I’ve made plenty of websites in the past (HTML hardcoding & WYSIWYG), but for one particular project I need something that’s just based off a simple but nice template. I figure if I’m going to submit myself to using a template, I may as well see if I can’t get a nice flash template.
Can you recommend a program that will make decent flash websites from templates? Is there anything like a Frontpage for flash?
I have my own hosting already and don’t want any sort of package or editor that works through my browser.
I’m not sure if there’s anything out there to make Flash authoring easier. I’ve played around with Flash a very little bit, and in my experience it has a very steep learning curve. This is especially true for the ActionScript, particularly if you’re not already familiar with scripting language.
But, more importantly, i think that unless the particular project you want to undertake really needs Flash, you’d be better off trying some other solution. I think Flash is used far to often on websites where plain old html would work much better. Many people just seem to use it because they can, not because it actually serves any real purpose for their site. Flash websites are generally less accessible, particularly to users with older systems, older browsers, or people who are disabled. And many Flash sites take a long time to load anything, which is a pain in the arse for people on dial-up connections.
If you want a template that you can apply to to a whole bunch of pages, and if you don’t specifically need Flash for any of your website’s features, i would strongly consider setting yourself up with a good CSS website. Writing really good CSS can take some time and effort, but once you have it written it can essentially serve as a template for a whole site, and, unlike Flash, a good CSS will actually speed up people’s usage rather than slow it down.