Time saving procedures - What to do?

[marconehilton]

Hi there, guys!

I work at an e-learning company, where we often need to improve our techniques, aiming a faster production.

A few years ago, we developed a .as file, which is externally loaded to run some tween animation. Then, in our .fla files, we used to call the functions, to provide proper animation without "tweening the timeline". We had, back then, several types of tweened animations.

Recently, we improved it even more, providing an automatic movieclip detection in the .fla files. It works like this: once a MC is detected, it automatically inserts a single type alpha 0>100 animation tween. We are, then, free to focus on proper visual object disposal.

But, we need to further improve our methods, now. And I really don't know how!

That is why I'm posting this thread: to get to know about you and your experience, to learn even more.

Feel free to describe your "time saving procedures" in Flash development.

Is always welcoming to learn that stuff.

[marconehilton]

Well, nice to see that so many people round here have something to share about! :P

[CyanBlue]

Thanks for being sarcastic... What is your question??? ;)

[Groady]

Though I have not yet used it, I hear the PureMVC (http://puremvc.org/) is a good framework. Not sure how timesaving it is though.

Personally I find Tweener (http://code.google.com/p/tweener/) is a huge time saver.

Also developing in anything other than the Flash IDE will be faster.

[marconehilton]

Thanks for being sarcastic... What is your question??? ;)
Hi there, Cyan! Didn't know you were also admin at this forum.

Well, it's not properly a question. I was wondering if any of the people round here had any progress, improving Flash usage, someway.

The Tweener class is nothing more than the same .as we already used years ago. It came a little late. Nothing to be proud of, since i connected 2+2 while I was using the Flash Slide Presentation mode: "How in the hell's name do they do that auto-tweenings?"

I just wanted to hear people's experiences!

[CyanBlue]

Well... I've worked on the e-learning industry for two years or so, and I probably have something that might/might not be helpful to others... I'd love to share what I know, but I am not going to write a book about my experience... What I am saying is that your question is too broad if you know what I mean... ;)

Um... Do I know you from somewhere???

[934texas]

Also developing in anything other than the Flash IDE will be faster.

I know this gets covered occasionally, but what IDE do you prefer?

[CyanBlue]

Normally FlashDevelop does a good job...

[maskedMan]

FlashDevelop for me too. It's got the IDE beat on almost every front.

[Groady]

Yep, I'm all over FlashDevelop like a fat kid on a smarty.

There seems to be a bit of a shift towards using Flex Builder/Eclipse for developing for Flash though I'm not sold as of yet. It will be interesting to see what Adobe does (if anything) with the editor in the Flash IDE. Now that Adobe are pimping Flex I can't see them creating a code editor as-good in Flash. It's more likely they will offer some kind of 'Publish in Flash' plugin for for Flex Builder IMHO.

[934texas]

I'll check it out. Thanks! Too long have I scrolled manually looking for functions.

[CyanBlue]

Adobe has abandoned the AS Editor in Flash IDE in favor of FlexBuilder long time ago... They have no plan on improving it... They only do minor fixes when people nag too much... :(

[marconehilton]

Adobe has abandoned the AS Editor in Flash IDE in favor of FlexBuilder long time ago... They have no plan on improving it... They only do minor fixes when people nag too much... :(
Answering your previous question, you know me from AS 2.0 and AS3.0 Forums.

But, hey, I'd like to hear your stories 'bout that specific thread (e-learning)! If it's not too annoying, mail me: marconehilton@gmail.com

Here's another improvement we've implemented this month: since we work with a time-pausing timeline, we constantly needed to add a frame-paused "click here" buttons - which, obviously, released the timeline in a play action.

Also, our click buttons has random positions, since it's NOT our goal to stimulate the user to keep clicking in the very same area. Random positions for the buttons keep the focus up.

But, hey, rearranging MCs and items, everytime it was needed, was a REAL pain in the ass. We kept going in and out, looking out for the frames that contained the "click here" buttons, and rearranging it individually, which means NOT using "Edit Multiple Frames". That sucked a lot.

We recently created a function that automatically insert the "click here" button below the highest (depth) MC in stage. That means, NO FURTHER INDIVIDUAL REARRANGING. Now, we can properly use EDIT MULTIPLE FRAMES.

That also allowed us to assure that the "click here" button positions are strictly respected (20px below the highest object, right-aligned).

Time-saving procedure, discovered just that week!