Template Customization

Using SWiSH

Posted on 29. Nov, 2007 by Dave.

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Swish is an enormously grand way to include flash effects to your site. It includes making small movies run without Macromedia Flash plug-ins. Swish stands for Simple Web Indexing System for Humans. With it you can easily index directories of files and search the generated indexes. When you do a search, it’s the swish program that is doing the actual searching. Swish objective is to fill the need of Web administrators on the Internet.

Swish is easy to use and simple. You can do many things such as stemming or searching for different versions of a word or the use of synonyms. With it, you can do most of the things that full-featured indexers and search programs can. In indexing HTML files, swish can ignore data in tags and give higher relevance to information in header and title tags. In one pass, it can automatically search your whole Web Site, if it’s under one directory. Index files consist of only one file this is the reason why they can easily be transported.

The most powerful Flash creation tool is the Swishmax. It has 230 new effects a Javascript-like scripting language and support for dynamic content and input forms. It is perfect for interactive Flash presentations.

The new Swishvideo allows you to convert your video files into streaming Flash files. With it you can easily display your videos with play controls and playback settings. You can also import your AVI, QuickTime, MPEG or Windows Media videos into Swishvideo. After that, you can select your videos compression quality, key frame intervals, deblocking and smoothing settings. The play controls are already made available for easy access. The control is complete with play, pause, stop, forward and rewind buttons. Not only that, you can also create your own custom controls in any Flash authoring tool and import them into Swishvideo. To export settings, select an SWF or FLV and adjust your video’s border width, scaling, background color, start and end states.

Another swish craze is the Swishpix. It allows you to create flashy photo albums. You just select your photos, add themes, music, callouts or clipart and viola – an animated photo album! You can also publish your output as a screensaver, burn to CD or upload to your website. Here you can also combine multiple movies and define the playing order as well as play back options and control your movie’s size and window state. To display your movie, select the context menu items and about box.

With Swish, you can turn otherwise idle presentation into an irresistible one. Swish offers a lot more, go and check it out!

About the Author
For additional information and comments about the article
you may log on to http://www.printingquotesonline.com

For more information on SWiSH, please check out the official
site www.swishzone.com

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SWiSH Max2 Templates – Getting the Buzz on Practical Flash Design – by Dave Collado

Posted on 29. Nov, 2007 by Dave.

We are very excited to announce the release of a new product category – SWiSHmax2 Templates designed for using with the extremely popular SWiSH software. SWiSH Max is a program distributed by Swishzone.com that utilizes Adobe Flash technology to deliver cross-browser compatible presentations namely flash websites, animated menus, Flash-based video, banner ads, text effects and the like. However, I first heard about SWiSH in the summer of 2004. At the time, I was looking for a solution to dealing with Flash alias text properties (or lack there of) and the only swish I’d ever heard of was that cherry flavored fluoride medicine they made us take back in grade school. Good times.

Like the Adobe Flash software, SWiSH utilizes objects, vector graphics, keyframes and a variation of ActionScript for scripting. The main reason SWiSH is so popular is its large number of built in preset effects such as “Spin and shrink, Alternate jump out fade and slide” which would otherwise have to be created manually in Flash. With this you simply draw shapes and text, add the desired effect and that’s it!

With Flash, on the other hand, you’ll need to understand concepts like layers, masking, frames, libraries and symbols before you even begin! And since these effects come built into SWiSH many people find it not only faster to use than the Flash software but that by lowering the learning curve it is also more practical. Not to mention that SWiSH is a heck of a lot less expensive than Adobe’s software. In sum SWiSH Max is basically Flash for those without the wish, need, time and or finances to buy the actual software.

Recently SwihsZone has gotten lots of praise since it’s September 26, 2007 release of the official SWiSH software entitled “SWiSHMax2″. What’s more, developers worldwide agree that the enhancements and simplification of the product makes it superior to the Adobe Flash technology. As you might expect the new version is not compatible with the older SWiSH designs and software –just like newer Flash versions (e.g Flash CS3) are not compatible with earlier Flash version files and the like.

Because the new SWiSHmax2 software package is so advanced, yet so much easier to work with, templatemonster.com partners & affiliates worldwide could not miss the opportunity to pioneer a new line of beautiful website templates for this revolutionary software. If all of this is making your mouth water with anticipation, it is probably because you know that I have a premium sample SWiSHmax2 Template for your education and use free of charge available for you to download right here.

While some web designers may have been rightfully justified to dislike the old SWiSH software (present company included) because it was inconvenient and had a non-user-friendly interface. That, and the fact the many of us were already so accustomed to using Flash, there was little desire to change to SWiSH. Then again, all of that is very different now.

Rewritten from the ground up, SWiSHmax2 offers hundreds of new features including components, content library and assets, effects browser, in place text editing, video/image/sound effects and an improved interface that is much more convenient and much easier for developers to use because it is similar to the Flash interface witch makes managing and navigating your SWiSHMax2 workspace simple.

SWiSHmax2 is such a wide-ranging application that you’re unlikely to ever exhaust its vast range of tools and features – even experienced SwiSHers will often discover new options and capabilities. Moreover SWiSH not only excels at text effects it also duplicates many of the effects available in Flash CS3.

From now on the SWiSHMax2 Templates will be available to you as one of our categories with our revolutionary SWiSH designed templates. We are sure that our beautiful designs in the SWiSHMax2 Templates will find dedicated fans. Our new SWiSHMax2 Templates will become very popular with customers who appreciate the real design advantages at truly great value prices. To learn more about SWiSHMax2 or, to download a free trial version of this revolutionary new product click on this link.

About the Author:
Dave Collado is the Senior Design Consultant at www.foamers.net who provides quality website templates customization, Flash templates customization, CSS templates, web design tutorials, and many other web design and web hosting services. This article may be republished providing it remains fully intact.

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XML Flash Site Templates: Accessing symbols using the library.

Posted on 16. Nov, 2007 by Dave.

The year was 1985 Saturn makes its national deybute as ” A Different Kind of Car Company” (that’s a laugh!), MacGyver premieres on ABC, and the first film in Steven Spielberg’s “Back To The Future” trilogy profitably brands Marty McFly as a household name. Marty is an average 80’s teenager, except for one problem. He is stuck in 1955. Now, the only other way to get back is to generate 1.21 gigawatts of electricity, but the only source strong enough to generate that kind of power is a bolt of lightning; unfortunately it’s impossible to determine when and where they will strike.

Our topic here is accessing symbols in XML Flash Templates, which is rather like being stuck in 1955 trying to jumpstart a DeLorean. Sure, there are geeks who can do XML, and there are frilly frou frou types that are great at Flash. But an artist writing XML? Or a coder doing Flash movies? Wouldn’t this kind of crossover require a flux capacitor and run the risk of a major disruption to the space-time continuum? Apparently not. In the previous articles (XML Flash Templates – Maintaining your Flash website made simple!) I introduced you to XML Flash Site templates a new product category with a unique feature allowing content to be loaded onto Flash via an XML file.

Basically, what this does is grant anyone the simplicity of editing the Flash template’s content from a text editor, and still keep the performance and beauty of Flash intact. Notwithstanding, what if I needed to access the elements (or “symbols” sometimes these two words may be used interchangeably) within the Flash Template itself (e.g. the frilly frou frou)?
There are three different ways you can do this you can “A” double click the symbol on the stage to edit it in place, “B” select an instance of the symbol on the Stage and right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Macintosh), and select Edit in Place or “C” which in my opinion is the safest and easiest way to access Flash elements and that is through the symbols library. You can launch it using Ctrl+L hotkey or by selecting Library from the Windows menu. Note directions apply to both XML Flash templates and all other Flash template types.

The Library contains all bitmaps, sound and movie clip symbols used in the Flash template. To make the customizations of our XML Flash template easier for our customers we have allocated all symbols in individual folders with appropriate names. For example jpeg and or png files would be within a folder named “bitmaps”. Likewise, you will find a “buttons” folder also for buttons symbols and so forth.

As you browse through the symbols library you will be able to see the content of each symbols in the preview area, however if nothing shows in the preview area it means that the symbols color is the same as the background color. For example you would not expect to see white text on white background. You can easily remedy this by momentarily changing the movie background color. Press Ctrl+J hotkey to open Movie Properties window, and select a lighter or darker shade of color.

In some cases you might also want to duplicate a symbol. The menu, for example, may have a total of 5 main navigation items and you desire to add one more (i.e. you wish to include a FAQ page); from the symbols library, what we need to do is right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Macintosh) the symbol, select Duplicate Symbol and give the duplicate symbol it’s name. Next, drag the symbol unto the stage and give it an instance name. Note an instance name and a symbol name are tow totally different things. Meaning, that while there may be two or more instances of the same symbol with the same name “symbol 1”, each instance must have assigned a unique identifier (e.g. instance name) for all ActionScrip reference purposes.
To edit the symbol, you simply double click the symbol to access it in the Main Area. Then double click the text area and enter your own slogan. Once you edit a symbol, Flash updates all the instances of that symbol in your document. You can customize all other Flash elements by repeating these simple steps.

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Web Templates: Replacing Designers?

Posted on 12. Nov, 2007 by Dave.

I’ve seen articles (and websites) that suggest you can buy a website template and skip the expense of hiring a professional website designer. Recently, I read several testimonials from the very satisfied customers of a website template vendor that mentioned how quickly they were able to get their sites done. The template vendor commented that he/she had known people to complete their websites in around two hours.

With experiences and statements like these, it not surprising that more and more people are attempting to build websites themselves. I think that’s great in a way. For those of us who are concerned about the trends in the web industry and community, it’s great to see more people becoming web oriented and involved.

However, I think there is a misunderstanding by many of these people about what a website template really is – and is not. At this point, I think it only fair that I should mention that I am a professional website designer (the person you supposedly don’t need anymore). I should also mention that this is not my sole motivation for questioning this idea of templates replacing web designers. As a matter of fact, I think website templates are extremely useful. I recommend using them to my clients as a way of getting a great graphical look for their site. What I hope to convey is that template consumers need to know what they are and what they aren’t getting with a template.

Consider an analogy for templates: pretty boxes for very important gifts. If you buy a pretty box, and put all the right stuff inside it – won’t everybody want to open the box and use the contents? Doing it yourself will save time and money – so why not? Sounds good, and the people who wrote those testimonials would certainly think it was a good idea – right?

But let’s consider the contents of the box. Aren’t you the best possible source for information about your company, organization, product or service? Of course you are! So the content of your box is bound to be great – right? Well – yes and no. Good web designers know that their clients are the best sources for the information that needs to be presented on their websites. However, they recognize that not everyone can organize that information in the optimal way for inclusion in a web page. If the contents in the box are wonderful, but jumbled, or hard to get out of the box, people may not like the box (or worse yet – the owner of the box). Just as a badly considered gift (even a beautifully wrapped one) may offend someone, a poorly organized site can actually harm your efforts.

Take the analogy a bit further. Assume that all concerns about the content are dealt with: it’s perfectly organized and you’ve got a knack for writing copy that would make most professional journalists green with envy! Voila: great looking presentation, content and organization! Now you’ve got it made – or do you? Where is the box? Your audience needs to find this incredible box before they can open it.

A website template, no matter how beautifully designed or filled, is a box in the middle of a desert. Without adding content and description meta tags, titles, alternate content, proper use of text links and alternate navigation and registering the site with search engines, directories and obtaining useful links (to name but a few of the technical considerations), your pretty box may remain in the middle of that desert. It does no good for anyone if it isn’t findable on the web.

A website template is a pretty box. Pretty boxes make a difference or we wouldn’t all spend so much time wrapping all the gifts we give. Some people make their own boxes and wrapping paper – and that’s really great. But most of us buy mass-produced boxes and wrapping paper. It saves time and money. So do templates. But none of us would assume that boxes or wrapping paper would make up for a poor gift. Website templates make sense if they are kept in perspective as a specialization of labor in the production of websites. They are not however, a substitute for the experience, knowledge and judgment of professionals who have a vested interest in your success.

About the Author:
Chip Lane is the owner of Lane Web Design (http://www.lanewebdesign.com) a full-service web design and consulting firm located in Mebane, North Carolina.

You are welcome to republish this article as long as the link is kept active.

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A New Service is available at Foamers “Customer Discussions” , get knowledgeable answers, swap comments and more…

Posted on 07. Nov, 2007 by Dave.

What are Customer Discussions?
Customers Discussions connect you with other customers to share your questions, insights, and views about website templates available on Foamers.net. Read what others are saying about your favorite template, get knowledgeable answers, swap comments and be a Web Design Hero in our easy-to-use group discussions. You can also let us know what you think of the Customers Discussions feature by contacting Foamers’s Customers Discussions team directly. (This is for comments to the Discussions team only. For help with your customization order, see the How to order template customizations page. For other issues, or to contact Customer Service, visit our support page. And, of course, to ask the community of other customers a template-related question, start a discussion directly in Customers Discussions.)

Who can participate in discussions?
Customers! Any one who has already purchased or may be interested in purchasing a template from Foamers.net for the purpose of developing an online presence and is in good standing in the Foamers community can reply to an existing discussion or start a new one. And, likewise all visitors to Foamers.net can read any current discussion.

What should I post?
Please share thoughts that you think will add to the discussion and help other customers interested in the template, or start a conversation to learn from other customer’s experiences. For example:

* Ask questions about a product (“I like this templates but the colors are too bright for me. How can I recolor the site?” ” How do I edit a Dynamic Flash Template?”)
* Contribute product comparisons (“If you feel comfortable around XML I really recommend XML Flash Sites Templates over the more advanced reference Flash sites if you’re just getting started.”)
* Look for guidance from other customers who have made similar purchases (“I love my new ‘Flash 8′ template, but want to add another menu item.” “Did anyone else have trouble setting up the Dynamic Flash Gallery?”)
* Share your experience (“Cascading Style Sheets templates are great when it comes to cross browser compatibility, but what I most value is the time they save.” “The new XML Flash sites let me edit the content throughout the entire Flash template instantly with no prior knowledge of Flash whatsoever.”)
* Debate products usages, quirks, news, and more with other customers. Connect with developers to discuss technique, solutions, or issues.

What shouldn’t I post?
Customers are encouraged to contribute to these discussions. Most of our discussions are open, and anyone can post their own messages or reply to those posted by others. There are some exceptions where posting is limited to admin only. When posting, please observe the usual rules of Netiquette, but in particular:

* Profane or obscene, inflammatory or spiteful comments
* Messages that abuse, denigrate or threaten others
* Text or articles written by someone else, even with attribution for the author, except for brief quotations from a book, article or other product related to the discussion
* Any personal information about children under 13
* Descriptions that intrude on the privacy of another person, including revealing personally identifiable information such as their name or address
* Text that promotes illegal or immoral conduct
* Repeated posts that make the same point excessively
* Repeated unwelcome messages that harass or embarrass other customers or participants
* Any form of “spam,” including advertisements, contests, or other solicitations for other websites or companies; or any URL link that includes a “referrer” tag or affiliate code.
* Do not impersonate another person, including an Foamers.net employee.
* We recommend that you do not post your phone number or e-mail address.

How do I find and read a discussion?
On the template details pages, under Customers Discussions, you will find a list of the most recent topics about a product. Click on a discussion title to read the whole discussion or make your own reply. To browse more discussion titles, click “See all discussions” at the bottom of the discussion list.

How do I reply to a discussion?
Click “Reply to this post” at the end of a message to post a response. Your reply is placed at the end of the discussion. Anyone reading your post will also be able to click “In reply to an earlier post” to display the message to which you responded.

How do I start a new discussion?
On a product page or in a discussion forum, start a new discussion below the list of recently-active discussion titles. Once you fill in the discussion topic text box, you’ll be redirected to a new page where your topic is created automatically and you may write the initial post. .

What if I find an inappropriate post, or one that detracts from the discussion?
If you find a post that you feel is obscene, threatening, pornographic, another person’s words, or otherwise violates Foamers guidelines outlined here or in the Conditions of Use, please click “Report abuse” and submit the report.

How do I get back to a specific post?
Each discussion has a “bookmark this discussion” link, a direct pointer to an individual post in a discussion. You can click this link and add it to your favorite bookmarks, or copy it from your browser’s address bar and send it in e-mail. You may also choose to link a discussion to any social services such as del.icio.us or digg

What do I do if my message was deleted?
We regularly investigate messages that have been reported to Foamers.net violating our guidelines. If you feel your message was removed inappropriately, contact us.

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SEO Technology? Web 2.0? Seo Web Design? What’s Next?

Posted on 07. Nov, 2007 by Dave.

What constitutes the birth of one industry is oftentimes the death of another. With all of the internet buzz words flying around these days like Seo Web Design, Web 2.0, Internet Marketing, Seo Technolgy and a host of other mutant forms of traditional advertising and marketing, understanding the underlying premise is important to gauge where all of this is coming from and where it is going.

I’m not going so far as which came first the chicken or the egg, but the last I knew, communication, content and conversation essentially encased all of the above definitions and was part of any aspect of traditional marketing.

These are the three C’s that take precedence at the forefront of any offshoot. Fundamentally, with exposure being the basis of search engine optimization, blogging, or online marketing, positioning tactics have had to evolve in order to keep in tune with the times. Definitions exist for the sake of categorization, but first critical mass needs to occur for acceptance to result from the masses.

Much in the same what when the acronym for SEO was born. (search engine optimization), now it is as common as the yellow pages (a tried and true advertising from the past) in the minds of consumers. But things continually are getting shaken up and evolving to keep us on our toes in regard to what’s hot and what’s not.

From this vantage point, it appears that good old SEO has taken a backseat to social book marking and blogging. Sure, you could spend hours tweaking pages, getting your meta tags just right, going to 3000 search engines to add your url, but you would be wasting your time. Now all you need is a blog, some creativity and hit the publish button to link bait and reel in some traffic.

In addition, contextual advertising and link baiting have become the new form of generating backlinks and traffic to websites as opposed to reciprocal linking, or strong on page factors. At this rate, press releases may be the next dinosaur to fall prey to the new face of marketing, as it is obviously loaded with conjecture and promotion language, which is a big turn off for most users online.

The modern consumer and online citizen are far more savvy than the blue collar industrial generations that proceeded us. Try getting bombarded on a daily basis from billboards, radio, tv and now online and see if natural evolution doesn’t intercede and dampen the impact. So many choices are appearing at break neck speed faster than we can get a grip. So, quite naturally our BS filters are increasing at an alarming rate as well. People like to be sold, but you can’t make it appear as a sale, this is the new form of advertising. Call it tactful third party referral, the art of the passive close or what have you.

In any case, web etiquette is definitely taking on a new protocol. For example, link building is facing a major face lift, personalized search may be the end of SEO as we know it, at least for those savvy enough to sign up and enable it as well as paid links have now taken the hit with the recent removal from Google’s index for over 60 well known directories . In addition to that the pagerank that we all used to cherish adimately has been reduced to a toolbar ornament as trust rank, website authority and personal pagerank are determining who dominates the SERPs.

It will most definitely be interesting the see the next big thing, whatever it is, and how it affects our communication and interaction as a whole.

In the meantime, go with the flow, enjoy all of the conveniences as they arise, you never know when the things you have just become accustomed to as a result of conditioning, will be condemned obsolete. All I can say at this point is, good luck to newspaper and radio advertising, as well as TV as video, pod casts and other forms of social interaction are becoming commonplace as the internet is booming as the new frontier of business, social interaction and entertainment combined.

About the Author
Jeffrey L. Smith is an seasoned search engine optimization strategist and founder of Seo Design Solutions Seo Web Design Company in Chicago.
Jeffrey has been involved in internet marketing since 1995 and brings fresh optimization
methods and solutions for businesses seeking long-tail organic search engine
placement.

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Making A Style Statement With CSS Templates!

Posted on 01. Nov, 2007 by Hasan.

Starting with a lot of enthusiasm to create a website and getting stuck at the design stage is not a great feeling. All the planning and scheduling go haywire. All the excitement dissipates and gives way to a feeling of incompetence. People usually f...

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