XML Flash Site Templates

If reading big thick books just isn’t your thing, see if you can master some of the idiosyncrasies of Flash with ready made website templates. By now most of you already know that website templates can save you a lot of time and effort, but did you know they can also be wonderful as a gentle introduction to the world of web design? Think about it, by having access to the website templates source files we’re actually being given the opportunity to be taught and inspired by the combine efforts of many very skilled developers.

The most common types of ready made web designs are CSS (cascading style sheets) templates and Flash templates. In any given week, I’ll visit a gallery, download a template and try to teach myself a new technique. The code on most premium templates is heavily commented witch makes learning new methods very simple and easy-to-follow. Whether you’re a complete Flash beginner or someone wanting to quickly get up to speed with some new trick in CSS, Flash CS3 and ActionScript 3, premium templates are what you need.

This is perfect for designing reusable apps such as pre-loaders, image galleries and contact forms where’s with the website templates you don’t need to reinvent the wheel anymore. CSS templates can be used to study two to three column layouts and style rules, which you can later apply to any project. Another good example are scalable layouts templates, commonly knows as liquid templates or stretched templates, with one of these ready made liquid templates you’ll be able to master the art of getting around varied screen sizes and resolutions. My personal favorite templates are XML Flash templates because of their unique feature which allows the content to be loaded onto the Flash templates via any text file – a function to keep handy if your ever around Flash.

Yeah, you could spend hundreds of hour reading tutorials on all sorts of topics by rhetorical experts peddling everything from color schemes to grid design, however most of that is either to technical or just isn’t practical in the real world where clients demand more professionalism. The great thing about premium templates is that they are created by professional web designers using the latest technology. In other words these ready-made website templates are made by people that understand typography, layout things like that; skills one could only wish to achieve after years of practice as a graphics designer and or programmer.

Where were website templates 10 years ago, when I first got into Flash? Anyway, these are just some of the benefits of website templates, I’m sure there are many more so please feel free to leave me your thoughts, comments and or experiences you may have had using templates. Also, mustn’t forget to mention that most premium templates shops will even give you a website template free so you can evaluate the quality of the product and try your skill before you buy.

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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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On September 18th, 2007 templatemonster.com, announced that it now offers XML Flash Site templates a new product category with a unique feature allowing content to be loaded onto Flash via an XML file, no doubt aimed at lessening the convoluted task of running and maintaining Flash Sites.

One of the claims made on the templatemonster web page is:

“XML Flash Site templates are equipped with the system that will simplify your work with the Flash website by giving you the opportunity to edit it without having to use the special Flash software for that (you only work with the XML file)”

What their basically saying is that I can get the functionality and simplicity of editing my template’s content from a text editor, and still get to keep the performance and beauty of a premium Flash website.

So I decided to put this to the test, using a free sample XML Flash site, a copy of which I have taken the liberty to make available to you here (Free XML Flash Site Template Tryout). Don’t mention it! Besides as a developer you’re expected to be somewhat comfortable around XML. So if you aren’t, this free XML Flash Site template is just what you need to start getting your hands dirty.

Once I extracted the files I opened the site_flash directory, located the tfile_main.xml file and in just a few key strokes same as I’m doing right now I was literally changing menu items, adding more links, and even editing the content throughout the entire Flash template instantly requiring no prior knowledge of Flash whatsoever (I only worked with the XML file). What I liked best of all is not having to buy some hyphy Flash software in fact I did all my editing in Notepad. I simply edited all my stuff from the text file, changed whatever I wanted, and still kept the efficiency and beauty of Flash totally intact. Seriously, it’s unbelievable!

One neat thing XML Flash Site templates allow me to do is add as many “read-more” pages as I want or, for that matter, any page. Here’s what you do. I wont go into too many details-this is already beyond the scope of this article, and you’re darn smart.

Copy (Ctrl+C) an existing code for a “read-more” button

, find an area where you want the button to be, paste (Ctrl+V) and give it a unique identifier

The same if you were to add a 3rd button you’d change this function to a “2” the 4th would be “3” etc… Mi conprende? Oh yeah! I almost forgot, in addition to that little tidbit you’ll need to copy the existing code for a read-more page and paste (Ctrl+V); then replace the old text with new text and give it title. See? That wasn’t too bad.

The greatest gain for web site owners is they wont have to hire someone each time they have to make a change on their website. XML Flash site templates will let you circumvent the need to modify FLA source files whenever you need to change some text or move some pictures around. And it’s not just for beginners either, just think of the time we’ll save, I cant tell you the number of times I’ve been coding away the hours seemingly making huge progress, when out of nowhere I’ve got one of these “Flash has encountered a problem and needs to close” Dam!

Lastly, here’s the basic information you need to edit XML Flash site templates.

Open the “tfile_main.xml” file in the text editor (e.g. Notepad ++). DO NOT rename this file. Otherwise you’re screwed. Find the text you need and type in your new text. Upload all files to your public_html folder. All files should be placed in one folder. Also there are a number of free XML text editors that offer some really neat features such as color-coded text and section highlighting which can be very helpful. If you would like to find a text editor that provides this feature, try searching Google for a free XML editor or if you like you can contact the Foamers.net Web Team for our recommendations.

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