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[Futureman]

Never used Flash before. A band I do a website for wants me to use Flash. I've never liked sites done with Flash, but I think I'll give it a shot. I have the education version of Macromedia StudioMX that includes Flash MX Professional 2004.

I have the basics of HTML, but I mainly use Dreamweaver and Adobe GoLive for their site right now. How hard is it going to be to use flash to make a good looking site? I have zero knowledge of the program, but I can probably adapt pretty quick (judging from past software like this). I'm also a photographer, and I think I'm pretty good, so that will help with some of the design. I've noticed in sites I've designed before that an average design can look pretty damn sweet if you have some good photographs to work with.

Do you design the site in Flash and then use Dreamweaver to make a website? Or is everything done in Flash? Are Flash templates something worth looking at (assuming you can modify it to be unique enough)?

Need a little advice.

 

[methodman]

I've never tried, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be really hard. I used to have Flash, and I, like you also had dreamweaver and golive. Hope you can accomplish what you're tryign though.

 

[aoi tsuki]

If you're asking, then yes it is. Good site design requires planning just as much as technical know-how, if not more. Flash site design is especially more demanding for many since it's so different than standard HTML/CSS design.

My best advice would be to design portions of the site in flash, like say the music player, and the rest in HTML/CSS. During my limited experience with Flash 5, i found it to be more like an animation package that exports to the web more than anything else. Unless your clients are giving you months to finish the site, you really don't want to learn flash and design a site at the same time.

 

[cs060mk2]

Designing and building a complete site in Flash will be a time consuming project. With no knowledge of Flash before it will be a very demanding task.

Flash is not a program that is easy to understand even if you know a lot of HTML/CSS etc. It is a different approach to everything. Almost like in 1994 when I tried Linux and thought the shell was exactly like MS-Dos.

If you approach Flash with an open mind and really want to learn I think you can make some parts fade, rotate and such, and also make links out of buttons in 3-4 weeks.