Archiv für 11. February 2006
Orange Project – The Technical View
After I talked about my latest project in the last article, I would like to describe now some technical parts of the project.
At the beginning of the project, I had a clearly defined target for myself from the technical point of view: Deal with the usability problems that most Flashsites have. Check out how those problems could be fixed, find possible workarounds and show new features that can improve the usability of a site with the usage of Flash.
The following topics are very important for me:
Back-Button Support:
In my eyes, the best solution until now comes from Kevin Newmann. Based on Javascript, HTML anchors track the single navigation steps. Unfortunately this solution doesn’t work in all browsers but it is a start and rather easy to implement. If I’m informed correctly, there is supposed to be a solution by Adobe with Flex2 in the futre. That would be nice.
Deep Linking:
I also used the JS scripts by Kevin here, that allowed me to manipulate the URL in the adress inputfield of most browsers. Unfortunately the updating works only as long as you don’t edit an anchor manually.To minimize this problem, you can get the direct link to the current status of the site through the button “Link to this page” or via the context menu.
ContextMenus:
Everybody knows them from desktop-programs and so my claim was to also use them with this site. A nice example is, that you can copy all contact information to your clipboard via the context menu.
Keyboard-Support:
The whole site can be navigated throgh the keyboard. All main navigation points can be accessed through their first letter. The gallery can also be controlled through the cursors and the spacebar. Unfortunately there is a problem with the keyboard support when using Firefox. Through the implementation of the back-button support and the changing of the URL in the address field, the flashmovie loses the focus here and then. The navigation via the keyboard has to be activated with a click on the flashmovie then. The reason is bug in the focushandlich of Firefox – the problem doesn’t exist in the Internet Explorer. If someone knows a solution, please let me know.
Flash Embedded in HTML:
For the HTML implementation I’m using the FlashObject by Geoff Stearn. With this you can easly embed SWF files W3C conform. In the most recent version the express installtion by adobe is also supported now, wich enables easy updating of the Flash player from version 6.0.65 onwards.
Furthermore are a variety of smaller featues that I only want to mention briefly here:
- Download of the photos via the FileReference Class
- Support of the mousewheel (the focushandling bug of Firefox is also here problematic)
- Depending on the size of the stage, the view of the photos adjusts itself.
- Error highlighting at the contact form.
- Slideshow
As a conclusion I can say that it was not easy to realize every feature. But the gained experience shows me, that many known usability issues can be minimized and in the future maybe also removed completely. As one could discuss this topic endlessly, I’m looking forward to an active exchange, via email (contact[at]jensfranke.com) or here in the comments.
Thanks Kai for the translation.
17 Kommentare 11. February 2006
Relaunch: Orange Project
Aufmerksame Leser der aktuellen Page werden es schon bemerkt haben, aber trotzdem sollte die Meldung hier im Blog nicht fehlen. Für die Hamburger Fotografin Sandra Weimar habe ich ein neues Portfolio erstellt. Zielsetzung war es, die Site klar zu strukturieren, eine leichte Bedienbarkeit zu gewährleisten und natürlich sollten die Fotos im Mittelpunkt stehen.
Entscheide selbst, ob es mir gelungen ist. Wie immer freue ich über Feedback, Anregungen und Kritik.
2 Kommentare 11. February 2006
