Help: How to Flash Without Flashing?
 

No, not my boobs, even though it's Mardi Gras. (And, I certainly don't need help doing that.) ;)

I'm working on my website (the current one is just a placeholder). I'd like some fancy dynamics, but I'm not familiar with how to make Flash-type sites.

I only own Frontpage, and have no money for other programs, but would love something that imitates a Flash site, that can have a bit of motion, and then also load my sample videos into an on-screen player from the same page.

Is it even possible, or am I just hoping for a miracle that just can't happen?

Here's a site that pretty much shows the kind of thing I'd love to do: Link

Thanks for any tips, tricks, suggestions! :)

seems like some php codes would work... I don't know any of them.. though i do use dream weaver for side projects..

Hopefully someone will have a good idea of what you could do to emulate the idea you want.

If you aren't going to use Flash or any other similar proprietary system you would most likely be looking at something scripted with JavaScript. There are lots of frameworks out there that make simple animations possible, but you would need someone with some JS knowledge to put it all together for you. No program like FrontPage is going to offer that kind of stuff. If you want to PM me a more in-depth description of what you are trying to do I might be able to help.

PHP won't help with animation or anything on the client side as it is server-side scripting. You would need to use client-side scripting... JavaScript.

Yeah, I'm just gonna leave this thread alone.

As for a video playing on your page, that can be easily accomplished by encoding the video in FLV, MPG, or AVI and embedding a media player in your page. That is very simple code to place in your HTML page.

Yeah, you can do the video-encoded-FLV on an html page, and that will give the sense of movement. Java will work, to a point, but really, I think your best bet is to hire a flash artist to do something really simple for you. The "Love Machine Films" site has flash embedded in the html, and that definitely would require a flash artist. (And my flash guys suggest nixing the html and just going with full-flash; flash-in-html can bug out pretty badly - the LMF site, while lovely, was a tiny bit buggy.) Let me know if you need any contacts or suggestions if you want to go this direction; up-and-comers and/or some of my flash pals are often willing to do things for lower prices or for trade.

Ooh - I also forgot to suggest that if you DO want to go that way, you can request that it be XML-driven so that you can update and add to the copy, linked video, etc, yourself!

swishmax is a terrific flash program I have used (and I use FP too) and much easier than macromedia flash. Cost is minimal, I have it, and I will be more than happy to help you to create a flash intro if you wanna. PM me.

I was going to suggest swishmax...and the good thing is you have the option of actually learning flash while learning swish. That's how I got started ages ago...