Resizable Flash Title Graphic

[DCElliott]

Wow

You really have a way with graphics there, Animgirl.
We can certainly forgive you the occasional HTML slipup.http://206.47.27.187/phpBB2/images/smiles/roflmao.gif

Puts my efforts to shame.

Tell me, can you make resizable flash titles? Ones that would resize as the page was resized?

[DCElliott]

What I worry is that a Flash title will behave like some <object>s that like to have fixed size containers. The other problem - can it be transparent or will it have the ugly gray background that java applets show before/while initializing?

I'm thinking we should move this to another thread or reactivate my original thread asking this question in the Flash section.

AnimGirl, are you willing to experiment with us? We'd need something very basic - just a simple static vector graphic saying "Web Development Tools" that is made for a design size of, say, 30px high by 600px wide. The kind of title effect I am looking for can be seen at the Prototype Mirror (http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/d.elliott/webtools/webtools.html) of ByteWizard's Tools site. In the example here I used a cunning little bit of subterfuge by employing a right-angled font for a bitmap that can be extensively resized without any degradation. Unfortunately, any rounded or slanting lines in a font make it degrade unless the original is really really large.

Anyhow I'd like to see if this can work because my implementations of liquid design absolutely require elastic titles to look their best.

Thanks

[DCElliott]

Good job DB. That is a moderately successful initial proof of concept.

The underlying problem is that the image maintains the same aspect ratio and does not get larger than its original size.

You see, that is the real challenge. I would like to get an effect as close as possible to that done in the development tools link above.

I still think the elastic bitmap approach holds some promise and is something anyone with a graphics program can do. It really helps having one that you can reduce color depth on, though, since that makes a huge diff in file size. I find that 2bit per pixel works pretty well - allows some slight anti-aliasing that smooths out pixellation effects.

I haven't seen this approach taken with other liquid sites so maybe we can create a "first".

[DCElliott]

I may not have made myself sufficiently clear in my previous post, although the desired behaviour is quite clear in the web-tools example from the link I posted.

What I mean is that, in the Flash example, the aspect ratio of the text itself does not change. If, for example, you diminish the vertical height, the text gets NARROWER as well as SHORTER and vice versa. I am looking for an elastic effect that shrinks only in the direction that you are resizing.

I had hoped that a vector approach would give better results than the bitmap hack I have been using, although the bitmap method is getting better as I get more experience with anti-aliasing and color depth adjustments.

[DCElliott]

When you are editing a vector object, you can grab one of the side handles and resize it in one dimension - that is the effect I was hoping one could achieve but, so far, it doesn't seem possible with Flash. There are other downsides with Flash such as the requirement for a plug-in and the initialization of the plug-in causing a delay in the display. Plain old gifs are there right-away.

Thanks for the comment on the latest bitmap - as I said, experimentation is proceeding. The current gif is 2bit per pixel giving 4 colors- background, font color and two "anti-alias"colors. I am using Corel Photopaint for the graphic. The whole thing is only ~3900 bytes for a 1024 x 80 base size. I could go up to 1600 x 120 but don't think it is worth it. I bet 95% of the viewers don't go higher than 1024 for a browser window. Few persons with higher res monitors run them full screen - why bother when so many static-dimensioned websites are designed for a max content width of 600px! And at that res I look perfectly fine.

BTW - has anyone seen sites with this form of elastic titling before? I certainly don't remember any and am wondering if I haven't invented something here . . .

[animgirl]

Oh, I'm so sorry!

I never saw this topic or was subscribed to it so I didn't know of it's existence!

Seems I'm late though.

has anyone seen sites with this form of elastic titling before?
Nope.

I replied here (http://developers.evrsoft.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=850) and I think the same answer applies here.

You know this already, but the problem with it all is that your site is designed with no constrained aspect ratio, it is designed to stretch any which way liquid-like and look good. To do that to a flash object would be the equivalent of squeezing a picture in a photo program, it's gonna get scruntched and it can't re-conform itself.

[bigdawg]

All i got was blue background did not open for me!!!:mad:

[bigdawg]

That opened just fine it was the stretch.htm file that would not open

[animgirl]

I'm sorry, this topic was discussed about half a year ago, which link are you referring to, bigdawg?

animgirl

[bigdawg]

The link was the one with the web delelopement tools that displayed properly but the stretch htm did not. Sorry i go busy today and did not check your reply. I did see your web site earlier and it looks good. I am new to this with about three weeks in so am picking up new things each day! here is a link to a site that I did today and it appears to be up even though I was told that it would take between 48 & 72 hours to propagate. It is www.bigdawgcaps.com I will check this site out in the morning it is late now Good nite all.