Chapter 2. Building the Interface

What You Will Learn

In this lesson, you will:

• Become familiar with the Director development environment

• Import media into multiple casts

• Learn about linked media

• Put together the interface for the presentation project

• Learn more about sprite animation, tweening, and keyframes

• Learn to use markers for navigation

• Use ink effects

• Learn the differences between text and fields

• Use transitions

Approximate Time

This lesson should take you about two hours to complete.

Lesson Files

Media Files:

bg_lines.png

interface_alpha.png

slider_left.png

slider_right.png

Starting Files:

None

Completed Files:

None

This is the second lesson in the Portfolio Presentation project. In this lesson you'll dig deeper into Director by building the interface for the presentation.

The completed portfolio project,

The design of an interface for a project is important, and you should pay particular attention to it. It doesn't matter if your code produces the fastest searches ever seen if the interface makes it hard for the user. There have been books written, classes taught, and entire careers centered on interface design. In this area, one particular person stands out: Jakob Nielsen. His website, www.useit.com, features a wealth of articles and guidelines pertaining to interface design, and he has about a dozen books on the subject as well. You need to take some of what he says with a grain of salt, but much of the information presented there is worth taking a look at.