We’ve launched a revised version of the Broadway Video site (http://www.broadwayvideo.com/) which no longer incorporates the Flash Meta-Preloader. While the below example is deprecated on this site, it still provides a good example of loading multiple clips from XML.
Flash Meta-Preloader
>> Click here for code and example.
I was chatting with Zeh Fernando, and thought of a fun concept to create a flash widget to display areas of unrest in the world. The idea was to have users submit links to news articles about death and destruction and link to a node on a world map. This way people could get a better sense of how much of the world is consumed by war.
I should say that the concept is the only thing fun about this. In reality, this “Heat” Map, derived from the urban definition of heat, isn’t really too fun. If I get enough responses I may push through to complete the project. In the meantime, click the link below to launch the map and click around on it to change spots from black (cold) to white (hot). And if you want to see it completed, just let me know.
I originally created this effect for the old ERA404 web site when we were using the “Not Found” themes, but the concept was deprecated when we updated our marketing strategy. Since I really loved the result, I was happy to see a need for this script arise again during the creation of the Who is Augustine? site, created for Jonathan Safran Foer and his first novel, Everything is Illuminated. You can see the effect employed if you click on Augustine’s glasses in the link that takes you into her house.
People have asked how this was created and its actually quite simple. Rather than explain it, I’ve provided a zip for you to download to see the simple code involved. If you have questions, feel free to post comments.
This is a pretty basic example of custom cursors in Actionscript which, when coupled with a fake drop shadow and a background image that further provokes the illusion, makes a cool effect. Granted you don’t actually have to turn the arrow cursor backwards for the effect to be achieved, but us lefties like the occasional positive reinforcement.
Again, since this effect is so simple, I’ve decided to just attach a zip of the source so you can download it and figure it out on your own. If you have questions, feel free to post comments.
Download the source files here.
This zip contains all project files for the Flash Example “Cursor Illusion”.
When we were creating the Broadway Video site, the client asked for the entire site to load in one-fell-swoop, prior to the user clicking on each of the individual sections. Since the entire site’s content is culled from XML, I figured the preloader could be too.
Here’s an example of what I mean. And, as always, I’ve uploaded a zip file of the source, XML and Actionscript for you to look through. If you have questions, feel free to post comments.
Update: January 5, 2007 –
We’ve launched a revised version of the Broadway Video site which no longer uses this script.
Download Flash Meta-Preloader
This ZIP contains all the files necessary to create a Flash Meta-Preloader on your own site.