[nemo]

If you know how to use flash and can spare a few minutes advising me on the following I'd be very appreciative:

What I'm trying to do is create a cross platform CD which allows people to view some images. I almost could do what I want in powerpoint, but I need navigation actions.

I want to make an autorun application which opens with a title then runs to a intro and stops at a thumbnail index.

The thumbnails will be in a 3x3 grid, (9 in total) and clicking on one will give you an enlargement of it. Clicking on the enlargement will take you back to the thumbnail index. When quit is chosen I'd like another frame to be seen - which has contact details - clicking on this quits the application.

So my questions are as follows:
1. I've created this so far using 800x600 dimensions, is this the best size for general users? (it will be sent to art galleries primarily)
2. Will exporting it in '.swf' format make it both Mac/PC compatible?
3. What actions would be best used to link the thumbnails with the enlargements and vice versa? IE: would I need to use 'stop' and 'gotoandplay', 'on press' or 'on release' etc.
4. How do I create it so that it plays full screen, rather than in a window, automatically?

I have all the jpegs imported into one layer within the library, and positioned as I want them on the stage, (in one layer) I've experimented with different actions but I can't get it to work when it's saved as a .swf file.

Anyway, I'd be very grateful for any advice at all on the above. There's loads of tutorials on the web, but I've not been able to find info on this sort of thing.

Cheers

[mindwaves]

Hi, as this is more of a graphics kind of question, I am going to move this to the Art & Graphic Design forum. Click through to find your thread. Thanks.

[Demonhood]

I did something very similar to what you're doing except with MP3 files, not JPGs. A hybrid new years greetings to my friends (on business card size CDs. it was geeky cool).
Get ready to take notes...

Originally posted by nemo:
I want to make an autorun application which opens with a title then runs to a intro and stops at a thumbnail index.

Wait, so is this going to be within a web browser or a standalone application? I used an application for mine. Here's how to make it automatically load when someone inserts the CD (on windows):
<font color = blue>
open notepad; type: open=yourmoviename.exe (if your movie is called demo then put open=demo.exe); Save file as autorun.inf Otherwise you will just have a text file. Copy autorun file to CD-ROM</font>

I was never able to make the autoron on the mac work (just make a custom icon for the CD on the mac side, that helps).

1. I've created this so far using 800x600 dimensions, is this the best size for general users? (it will be sent to art galleries primarily)

800x600 is pretty good. But I thought you said you wanted it full screen?? Flash scales.

2. Will exporting it in '.swf' format make it both Mac/PC compatible?

Yes. But there are alternatives. You can export it as a standalone application and have the jpg files located externally (mac and pc will share the same files).

3. What actions would be best used to link the thumbnails with the enlargements and vice versa? IE: would I need to use 'stop' and 'gotoandplay', 'on press' or 'on release' etc.

For externally located files I used onrelease. More specifically...

<font color = red>on (release) {
loadMovieNum ("songs/fitz.swf", 1);
}
(note: the swf file contained the mp3. it's a long story)
</font>

4. How do I create it so that it plays full screen, rather than in a window, automatically?

fscommand ("fullscreen", "true");
fscommand ("allowscale", "true");ana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>I have all the jpegs imported into one layer within the library, and positioned as I want them on the stage, (in one layer) I've experimented with different actions but I can't get it to work when it's saved as a .swf file.[/quote]

What exactly isn't working?

[nemo]

Thanks very much for the reply. I have managed to find out some of that stuff in the last couple of days, but if you could just clarify a few things I'd appreciate it.

1.toast allows you to make an autorun CD, would I need that inf file too? (Obviously autorun/autoplay has to be turned on for this to work and it often isn't)
2. Are you saying use a higher resolution (say 1280x960) as it's better to scale down than up? I do want it full screen (I've got the fscommand working) the images have a white border around them.
3. exactly what files would I need on the cd. (ie the .swf, the inf ..)
4. when the user presses escape it changes from full screen to a window, is there a way to make it just quit on choosing escape.
5. I've managed to get the navigation working now but I have one final minor gripe..

all 9 images of artwork have minimal jpeg compression, exactly the same size and resolution but two of them, noticably the ones with a predominance of green look a bit patchy.

I notice if I turn my monitor up to millions of colours the patchy elements disappear. Most users will have there monitors at thousands so what can I do? I've tried maximising all of flash's internal and export settings - smoothing off, jpeg export 100% etc this hasn't made a difference at all.

I've tried using a PNG format, no difference. Why do the same images look fine in photoshop at 100% but patchy in flash at 100%?

Cheers

[Demonhood]

Originally posted by nemo:
1.toast allows you to make an autorun CD, would I need that inf file too? (Obviously autorun/autoplay has to be turned on for this to work and it often isn't)

I don't belive so. I think I turned this on when I burned my new year's disc and it still didn't start up. You still need tha autorun file on the windows side (hybrid disc).

2. Are you saying use a higher resolution (say 1280x960) as it's better to scale down than up? I do want it full screen (I've got the fscommand working) the images have a white border around them.

It all depends on how big your images are. Since flash scales (but jpgs don't), it doesn't matter how big the navigation system is. But you don't want it to be super huge in comparison to your images.

3. exactly what files would I need on the cd. (ie the .swf, the inf ..)

Since you have all your jpgs within the swf file, it would seem all you would need is it and the autorun file. However, it remains to be seen what application the swf will open in on people's system. This is why I used an application and remote files instead.

4. when the user presses escape it changes from full screen to a window, is there a way to make it just quit on choosing escape.

I'm not sure. I just created a button on flash file that quit when pressed.

5. I've managed to get the navigation working now but I have one final minor gripe..

all 9 images of artwork have minimal jpeg compression, exactly the same size and resolution but two of them, noticably the ones with a predominance of green look a bit patchy.

I notice if I turn my monitor up to millions of colours the patchy elements disappear. Most users will have there monitors at thousands so what can I do? I've tried maximising all of flash's internal and export settings - smoothing off, jpeg export 100% etc this hasn't made a difference at all.

Do the images look funky outside of flash at thousands of colors? Do you have a screenshot example?

[nemo]

I can't work out how to display images from my idisk to here, but if you go here and click on the two green patches..

Anyway, as you can (hopefully) see it's a fairly subtle difference, but it would be good to resolve it. I decided to incorporate a quit button in the end, and I'm now toying with changing the cheesy default cursor. Ideally i'd like something that works a bit like the magnifying glass in photoshop, (when I want the user to enlarge an image they will see a + icon, when I want them to zoom back out , a -) I was hoping there might be a way to do this completely in resedit, but I don't think there is. Although it would be easy to just paste in a basic one. I have an idea of how this is done in flash, but it's beginning to make my head hurt..

Thanks again

[ 07-20-2001: Message edited by: nemo ]

Not that Demonhood's advice hasn't been bad, but let me suggest another forum. The we're here forums, a strictly flash community with forums in all categories for flash, might be a better place to pose your questions.

the people are very nice there (minus the hoard of 13 yr old "designers" who think they are god's gift...) and often too eager to help you out.

hope it helps.
amit

www.were-here.com

[Demonhood]

Originally posted by nemo:
Anyway, as you can (hopefully) see it's a fairly subtle difference [in the images], but it would be good to resolve it.

I imported the good one into flash, exported it to an swf, viewed it in a browser, changed my monitor to thousands of colors, and it still looks fine. Not sure what the problem is with that.

Ideally i'd like something that works a bit like the magnifying glass in photoshop, (when I want the user to enlarge an image they will see a + icon, when I want them to zoom back out , a -) I was hoping there might be a way to do this completely in resedit, but I don't think there is. Although it would be easy to just paste in a basic one. I have an idea of how this is done in flash, but it's beginning to make my head hurt..

Yup, that's flash for ya.
Custom cursors are possible, but I haven't messed with them too much.

The we're here forums are pretty good, if a bit large (making it harder to find exactly what you want).

[nemo]

Demonhood, thanks a lot, maybe the colour thing is related to my flash settings after all. amit, thanks for the link I'll certainly check it out.

[slipjack]

Originally posted by nemo:

<STRONG>
2. Will exporting it in '.swf' format make it both Mac/PC compatible?</STRONG>

I've found that exporting a swf on a Mac and then trying to run it on a PC can be problematic. If you will be doing all presentation work on a Mac, then it's no big deal. Otherwise, you might want to export the swf as a stand alone PC executable. You'll find that checkbox in the Publish Settings pop up.

Good luck