I need advice on how to improve the design of this intro.

Thanks FLAASHER,
I will take care of the points that u mentioned but i feel like the animation needs improvmentwhen the user clicks on any button and the image of the house is shown by sliding the colored layer above it.
Do u have any idea on how to make this look better.
Thanks

dear Melfeky
some times the animaion become bad
simplicity is the best thing for all kind of designs
dont make ur design more complex

just make it simple :)

FLAASHER

One more comment :)

You shold concider on whether you want to use a strict (squareish - Frame and menu) or loose (soft/blurry - Images ) design.
Both are fine seperated but together they often leaves the impression of wanting to move left and right at the same time.

What style you pick very much depends on your visitors. Young people myself included often find the blurry style a bit oldfashioned
and what do they have to conceal like while my parents (55+) may find it nice...

Also it depends on nationality. I'm Danish and therefore got my sence of aesthetics from the simple lines of Danish design and architecture.
I don't think it's nearly as "bad" in countries like the UK or the Netherlands.... Just wanted to mention this before sounding too lecturing ;)

Jakob E
 




 

Me again...

I took the liberty to make a sketch with some ideas for a strict layout (see comment above)... just for inspiration :)
http://www.offliners.dk/takeaway/experts-exchange/realestatewinner_01.htm

If you make a view source you can also see how to center your content

See ya, Jakob E
 

hello jakob,
i have seen ur demo and i got your point on how to keep it simple and clean.but when the user clicks any country what do u think is supposed to happen?
thanks,
nyehia

That's what I don't know... and the reason why I  asked for some more details on the general project.

If you are thinking in technical terms I could imagine either some animation on the tabs, a slide marker or something like that...
I would try not to make too much animation on the upper picture part and if so I would make it quick.

Sites using animation to shift content is often considered very cool at first. But later on aren't  revisited as much as sites
that don't.. The reason why it's too slow in presenting what matters the most... Content
(One exception could be experimental- or web-art sites where content is the web... Testing it's limits or trying to redefine it.)

Think of how many cool and technical advanced banneradds you're skipping to move on to what you came for. It's the same
thing about long animated intros and content shifters... there is a good chance of people finding it nagging.
 
Jakob E

Hello,
the site is about a real estate book that this site is supposed to sell .
can i ask u something, could u send me the flash source file so i can play with it and see how to make it work with the look and feel of the site.

Sure

I've added a link to the source .fla on the sketch page:
http://www.offliners.dk/takeaway/experts-exchange/realestatewinner_01.htm
Just remenber it's a sketch and therefore kinda messy :)

Jakob E

thanks jakob you are very helpful :)

when i tried to open the fla file i got an error message that this is an unexpected format.by the way i am using flash mx.
thanks

I now saved it in a MX compatible format (I'm using MX2004Pro)
Just use the same link as before.

Jakob E

Hello Jakob, Thanks for the link . That is realy great.Can i ask u one last favor.Would u show me how can to add links to the items in the menu so when the user clicks on France he is redirected to www.francerealestate.com, etc...as i am not good at actionscript.
thanks again for your help

Sure

In the "action" layer find the lines (29-45)

  tab = attachMovie("tab", "tab0", 0);
  tab.btnlabel.text = "US/UK";
  tab._x = 0;
    tab.onRelease = function() { getURL("http://www.somedomain.com","_blank") }     //  <-- Add this line
  tab = attachMovie("tab", "tab1", 1);
  tab.btnlabel.text = "France/Belgique";
  tab._x = 100;
    tab.onRelease = function() { getURL("http://www.francerealestate.com","_blank") }   //  <-- Add this line
  etc.....

Jakob E

hello jakob,
sorry for bothering you again but i need your help in another issue,
Do you see the text that is below the picture where it says please visit your country site, where it fads in and out.
i have made this through regular tweening and fading in and out.but i am asked to .
but i want to be able to dynamicaly change those values , so i knew that i  must either generate the textfield from code, tween it through code and set the default text by code or load those movie clip text from external source where in this process you need to dynamically attach the MC from external source. This is beyond my knowledge.
For the image (big house in the middle), it also needs to be loaded dynamically and attached at runtime. This is much simpler as we can just export the this image as a MC then load it from external source.

you can check this link to get what i mean.
How can i do this?
i will start a new question and give u its link.
thanks

here is the link to the new topic:
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Web/WebDevSoftware/Flash/Q_21376375.html

Hello jakop,
there is something i noticed, after i have added a link to the us/uk and france item menus and roll over with the mouse,its color is not changed like the other items in the menu which i didn't add link to.
i am pasting the code below, would u tell me what i am doing wrong, thanks.

this._lockroot = true;
cm = new ContextMenu();
cm.hideBuiltInItems();
_root.menu = cm;
MovieClip.prototype.__slideX = function(pos, velocity) {
      this.onEnterFrame = function() {
            if (this._x != pos) {
                  this._x = this._x+(pos-this._x)/velosity;
            } else {
                  this.onEnterFrame = null;
            }
      };
};
MovieClip.prototype.__slideY = function(pos, velocity) {
      this.onEnterFrame = function() {
            if (this._y != pos) {
                  this._y = this._y+(pos-this._y)/velocity;
            } else {
                  this.onEnterFrame = null;
            }
      };
};
this = createEmptyMovieClip("menuitems", 50);
this._x = 30;
this._y = 325;
with (this) {
      tab = attachMovie("tab", "tab0", 0);
      tab.btnlabel.text = "US/UK";
      tab._x = 0;
      tab.onRelease = function() { getURL("http://www.therealestatewinner.com","_blank") }
      tab = attachMovie("tab", "tab1", 1);
      tab.btnlabel.text = "France/Belgique";
      tab._x = 100;
            
      tab.onRelease = function() { getURL("http://www.therealestatewinner.com","_blank") }
            tab = attachMovie("tab", "tab2", 2);
      
      tab.btnlabel.text = "Deutchland";
      tab._x = 200;
      tab = attachMovie("tab", "tab3", 103);
      tab.btnlabel.text = "Nederland/Belgie";
      tab._x = 300;
      tab = attachMovie("tab", "tab4", 104);
      tab.btnlabel.text = "España";
      tab._x = 400;
      innerframe = attachMovie("innerframe", "innerframe", -1);
}
mask1 = attachMovie("mc_mask", "menumask", 51);
mask1._x = 10;
mask1._y = 275;
mask1._height = 33;
mask1._width = 720;
arrMb1 = new Array();
arrMb2 = new Array();
this.setMask(mask1);
this = createEmptyMovieClip("menuholder", 0);
mask2 = attachMovie("mc_mask", "menubgmask", 1);
mask2._x = 10;
mask2._y = 15;
mask2._height = 310;
mask2._width = 720;
arrMb1 = new Array();
arrMb2 = new Array();
this.setMask(mask2);
with (this) {
      for (var i = 0; i<12; i++) {
            mb = attachMovie("menuback", "menuback"+i, i);
            mb._x = 25;
            mb._y = 0;
            mb.__slideY(10+(25*i), 10);
            arrMb1.push(mb);
      }
      for (var i = 0; i<12; i++) {
            mb = attachMovie("menuback", "menuback"+(i+12), (i+12));
            mb._x = 25;
            mb._y = 285;
            mb.__slideY(285-(25*i), 10);
            arrMb2.push(mb);
      }
}
function initMenu() {
      for (var i = 0; i<arrMb1.length-1; i++) {
            arrMb1[i].__slideY(-30, 10);
      }
      for (var i = 0; i<arrMb2.length; i++) {
            arrMb2[i].__slideY(320, 10);
            if (i == 10) {
                  menuitems.__slideY(285, 11);
            }
      }
}
function showMenu() {
      menuitems.__slideY(285, 10);
}