Hello list,
in a collaborative project I am supposed to make a few design suggestions for a web application.
Think about an application where the user will be able to:
login / logout
create, delete, archive projects, upload and download data
work on different projects within an application running on a web/appliaction server
(which is already mostly finished and programmed in flash mx by a extermal freelancer)
provide (and change) personal data
etc.
Since I am a total beginner in Flash and actionscript (I have done all my development in
(d)html/php/*sql so far) I started reading through all the material and lessons that came with Flash MX,
then I did some of the tutorials. After this I read several dozens of excellent articles/tutorials
availabe on the net. Still, I have not found a way to achieve my goal which I will try to describe below.
What I want is what (I guess) is called a 'tabbed interface' similar (or identical) to most modern GUIs.
To make things easier I have provided some screenshots of the layout I had in mind at
You can see 5 sections. Each of these sections should be accessible through a click on the 'tab' with
the name of the section - let's call it the menu.
Let me describe a typical workflow:
1. [Login/-out] user log's in (let's assume he is a known user already), he is on the first 'screen' where
important account-status information, messages from i.e. forums or other users are displayed , the he goes to
2. [Projects] where he can find his project-list (here he can create new projects, delete or archive projects, etc),
and chooses one of these projects to work with, this takes him to:
3. [Application] where the user will manipulate data, start calculations, get results, etc. this is the main
part of the whole application and here the user will spend most of his time
4. [Account] since customers should be able to create more than one user-account we need this screen,
customers also should be able to change their personal information like address, telephone number etc.
5. [Help] user can learn about the system and search in the help-system
1. [Login/-out] user is done with his work and after closing his project he is first taken back to
[Projects], then exiting again he will end up on the
[Login/-out] screen again.
Alright, now all I wanted to do in Flash MX was the 'screen-flipping' which I figured should be a simple
thing (in dhtml it is for me) but I keep failing miserably. I was sure this should be something really easy
and I figured Flash should be the perfect tool to build what I had in mind. Of course I am aware that the
design philosophy behind Flash is a different one than what I am used to but still, somehow I am not able
to figure out how to get started.
Anyway, I started designing a simple interface in Freehand10, only 1 page and 1 layer for each screen.
Then I imported the Freehand file in Flash MX and tried to produce the desired effect. I tried to use the
swapDepth() function but I cannot figure out how to get it to work.
Is there any general rule on how to approach something like this? I don't think I need the whole story, all
I would need is some general ideas about how to get started. But maybe it's just much more complicated
than what I thought. I have programming background in Perl, PHP, some Javascript and ofc HTML (which I dont
want to call programming really ;-))
Any hits on how to get myself on the right track would be very much apprecitated!
Thanks in advance,
Zod
in a collaborative project I am supposed to make a few design suggestions for a web application.
Think about an application where the user will be able to:
login / logout
create, delete, archive projects, upload and download data
work on different projects within an application running on a web/appliaction server
(which is already mostly finished and programmed in flash mx by a extermal freelancer)
provide (and change) personal data
etc.
Since I am a total beginner in Flash and actionscript (I have done all my development in
(d)html/php/*sql so far) I started reading through all the material and lessons that came with Flash MX,
then I did some of the tutorials. After this I read several dozens of excellent articles/tutorials
availabe on the net. Still, I have not found a way to achieve my goal which I will try to describe below.
What I want is what (I guess) is called a 'tabbed interface' similar (or identical) to most modern GUIs.
To make things easier I have provided some screenshots of the layout I had in mind at
You can see 5 sections. Each of these sections should be accessible through a click on the 'tab' with
the name of the section - let's call it the menu.
Let me describe a typical workflow:
1. [Login/-out] user log's in (let's assume he is a known user already), he is on the first 'screen' where
important account-status information, messages from i.e. forums or other users are displayed , the he goes to
2. [Projects] where he can find his project-list (here he can create new projects, delete or archive projects, etc),
and chooses one of these projects to work with, this takes him to:
3. [Application] where the user will manipulate data, start calculations, get results, etc. this is the main
part of the whole application and here the user will spend most of his time
4. [Account] since customers should be able to create more than one user-account we need this screen,
customers also should be able to change their personal information like address, telephone number etc.
5. [Help] user can learn about the system and search in the help-system
1. [Login/-out] user is done with his work and after closing his project he is first taken back to
[Projects], then exiting again he will end up on the
[Login/-out] screen again.
Alright, now all I wanted to do in Flash MX was the 'screen-flipping' which I figured should be a simple
thing (in dhtml it is for me) but I keep failing miserably. I was sure this should be something really easy
and I figured Flash should be the perfect tool to build what I had in mind. Of course I am aware that the
design philosophy behind Flash is a different one than what I am used to but still, somehow I am not able
to figure out how to get started.
Anyway, I started designing a simple interface in Freehand10, only 1 page and 1 layer for each screen.
Then I imported the Freehand file in Flash MX and tried to produce the desired effect. I tried to use the
swapDepth() function but I cannot figure out how to get it to work.
Is there any general rule on how to approach something like this? I don't think I need the whole story, all
I would need is some general ideas about how to get started. But maybe it's just much more complicated
than what I thought. I have programming background in Perl, PHP, some Javascript and ofc HTML (which I dont
want to call programming really ;-))
Any hits on how to get myself on the right track would be very much apprecitated!
Thanks in advance,
Zod
