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Geek Culture / Cool website idea, how difficult would this be to do?

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Drew Cameron
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Posted: 12th Aug 2009 17:12 Edited at: 12th Aug 2009 17:14
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Hello!

Flash is not my tool of choice but I'd love to do this in Flash;

Let's say I had a film website for a certain series, with episodes coming out every 14 days.

Imagine a page with like a snakes and ladders pipeline on the page; done in flash. You could also just have a graphic of a pipe, say 1,000 pixels high for the ease of explanation. On the pipe would be a thumbnail of the episode, and at the top of the pipe would be the words "release".

Basically the thumbnail would move towards the word "release" as the time of release came nearer. You know, it would move one pixel every 20 minutes if it was a 1,000 pixel long journey it had to make, and the episode it represented was coming out in 14 days. Eventually it would reach the word release. In essence its just a graphic version of a countdown.

Imagine if the pipe was really long and bunched up for the sake of space, you could literally see the thing inching along every second getting closer to release. I just like this idea and I'd love to have a page on my site "Pipeline" or something with all the new stuff being visible coming closer and closer to release.

I think this sounds awesome and much more effective at building anticipation than a countdown or a "coming soon".

How hard would this be to do? I imagine in flash it would be like "y co-ordinates = todays date-date of event" and then just placing the graphic at such co-ordinates? I know I could knock this together in 10 minutes in DBP but Im not sure how you'd do it in Flash.

Thoughts welcome.

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Xenocythe
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Posted: 12th Aug 2009 19:04
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Action script, which you would use in Flash to calculate the math for the y-position of the image as it moves closer to 'release', is very easy to pick up on. Since you want to show it moving closer to release second by second, then you simply need to get the exact day, minute, second of the release, and the exact day, minute, and second of the present time. You'd subtract the two, and divide it by a constant to make it fit on the same size pipeline as all others.

It sounds fairly easy, and I don't think it will take you too long. I don't know if Flash is capable of calculating the current day, time, and second, but I'm sure that the language is that far along.

Good luck.


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Diggsey
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Posted: 12th Aug 2009 19:09
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You don't even need flash for this, it would be simple in javascript


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Xenocythe
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Posted: 12th Aug 2009 19:09
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Don't listen to Diggsey! He's trying to bring you to the dark side!


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Sid Sinister
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Posted: 12th Aug 2009 20:43
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Yup, you could do this in javascript

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Current Project: http://strewnfield.wordpress.com/ (Last updated 06/11/09)
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Uncle Sam
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Posted: 12th Aug 2009 20:54
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No! Flash can do it better!

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Diggsey
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Posted: 12th Aug 2009 20:56
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Yes I really want to download a large flash file to look as some slowly moving images...


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David R
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Posted: 12th Aug 2009 21:12 Edited at: 12th Aug 2009 21:13
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Quote: "Yes I really want to download a large flash file to look as some slowly moving images...
"


Considering how crummy IE6 support for Javascript is (and how slow it is) I'd stick to Flash (which works irrespective of browser - and simple things like this could work with something as low as Flash 7)

Because keep in mind that a huge quantity of people still use IE6, bizarrely

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NeX the Fairly Fast Ferret
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Posted: 12th Aug 2009 22:34
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Quote: "Yes I really want to download a large flash file to look as some slowly moving images..."


It doesn't have to be huge. Ten minutes spent with the optimisation settings at the end can halve the filesize, as can taking as much consideration when making media as you would a HTML page. Flash games that are huge are huge because the creators haven't used compression, have used bitmaps for everything where vectors would suffice and look better, etc...

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jeffhuys
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Posted: 12th Aug 2009 23:47 Edited at: 12th Aug 2009 23:48
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iPhone will not show flash.
Please, don't remind me of the huge flaw of the iPhone: FLASH




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Phaelax
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Posted: 13th Aug 2009 01:16
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I too would say javascript. And for what you want, IE6 can handle it just fine.

Also, ANY flash runs terrible on a PPC-powered Mac. We hate flash.

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NeX the Fairly Fast Ferret
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Posted: 13th Aug 2009 02:16 Edited at: 13th Aug 2009 02:19
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Perhaps you should get something with a decent CPU, then. Seriously, PPC is dead in the computing industry. It's found a nice place in the set-top box industry (360, Wii have PPCs, PS3 is based on a PPC) but now it's x86 or x64 for computers, your choice. Even Apple has fully abandoned the platform now; no Snow Leopard for you. Burn.

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Phaelax
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Posted: 13th Aug 2009 06:57
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I tried Leopard, didn't like the changes. You might not like PPC, but its nice having a 4 year old laptop that still runs nearly all of Apple's current products. What's that you say about your 4yr old intel laptop? all it can do is act as paper weight?

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NeX the Fairly Fast Ferret
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Posted: 13th Aug 2009 11:58 Edited at: 13th Aug 2009 12:06
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Uh... no. Looking over it right now, it's running 7, TurboCAD 15, Code::Blocks, Photoshop CS3, (CS4 has a dire interface) Illustrator CS3, Opera and Audacity simultaneously.

Oh, and it's not four years old. It's six years old.

I've gotta agree on the Leopard point though. Brushed metal wasn't so bad. "Platinum" is dull.

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jeffhuys
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Posted: 13th Aug 2009 13:09
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Quote: "I tried Leopard, didn't like the changes. You might not like PPC, but its nice having a 4 year old laptop that still runs nearly all of Apple's current products. What's that you say about your 4yr old intel laptop? all it can do is act as paper weight?"


Seriously, I like you Phaelax, but all those Mac-fanboys are the same. Always thinking Mac is so much better...



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Diggsey
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Posted: 13th Aug 2009 13:55
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Quote: "Considering how crummy IE6 support for Javascript is (and how slow it is) I'd stick to Flash"


IE6 javascript works just fine for things FAR more complex than this. (I wrote a GUI in javascript to allow you to programmatically create buttons and panels and things in javascript, and it worked in IE). It can easily cope with a few moving images


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NeX the Fairly Fast Ferret
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Posted: 13th Aug 2009 14:08
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The issue is not with Javascript itself. It's with the Document Object Model. A lot of variables are similarly named but not the same accross browsers (innerHTML or innerText spring to mind) and Position:Fixed is about as reliable as a man selling cheap DVDs in the street.

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Roxas
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Posted: 13th Aug 2009 15:03
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Far as I've used Javascript i would say no, go with Flash. JS is "horrible", Tho its necessary for some web applications.

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David R
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Posted: 13th Aug 2009 15:26
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Quote: "Seriously, I like you Phaelax, but all those Mac-fanboys are the same. Always thinking Mac is so much better..."


I don't think you quite appreciated what Phaelax was getting at

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Jeku
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Posted: 13th Aug 2009 18:07 Edited at: 13th Aug 2009 18:09
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Quote: "I don't think you quite appreciated what Phaelax was getting at"


He said a 4 year old Mac is more capable of running modern software than a 4 year old PC, which doesn't make sense. It depends on the hardware you put in the system at its inception. His statement is more of a personal bias than a solid fact, becase it can't be proven.

It's common for "Mac" people to over-generalize everything (i.e. Macs are better for art, PC-to-Mac switchers never go back, everything just "works", etc.) Most of those statements are BS if you actually try to transition from PCs to Macs.


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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 13th Aug 2009 19:11
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Quote: "Seriously, I like you Phaelax, but all those Mac-fanboys are the same. Always thinking Mac is so much better..."


Fanboys are all the same, the PC fanboys are just like the Mac fanboys and as a PC user I am tempted to slap them, but before I do, I always remember they're over compensating for something...I mean why else would somebody have a 'my OS is better than yours attitude', it's like "My car is better than your car" for geeks.

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Jeku
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Posted: 14th Aug 2009 01:53
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Quote: "Fanboys are all the same, the PC fanboys are just like the Mac fanboys"


I'm fairly sure some groups are worse than others


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