Some of you fine professionals may already know of this new Adobe approved IE fix, but if you don’t, this is the post for you! Let’s start with the JS file you’re going to need. Create a new document in your favorite web editing tool (ie. Dreamweaver, Zend, NotePad). And you’ll need to past this in as your JavaScript File: Download Here: swfObject If you want the specifics on what this file does, let me know, or just drop by adobe’s site and search for swfObject. Now for where you want to embed your flash file. You’ll be using the SWFObject to insert the .swf of your choice with the following: <div id="flashFix">
<script type="text/javascript">
var so = new SWFObject("Style-85-P-E-cp.swf", "flashFix", "631", "526", "7", "#fff");
so.addParam("wmode", "transparent");
so.write("flashFix");
</script>
</div> (be sure to remove the spaces) A quick run down: “flashFix is the div in which the .swf will be embedded. 500 is the width of the movie, 250 is the height. “7″ is the flash player you’ve published your movie for and the #fff is the background color if one is desired. What so.addParam(”wmode”, “transparent”); is is the ability to display the .swf file without a background. Besides being very search engine-friendly, SWFObject degrades gracefully, can be used in valid HTML and XHTML 1.0 documents (that is, when pages are sent as text/html instead of application/xhtml+xml), and is forward-compatible. It should work for years to come. It’s so nice to have this “Fix” validate and work in all browsers. Test it out, feel free to drop any questions. Enjoy! -T

Absolutely loving all the links over at http://www.kayodeok.btinternet.co.uk/favorites/webdesign.htm. It seems that some were broken when I tried but all in all another great bookmark resource!

MakeVisual is an effects and animation studio out of Minnesota creating some stunning advertisements and commercials. My favorite is the Sony spec, go check them out and see what yours happens to be.

For those unaware, May 1st Reboot is a yearly international relaunch of websites with new designs. This marks it’s fifth anniversary, each year that has passed has made it more and more popular and therefore more and more fun to witness. Check out their site and if you’re so inclined register to be a part of the Reboot!

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Also, a new site has sprung up this year called CSS Reboot, it’s run independently but with the same passion as the original. The purpose of this site is to raise more awareness of the CSS and Web Standards design community.

unfortunately what the May 1st Reboot is most certainly not is a CSS and web standards-minded community project. The entries have been famously lopsided in the Flash department. So I got to thinking today that maybe this year could be the year to change all that. We can call it the May 1st Reboot Reboot… or something.

Here’s a link to the article that started CSS Reboot CSS Web Standards May 1st Reboot

Ok… this is far from perfect, but its atleast mostly functional. This code would be used as a scroll handler onEnterFrame for a clip. So something like my_mc.onEnterFrame = handle_scroll(); or you can use it inside some other code inside an onEnterFrame. // I never have luck with Stage.width or Stage.height // so I use a border around the stage, and call it border_mc centerx = (border_mc._x + border_mc._width)/2; function handle_scroll{ // mx = the currentmouse x position mx = _root._xmouse; // dx = the distance from the center of the stage and the mouse x dx = Math.abs(centerx - mx) * 0.2; // lx = the left side of the movie clip lx = this._x; // rx = the right side of the movie clip rx = this._x + this._width; // r_rx = the right side of our stage area r_rx = border_mc._x + border_mc._width; /* —- Big chunk of commenting —– This is only part that may be hard to follow. These are just nested "conditionals" The logic is as follows… if mouse is left or right of center (plus padding, so theres no jerk movement in center then update the clip location. (level1) If left of center, (level2) if left side of clip plus the distance of mouse from center (the distance to slide over) is less than 20 (our padding value) then add dx to the current _x of the clip (so it moves to the right, visually scrolling to left)…. (level2) otherwise just go the rest of the way to the end of the clip (level1) OR if the right side minus the distance of mouse from center (dx), so moving the clip to the left, visually scrolling to the right, is greater than the right side of stage area minus 40 (this is a value that just needs to be tinkered with to make it stop at the correct value of the end of your clip, it SHOULD be 20 (or our padding value), but just didnt work for me then this means the right side of the clip is not scrolled past the point we want the clip to end on the right, (level2) then add the negative of the dx value (level2) if not (meaning it will scroll too far to the left if we use the dx value) then we use the distance that would make it flush with our right bounds

-End of comment block - if ( (mx < centerx-20) || mx > (centerx+20)) { this._x += (mx < centerx) ? ( ((lx+dx)&lt;20) ? (dx) : (Math.abs(20-(lx))) ) : ( ((rx-dx)>(r_rx - 40)) ? (-dx) : (-Math.abs((r_rx-40)-rx)) ); } so if you get anything out of this long ass complicated post, its maybe the usage of “conditionals”, which follow the format of: [variable] = (condition) ? [value of variable if condition true] : [value of variable if condition false]. Nesting this makes it a bit difficult to read until your used to it, but it makes much for compact (visually) code, and also is processed better than a bunch of if statements.

Well now you’ve finished all the animating, motion tweens, and transitioning between sections of your Flash movie, but wait! What is this? Awwww all the text looks blurry! Well here’s a nifty little tip that normally works my friends. First select your nasty looking text, and go to the info panel. Make sure your X and Y Co-Ordinates are set without any number after the decimal. Example X= 255.0 and Y= 15.0. If you make sure there’s a 0 after the decimal it’ll fix that blurry text. When you correct the placement it sets it in the “perfect position”. Now the next problem: Your text is set to a “perfect position” in a movie clip but when you return to the main timeline it appears blurry. This is because the text is not set to a “perfect position” by the main timeline’s standards even if it is inside the movie clip. You may need to then copy your movie clip and paste it in place on a different layer on the main time line, then break the movie clip up so it’s in individual parts. Align the text to its “perfect position” and then lock that layer with the broken parts. go into the actual movie clip and align the text with the text on the main timeline. Seems like alot of work? Well this is just one way of fixing your blurry text and it mostly occurs with fonts that are bitmaps. In the end a crystal clear font is a beautiful thing and it won’t take away from the rest of your insane layout. Hope this helps!!!!!

Here are some random portfolio sites I’ve come across…. http://justdesign.org/ ::graphic design http://www.timmarrs.co.uk/ ::illustration http://www.junkdrawer.s5.com/ ::graphic design, illustration, painting http://www.cquit.pt.vu/ ::illustration, sketches http://www.justinkrietemeyer.net/ ::illustration http://www.antigirl.com/ ::photo, collage http://www.subdisc.com/ ::cool site, photo, cool ass layout http://www.peterfunch.com/ ::cool site, interesting nav, photo http://www.jardemar.com/ ::pretty site, photo http://www.systeme-d.com/ ::high-res photo, cant figure out the nav tho http://www.loop-land.co.uk/ ::cool site, illustration http://www.soppcollective.com/default.htm ::flash, illustration, design…very cute http://www.180red.com/ ::retro design, cute simple site http://www.eccentris.com/flash.htm ::pimp site, great photography, boys will like this http://www.16kdesign.com/ ::digital media work of all sorts http://sueleland.com/ ::photography, nice site http://www.notbent.com/notbent.htm ::photography, cool nav http://www.t-michael.com/ ::cool flash site, fashion, photography http://www.deli.naive.it/ingdeli.htm/ ::cute girly illustration http://www.fcukstar.com/ ::get a listing of many sites here ….this is enough 4 now….I’ll keep adding

AMFPHP is an open-source alternative for flash remoting… Ubiquity, stability, and platform neutrality make PHP the perfect server side scripting language for building server side applications, handling business logic, and connecting to web services. Ubiquity, stability, and platform neutrality make Macromedia Flash MX the perfect tool for deploying rich internet front ends. Flash remoting for PHP offers a seamless connection between the flash client and php server applications. Flash remoting for PHP enables objects in PHP to become objects in actionscript, almost magically! AMFPHP takes care of all the data-type conversions, serialization, and other client-server details. This provides a great way of connecting rich media clients with data and logic living on the server. While at the same time allowing designers to design and programmers to program. For more information, go to the developers website AMFPHP.org

http://www.quiss.org/swftools/ This is a SUPER sweet tool to convert pdf/jpg/gif/png/wav/avi/font to SWF (flash runtime) format. Why would you ever use this you say? Try loading a gif or pdf into a flash movie with loadMovie()… wont work. Say your building a portfolio (which is what I am doing, and how I found this) and have different formats and dont want to sit there and manually convert each… (hint, Animated Gif to SWF alone is sweet)… but then PDF to SWF? SUPA SWEET. Load all those pdf documents dynamically, and can even make a page fipper routine (this coded by YOU in flash). So go on kiddies… download this, and make some cool Flash/PHP apps. Oh, and Im not paid by them… I just love this tool now.