paulhazel.com

This is a little Flash image gallery: very simple, very slick, and a total no-brainer to use. The only thing you need to know about it is that the images are loaded dynamically into an empty movieclip on stage, and that the images all need to be the same size. (OK: they don’t need to be but it’ll look rubbish if they’re not). If your images are lots of different sizes, create an empty .swf that matches your display area. Use this as a master template. Embed each image in a separate copy of this master template, and then load those.

Here’s the .fla (520kB) in MX2004 format. By the way, with a bit of tweaking this project also makes a pretty decent interface design: substitute tabs for the thumbnails, replace the images with contextual menus, and hey presto…

The photographs were taken by 1st year BA(Hons) Interactive Digital Media students at Swansea Metropolitan University as part of their coursework.

Here’s a nice little Flash effect derived originally from Brendan Dawes‘ influential Flash Actionscript For Designers: Drag Slide Fade book. Over the years I’ve used this “image slider” quite a lot both on personal projects and in the classroom: the way the images swish across screen, decelerate, and slide into exactly the right position is highly organic and very satisfying. To try it, click here or on the image below: it will appear in a new window.

Dawes’ book dates from 2001 and all the lovely projects are written in Actionscript 1.0 - I believe he must have been using Flash 4. The version included here has been fully updated to be Actionscript 2.0 compliant and is written in my very best Flash ‘good practice’ style. You can get the .fla (2.5Mb) here in Flash MX 2004 format.

The photographs I’ve used were taken a few weeks ago by 1st year BA (Hons) Interactive Digital Media students - Alyn Spiller, Matthew Aldred, Sam East, and Rob Chalmers - from Swansea Metropolitan University.

Toby Godden is a Year 2 student on the BA (Hons) Interactive Digital Media course at Swansea Metropolitan University. Toby has a highly fertile brain that effortlessly spins off more ideas than he can cope with. He totally ‘gets’ the Internet, and has a portfolio of domains that illustrate his creativity and diversity:

• Vibration 13 is the hub of his activities.
• Triskabiblios is an ambitious 13-year ARG (Alternative Reality Game).
• Play the first part of his and Michael Thomas’ popular Escapism game.
• Triangla is the electronic ‘triangular tabla’ he’s invented. I’ve seen it and heard it and it sounds great!
• Context and information about all these projects can be found on his blog.
• And he’s got a record label too (whatever that means in this day and age).

Toby is committed.