“Trace” statements are likely the most known debugging tool used for actionScript code. You can place a trace statement anywhere you want and have it output just about anything you want also.

trace(”I’m a trace action!”);

myTrace = “I’m the content of a variable”;
trace(myTrace);

You can similarly use a text object you’ve placed directly on the stage to monitor during run time. You’ll only need to set something similar to: debug.text = myStringVariable;

Flash has an integrated debugger that is very powerful. To activate the
debugger, you need to go into Control > Debug Movie. You will see
the usual Test Movie setup but with an additional window aptly titled
‘Debugger’.

If you’re anything like me, you might use adobe’s liveDocs on line. I suppose it’s a debugging tool also. I plug in search criteria based on the error I’ve been delivered or the process I’m trying to complete. I also use forums and threads to help solve problems. I haven’t yet posted anything yet however.

http://www.actionscript.org/resources/articles/63/1/Common-Errors-and-Debugging/Page1.html

2. What is accessibility and why is it important? What should a web designer keep in mind when designing a web site to maintain accessibility? How does accessibility effect a web site’s animation?

Accessibility is an approach to web design that aims to ensure the widest access to the content and features of a website. The term is often used to refer to accessibility for people with disabilities, particularly blindness. … www.monash.edu.au/staff/web/glossary.html

Tim Berners-Lee, W3C director and inventor of the World Wide Web, defines it as access by everyone, regardless of disability.  Even though the World Wide Web is continuously growing, many users:
• use speech browsers or “eyes busy”/”hands busy”, as businessmen in cars;
• don’t have the latest graphical browsers and plug-ins;
• surf with slow modems, or reside in rural or remote areas with limited access to the Internet;
• browse without graphics, using text-only browsers or subscribe to non-graphic services;
• access in noisy, high- or low-light environments;
There are also many users with disabilities as;
• Visual – blind, low vision, color blind;
• Auditory – deaf, hard of hearing;
• Motor/physical – paraplegic;
• Cognitive/learning – dyslexic, learning disabled.
• They may not be able to see, hear, move, or may not be able to process some types of information easily or at all.
• They may have difficulty reading or comprehending text.
• They may not have or be able to use a keyboard or mouse.
• They may have a text-only screen, a small screen, or a slow Internet connection.
• They may not speak or understand fluently the language in which the document is written.
• They may be in a situation where their eyes, ears, or hands are busy or interfered with (e.g., driving to work, working in a loud environment, etc.).
• They may have an early version of a browser, a different browser entirely, a voice browser, or a different operating system.
Accessibility increases benefits for both parties: the User and the Web site Provider. It may also persuade developers to take in some alternate considerations. They may be more likely to use stronger contrasting colors or, web safe colors, abstain from flashing screens or quick moving objects and use simpler navigation.

http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/
http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/publicwebsite/public_animatedimages.hcsp
http://www.webnauts.net/accessibility.html

In my opinion a lot of the web site trends are revolutionary and based on the latest technology.  With a new software product and capability, something old becomes new again.  The concept of most web sites is “attraction”.  The owner of the site wants you to view their site.  Transitions may or may not keep our ADD intellects amused long enough to hang out longer than 10 seconds.  I think I read the average web page can expect a visitor to make up his mind about leaving the site at about 4 seconds.

What do I think about the growing trend of using transitions?  Well, depending on their use, I think there is great potential for transitions. I like to think that transitions can be used for wonderfully interesting visual explanations for complicated or convoluted processes; for example this one showing how our bodies use energy and the resultant free radicals are bounced down the electron transfer chain to O2 in the process of oxidative phosphorylation:  http://www.brookscole.com/chemistry_d/templates/student_resources/shared_resources/animations/oxidative/oxidativephosphorylation.html

Transition trends are pretty cool; some are so cool they’ll stick around for over a week.  If you only want to show off your new skills and your transition does not enhance or contribute to the value or message of your site (determined by the visitor) then you’re likely to come to your senses or latch on to the next super coolness.

http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/does-my-web-site-suck/does-my-web-site-suck-checklist-part-one.html

http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/topic60.htm

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms532847.aspx

http://www.webdevelopersjournal.com/wacky/transitions/transitions.html

http://www.xeogen.com/

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/animation_guide_13.html
http://tutorials.learnflash.com/tutorials/flash/bettertransitionss.html
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/creating_animation_as3_02.html

The page located here:  http://www.jumpeyecomponents.com/Flash-Components/Transition-Effects/MovieClip-Transition-Effects-V3-45/
has a graphic that transitions from one image to the next.

AS 2.0 thread on transitions:  http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/190/862393

http://www.robertpenner.com/presentations/rpenner_Animation_Workflows_in_Flash_CS3_FITC_2007.pdf

sliding door transition:  http://www.swishzone.com/index.php?area=resources&tab=movies&do=page&action=detailed&link_id=598

It is important to know that all the technologies that have successfully managed video and audio over the internet use packet streaming. All video-streaming systems perform buffering. And, the four companies dictating what can be done with video are, Microsoft, Apple, Macromedia (purchased by Adobe) and RealNetworks.

One web site that contains audio/video:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/  “Breaking News, Weather, Business, Health, Entertainment, Sports, Politics, Travel, Science, Technology, Local, US & World News – msnbc.com”

This is a 24-hour news channel featuring stories and video from NBC News, and The New York Times, Newsweek and the Washington Post. When watching video http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/26523861#26523861  you are able to select your next video even as you are watching another video. The videos will also continuously play through the video catalogue.

The benefit of audio/video and its use for information for the clients and the users?  The original concept of this website and company was to have video on the web related to the stories on cable t.v. This continues to be the concept and with new technologies (silverlight) the clarity and capabilities are increasing. This company succeeds due to the audio/video content and the clients and users expect quality a/v content.

Reference:>

http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Computer_Science/2005/digital_audio_formats.asp

http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=388273&seqNum=2
http://www.real.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macromedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Msnbc

The basic essentials are these:  For text and numeric data you will use text and combo boxes.  If you provide the information for the user to select, you may choose from radio buttons, lists, or combo boxes.  Of course, you may want the user to select multiple options.  The use of check boxes or list boxes will work nicely for multiple options.  The use of buttons is a no-brainer.  Whether it is text or looks like a button, you will use buttons to interact with the user to open files, play sound, movies, or submitting or clearing form data.

Have you thought about security and/or validation?  You might consider using digital signature to verify the user’s identity and form validation is the process of checking a form’s values against a standard of expected values. It is a way to proofread or spell check what your user has entered as input. An example would be an expected 9 number combination and the user entered an email address. This would return as invalid content. Typically checked are empty fields, valid and well formed email addresses, dates, and the aforementioned a number entered in a text expected field (or vice-verse). If the tested field contains the expected input then the result is returned true and the form data is expected to be good data. It is important to use validation for online forms to add an extra bit of reliability and save time by ensuring a certain level of quality.

References:

http://validator.w3.org/about.html
http://www.w3schools.com/js/js_form_validation.asp
2007 CivicPlus website management conference, “Next Generation Government Websites”

Menus and navigation serve beneficial to the user by allowing the user to initially land on any page and be able to continue without breaking stride.  Too often I have landed on a page and wondered how I could manipulate the URL in the address bar to get to another page within the same domain.  In this scenario a clear menu structure would serve very beneficial.  http://amazon.com is a fine example as well as my reference, webstyleguide.com.

Reference:

http://webstyleguide.com/interface/user-centered.html

Hale, Constance, and Jessie Scanlon. 1999. Wired style: Principles of English usage in the digital age. New York: Broadway Books.

Krug, Steve. 2001. Don’t make me think! A common sense approach to Web usability. Indianapolis, Ind.: Que.

Microsoft Corporation. 1995. The Microsoft manual of style for technical publications. Redmond, Wash.: Microsoft Press.

Mullen, R. 1998. The HTML 4 programmer’s reference: All platforms. Research Triangle Park, N.C.: Ventana Press.

New York Times. 1999. The New York Times manual of style and usage. New York: Times Books.

Nielsen, Jakob. 1995. The alertbox: Current issues in Web usability. http://www.useit.com/alertbox.

———. 1999. Designing Web usability: The practice of simplicity. Indianapolis, Ind.: New Riders.

Strunk, Jr., William, and E. B. White. 2000. The elements of style, 4th ed. New York: Macmillan.

Zinsser, William. 1998. On writing well: An informal guide to writing nonfiction. 6th ed. New York: HarperReference.

What is my call to action? What the heck am I supposed to do? A website that immediately urges the user to the action you desire them to take is going to stand out from the rest. Quality animation can help you with user-friendly interactivity that keeps them coming back.

Humans naturally recognize differences and amplify attention to those changes in their environment. Animation is an asset when used to bring a logo to life, even briefly, and when adding a bit of sparkle to improve the clarity of an active button.

Here is a link ( http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html )

Hans Rosling in California on statistics and using animation to make an impact of his presentation and speech. Go to minute 4:00 to see the animation being used.

I mentioned in my last post that the user should be able to get through the website and know what’s going on.  A lot of animation can be a distraction and could cause the user to leave your site without completing the task you attracted the user there in the first place.  The site should be as simple as possible to navigate.  I read somewhere before that each page should look as if it were and serve as a possible landing page.  I know I’ve often landed on something other than the “home” page and wondered how to get “home” for the substance and contact information.  I really don’t like the feeling that the “contact” information is hidden from me.  Maybe, a search engine feature is not such a bad idea, even for our 5 page project.

Without a clear purpose, how can a project be streamlined for success?  

Organizational framework may call for a storyboard to help resolve a lot of confusion.  A storyboard may just be what’s prescribed for a large project with different contributing divisions.  Storyboards offer a visual identity for the script writers, developers, graphic artists, technical editors, and of course the client.  With a visual reference for everyone to point to, omissions are more likely to be recognized and pointed out.  With the use of a document control system, all users will be able to modify and add to the storyboard when required.  Or, the users will be able to reference the storyboard to answer development questions.  Without a visual reference, everyone could assume to be in agreement and find out later each had something different in mind.  Again, saving time and money and maybe saving a few tears also. 

You might think you know your business well enough, but establishing a hard copy goes a long way to helping communicate to yourself and others about your company; services, purpose, goals and target market. Researching these topics/items will aid in the development process of your website and keep everyone on track. This will save time, money and help ensure your site ends up serving your needs.

As a developer, the website should stay within the bounds of your ability to create useful content while showing the website will work and care for the users’ demands. It’s great to have endless or boundless ideas, but even as a beginner, or because I am a beginner, I recognize that there are limits.