Site Intro

[MitaDC]

What needs to be used for a site introduction? Does it have to be flash? I am going to be building a website for my english teacher and before you get to the site I would like it to have like favorite quotes pop up on the screen (maybe white text on a black background) then fade out ...fade in...fade out etc.

[gsnedders]

If your going to have anything like that, at least have a "Skip Intro" link.

[MitaDC]

I plan on it but I am wondering if I have to use flash to do that

[AaronW]

You don't have to use Flash, but it'd be both easier and faster to do so.

Fading wouldn't work in all browsers anyway. Flash is browser independant.

[oracleguy]

But make sure that "Skip Intro" link isn't in the flash movie and is the in HTML otherwise people that don't have flash will not be able to use your site. I am personally opposed to any sort of intro pages usually, they serve no useful puprose except make it irritating when visiting your site.

[Hurstool]

I am personally opposed to any sort of intro pages usually, they serve no useful puprose except make it irritating when visiting your site.

I agree. Can you leave off the flash intro, and just incorporate the quotes into the home page? Much more user friendly.

[tsguitar2004]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=applet+for+random+quotes
You can use an applet to display the quotations. It's not terribly hard to alter the code. I did something like this about 4 years ago, but I can't find the test page anymore! Still, that might be easier even than Flash, though Flash would work well too.
-ts

P.S. And *definitely* leave off the intro screen idea. That's too annoying now. There was a time and place when it was cool; that was looooooooong ago.

[bradyj]

http://whatdoiknow.org/archives/001629.shtml

Is a cool little flash 'slide show' he designed for the PGA website, you may find that useful, as you could have a set of quote images that fade in and out with flash... but it would look a lot cooler to put it at the top of a website so to speak.

The reason why splash pages are bad, aside from being annoying at times, is that most people want to find content when they go to a site. If you have a splash page, that means they have to wait or click through to get to the actual content -- you'll lose a lot of average users that way, not only because it slows them down and they get annoyed, but because slow connection computers now have to wait who knows how long just for an intro, then click and wait for another page to load. It's not good marketing, you'll lose visitors:)

[tsguitar2004]

Then again, an English teacher's Web site isn't really interested in marketing...

But still, *I* wouldn't want a splash page on my site.
-ts

[sem4u]

Could you not use an animated gif? Would that work for you?