Uni Flash Assignment Based On MMOC

Post by **MColes** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 10:10 am

Thought since it is based on here that I'd let you guys take a look

HERE

Has to be opened in Internet Explorer. Firefox only seems to want to download it

Post by **alex_holden** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 10:20 am

Try embedding it rather than linking to the file:

<embed src="http://students.comp.glam.ac.uk/0702504 ... nment3.swf" width="640" height="480">
</embed>

Post by **MColes** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 10:29 am

Good suggestion and it looks better but it doesn't pic up the associated files (pictures, xml files etc.) on the server

Post by **alex_holden** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 11:13 am

I don't know enough about Flash to suggest how to fix the problem unfortunately.

Post by **MColes** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 12:51 pm

Well it works long as it is run on the server

Post by **ASL642** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 2:26 pm

I've got Internet Explorer. It opened and faded fast showing a line drawing - is that it?

Post by **MColes** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 5:18 pm

image fades in then should show a map with markers on it with links to a video and pictures

Post by **alainmoran** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 5:57 pm

Flash should work just the same on FF and IE (that is kinda the whole point of flash), so long as you are using relative paths to refer to your resources then the object/embed tag should give flash all the info it needs to get at them.

You might like to consider some kind of buffering for your zoom - aka: load the images for the outermost layer into a MovieClip, then rather than wiping them out when you zoom, create a new movieclip and load the more detailed images into it ... when you zoom out, you can hide the more detailed layer and show the zoomed out view without going back to the server. (you might even consider some fancy alpha fading)

Anything that you can do to reduce the need to go back to the server to get the same data as you already downloaded will likely gain you points from your examiners and grateful thanks from your server admins!

Post by **alainmoran** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 6:01 pm

Another tip for the top would be to turn off the selectability of the text fields, that way the cusor wont flip to an I-Beam when you mouse-over the buttons

Post by **alex_holden** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 6:15 pm

alainmoran wrote:Another tip for the top would be to turn off the selectability of the text fields, that way the cusor wont flip to an I-Beam when you mouse-over the buttons

Ah, so that's what's going on. On my computer the buttons are only clickable (red background) when the mouse is over the left and right bits of the buttons, where there is no text. When the cursor changes to an I-beam the button background goes black and clicking has no effect.

Using Safari on a Mac.

Post by **MColes** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 6:26 pm

I know about the problem when you zoom in using the maps but part of the criteria for the assignment was to make use of a web service such as Yahoo maps.

We were told to put the swf file directly on the server. FF will ask you to download the file if you try to view it but IE will display it. FF will run the flash but only if it is embedded in a HTML page.

Post by **MarkyB** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 7:02 pm

I'd say lose the sounds associated with mouse over the buttons. Just because you can do it doesn't mean you should.
Having to use the sides of the buttons isn't good either.
Apart from those little niggles, good site.

Post by **MColes** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 8:58 pm

Again we had to use sound somewhere to get the marks. Sound on mouse over was suggested by the lecturer as an accessibility feature.

I just did what I had to to get the grade