Just a quick glance...

[tgrk35]

I just need some advice on the flash header for my site.

http://www.summel.net/index.php

The flash header...to me...is fairly basic and plain.

Is there anything I could do to it to make it not suck quite so bad?

Thanks for your help :),
Will

[mrmazur]

Try animating the blue area in the flash. Perhaps have it scrolling continuously from left to right like a cloud effect. Also add some mouse over effects to your links there at the top.

The purpose of the site isn't very clear at first glance. Well...even at second glance its still very vague till you start reading through the lengthy paragraphs.

It does have some potential though, so keep on going ;)

[tgrk35]

Originally posted by mrmazur
Try animating the blue area in the flash. Perhaps have it scrolling continuously from left to right like a cloud effect. Also add some mouse over effects to your links there at the top.

How do I go about doing that :-$? Sorry, I suck at flash.

The purpose of the site isn't very clear at first glance. Well...even at second glance its still very vague till you start reading through the lengthy paragraphs.

It does have some potential though, so keep on going ;)

I've always had problems with this...not only because the site really don't have a purpose...:'(...and yeah...I guess that would be about it.

Any ideas?

[soccer362001]

The only thing I would suggest is changing your layout from tables to divs. The header looks ok, but It would look better if there was a mousover effect on the links.

[zingmatter]

Since you are using Flash for you navigation you should have something happen when you mouseover the buttons, as well when you click one. Just insert an animation for each button (you can reuse - for example, I did this for a site and used only 2 animations for 8 buttons - see

This site nav bar (http://www.doodlebus.com/getreel/index.asp)

Hope this helps

[tgrk35]

Your responses have sparked an idea for me.

I think I will not only change the color of the textual links, but when a user mouseovers it, the left side of the header will change to a 50% alpha of a messageboard screenshot, or webcomic screenshot, or whatever they're mousing over.

Does anyone know how I would go about doing this?

Once again, I suck at all this,

Thanks,
Will

[jregroup]

Since you're not that familiar with Flash, I will make this rather lengthy. Hope your ready and I hope you're using MX.

1. The animation could be stepped up a notch and look a little sharper by increasing the frame rate a little. I typically use frame rates between 22fps and 30fps. <-- Keep in mind, this will affect everything in the flash animation so you may have to stretch out your tweens a little bit on the timeline. You can adapt your timing with ActionScript but I will avoid going into great depth on this since you stated your level of comfort in Flash to be kind of new. You can change your frame rate by going to the ->Modify>Document>Frame rate selection and typing in a numeric value that you feel comfortable with. Play with it a little bit and see what looks good.

2. Ease the white/black/gray bar into position and don't make it flip. One way to do this is by positioning the image at the first frame of the tween and the last frame of the tween at the same spot on your x and y axis(s)(make sure that the width and height of the image are the same at this point. Then go back to the first frame of the tween and move the image to the left (off stage). Now it should just fly into position when you play it. Now go to the end of that tween (right click on the image and click copy). Now highlight the image, then click on your "free transform tool". Highlight one of the corners of the image and squeeze the image in just a little bit. Then click on one of the sides of the image and bring it in just a little further. Use your own eyes to gauge the distance and then reposition the image (in it's squeezed state) to the same spot on the stage that you want it to end up when it is full size again. (remember to continually press Ctrl-S and save your work!) Now go about three keyframes further on your timeline and insert a new keyframe.

Again, highlight the image and select the "free transform tool" and resize it back to its original size and spot (at the end of the tween)
Now add a motion tween to the key frames by right-clicking somewhere in the middle of the timeline between your new keyframe and the (former) end of the old tween and select Create Motion Tween. After you have added the tween, look down at your Panels and see if you have the "Properties" Panel open. If not, make it happen.

Now when you are looking at the timeline, there should be one long tween and one short tween (for this Graphic). Double (left) click your mouse in the middle of the short tween (in the timeline) and look at your "Properties" panel. Where it says "Tween" = "Motion" look below that and you will see where it says "Ease". Click on the drop down arrow and bring that down to about "-20" to "-30", again depending on your frame rate. Then try out your movie clip.

It should look like the graphic is shooting into position from left to right with a bit of a bounce right at the end.

If you want to learn more about some nifty "Quick and Easy" Flash recipes for beginners, send me an e-mail.

Good luck and let me know if you use this.