Movies into Your Flash Site
141(3)
Understanding levels
141(1)
Loading movies into targets
141(2)
Unloading movies
143(1)
Giving Flash a Brain (Variables 101)
144(11)
Understanding variable data types
144(1)
Vive la difference between string data and numeric data
145(2)
Creating mathematical expressions
147(1)
Understanding operator precedence
148(1)
Christening a variable
149(1)
Declaring a variable
150(2)
Passing the variable baton to other objects
152(1)
Resetting a variable
153(2)
Creating ActionScript Objects
155(26)
Telling Time with a Digital Clock
155(6)
Using the Date object
156(1)
Making the clock tick tock
156(2)
Displaying the current time
158(3)
Adding Background Music
161(7)
Controlling the volume with a sound controller
162(5)
Creating a soundtrack movie
167(1)
Creating a Preloader
168(4)
Using the Bandwith profiler
168(1)
Scripting a one-act preloader
169(3)
Hiding Objects with an ActionScript Mask
172(3)
Creating Drag-and-Drop Elements
175(6)
Creating an element that can be dragged
176(1)
Using the startDrag action
177(2)
Using the stopDrag action
179(2)
Going Visual
181(36)
Adding Tool Tips to Your Web Site
181(7)
Creating the tool tips
182(3)
Creating the tool tip functions
185(2)
Programming the buttons
187(1)
Creating a Moving Navigation Menu
188(5)
Creating an endless menu
189(2)
Putting the menu in motion
191(2)
Creating a Flash Photo Gallery
193(9)
Preparing images for the gallery
193(1)
Laying out the gallery
194(2)
Creating the XML document
196(1)
Scripting the gallery
197(2)
Dissecting the code
199(3)
Importing Full-Motion Video --- A Moving Tale
202(8)
Encoding the video in Flash
202(5)
Linking encoded video to a Flash document
207(3)
Modifying video playback control parameters
210(1)
Adding Pop-ups
210(7)
Going Commercial
217(16)
Creating Flashy Forms
217(5)
Creating form elements
218(1)
Scripting the form
218(1)
Creating ActionScript for the Reset button
219(1)
Creating ActionScript for the Submit button
220(2)
Creating a Printable Page
222(2)
Designing a Flash Catalog
224(3)
Creating an E-Commerce Shopping Cart
227(6)
Creating Flash Eye Candy
233(18)
Creating a Mouse Chaser
233(2)
Creating a Custom Cursor
235(2)
Building a Moving Backdrop
237(4)
Creating a Ticker Tape Marquee
241(5)
Creating Flying Text
246(5)
Part IV: Sharing Your Site with the World
251(22)
Optimizing Your Site
253(10)
Optimizing Your Site
253(3)
Test Each Web Site Movie
256(1)
Debugging the Site
257(2)
Adding Breakpoints
259(4)
Publishing the Site
263(10)
Setting Publish Settings
263(8)
Specifying Flash settings
264(4)
Specifying HTML settings
268(3)
Publishing Your Site
271(2)
Part V: The Part of Tens
273(22)
Ten Tips for Creating Flash Sites That Work
275(8)
Optimize Images Before Building the Flash Site
275(1)
Don't Put All Your Eggs in One Basket
276(1)
Get the Bugs Out of Your Scripts
277(1)
Label Your Frames and Scenes
278(1)
Use Named Anchors
278(1)
Create Linkage
279(1)
Make Your Site Skinny with Symbols
279(1)
Create a Separate Layer for Your ActionScript
280(1)
Use Comments
280(1)
Think Modular
281(2)
Ten Tips for Working with Clients
283(6)
Create a Client Survey
283(1)
Create a Static Mock-up
284(1)
Get the Client to Sign Off on the Design
285(1)
Dot the Eyes and Cross the Tees
285(1)
Cover the Bases
286(1)
Get It in Writing
287(1)
Get an Initial Payment
287(1)
Get Frequent Feedback
287(1)
Get Feedback in Writing
288(1)
Bill for Extras
288(1)
Ten Tips for Promoting the Site
289(6)
Choose a Meaningful Domain Name
289(1)
Optimize the HTML Page in Which Your Flash Site Is Embedded
290(1)
Add Meta Tags
290(1)
Research High-Ranking Web Sites
291(1)
Add Alt Text
291(1)
Add Text to the HTML Page in Which Your Flash Site Is Embedded
292(1)
Tell the World
293(1)
Get Web Sites to Link to You
293(1)
Promote the Site in Blogs and Forums
293(1)
Submit Your Site
294(1)
Appendix: Flash Internet Resources
295(6)
Flash Training and Tutorial Resources
295(3)
www.computerarts.co.uk
295(1)
www.ultrashock.com
295(1)
www.EchoEcho.com
296(1)
www.ellenfinkelstein.com/flashtips.html
296(1)
www.swift3d.com
296(1)
www.actionscripts.org
296(1)
www.flash-creations.com
296(1)
www.communitymx.com
296(1)
www.flashstreamworks.com
297(1)
www.were-here.com
297(1)
www.flashkit.com
297(1)
www.lynda.com
297(1)
www.flzone.net
297(1)
www.moock.org
297(1)
www.macromedia.com
298(1)
Flash Animation
298(1)
www.coolhomepages.com
298(1)
www.bestflashanimationsite.com
298(1)
www.melondezign.com
298(1)
www.webmonkey.com
298(1)
www.djojostudios.com/flash
299(1)
Sound
299(2)
www.soundshopper.com
299(1)
www.flashkit.com
299(1)
www.sonymediasoftware.com
299(1)
www.groovemaker.com
299(2)
Index 301

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