Here’s a graphic box that you can use for a short presentation of your website, or why not on your start page.

The Piecemaker

Documentation on how to embed and customize The Piecemaker

FEATURES

- Fully dynamic due to XML backend
- Short loading times due to external image loading
- Loads JPG, GIF and PNG images
- Supports all tween types from Caurina‘s Tweener class such as Bounce, Elastic, Cubic
- All tween parameters easily set from the XML file
- No adjustments in the FLA file necessary

HOW TO EMBED THE GALLERY?

1. Copy the packages „com“ and „caurina“ from the folder to your classes directory. It works without that, but only if you always move these packages along with the FLA file. If you‘re not familiar with working with classes, check the tutorial at Adobe Livedocs

2. Open the file „piecemaker.fla“ and try to publish it to check, if the classes are referenced correctly.

3. The actual gallery is nothing more than the empty MovieClip on the „gallery“ layer. It has the base class „com.modularweb.imageGalleries.Piecemaker“, which holds all the code. To copy the gallery into your own project, you just need to copy this MovieClip as well as all the elements from the library to your project.

4. Three basic properties of the gallery are assigned on the „actions“ layer. The code from this layer has to be copied to your project, too. These properties are xmlSource, cssSource and imageSource, which hold the paths to the XML file, the CSS file and the folder containing the images to be loaded. Please note that if you embed the gallery to your project, these paths need to be relative to the location of your project.

SETTINGS IN THE XML FILE

The XML file has a node named <Settings>, which surprisingly holds the settings to be made. This node includes the following properties:

1. imageWidth – the width of the images to be loaded

2. imageHeight – the height of the images to be loaded

3. segments – number of segments, in which the images will be sliced

4. tweenTime – number of seconds for each element to be turned

5. tweenDelay – number of seconds from one element starting to turn to the next
element starting

6. tweenType – type of transition from Caurina‘s Tweener class. Find all possible transition types and more information about Tweener in the official documentation.

7. zDistance – to which extend are the cubes moved on z axis when being tweened. Negative values bring the cube closer to the camera, positive values take it further away. A good range is roughly between -200 and 700.

8. expand – to which extend are the cubes moved away from each other when tweening

9. innerColor – color of the sides of the elements in hex values (e.g. 0×000000 for black)

10. textBackground – color of the description text background in hex values (e.g. 0xFF0000 for red)

11. shadowDarkness – to which extend are the sides shadowed, when the elements are tweening and the sided move towards the background. 100 is black, 0 is no darkening.

12. textDistance – distance of the info text to the borders of its background

13. autoplay – number of seconds to the next image, when autoplay is on. Set 0, if you don‘t want autoplay.

ADDING IMAGES FROM THE XML FILE

Images can also be added, changes or deleted within the XML file. Supported file types are JPG, GIF and PNG. The images are loaded from the folder, which is specified in the FLA. Without changing this means images are loaded from a folder named „images“, which is in the same directory is the gallery.
To add an image, you‘ll need to create a new Image node in the XML file or simply duplicate one of the existing Image nodes. Such a node looks something like that:
<Image Filename=”image1.jpg”>
<Text>
<headline>Description Text</headline>
<break>Ӂ</break>
<paragraph>Here is some text</paragraph>
<break>Ӂ</break>
<inline>Here is some more text and aӁ</inline>
<a href=”url” target=”_blank”>hyperlink</a>
</Text>
</Image>

The appearance in terms of font-family, font-style, color, etc. of the tags used within the <Text> node can be defined within the CSS file, which is also specified in the FLA. Without changes this would be the file
piecemakerCSS.css within the same directory of the gallery.
As whitespaces in the beginning and end of tags are being ignored, you‘ll need to replace those with the Ӂ, which is in turn replaced by a space within the gallery.

WORK WITH US

If you are a Graphic Designer, Flash Developer, Art Director, work in a Design or Ad Agency or do whatever requires building great Flash websites, you might be interested in working with us.
Vikan Design is a framework for building premium Flash WordPress Themes based on many modular elements, such as The Piecemaker. We‘d be happy if you‘d use this framework, too. You could also just design something and have it build by us using our framework.
Either way we‘re looking forward to hearing from you!

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