Expert: Andre Hickman - 1/31/2008

Question
Mr. Hickman,
I am currently building a website to display a collection of work. Instead of having an everyday HTML website, I would like to go above and beyond, using animation to really make a professional website. What I would like to do is have multiple folders layered on each other. At the selection of the folder, it would open and display the work inside. What would be my best way of to create these folders? I own Flash, Photoshop, and Illustrator.

Thanks

Answer
At this point, I would say that Flash would definitely be your best bet for the animation, but you could also use Illustrator and Photoshop to design the graphic elements...

If you really want to develop a professional style site, though, I don't know if I would rely solely on flash content.  I would look into building a site using something like Joomla (www.joomla.org) It is free open source content, and is built on a modular style and there are tons of free plugins that you can customize and incorporate into your site for free.

Check out my site at www . andrehickman . com  Look at the galleries and how they are set up and operate.  Even though it is built on flash architecture, You don't have to code by hand, and adding or removing content is almost as easy as moving content in windows, because it's done through a back-door interface...upload, set a thumbnail....voila!

Then check out all of the "joomla components" that are available out there (do a web search or look through joomla's site) maybe you will find a module that does exactly what you are trying to do...No point reinventing the wheel.

Cheers,
Andre'