Flash/XML Gallery

At work, I walked Justin through a Flash/XML photo gallery that Ben and I created for the Emmis stations. This is a variation on what I was doing before (which involved using Flash’s built-in Combo Box and List Box), and I learned a ton making it. Instead of using Flash’s components, I ended up using the createEmptyMovieClip method.

I got a lot of assistance from this thread at the start. It seemed like Little Girl (who is anything but a little girl) was always one step ahead of me… either asking a question or offering a solution. While I still miss all the rich, valuable information that used to be on WH (and I really hope it comes back in some shape or another), TwelveStone has been a fantastic resource to spring up in its absence. Many of the WH gurus (along with many of the ruffians) migrated to StinkFist’s forum, so if you’re looking for help (or looking for diversion), definitely check it out.

The idea behind this Flash/XML player is to allow our webmasters to easily update content (changing/swapping images and captions) without having to muck around creating new pages. Ben and I made a test gallery for Q101, and we’re looking to create skins for each of the stations. That way, each one will have its own branded look and feel, but all the webmasters will need to do is change out the XML (and produce the images).

Check out the Q101 Gallery here. The cool thing about Q101’s gallery project was that I got to work with Ben on it, and got my hands dirty with XML. This was a lot more ActionScript than I’m used to, but it felt great doing it. And to top things off, Stu was one of the main photographers at the Twisted Concert. He did a lot of the backstage shots in the gallery (above). Stu took an ungodly amount of film, and only a small portion of it made it into the gallery. He’s a great photographer, and if you haven’t seen his site you you should go take a peek right now.

We went through my code, and I showed him a bit about how I set up my layers. Justin’s worked with Flash before, but asked me for a bit of a refresher. In exchange for today, he’s going to show me a bit about what he does. Hopefully, I’ll be able to pick his brains about php and MySQL and all that database stuff that seems so alien to me. When Justin looked at how I set up my ActionScript – he said that I would have no problems getting into database work, which I took as a strong compliment.

The main point of today was to help Justin get strated on his own Flash Gallery, for his niece. I watched him spec up what he wanted, and together we modified the Q101 version and repositioned everything. Fun stuff!

Afterwards, we swapped notes and tried brainstorming on our site idea. I have to admit, I’ve lost a bit of steam on the subject, but we seem to keep circling around what it is, exactly, we want to make. I’m afraid I’m being the wet blanket, but I think Justin understands my apprehension. At one point, he said that we both have to be absolutely sure we’re sold on the idea – there’s no point in doing a ton of work towards something we’re not interested in.

Right now, we seem stuck revolving around concepts. For coming on to three years now, Justin and I have talked about collaborating on something off and on. I feel like we’re close – and once we figure out what we want to throw our energies towards… it’s gonna rock.

Since the one semi-decent bar was closed inside the Mart, we headed to Uptown, a small place right up the street from Justin’s house. Stu joined us, as did Emma and we hung out for a bit. I downed about four beers and took my leave rather early. Came home, had some food, and then went promptly to sleep. While I was at the bar though, I had a good idea for a poem (and remembered an idea for another poem that I had, on the train to work). I had some intention of trying to get some writing done, but that quickly faded as I walked in the door.