Wep Page Design Ideas

[AetherFox]

Hello Playground!

I'm desiging a website for a gallery of pictures, such as one seen here (http://www.stevemccurry.com/main.php), that I plan on making predominantly in Adobe Flash 2. I've been playing around with a few layouts in my mind, but nothing really seams to be sticking.

I want to hear from all of you, as you are a ...creative bunch. The only real parameters of the page are that there need to be thumbnails of photos (they are all portraits, so there is no real theme), a center image (or possibly popup window) of the selected thumbnail, only larger, and a space of some kind for about 1 paragraph of writing for each picture.

So.... any ideas? I'm relativly proficient in flash (again, 2, not 3) so there is a good chance I'll be able to write the ActionScript for it, and if not, I know someone who can. :smallbiggrin:

[valadil]

May I ask why flash? It doesn't work on all browsers and performs poorly in others. I'm all for flash games or other applications where flash makes sense, but it's not at all necessary for a photo gallery. If you can handle ActionScript, HTML/CSS will be a piece of cake and your site will work for more people.

[Silence]

Why in the world 2?! Why not 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, CS2, CS3, or even better, CS4?

[AetherFox]

Ah, I meant CS3. I was getting mixed up with... jeeze, I dunno, I'm having a brain fart.

@valadil: I've never run into a problem with flash on websites, and it was just the way I was shown. The page itself would be a .html with a flash file inserted. I was considering having the thumbnails scroll up/down and/or fading. I wasn't aware this kind of thing could be done in HTML...?

[Trog]

I wish I had Flash to play around with/work with again. So much fun. :smallbiggrin:

I like this gallery (http://www.airtightinteractive.com/photos/). Source here (http://www.simpleviewer.net/simpleviewer/).

[RS14]

@valadil: I've never run into a problem with flash on websites, and it was just the way I was shown. The page itself would be a .html with a flash file inserted. I was considering having the thumbnails scroll up/down and/or fading. I wasn't aware this kind of thing could be done in HTML...?

I'm with valadil on this. I'd rather use a minimal website that works in absolutely everything -- on an iPhone, in Lynx, read aloud by a screenreader, or even just vi -- than one that happens to be pretty. I block Javascript for security (and by extension, Flash). Unless your website has something to recommend it strongly, I'm not going to whitelist it, and I will turn away. Sorry.

[valadil]

@valadil: I've never run into a problem with flash on websites, and it was just the way I was shown. The page itself would be a .html with a flash file inserted. I was considering having the thumbnails scroll up/down and/or fading. I wasn't aware this kind of thing could be done in HTML...?

Flash is great on windows. My linux machine slows to a crawl for YouTube though. Hulu uses all of my CPU. No chance of getting it to work on my iPhone.

Scrolling thumbnails is easy in HTML. Just add your images and if the page is long enough it'll scroll on its own. Fading is a little trickier and will require Javascript. But many JS libraries will already include fading. If you use JQuery for instance, you can use the .fadeIn and .fadeOut functions. Or better yet, use a script just for this task, like Lightbox: http://www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox2/ No flash required and it'll work on any major browser. Even if javascript is disabled it'll still work (though without any special effects).