Archive for 'Flash 8'
Giveaway Ads Slot For Top Two Commentators Each Month
Posted on 12. Mar, 2010 by Wajid Khan.
Free Ads Slot For Top Two Commentators Each Month
First of all i would like to thanks to all of my Readers, Visitors and Commentators for supporting Themeflash for taking into next generation of design and development blog. we are happy to say that we are starting to give something special for readers and visitor to gain more traffic for their blog. And we have decided that we will give you the Two Ads Slot of 125×125 for top two commentators on the blog and one copy of template by System32 from Themeforest.
Subscribe to our RSS or Email Updates Its free of charge to stay updated form our Recent article and Giveaway .
What you have to do?
- You can give jpeg or png file format in 125 x 125 pixel size with link and title. We do not accept Flash based images.
- The Ads should be related to Web Design, Multimedia, CSS, Vectors, Themes, Freebies Etc. – and please no adult or semi nude ads or other hosting company.
- Follow me Twitter @themeflash. Many of you following me already. But those who are not following me can follow now for latest updates and giveaway .
- Please try to write a short review about my Themeflash blog in ALEXA Rank, if you like it. It will help me to run this Community successfully and giveaway some cool Premium items for readers of Themeflash in future,
- We are preparing some good eye catchy articles related to Inspiration, Tutorials, Freebies, coding, showcases and wordpress as you can view in my previous post. So Just Subscribe to our Newsletter! to stay updated about freebies, tutorials and more …!
The winner of this giveaway will be declared in the end of this month. Now be the first to comment on Themeflash, Thanks.
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80 Beautiful Web Design Trends Of Minimal Site
Posted on 10. Mar, 2010 by Wajid Khan.
Minimalism has been a very popular website design style for a while now. Some people say it is simply boring and uninteresting because all of the “eye candy” and effects have been removed… I think it is a classy and functional design style that showcases strong typography, good design and layout skills.
Design Trend For Minimal Site
Good
el Candor
Monty Lounge Industries
Typographica
Pixel Craft
Pixel Umbrella
Site Inspire
Poccuo
BSG Design
Vudu Media
My Favorite Thing
Finch
Corporate Risk Watch
Cherry Bloom
Theme Magazine
Fever
Guzzle
The Creative District
Astheria
Envento
BKWLD
Purple Rain Cloud
Maxvoltar
Huge
Midas Studios
Green Circle Shopping Center
Hot Meteor
Design Work Plan
SOFA
Arty Papers
80/20 Studio
Rustin Jessen
Concentric Studio
Studio MikMilk
Andy Rutledge
Simple Bits
Jon Tan
David Sutoyo
Alpha Multimedia
This Is Grow
Polar Gold
Lift Interactive
Wonderful Union
CSS Smooth Operator
Jeffdoe
Rafael Matias
Logofi
Huge Type
One Day Without Google
Mahallo
Minimalis Sites
Sorenaarlev
Blumenthal
Somme
Love Left
5 Squared
I Am Docto
Jean Delbrel
Ghost Horses
Molly
Matt Kursmark
David Jonsson
Yummygum
The Swish Life Magazine
Graffino
Mohawk
CSS Religion
Codaweb
Liamm
Brookly Fare
David Hutton
Create Demo Cracy
The Rules
The Gates Notes
Arnaud Beelen
Book Cover Archive
Neiman Group
Neus Blog
Nick Harrison
Purpose
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Weekly Design Inspiration #12
Posted on 09. Mar, 2010 by Wajid Khan.
I will gives you a weekly design inspiration of web design consisting of 20 to 25 design concept. To get your creative juices going. If you have a general comment about the site’s, we’d love to hear from you.
To get the ball rolling here are the attractive pieces of themes we found in the recent week servey during the last week:
Design Inspiration
Joystick Generals
Spiritual Formation
PSD Chimp
Webdesign Webatvantage
5 Squared
theEvnt
Shutter Stop
LeahAshley
Fernando Silanes
Morgan Ranchinc
Design Front
MBY
Arvorecer
Phureal
Domain Advertising
Help Your Habitat
unify
Eighty8Four
MicaGrafica
Strutta
New York Web Design
Scraplr
Helvio Sodre
Mix Online
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Our latest template customization project – EliteScapesDesign
Posted on 20. Oct, 2009 by Dave.
We’ve been a little slack posting examples of new work with the latest addition to the family, baby Austin, arriving on Oct the 8th, and all the changes at http://foamers.net but that doesn’t mean that we haven’t been busy.
Our newest template customization is for http://www.elitescapesdesign.com/. This landscaping website has a very nice layout. It is simple yet dignified – very fitting for a company committed to quality craftsmanship landscaping. We are very happy with the way the template turned out, but they are still moving in so there are a few small things that still need to be tweaked.
In addition to the striking design the website uses the “lightbox” functionality and feature to let you preview and see image from the portfolio, that really helps distinguish their portfolio from the thousands of other landscapers because the functionality is very smooth and easy for visitors to use.
Does Your Landscaping Company need a website?
We offer template customization services to all landscaping companies and small landscapers at completely affordable prices and help you to display your portfolio effectively on the web.
Should you wish to give your landscaping business a prestigious and a more professional look , or if you would like to learn more about our services, please drop us line.
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7 Tips For Better Flash Customization
Posted on 08. Aug, 2008 by Dave.
Seems like Flash is on everyone’s mind lately, I get so many emails from new designers and do-it-yourselfers whom have purchased a flash template and lo and behold their saying “Please help before I pull the rest of my hair out!” Ouch, that hurts!
Personally it’s over a decade since I first started fooling around with the stuff, still I do not consider myself by any means to be an expert, but try to share the many mistakes that I’ve made and the things that have helped me and hopefully that little bit on knowledge can help keep whatever’s left on top of your head where it belongs. I’ll admit to cutting some corners, but what you’ll get are 7 nuggets of prime Flash customization advice. With hidden features explained, myths exposed and tricks uncovered, these tips are all designed to address our most commonly asked questions with all the right remedies.
These are just my seven that I thought were the essentials, but maybe there are some you’d like to share, so if you would like to comment by all means, we love to hear from you, feel free to share your experiences leave us your comments. And as always should you wish to acquire more information about our template customization services simply jump on over to the contact form and let us know what you’re thinking.
1 – Flash is an Artful Dodger
Flash has a stubborn tendency for shutting downs always at the worst possible times, although, I must admit it does bear a knack for inspiring sympathy, you see Flash is always very cordial about it. For example it’ll say something like Flash has encountered a problem and needs to close, (cute little guy, poor thing), and that it is very truly sorry for the inconvenience, but there’s no time to waist, it must relieve itself at once. And me being the agreeable person that I am will simply click Ok and watch desperately as all my work just disappears never to be mentioned again. Of course there are lots of other good reasons for remembering to save frequently that one just so happens to be mine.
There are also several options that you can use to save a file: ‘ Save’, ‘ Save As’, and ‘ Save and Compact’. When you save a file, Flash does not analyze all the data before creating an optimized version of the document. Instead, the changes you make to the document are appended to the end of the .fla file’s data, which shortens the time it takes to save the document. When you select ‘ Save As’ and type a new name for the file, Flash writes a new and optimized version of the file, which results in a smaller file size. When you select ‘ Save and Compact’, Flash creates a new optimized file and deletes the original file.
Caution: When you select ‘ Save and Compact’, you cannot undo any changes you made before you saved the file. On the contrary if you select Save when working with a document, you can undo changes made prior to that save point. Because Save and Compact deletes the earlier version of the file and replaces it with the optimized version, you cannot undo earlier changes.
Remember to use ‘ Save As’ frequently and to type a new file name for your document after every milestone in your project if you are not using version control software to create backups of your .fla file. If you encounter major problems while working on the document, you have an earlier version to use instead of losing everything.
2 – Stop Tinkering And Listen
Before we do anything we first need to carefully install all the fonts that came with the template. Otherwise Flash is going to hit us with a “Missing Font Warning” alert message. That means that we have not installed all of the fonts included in the package, and that could result in a host of other issues. Here’s what we need to do.
1 – Choose “Start > Settings > Control Panel” (Note: In Windows XP, choose “Start > Control Panel“)
2 – double-click on the “Fonts” folder
3 – choose “File > Install New Font”
4 – in the Drives list, select the drive and the folder containing the fonts you want to install
5 – select the fonts to install. To select more than one font, hold down the “CTRL” key and click each font
6 – click “OK” to install the fonts.
Quick Tip! A simpler way to install new fonts is simply to drag and drop all the fonts you want to install onto the “Fonts” folder located within the Control Panel directory.
3 – Putting your text in there
First we should open our “.fla” file from our web design template package in Macromedia Flash. Then if not already open we’ll open the symbols library (hotkey “L”) and browse through it to find the symbol containing the text we want to modify.
Edit text
What’s nice is that all symbols that contain text have appropriate names such as “Company Name” or “About Us” and we can also see them in the preview window at the top of symbols library panel. If we’re unable to see the text for some reason we’ll probably need to change movie background to a different color other than white, as white text on white background stands invisible.
Symbols Library
To do that, we’ll need to choose Modify/Document… from the top menu and change background color in popup window.
Once we have what we’re looking for we want to double click the symbols icon to show text symbol in main workspace window. Then we’ll simply double click that text with “Selection Tool” or single click it with “Text Tool” (hotkey “T“) to edit the contents.
4 – Changing images in Flash
A: Open your source “FLA” file in Adobe Flash and press “F11” to launch symbols library. To perform search of a needed image symbol will be easier if you sort them “by kind” simply by pressing “kind” tab at the top of symbols list. You’ll see that all bitmap symbols are grouped now at the top of the whole symbols library.
Bitmap Symbols in Library
Browse these symbols to find symbol your want to substitute. You can see symbols preview at the top of symbols library. When you have found necessary bitmap symbol double click the icon on the left of it as to see the symbol properties window.
Bitmap Properties
You’ll see image preview and options there. Check the image size. It looks like 284 x 423 pixels at 32 bits per pixel. To make your image fit the original effects and animation the best way your image must be exactly the same size as in the original image.
You can resize or crop your image using Adobe Photoshop. Open your image in it using “File/Open…” from the top menu. To resize or crop choose “Image/Image Size…” or “Image/Canvas Size…” accordingly. Then save image using “File/Save As…”, for using it in flash choose one of the following image formats: “JPEG”, “GIF” or “PNG”.
Press “Import” button on the left and browse to location of your image file.
At the bitmap symbols properties window you can change the image quality. Make it lower to reduce published file size. Now you should publish your flash movie.
Quick Tip! You can actually publish your movie directly from “Publish Settings” window, see “Publish” button at the bottom. Or you can publish it from every point of Adobe Flash by pressing “SHIFT+F12″ hotkey.
5 – Making The Contact Form Work
This is a real common question but I think I already covered it in detail over on another post so I’ll just give you the link. http://foamers.net/blogger/archives/45
6 – Duplicating symbols
There are times when you need to make customizations to an instance of a symbol without editing the original so that those changes don’t reflect in any other instances of the symbol on your template or affect the symbol in your Flash Library. For example you might want to add a whole new page or you may need to add an extra button etc. Thats when duplicating a symbol comes in handy because it lets you use an existing symbol ( any item in the library) as a starting point for creating a new symbol.
Open your source “FLA” file in Adobe Flash and press “F11” to launch symbols library. From 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.
Symbols library
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.
7- SEO for my Flash Template
Can Flash really be made to be search engine friendly? Surprisingly the answer is yes in fact all you have to do is follow these 3 simple steps.
Step 1: When you are finished customizing and or coding your Flash template, go to File -> Publish Settings. Click on the HTML tab and check the “Detect Flash Version” option. You should set this to the lowest possible version that supports the code used in your movie (ActionScript 3.0 cannot be lower than version 9).
Step 2: Open up the HTML file in the HTML text-editor of your choice. You will notice that there is a section of JavaScript code that detects the users Flash Player version. If they have a version equal to or higher than the version you specified in your Publish Setting in step 1, the Flash .swf file will play as planned. You will also notice that there is a place in the js code that reads something to the effect of “var alternate content = “”.
If the user has an older version of Flash than specified in step 1, then this content will be displayed instead via JavaScript (remember to escape quotes in the variable using backslashes). This is where you can include the Flash movie’s content in HTML, and it is completely readable by robots and site crawlers.
Step 3: “What if the user’s browser does not support JavaScript?,” you might ask. Well, that base is covered too. Just under the JavaScript section discussed in step 2, there is an opening and closing tag. You can also put all of the alternate (HTML version) Flash content in between these tags. This serves as a second fallback for Flash.
In summary, if the user does not have Flash, or the version of Flash is too old, then the alternate JavaScript content you defined will try to display instead. If the user’s browser does not have JavaScript, then the “noscript” content will display. Moreover, you have the HTML version of your content being read and indexed by the site crawlers twice! This content can also be styled using CSS like a traditional web page. You can even go so far as to use the same CSS stylesheet to style your Flash and your HTML, but that is a lesson for another day (see Stylesheets, Flash and XML for Dummies).
This article was recently dugg so if you’d like to show your support I’d really appreciated.
Special thanks to Aaron Waldon for #7
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The Best Flash Site Templates Ever!
Posted on 26. Jul, 2008 by Dave.
Back in the day, if you had told me some little animation app would catch on as quickly and as suddenly as Flash. I would have said you were an idiot. And if I had told you that Flash would become the design and development community’s number one tool you probably would have said I was an idiot in return.
That’s what makes Flash such an amazing program. Not only did this small animation app come
full circle, but it led also to the creation of some of the most groundbreaking, incredible and right down crazy cool websites you ever did see.Through my work at premier template customization site (http://foamers.net) I’ve worked with a number of different clients and projects to attain their unique online presence through the template customization process.
Briefly, the template customization process is the method where with we customize the look and feel of the website template and then merge it with your own content files to create a website that’s both unique and can adapt to each individual client’s needs.
And so, over the years I’ve had the opportunity to see and work with both the best of the best and worst of the worst Flash template ever. The top 5 templates of all time are not easy to compile, but since I’m a firm believer in the notion that you, me, all of us have the ability to teach ourselves anything just as long as the inspiration and desire are there, my attempt focuses primarily on website templates which not only brought us some amazing visuals, but that also generously taught me so many neat new tricks.
Do you agree with my selection? Do you think I’m being too uncritical of the ones I’ve picked, or which one do you think is the best? Lets talk about it – add comment
Number 5
I really like the whole two toned very retro atmosphere here and specially the little mp3 player at the bottom because I can take that whole movie clip and reuse it on any other projects. Template No. 20164 is an original design by author Oldman. Ever since it’s release date it has had 1 download. And there’s even a non-Flash version also included with this template.
Number 4
This one really blows you away. It’s a perfect example of what Flash 8’s all new filters were created for. I love how the animation transitions perfectly smooth, and the blurring on the big numbers for each page its really neat also.
And not only do you get the source FLA files, but also all of the PSD files are available too so you can look at all the different layers, filters and masks that went into the making. Template No. 18708 is an original design by author Maxwell. Ever since it’s release date it has had 1 download.
Number 3
There’s nothing really too fancy about this one maybe other than that whole panoramic slide with the scene effect. What I really like about it is that the author made full use of vector graphics, as well as some very useful ScrollPane components. Template No. 18668 is an original design by author Modlin.
Number 2
Perhaps the most radical innovation in Flash as far as website templates concern is XML Flash Sites, this is just one I choose only because it came with a gallery but there’s lots more and they all come equipped with a system that allows you to edit its content without having to use the Adobe Flash software.
So you don’t have to learn any Flash you simply edit the template’s content from a text editor; so if you’re just starting to learn about Flash and would like to see hands-on how Flash and XML work together this is the perfect way to play around and start getting your hands dirty. Template No. 20234 is an original design by author Cowboy.
Number 1
Drum roll, please… “Straight in at number on!” Ok, here we go… the best Flash template ever is Template No. 20361 an original design by author Hugo and one of the true innovations in cutting-edge web design! It’s based on ActionScript3 and made with the PaperVision 3D engine (An open source 3D engine for Flash), which features an impressive 3D interface as well as a wide range of other really neat stuff.
Just like the method used in XML Flash Sites this one allow you to circumvent the need to modify FLA source files whenever you need to change some text or move stuff around etc, etc.
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Flash Technology Enhances Search Results (I Don’t Think So!)
Posted on 11. Jul, 2008 by Dave.
Up till now search engines (Google, Yahoo! etc) weren’t ever able to crawl Flash files and when they did end up indexing some it was never completely free from error. So if you wanted to built a website and actually have people find it, then it made sense to do without the Flash. Nonetheless Flash still became very trendy among developers because of its knack for, shall we say, overlooking the obvious and putting together very unusual websites.
Adobe also says it’s “providing optimized Adobe® Flash® Player technology to Google and Yahoo! to enhance search engine indexing of the Flash file format (SWF) and uncover information that is currently UNDISCOVERABLE by search engines.”
Sweet! Now that Adobe has finally admitted (despite arguments to the contrary) that SWF format has never been properly index by anyone of the search engines (or that its always been pretty much crap) that should finally shut up all you evangelical Flash pushers and feens clamming Flash is the holy grail of the Internet. Shouldn’t?
So has Adobe really done what its says its done? Frankly I’m not sure. Adobe claims that this stuff will provide more relevant search results and rankings for RIA content. And in a separate blog post, Google also seems to affirm that claim stating that they’ve already launched a “Flash indexing algorithm”, which will result in better search results. Well, before you all start heading to Starbucks and buying each other those skinny soy decaf lattes, the real questions is, how much better is this as opposed to plain old static HTML text and what are the confines?
They say that in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king, similarly if up till now flash files were not being indexed whatsoever, then the fact that there’s been a little progress may indeed be called “better”, but Flash indexing algorithm or not there’s still a lot of reasons why you should never go for a 100% flash-based website.
Yes Google can now discover and index text content in SWF files of all kinds etcetera, etcetera, but there’s some limitations. For example, Googlebot does not execute some types of JavaScript. Which means that if your webpage uses JavaScript to load a Flash file. Guess what? They may not be able to discover and index the contents of that file.
Google has also admitted they “can’t attach content from external resources that are loaded by your Flash files.” In other words so if your Flash file loads another file – such as an HTML file, an XML file, or another SWF file – what their saying is that they might index the contents of those files, but they won’t consider that content to be part of the content in your Flash files. That doesn’t sound very impressive, does it? What then? The Flash indexing algorithm does exactly what it sounds like it does NOTHING, other than the rendering of incomplete documents and the dramatic equivalent of inaccessibility.
Generally speaking when designing sites for my clients, I tend to make my content driven Flash applications run off of external XML files that are read at runtime. That way even a novice web developer with no understanding of Flash can have the functionality of editing their website’s content in notepad, and not have to recompile the swf file. Are you seriously suggesting not attaching the contents of those files to the rest of my Flash file? Seriously? Are you kidding? What the f$#@ are you talking about!
Does Adobe really expect us to believe that this will provide more relevant organic search rankings? Listen, I want my Flash files to be indexed just as much as the next guy and while this is a welcomed and important step in the right direction on the part of Adobe there’s still a lot of work to do.
So, if you do decide to use Flash (God help us all), do it in moderation and remember while Google can index the content of Flash files, other search engines wont. On that note, don’t forget to provide text equivalents of these files to help other search engines crawl and index your content.
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Should I go for a Flash based Website
Posted on 13. Apr, 2008 by Dave.
There are now a myriad of platforms, applications and programs used in making our website templates dynamic. In addition to plain old HTML there are also CSS(Cascading Style Sheets), SSI(Server Side Includes) and PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) just to name a few. In addition Flash animation is also used to accentuate the elegance of our Flash site templates. Making the decision to use our template customization services will definitely save you a lot of cost and effort however there is one other thing you’ll want to consider. And that is, which customization package should you choose? In other words should you go for a Flash based Website or is it more practical to stay with HTML? In the following article the author examines some of the pros and cons of using Flash vs HTML. For a more in-depth discussion on this particular matter see also – Top 10 things Flash developers don’t want you to hear
Flash-based sites have been a craze since the past few years, and as Adobe compiles more and more great features into Flash, we can only predict there will be more and more flash sites around the Internet. However, Flash based sites have been disputed to be bloated and unnecessary. Where exactly do we draw the line? Here’s a simple breakdown.
The good:
Interactivity
Flash’s Actionscript opens up a vast field of possibilities. Programmers and designers have used Flash to create interactive features ranging from very lively feedback forms to attractive Flash-based games. This whole new level of interactivity will always leave visitors coming back for more.
A standardized site
With Flash, you do not have to worry about cross-browser compatibility. No more woes over how a certain css code displays differently in Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera. When you position your site elements in Flash, they will always appear as they are as long as the user has Flash Player installed.
Better expression through animation
In Flash, one can make use of its animating features to convey a message in a much more efficient and effective way. Flash is a lightweight option for animation because it is vector based (and hence smaller file sizes) as opposed to real “movie files” that are raster based and hence much larger in size.
The bad and the ugly:
The Flash player
People have to download the Flash player in advance before they can view Flash movies, so by using Flash your visitor range will decrease considerably because not everyone will be willing to download the Flash player just to view your site. You’ll also have to put in additional work in redirecting the user to the Flash download page if he or she doesn’t have the player installed.
Site optimization
If your content was presented in Flash, most search engines wouldn’t be able to index your content. Hence, you will not be able to rank well in search engines and there will be less traffic heading to your site.
Loading time
Users have to wait longer than usual to load Flash content compared to regular text and images, and some visitors might just lose their patience and click the Back button. The longer your Flash takes to load, the more you risk losing visitors.
The best way to go is to use Flash only when you absolutely need the interactivity and motion that comes with it. Otherwise, use a mixture of Flash and HTML or use pure text if your site is purely to present simple textual and graphical information.
About the Author
About Design9x.com
With extensive experience Design9x a leading Professional Web Design Studio delivering high Quality and Affordable Web-based Solutions. Design9x specialize in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Internet Marketing Website Development and Consulting to increase Traf
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A Closer Look at Flash: When Use It?
Posted on 02. Apr, 2008 by Dave.
In a previous post, Top 10 Things Flash Developers Don’t Want You to Hear“, I discussed a number of reasons why I thought it might be wise to reconsider the whole idea of having an all Flash website. One of my biggest concerns had to do with Flash inhibiting Google’s ability to crawl the content. While I have never argued the possibility of making Flash content search engine friendly I do appose the notion that this is some how not even a problem nor that meeting all of these extra hurtles is worth the amount of time and extra money you’ll spend on optimizing Flash sites the right way vs plain old HTML. Notwithstanding in this article we will discuss a number of cases where it is actually practical to utilize this technology.
Article: When Use Flash? The following question is the sorest and the most disputable as for the usage of Flash. So, let us discuss how this technology is applicable for creating Flash sites. At first we have to define the purposes of a site, because they are to determine the choice of technology for creating the site. If your site is intended for selling some product or service, especially, if competition is intense, creating a Flash site is not cost-effective.
This is due to that reason that Flash is not indexed in full by search engines, that is why it will be just impossible or it will cost big money to make these sites occupy the first positions by specific keywords. In such a case an html site is much better suited. Therefore, a Flash Internet shop selling lots of various products is nonsense and rival non-Flash sites with correct search engine optimization will easily overcome regarding the traffic and hence regarding the volume of sales.
Of course, there are Flash Internet shops which function effectively, but most often these are the shops selling specialized products and belonging to large and well-known companies, which do not need heavy advertising. For instance, there is the site adobe.com, which has the like narrow specialization of its products, and those who use their products, as a matter of fact, already know where to buy them.
There is one more type of sites, which offer users a specific product; these are promo-sites (sites designed to present some concrete product or service). There both Flash and html can be used. Again everything depends on the purposes. Let us assume that we want to advertise a new brand of a cellular telephone and we want to do it extremely elegantly. In such a case we need a Flash site, but only on condition that our Flash promo-site will have visitors, but they are evidently not going to come to us from search engines. That is why users are often stimulated to visit a promo-site from producers’ websites or by means of advertising.
This type of sites has a small life-cycle, because they are most often created to demonstrate new features of a definite product. Since new models are continually being created, the old promo websites lose their significance, that is why a website must get its visitors as much as possible interested. This can be achieved most impressively by creating a Flash promo website.
The following type of sites is a forum. The situation with forums is very similar to the situation with internet shops. If a forum does not belong to the company producing a specific product (such forums are very scarce) or it is not created for a very limited number of individuals, but created to attract as many people as possible, there is no need to create a Flash forum. This also concerns blogs.
I am not going to divide websites into groups, I will just do their very brief survey and say from my personal point of view where else it is appropriate to use Flash:
* Chats, because chats are often tied to definite resources and they do not need any additional promotion, and if it is an avatar chat, using Flash is the most suitable choice.
* Galleries, if this gallery belongs to one definite artist, has a small amount of text information and directed at a select circle of users.
* Business card site usually has minimum information content, most often there are the address of the company, contact information (telephone number) and some general information about the activities of the company, that is why original decoration made using Flash will be quite to the point.
* Online portfolio, because this will give an opportunity to make its appearance very bright and make it more dynamic and interesting.
* Guestbooks can also be made with the help of Flash.
I have listed the main things, but there are many more hybrid websites, which combine in themselves various features. The major point to be taken into consideration here is the following: if you want to attract a lot visitors to your resources (especially if your website is developed for selling some products or services) sparing the expenses or completely avoiding them, it is better to make such websites without using Flash or using Flash partially (use html for all text information and Flash for some elements).
Anyway, whatever your website’s purpose is – portfolio, gallery, business website, ecommerce shop, etc. – it is not necessary to order custom web design and hire a flash programmer. There are much simpler and modern solutions nowadays. I am talking about Flash Templates and Flash CMS templates. They are pre-made Flash web pages that require making additional changes to suit your needs and preferences. As a rule, flash web templates are easy-to-use, suitable both for newbies and professionals, and allow launching a website in no time. I recommend a large gallery of Flash web templates at FlashMint.
About the Author
Trenty Fox – Marketing Assistant at FlashMint.com. FlashMint is a leader in an industry which offers Flash Web Templates with high-grade graphics, thought-out structure, remarkable flash and sound effects.
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Adobe CS3: What’s New?
Posted on 14. Feb, 2008 by Dave.
Adobe CS3 (Creative Suite 3) is a suite of products that combines traditional Adobe programs with programs that Adobe acquired and has since rebranded from Macromedia. The suite includes Dreamweaver, Flash, and Fireworks, as well as Illustrator and Photoshop. All of the programs in Adobe CS3 that were formerly Macromedia have been streamlined and given Adobe-like functionality. The entire suite now works seamlessly as a complete family of Adobe programs for designers and developers.
Dreamweaver
Adobe CS3 includes an upgraded version of Dreamweaver, formerly a Macromedia program. Not only is Dreamweaver now more readily compatible with other Adobe programs, but it also has the addition of the Spry framework providing Ajax capability. This enables designers to incorporate sophisticated functionality without the need for complicated programming skills by simply taking advantage of the built-in features of Dreamweaver CS3. Dreamweaver CS3 also has new standards capability with cascading style sheets.
In addition, Dreamweaver CS3 now has Adobe Device Central incorporated within the program. This allows users to preview and test Web pages on multiple devices with ease. The Adobe CS3 program also has advanced integration with Photoshop CS3 and can support multiple layers. Finally, designers and developers using Dreamweaver CS3 can perform easy browser compatibility checks and can check for cross-browser cascading style sheet rendering issues.
Flash
Another one of the new Adobe programs acquired from Macromedia is Flash. Flash CS3 is now using Action Script 3.0, an update and modification of Action Script 2.0. While 3.0 is backwards compatible, this portion of Adobe CS3 is also 30 times faster and has more object-oriented capabilities than 2.0, which is of great benefit for developers.
For designers, Flash in Adobe CS3 is easier to work with and has more streamlined panels. The program incorporates new drawing tools, including a new and enhanced pen tool that is more like that used in Illustrator. Flash CS3 also allows more control with corners when creating rectangular objects and easier creation of pie and donut shapes. The program as a whole is more intuitive and is easier to control with new object primitives. Additionally, Flash CS3 works with other Adobe programs and allows designers to copy and paste filters and motion tweens from one object to another without the need to reapply them. Flash CS3 also offers nine-slice scaling, offering users the ability to scale objects more intuitively and without distortion.
Finally, Flash CS3 incorporates Adobe Device Central and allows users to check applications on different devices. And Flash now has import support for Adobe programs such as Photoshop and Illustrator, which can lead to enhanced image fidelity and editability that designers may have wished for in the past.
Fireworks
Fireworks has also been given a makeover as one of the new Adobe programs. The new Adobe CS3 version makes it easier to control and share symbols, to give them more robust attributes with Javascript, and to swap them. Plus, scaling has been enhanced in Fireworks CS3 so that you can now intelligently scale symbols with a nine-point system.
Additionally, in Fireworks CS3, you can add multiple pages to a single document for ease in mocking up Web sites. You can also have hierarchical layers in much the same way as is allowed in Adobe programs such as Photoshop. And it is much easier to bring files between Fireworks and Flash or Illustrator and Fireworks than ever before.
Photoshop
Photoshop CS3 has also been given a makeover and upgrade. The new version of one of the best-known Adobe programs now offers the ability to export an HTML file that the user can zoom in and out of (the “zoomify” feature). It also has new smart filters that can preserve data integrity and allow for nondestructive flexible modification of the images. Designers using Adobe CS3 can also convert images to monochrome with more control than before.
Plus, Photoshop can now analyze images and make recommendations for settings. It also offers an enhanced version of cloning and healing and also has updated color correction options. And there are many new tools in Adobe CS3 that designers can use to more finely tune images, from photo merge with advanced alignment bleeding to a refined edge feature. Photoshop also now has DICOM support and allows users to open, edit, and annotate single frames of radiological images. Finally, as with other Adobe programs, Photoshop also incorporates Adobe Device Central for easy previewing and testing of images on other devices.
Illustrator
Last but not least, Adobe CS3 includes an upgrade of Illustrator that offers important new features for designers and developers as well. As previously mentioned, Illustrator CS3 now has seamless integration with Adobe programs such as Flash CS3 and includes Symbols for easy animation. The program also offers new, upgraded drawing tools and a new vector tool. Illustrator CS3 also features “Live Color,” which allows the designer or developer to edit colors directly within the image.
Conclusion
Adobe CS3 is an important upgrade for designers and developers who were users of previous versions of Macromedia and Adobe programs. It brings all of these well-known programs together in a single package under a single brand. Users are likely to see immediate benefits with Adobe CS3, and the new features of the individual programs add even more functionality than existed in previous editions.
About the Author
Ramon M. de la Paz is a full-time instructor of information technology training courses for WestLake Training and Development. In his 20-year career in the computer industry, in addition to delivering training, he has handled Web design and multimedia production for a number of government and non-government agencies.
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