Template Help

Where to find things

/Fonts - contains the freeware font called Tempesta 7 that is required if you need to author in Flash
/Help - contains several help files that are essential to editing this template and its modules
/PSD - has the main page and other useful templates for images - the PSDs are sized exactly to the size of the images you'll need to be creating for your modules
/Source - has all of the necessary files that runs the website

Inside /Source/
/contact - contains contact.php & contactinfo.xml - refer to "Contact module help.txt" for help
/gallery - contains all of the assets and flash and xml files needed to run your gallery module - refer to "Gallery module help.html" for help
/images - contains external images for use in Flash, namely logo.png
/news - contains all of the assets, Flash files, xml file necessary for your news module - refer to "News module help.txt" for help
/scripts - contains swfobject.js - this is required to show the SWF file embedded in the HTML page
/slideshow - contians all of the assets, Flash files, xml file necessary for your slideshow module - refer to "Slideshow module help.txt" for help
/swf - this is where you should put your own swfs for using the "swf" module
/text - this stores all of your XML files for your text modules (about.xml and services.xml for example)

Customizing

/Source/main.fla
main.fla - This is the master file. Everything is located in Frame 2. Frame 1 is just the preloader.

Things you should know:

• The navigation bar graphic and background image are stored directly on the stage. You must open Flash to edit these items. You will see them both immediately on the stage. If you desire to change them, just double-click one, delete the bitmap inside NOT the movie clip itself and replace it with another bitmap
• File uses ActionScript 2.0
• Saved in version 8
• To change fonts/colors, you'll need to edit the necessary text fields inside the movie clips in the Modules folder in the library.
• The contact form requires PHP and a mail-enabled server in order to serve mail. If you're unsure, run a phpinfo(); command in a separate file on your server and you'll find out. If you don't have the requirements, you may wish to delete the form and keep the existing contact information text field.
• The "hidden" layer on the stage contains a few text fields that store bold and italics font sets. Delete them and you will no longer be able to use <B> or <I> so leave them there. :)
• If you're new to Flash and can't edit an item on the stage, check to see if the layer is locked or is in outline mode.

Site Building

/Source/config.xml
These are your basic site configurations.

Code:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<config
navPadding="25" - Spacing between links
myLogo = "images/logo.png" - Your logo file
navActiveColor = "0x000000" - Link color
navRollOverColor = "0x314a76" - Link roll over color
footerInfo = "Copyright 2008 My Company, All Rights Reserved. 1 (800) 123-4567 124 Street Address Dallas, TX 75206 www.mycompany.com This is an editable footer using XML." - Footer text
/>

/Source/navigation.xml
This contains your navigation.

Code:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu> - Menu wrapper - need this for sure
<link type="slideshow"> - type="slideshow" - declares what link type it is, this is really important and will be covered in more detail below
<name><![CDATA[<b>Home</b>]]></name> - Link name
<asset>slideshow/home.swf</asset> - Location of asset
</link> - Close off link
<link type="text"> - Start new...
<name><![CDATA[<b>About</b>]]></name>
<asset>text/about.xml</asset>
</link>
<link type="text">
<name><![CDATA[<b>Services</b>]]></name>
<asset>text/services.xml</asset>
</link>
<link type="news">
<name><![CDATA[<b>News</b>]]></name>
<asset>news/main.swf</asset>
</link>
<link type="gallery">
<name><![CDATA[<b>Gallery</b>]]></name>
<asset>gallery/main.swf</asset>
</link>
<link type="swf">
<name><![CDATA[<b>Your Own SWF</b>]]></name>
<asset>swf/myswf.swf</asset>
</link>
<link type="contact">
<name><![CDATA[<b>Contact</b>]]></name>
<asset></asset>
</link>
</menu>

Link types
You'll notice that they have different link types. Well, this tells Flash which modules to use. They are CaSe sensitive - and should always be lowercase.

Available Link types:

• text
• slideshow
• gallery
• swf
• contact
• news

About the links types - "what are they?"
You should see for yourself how they display on the front and it will tell you what each one does.

• text - Displays a text block and a side image, information should be stored in an xml file in the /text folder such as about.xml
• slideshow - Shown on the home page
• gallery - Shown on the gallery page
  • What if I want more than one gallery?
    • Answer: Duplicate main.fla & main.xml inside of /gallery/ and save them as something else. Link to the respective new gallery in your new link.
    • Additionally, in your new gallery FLA, change the variable called var galleryXMLFile:String = galleryDIR+"main.xml"; (Frame 2, line 9) and refer to the new XML file
    • Same goes for news and slideshow
• swf - Tells flash that you intend on displaying your own SWF, stored in /swf/
• contact - Shows a contact form and displays contact information
• news - shows the news module

<assets>
It's very important to note in the example navigation.xml that certain link types have certain directories for the modules. Follow the same structure to avoid possible issues.

"What types of assets are accepted?"

• text types - use only XML files located in /xml/
• slideshow - use only the home.swf located in /slideshow/, unless you duplicate the module as descibed above
• gallery - use only main.swf located in /gallery/, unless you duplicate the module as descibed above
• swf - SWF, JPG, PNG, GIF in /swf/ are supported
• contact - empty - it is standalone
• news - use only main.swf located in /news, unless you duplicate the module as descibed above

/Source/style.css
Contains styles for A (links) and A:Hover (rollovers) for all dynamic text fields. Add your own classes as you wish.

Code:
a {
color:#66CCFF;
text-decoration:underline;
}
a:hover {
color:#66CCFF;
text-decoration:none;
}

How do I deploy this to a web server?

Upload everything inside the /Source/ folder (not the Source folder itself, just its contents) - minus the FLAs.
It shouldn't matter if this is placed in a subdirectory, everything is using document-relative paths.

Ah...You've read everything. Great job. If you feel that the help files aren't sufficient, email me at bensonan55@gmail.com