While designing my new site, I decided that I wanted to add a subtle bit of animation to the site. So I figured that would be a great way to start into Action Script 3. While the animation is by no means complex, it has given me a bit of insight into the slight changes that have occurred in the shift from AS2 to AS3. Even thought some of theme were fairly small as far as code goes, like the event handler, they’re much more powerful and consistent with more powerful multi-platform languages.
I basically started the design for my new site (which should be coming up soon, btw) with the animation and built it from that. The small snippet of a picture of my screen is a bit of a teaser for the new site, and you might notice that I’m rebranding the site to my own name. While I enjoy the Bit by Bit name and the whole duality of it and stuffs, I felt this makes more sense as a personal portfolio website. Hopefully Google agrees, and I will no longer see my friend, Andy Mangold, ranked higher than me for my own name.
Despite digressing into a promotion of my redesign, I would like to point out some of what I consider to be the finer uses of Flash. It is most definitely a powerful tool, and likely something that can impress visitors, but it can also be overwhelming and distracting. By using Flash to introduce movement to your site in a sublte way, you can maintain a clean aesthetic and add just a little bit more to the site. It also allows the Flash to degrade nicely to a static image and continue to look great for all those (few remaining these days) that don’t have Flash installed.
I don’t think anything turns me off more when I visit a website on my iPhone to see half the design missing because I don’t have Flash installed.
GAH cannot wait to see the new design; and I can think of a few things that turn you off more than Flash bits not loading on your iphone…
I have the home page done, and I was thinking about coding it last night, but I want to do it right this time. Every last pixel will be designed before I start coding.
Also, I suppose I can as well. Comic Sans.
So — 1. I feel left out that you guys all link each other, but I’m all alone. 2. Good stuff, Josh. When’s the new site coming out? And finally, 3. Your link to Andy does not work. Thought I’d let you know :P
M
@Matt, thanks for pointing out the link, should be all better now.
I’m not sure when the new site is going live, but the design is close to done. It’s not extremely high on the priority list, so it could be about a month before I get around to it.