Posted on September 20, 2011 by Peter
Bostonglobe.com uses the ResponsiveImages library from Filament Group
Critics of responsive web design argue that the responsive approach results in mobile devices being served unnecessary content, particularly large images optimized for desktop computers. In most cases I agree that this is a problem. It makes more sense to serve small images to a device with a small screen so that bandwidth is conserved. Luckily, Filament Group has found an elegant solution to this problem with their Responsive Images project, but my question is:
Can we assume that a user with a small screen will always want to see a small (mobile optimized) image? One great feature of a touch screen is that you can pinch and zoom. Suppose the user wanted to zoom in on an image for a closer look? This would be pointless if the image is already being displayed at or near 100%. Maybe I’m splitting hairs here, but I have found it frustrating that some responsive sites disable zooming all-together. Am I weird for wanting to zoom in?
Posted in Responsive Web Design, Thoughts |
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Posted on September 14, 2011 by Peter
I’ve been harping about responsive web design for the past 9 months or so, and by now I’m sure everyone at Noise has heard me go on about it. The trouble is, it can be a difficult concept to explain in words, so I thought it would be best to create a quick demo. I wanted to show how content can be presented in different ways depending on the device being used. To help explain this, I added a bar at the top of the page that displays the current device status. Feel free to grab the status bar code if you need it.
View Demo
Posted in Code Tips, Experiments |
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Posted on July 20, 2010 by Peter
Here is list of my favorite classic Flash websites.
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Balthasar Studio (1998) The techno music is rediculous but remember this was 1998 — back when it was cool to have a 60 second Flash intro. Balthasar Studio was a break-through site and set the bar high for Flash designers like myself who were starting out at the time.
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Blitz Agency (2002) This website feels like a big budget movie. The animation, music and effects are beautifully polished. I love the way the music changes from section to section.
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thevoid.co.uk (1999) This site might hold the record for longest intro animation, but who cares. This is not a typical website, this is an experience. The music and sound effects convey a taut sense of drama that animation alone would not have been capable of. I miss seeing sites like this. Whatever happened to these guys?
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2advanced.com – V3 Expansions (2002) Every 2Advanced website is a masterpiece, but V3 Expansions is one that stands out in my mind. I love the color pallet, crisp animation, and dark music. If you like sci-fi you’ll probably enjoy this site.
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ego7.net (2002) This site has been replaced by an updated version that isn’t nearly as cool. I believe the original site was one of the first Flash websites to mimic a desktop environment. An assortment of gadgets, including a chat room and messenger, allowed users to interact and play. The design of the site could only be described as James Bond meets hacker geek.
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MONO*crafts (1999) Yugo Nakamura’s website from the late 90’s. This website is home to some of Yugo’s earliest Flash toys — very cool stuff.
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Who’s We Studio (2002) The 3D animation and sound make this site exciting and fun to explore. I only wish I had created something this cool back in 2002.
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Tokyo Plastic (2003) I love the little Japanese Kokeshi dolls and the giant mouth that swallows the screen.
Posted in Lists |
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Posted on May 29, 2010 by Peter
When loading external assets in Actionscript 3.0, it is often necessary to close Loader requests before they have completed.
Consider the following scenario: A Flash image gallery that uses Loader objects to fetch images form the server.
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A user begins loading an image gallery
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For whatever reason the images are taking a long time to load (too many images, slow connection, etc.)
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The user grows tired of waiting and decides to click on something else, thereby loading new content.
Unless the gallery Loader objects are closed, they will continue to load in the background. Consequently the user will end up waiting even longer for new content to load since their bandwidth is being consumed by activity in the background.
Unfortunately removing the Loader objects from the stage is not enough to cancel them. To stop a Loader in progress we use the Loader.close() method like so:
try {
loader.close()
} catch(error:Error) {
// request was not open
}
This effectively closes the open connection but it presents a new problem. Safari will show an error message in the status bar for each cancelled request.
These errors are harmless, but let’s be honest, they look bad. One way to prevent the messages from showing is to set the window status property ahead of time to an empty string like so:
window.status=" "
This isn’t the prettiest solution but it works.
Posted in Code Tips |
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Posted on February 1, 2009 by Peter
This week I was tasked with animating a two-legged figure in Flash and I thought it would be a great opportunity to try out the new Bone Tool. The Bone Tool is a new feature in Flash CS4 that is designed to make character animation easier. With the bone tool, animators can create tweenable arm and leg joints that behave like real joints in the body. Sounds cool right? Let’s find out.
I began by creating a simple leg armature with a thigh, shin and foot. I then added constraints to prevent each joint from bending beyond a certain angle. This is useful since arms and legs cannot bend backwards. So far so good.
Next, I decided to animate the armature by creating three different poses along the timeline, but here’s where things get weird. Often when you delete or clear a pose, it will remain in the timeline even though the keyframe is gone. Scrubbing the timeline will reveal that the pose has not been deleted since the animation still occurs. The only way to delete the phantom pose is to delete the frame that it was on. To make matters worse, armatures often get stuck in a particular position. When you try to adjust the armature, it will go back to where it was before.
These bugs are very frustrating and make it very difficult to control your animation. Just when you think you have it working, one of the poses gets stuck and you have to start over. Overall, I would say the bone tool is an incomplete feature and I’m surprised it even passed Q/A testing. The bottom line is, the tool doesn’t work as promised so don’t waste your time.
Has anyone else tried the Bone Tool? What do you think?
Posted in Code Tips, Rants |
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