Key Terms

xHTML

xHTML stands for Extensible Hypertext Markup Language and is a mix between HTML and XML. It is a standardization of HTML that reduces incompatibility among browsers. It looks a lot like HTML, but there are some important differences:

  • tags must close (eg. <p></p>) or be self closing (<br/>)
  • tags must be properly nested <div><strong></strong></div>
  • all tags must be in lower case
  • all documents must include a doctype
  • all documents must be well formed
  • all attributes must be full and added properly

HTML

HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language. Hypertext means that the text is not constrained to be linear and can jump to text outside of itself. Markup is the act of adding instructions or structure to the way that text is display.

CSS

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheet. They are called “cascading” because CSS specifies a priority scheme to determine which style rules apply if more than one rule matches against a particular element. In this so-called cascade, priorities or weights are calculated and assigned to rules, so that the results are predictable. Rules are inherited, but inheritance is different from the actual cascading.


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Week 14: Work it!

Almost there! YOU CAN DO IT. I believe in you!!!!

To help you out on your final flash adventures, here are the examples for the day:
Random Animation
Here are some new flash examples.
Sound with Pause
Input Text

Video

The best way to add video for right now is to import the video through the File>Import> Import to Stage menu into an FLV player (top option in the window that opens). You can then convert this video to a moviclip and target as you would other movieclips.

Preloader

Take a look at the example. Basically, I’ve set it up so that it stops on the first frame and keeps checking to see if the whole movie has been loaded (# of bytes). If it has, it plays. Otherwise, it changes the text and the size of the bar. Make sure to simulate download when checking the preloader.

Loader

This is for loading other swf files and jpgs. It’s really handy because then you can build parts separately and add them as needed. It saves on download time, and is great when working in teams.

Sound: Play and Pause

Here, we add some code to our previous simple_sound file in order to keep track of where the song was when we pause it, and then play it in that spot again.

For next week:

We will start at the beginning of class, so have everything ready to go. Test it out, practice a simple presentation of the project, and think of it as an opportunity to practice presenting yourself to an audience. Good luck! I’m looking forward to seeing everyone’s hard work.

Week 13: The Home Stretch!

OMGOMGOMG! Only 2 more classes before the final! Let’s use our time wisely. I’ll run through examples that might be helpful for your final. You ask me questions. Let’s go!

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Week 12: Frame Control, Variables

Check back over the blog post for Week 11, and review the files in the link. To start you thinking about other things that you can do with Actionscript, download this file, and run the examples. See if you can understand how they are programmed.
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Week 11: Actionscript

We’ll take our first look at Actionscript today and talk about our final projects.
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Week 10: Flash

Let’s continue Flash today with Tweens!
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Week 9: Flash!

Flash was always my first love. It combines time-based image editing format with programming and multimedia capabilities! It is a great way to add fluid animation and interaction to your design, and it frees you from the grid constraints of xhtml/css.

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Week 8: Javascript & JQuery

Welcome back! Hope you a restful break and enjoyed the lovely weather. Let’s jump back into things with look at the basic structure of Javascript and JQuery!
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Week 7: Portfolio Presentation and Javascript

Today, you’ll present your portfolio websites and we’ll learn a little Javascript.
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Weeks 5 & 6: Portfolio Lab

We’ll continue working with HTML and CSS today, exploring tables, menus, and images. You’ll begin turning your portfolio designs into live websites!

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Weeks 4: Advanced CSS/Images

Today, we’ll review CSS positioning and explore some tricks with images. We’ll also learn how to use tables and make sitemaps.

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