Earthcote – More PureMVC fun

Posted on 23 April, 2008 by shaun

Another PureMVC based AS3 site up. Check out the deep-linking. I think I might have gone a step too far!

Earthcote

www.earthcote.co.za

UPDATE: SWFAddress and FireFox 3 on Mac OS X Bug – I’m aware of the nasty white-flash bug with the site, but don’t have access to the source at the moment to fix it.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 16 Comments
  • maciek

    tight.

  • maciek

    tight.

  • maciek

    what do you mean by deep linking? i thought it referred to linking to pages on other sites..

  • maciek

    what do you mean by deep linking? i thought it referred to linking to pages on other sites..

  • http://shaun.boyblack.co.za/blog/ shaun

    nah, in the context of full flash sites, deep linking refers to the ability to navigate into specific areas within the flash site via the URL. You can also link straight into an area from the outside via a link. Eg:

    http://www.earthcote.co.za/flash/#/products/concreteandplasterstainer/moss

    If you click around in the site above, you’ll notice that the URL changes as you move around, and you can use you Browser’s Back and Forward buttons just like in an HTML site. All these movements are tracked with Google Analytics providing a lot of feedback about how users are browsing the site.

    The application has to be architected in such a way that when a user jumps to another state in the site (which might be in a completely unrelated area, from a link for example) it knows how to transition away from where it is, upwards until it reaches a state in common with the requested state, and then back down again to it’s final destination state.

    It can be quite complex to achieve, but provides some very valuable features – the ability to bookmark areas of the site, send out links straight to featured sections, track user navigation, and make use of the Browser’s History.

  • http://www.boyblack.co.za shaun

    nah, in the context of full flash sites, deep linking refers to the ability to navigate into specific areas within the flash site via the URL. You can also link straight into an area from the outside via a link. Eg:

    http://www.earthcote.co.za/flash/#/products/concreteandplasterstainer/moss

    If you click around in the site above, you’ll notice that the URL changes as you move around, and you can use you Browser’s Back and Forward buttons just like in an HTML site. All these movements are tracked with Google Analytics providing a lot of feedback about how users are browsing the site.

    The application has to be architected in such a way that when a user jumps to another state in the site (which might be in a completely unrelated area, from a link for example) it knows how to transition away from where it is, upwards until it reaches a state in common with the requested state, and then back down again to it’s final destination state.

    It can be quite complex to achieve, but provides some very valuable features – the ability to bookmark areas of the site, send out links straight to featured sections, track user navigation, and make use of the Browser’s History.

  • maciek

    ah see.. sounds like a lot of extra groundwork, but the results are v.useful. nice

  • maciek

    ah see.. sounds like a lot of extra groundwork, but the results are v.useful. nice

  • Peter

    Wow, I’m impressed. I’m trying to do a very similar implementation for my company’s website, and it’s very difficult to wrap my head around it.

    Did you integrate this with a database backend?

    Any guidance would be very much appreciated.

  • Peter

    Wow, I’m impressed. I’m trying to do a very similar implementation for my company’s website, and it’s very difficult to wrap my head around it.

    Did you integrate this with a database backend?

    Any guidance would be very much appreciated.

  • http://www.kiting.ro/ Horia

    Very nice SWFAddress implementation, but I think you went a step too far with the URL change on image hover.

    Nice site

  • http://www.kiting.ro Horia

    Very nice SWFAddress implementation, but I think you went a step too far with the URL change on image hover.

    Nice site

  • http://shaun.boyblack.co.za/blog/ shaun

    @Horia: Thanks very much. Yeh, the image hover thing is a bit silly I agree. Initially, it wasn’t a hover, but rather required a click. It was changed at the last second however, and I didn’t have time to take out the SWFAddress stuff for it.

  • http://www.boyblack.co.za shaun

    @Horia: Thanks very much. Yeh, the image hover thing is a bit silly I agree. Initially, it wasn’t a hover, but rather required a click. It was changed at the last second however, and I didn’t have time to take out the SWFAddress stuff for it.

  • http://shaun.boyblack.co.za/blog/ shaun

    @Peter: Apologies, your comment must have slipped me by when you posted it a while back.

    The site is indeed integrated with a database backend. Unfortunately, it’s a fairly old (and incredibly slow) legacy CMS tool that my employers used to use – a Java web application that has really odd hosting requirements and doesn’t perform very well.

    I have since built a new CMS tool for my company that uses PHP, CodeIgniter and MySQL for the backend and ExtJS for the frontend, that runs on just about any standard hosting platform, and performs really nicely. It still needs a name though :)

  • http://www.boyblack.co.za shaun

    @Peter: Apologies, your comment must have slipped me by when you posted it a while back.

    The site is indeed integrated with a database backend. Unfortunately, it’s a fairly old (and incredibly slow) legacy CMS tool that my employers used to use – a Java web application that has really odd hosting requirements and doesn’t perform very well.

    I have since built a new CMS tool for my company that uses PHP, CodeIgniter and MySQL for the backend and ExtJS for the frontend, that runs on just about any standard hosting platform, and performs really nicely. It still needs a name though :)