Arguments and Methods in Scripting

Arguments and Methods are two more important concepts in the scripting world. Without these two pieces of code the objects are there, but nothing can happen because nothing is telling it what to do.

Lets refer back to our code that we wrote for the objects.

jump_btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, personjump)
function personjump(event:MouseEvent){
              person_mc.gotoAndPlay("jump");
}

The parts that are highlighted are methods. Methods essentially hold functions that affect the object in some way. For instance, in the first method it is holding MouseEvent.CLICK, which means that nothing will happen to this object until the mouse clicks on the the object which in this case is the jump button. Also, the easiest way to figure what is a method, is by looking directly after it. Methods are always followed by parentheses. They may have stuff in them and they may not, but they always have parentheses.

Now lets look at that code again.

jump_btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, personjump)

function personjump(event:MouseEvent){

              person_mc.gotoAndPlay("jump");

}

The next part that is highlighted is an argument. Arguments reside within the methods and give information to the methods on what needs to happen when the button is clicked. For example, the personjump argument is listed below in the second line as an argument then. It is now holding important information. The information is what actually happens meaning the person is going to jump. The timeline is going to move across to wherever it is marked "jump." Essentially this particular method links the two parts of top and bottom. The button will not cause the person to jump unless personjump is telling the person to jump on the timeline.

Functioning App

Finally after we made the documents in Photoshop, we created interactive pdfs and then finally animations briefly showing how our apps would actually function. This video just goes through some of the things you can click and modify in order to give you a taste of the possibilities this app has to offer.

PSD Documents

For about a month since I posted my ideas I have been battling through many different looks of how my app should look like. However, like most good designs, you can't expect them to be perfect on the first go through and mine wasn't. I would say I went through about five major changes until I found the best layout of how my major pages should look in terms of content and layout. Below are the finalized versions of my three main pages and one sub-page.

Research on apps and Inspiration

The next phase in the project was to research apps we felt were designed well and list the colors and all the other bits and pieces that would make our project whole. We chose our various colors and since mine is Commerce Bank related I felt it necessary to make one of the main colors to be their green. Next I selected three possible typefaces that not only look good on the Ipad 2, but would also give the feeling that this is a banking app that we are looking at. We then listed the different metaphors and textures we would be using in our app. Metaphors meaning if you are recorded something, show a journal or to keep track of money have a safe. Lastly, and the most interesting part of the assignment was the inspirational part of the piece.

First, I chose the Knight, death, and the devil because the overall meaning of the painting is though despair is all around him and that death is inevitable he keeps pushing forward with his faithful companion to the castle in the back. In a sense don't give up even when things look grim. I feel the same goes for our flag and the Spartan armor also. Our flag symbolizing our independence from Great Britain and the Spartan armor representing a warrior who would rather die admirably than retreating from battle. Lastly, the one hundred dollar bill showing not only a wise and influential man, but also being high currency in our nation and how important it is to keep track of it.

Wireframes

The biggest part of the project and perhaps the most important so far is the wireframe sketches we had to do. These sketches on pencil and paper give us rough looks at how things should look on the interface when we actually go to design it in Illustrator. The importance of theses is so that we don't just jump right in and start placing things randomly only to find out that they don't work. The time and effort put into these save greater time and effort in the future when preventing further mistakes and flaws from poor planning. Each page is mapped out from the log-in page to the ask page. and they are in order below.

Site Diagram

The site diagram gives a greater break down of the features and where they would be. In other words, I took the features and moved them to which page you would see them on. It is really quite simple, but important because this is to help judge how much room and what you need to make room for on each page.

App Def. and List of Features

Next in this process was to create a thorough definition of your application and a list of features that would be included in said app. The definition itself should be very clear and to the point without missing any details that may be needed when we make our list of features. With the mention of the definition I should probably say what my application theoretically would be. My application is a banking app for Commerce Bank targeted towards college students that will not only make banking easy, but more enjoyable to do. With this, the user is able to not only view there current accounts with Commerce, but make personal logs too while receiving feedback from the app itself. Another feature I love about it is you can ask it whether or not you should buy something by giving it information about including how much it costs.

Then the list of features tells what this app in a nutshell can do. All the bits and pieces that make up your app from the buttons to what pages are included. With both the definition and features the second part of this project is complete.

Basic Research

On this attachment I have some basic research specs that designers like me have to take into consideration when making apps. For this particular project the first thing we had to do is get a feel for either the Ipad 2 or the Samsung Galaxy tablet. I chose the Ipad 2 because I am a little more familiar and comfortable with it.      There was more that I could have put in the ways of research, but the thing about this project is we won't actually be making a full-fledged app.

Exit Through the Gift Shop

Today in class we viewed a documentary titled Exit Through the Gift Shop. The film from what I gathered was about how one man's fascination for the camera turned into a huge sensation, especially for what he filmed. He started out filming just whatever he saw at all times because people who knew him always saw him attached to the camera. However, unlike just about every other film, there was no true purpose at first and he was just doing it because he loved it. That all changed with his cousin.

His cousin did a type of street art that was illegal like any type of graffiti, but what distinguished them from just plain vandalism was that it had a message or some sort of point. They weren't doing it because they hated something and wanted to destroy, but rather make it more interesting for the rest of us. His cousin accomplished that by placing space invaders wherever he went like on curbs, buildings, bridges, signs, and much more. The man's fascination with this was matched only by that of the camera and started following them everywhere. So now this man's film had a story or a central focal point that would guide the rest of the film.

Eventually the man met his idol, Banksy, who has eluded him and his identity was still kept in check because some lighting techniques were used to make him a silhouette and a voice changer was used whenever he spoke. He told Thierry, the man filming, that he could film him, but only his back and hands, never his face. Eventually it got to the point when Banksy's work was being bought up for enormous amounts of money and everyone had to have a Banksy. People were now thinking he was just doing it for the money which wasn't true. That is when Thierry was told he had to finally sit down and edit the footage into a film so people know the real story. Well this is where he went wrong. When editing, you can't lose the sight of the message behind the story and Thierry's initial attempt did exactly that. Banksy then took over for that and told Thierry he should try street art to better understand it. The basic philosophy of the movie is to never lose sight of what is important and to strive to give the accurate rendition of other's work. It is a fantastic film and I encourage all to go see this movie especially if you love art.

Objects in Scripting

In scripting, objects are probably one of the most important components if not the most important component because without them we wouldn't need any other code, merely because we would have nothing to animate. To be blunt, objects are anything that has the metaphor of existence in the world. Objects range anywhere from flowers, dogs, planes, people, buildings and any other pictures all over the internet and things you can place on the stage. Buttons created in flash are objects as well because we created them and they now exist. Probably the trickiest object to wrap your head around would be sounds because unlike the others, you can't see sound. However, they still have the metaphor of existence or our world would be a very quiet one.

I mentioned before that the objects are anything on the stage. Well, in Action Script anything you place on the page to work with is an object and that page to work on is known as the stage. Think of it as our world and how it holds all the objects from water to people. Without it first existing in the world or in this case, the stage, you can't animate or control it.

Existing on the stage is how we can get objects to move and do what we want but there is a little more to that than just dropping it on there. In order to animate you need to make it either a button or a movie clip and give it an instance name. However, this explanation is just so you understand what a symbol is. To give you a look at some of the code and what to expect I have written a very basic code for a button.

jump_btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, personjump)
function personjump(event:MouseEvent){
              person_mc.gotoAndPlay("jump");
}

Thats a lot to take in I know and it takes a little bit to understand, but for now just focus on the highlighted sections. Those are the objects in this code and essentially your telling one to make the other jump. In this case it is jump_btn that is causing person_mc to jump. Those are the objects that we have created and are giving actions through some coding. Think you have a good grasp on objects? If you don't right away thats no big deal because it will come to you soon I guarantee it.