Digital Workshop

Hi all,

I have made a very nice website using Opus, developing in FLEX mode.

It's really cool, nice transitions etc. etc.

BUT the published SWF file does not show the real thing in the same way that I preview it.
Its so slow, that the transitions do not appear at all. (Some show a couple of frames before reaching the last frame of the transition animation). It all looks very bad.

Also, it gets stuck, you wait for ages to get your mouse back in action after a button press etc.
I have tried many different settings during publishing.

When I made it I felt very powerful, having this excellent piece of software that allows me to build such cool publications. But I was dissapointed to see the SWF output....

Any ideas ?
Thanks in advance

Dennis

This probably isn't what you want to hear, but preview and publish are two different animals. I think what I would do in the future is create a page or so of things you like and then publish it. Then upload it somewhere to test. You have to test your stuff in the "real world" to make sure, and you need to test it often. Otherwise you won't know what the load demands are of your creation, you won't be able to see where things are having issues early, etc.

I don't know about anyone else, but I don't "trust" Preview. I always publish and then look at the published publication. That's what I'm going to be using and what my users are going to be using, so I want to see how IT behaves.


Check early, check often. It's kind of like creating a Word document. You wouldn't type for 4 hours, creating your document without saving it, because what would happen if the power went off? Your whole work would be gone. Same thing here. Don't do a lot of extra work before checking to see how it plays first. It will save you a ton of time, hassle and frustration down the line.

Dennis,

Opus makes a lot of things possible in the development stage. As you have witnessed.

Testing and proving in the deployment stage definitely takes some work, and some diligent attention as bwpatric mentioned.

Opus version 7 recognizes these dynamics and now offers a new feature of 'Quick Publish' -- so that once you have Published in the desired configuration, and with the options needed, you can quickly update and test again. This is very instrumental in proving out how any Flex and Web publication perform.

BTW -- you do not offer us ANY information about your system information or deployment/target environment. So please update your forum Profile with that information, and add any extra information about your target clients, etc.

You complain about the sluggish difference in performance -- that is a good observation on your part. That level of attention will ultimately help deliver a great product to clients. Opus Pro has two sets of Help Files. One is the basic or standard help file, and one is for Opus scripting. May I suggest you review the basic Help File for some info: use the Search in the help file to get to: 'optimising' or 'Flex' (note those darnn britizh guys say optimising rather than optimizing!)

Basically... that Help file will tell you about how Opus works in that Flex environment and the Web/Browser plugin environment -- most of the performance consideration center on how you structure things in the Opus Organizer (the object tree during development). See if you can find any avenues to improve things there.

Please feel free to post back with additional information or requests. Lots of experience to draw on here once we know your situation.

Wednesday's useless fact....

Sorry Lar, but Optimize as an Americanism is a misnomer. -ize and ise are both acceptable forms in British English with -ize favoured by the Oxford English Dictionary for words originating from Latin and -ise used for words originating from Greek.

As optimize originates from the Latin 'optimus', it should technically, and is according to the OED, spelt 'optimize' making the Opus help file incorrect. However, because of the general and incorrect assumption of the British, the use of -ize is considered an Americanism and both Greek and Latin words are spelt with the -ise affix.

Mack

Hi Lar, Mackavi and BWPAtrick!

I do appreciate the fact that you devoted time and energy to my post, and It's fun to see this discussion range between tech talk and linguistic information!
I am in fact Greek, so I cannot resist offering my comments about the -ize and -ise...!

But first about Opus:

Thanks for the comments and suggestions.
I will follow your advice and check the help files etc. to understand how I can optimize my publications.
Further, I did some work after I posted, and confirmed Patricks comments, especially the "Check check check" part. I had the funny idea from the beginning to save my publication under different filenames after each major change, so I could go back in versions. THAT was a lifesaver.
Now, I tried some things and the situation is a bit better.

Here's what I found, you may be interested:

- PUBLISH OFTEN.

OK, you should publish very often and test on the browser very often, this is clear now.

- MULTIFRAMES AND NESTED FRAMES

I used a Multiframe with 7 frames and 2-3 sub-frames and pictures in each of the 7 frames. This "frame - nesting" proved quite heavy for a flash publication. I removed the Multiframe and only used 7 different frames with show and hide instead of changing the Multiframe frames and that improved speed.

- MULTIPLE PAGES

Originally I created a publication with only a single page with the frames changing as above.
Now I have a publication with 7 pages and each frame on a page. That also improved speed further in the Flash output file.

- TRANSITION EFFECT DIFFERENCES

The transition effects are very nice, some of them are very cool. But depending on the effect I had different speeds. Some show nice and easy, and some do not show at all in the browser.
I tried some effects and changed to use the ones that are faster.

Now the publication works with an "acceptable" response.

I will keep working and use your advice, to make it even better, but the important thing is that I can start the next project with all this in mind.

I would like you to see the publication. Although it is in Greek, It does not matter much, you will enjoy it I hope.
Here's the link:
http://www.giannousi-dance.gr/newsite/giannousi_dance_school.html

All comments are welcome.

Now for the -ise and -ize part:

I am Greek but I studied in the UK, and I did pay attention to slight differences between "British English" and "American English". I was even studying British and American expressions used to say the same thing.
Indeed, my impression until today was that "-ise" is British and "-ize" is American.
The fact that -ize can also be acceptable as British gives a new perspective to the subject.
However statistically, you will find British books full of -ise and American full of -ize and that's what makes most people think that each one has it's owner.

I studied Electronic Engineering at the University of Surrey, and I stayed in Guildford. The books on Electronics that the University recommended were mostly American, and the word "Antenna" was a frequent word to use.

One day in 1993 I was at home in Guildford trying to explain something about the -Antenna- to the landlady because of poor TV reception.
She said: "But, what is this Antenna? What does it do? "
I thought for a second and fortunately found the answer quickly:
"Well, I mean the AERIAL" ...
That solved the problem...

So, here's my question to the British:
How can you tell an American for his car: "Open the boot"
And my question to the Americans:
How can you tell a British guy to walk on the sidewalk?

And what is Crisps ? Or chips? Or French fries? and for which country?
I still don't get these right ....

Regards,

Dionissis

Daft chasing this American/English lark. It's nearly as bad as the Apple/PC arguments.

Dionissis; you've used the possessive for "its" and added an apostrophe signifying an omitted letter,
which makes it mean "it is".............................

I looked at your site. Καλοψημένος. Είναι πολύ εντυπωσιακό.

I think your pictures depart a little too quickly before I can study them.

Οι καλύτερες ευχές και συνεχίζουν. Καλοί σεβασμοί