ALL CAPS Was My Only Choice!
Ordinarily it’s fun to take a break from a project and help people using my PageFlip files but yesterday was an exception to the rule. You see, yesterday was the day when Ryan Libre decided to buy my Improved PageFlip Flash file. Again, ordinarily this isn’t a problem but, as you’ll soon see, Ryan is an exceptional ignoramus. As evidence of this matter I’ve included our e-mail correspondence in its entirety, not just select parts of it. Enjoy…
After purchasing the Improved PageFlip Ryan had this to say…
hey, i got the improved one and like it over all. one thing is i can change the page size easily enough, but it screws up the whole formatting. if i add pictures it wont center them and is impossible to aline anything. works just great at the original page size…
what to do?
It seems Ryan was having trouble resizing the Improved PageFlip so I sent this:
Have you tried this:
https://www.pixelwit.com/blog/page-flip/change-pageflip-size/There are more PageFlip tutorials here:
https://www.pixelwit.com/blog/page-flip/page-flip-help/Hope that helps.
Thanks.
-Sean O’Shell (PixelWit)
Shortly thereafter Ryan sent this…
whats this about adding a rectangle? not mentioned in your resizing tips. is that why the formatting gets all messed up?
NB:I have amended the bounds page to:
var pageWi = 500;
var PageHi = 600;& added a rectangle with the same x & y
or is it cause if “Modifying the Print Clips:” i must say i was a little surprised the “documentation” was just 2 pages…
It seemed Ryan was having trouble resizing the pages and was blaming it on a lack of information in the PDF that is provided with every Improved PageFlip. Oddly enough the PDF is 3 full pages of information so I was a bit surprised that Ryan thinks the documentation is only 2 pages. I sent the following:
What “resizing tips” are you referring to?
I have not seen what you are working with so I don’t know what problems you are experiencing. Please post a link to your SWF or if that’s not possible send it as an attachment.
The 3 pages of documentation are meant to augment the already fairly extensive documentation which I linked to earlier. As far as I know and understand, the PDF documentation covers all of the new features that have been added to the Improved PageFlip quite well. I’m a bit surprised too, this is the first time anyone has mentioned a lack of documentation.
-Sean O’Shell (PixelWit)
Here’s what Ryan had to say:
thanks for replying.
here is a link to a 600pi tall 400pi wide flip book. works fine in the preview, but live the photo goes off the screen, despite the photo and page size being 600pi i show plenty of photos 600pi tall.
any idea?
Oh, now I get it. Even though Ryan didn’t include a link, I deduce that Ryan is trying to view a large book within a small stage…
You didn’t send a link, but it sounds like you need to increase the size of the stage.
Let me know how you make out.
-Sean O’Shell (PixelWit)
A while later Ryan replied:
oh, i was really sleepy. http://www.idioimagers.org/test.swf here is the link. stage size? how do i change that. i cant find it anywhere in the documentation or your site. i just wanna make it a little bigger and add photos. but ive already spent many hours with no real success.
ryan
Apparently Ryan has spent hours upon hours toiling over this dilemma, pulling his hair out and blaming me for my lack of proper documentation. If only I had written a 10th tutorial… “How to Resize the Stage”. I had this to say…
Ryan,
On the page that sells the Improved PageFlip:
I specifically state, “This Flash file is for people who are comfortable using PixelWit’s Free PageFlip and who want a more dynamic PageFlip experience.” I’m guessing you never tried the free version, let alone got comfortable using it.
I also state that the Improved PageFlip, “Includes instructions explaining all new features and settings.” and indeed, the instructions DO cover all of the NEW Improved PageFlip features. The documentation also explains that there are additional resources available at https://www.pixelwit.com/blog/page-flip/page-flip-help/ where there are 9 rather in-depth tutorials explaining basic usage of the PageFlip.
Here’s an analogy for you: When you buy a car, it comes with a pretty big manual, but it doesn’t tell you everything imaginable about your car. It doesn’t explain advanced topics like “How to Replace the Engine” and it doesn’t explain all of the basics like “How to Drive” because it assumes you know how to drive. It assumes you know that the gas pedal makes the car go forward and it assumes that you know the brakes make the car stop…. It is not the car dealer’s job to teach you how to drive. In a similar fashion, it is not my job to teach you how to use Flash.
I can’t teach you everything there is to know about Flash just so you can use the PageFlip. There are countless other sites dedicated to such matters (I recommend ActionScript.org). There’s also a ton of documentation that comes with Flash, you might want to give that a try.
I’m sorry if all of this seems a bit harsh. I’m not usually this persnickety when helping people use the PageFlip, but people usually don’t complain about my 2 page documentation (actually 3 pages and 9 tutorials).
-Sean O’Shell (PixelWit)
I tried explaining that using Flash requires a bit of knowledge found beyond the realm of PixelWit.com, that it wasn’t necessarily my job to teach it all to him and then I even provide a link to Adobe where he could learn to resize the stage on his own. Apparently Ryan Libre wasn’t happy with that response…
i understand what you are saying, i really do.
and if i wanted to do something more than just change the page size i would agree with you.
i did resize the basic flip book, it seemed easy enough. never tried to “publish” it though…i followed your page resizing tutorial. it looked like it was working but when i publish it, it dosent work. then you mention resizing the stage, but that is not in the tutorial and you wont explain how to do it?
i just want a 400W x 600T flip book. im not asking you to teach me all your secrets… im sure i followed your tutorial perfectly. but i need more information it seems.
do you think i did the tutorial wrong? or do you think it was done right, but now i need to do something else.
if i did it wrong you win, i’ll stop writing you and study flash more. if i did it right, i think it is your duty to explain why it still isnt working.
Now I start wondering if Ryan is a troll, trying to get a rise out of me for the low low price of $12.50 and a few e-mails. If he is, it’s working but I take one last shot at being civil.
I have told you what needs to be done. Resize the stage.
I even provided a link at the end of the last e-mail explaining how to do so.
I am done. I have fulfilled far more than my obligatory duties.
-Sean O’Shell (PixelWit).
And of course Ryan had to push the issue yet again…
https://www.pixelwit.com/blog/page-flip/change-pageflip-size/
have i followed this page resizing tutorial right? it doesn’t work. publishes all messed up. if i need to resize the stage after doing everything in this tutorial why dont you add it to the tutorial?
do you mean this tutorial? is this what i need to do to resize the pages?ryan
So I had to do it. I had no choice…
DUDE! SERIOUSLY!
RESIZE THE STAGE!
LOOK IT UP!
USE THE INTERNET!
IT IS NOT MY DUTY TO TEACH YOU A STEP SO BASIC THAT IT’S THE VERY FIRST STEP TAUGHT IN THE MOST BASIC TUTORIAL ADOBE HAS TO OFFER!
SHOULD I EXPLAIN HOW TO USE THE SELECTION TOOL?
SHOULD I TEACH PEOPLE HOW TO READ SO THEY CAN USE MY TUTORIALS?
YOU NEED BASIC SKILLS!
I GAVE YOU A LINK TO ADOBE, I CAN NOT FORCE YOU TO READ IT!
DO NOT WRITE ME AGAIN UNLESS IT’S TO APOLOGIZE OTHERWISE YOUR IGNORANCE WILL BE PUBLISHED ON THE FRONT PAGE OF MY BLOG FOR ALL THE WORLD TO SEE!
THANK YOU AND GOOD DAY!
-Sean O’Shell (PixelWit)
Had Ryan let it go or apologized, that would have been the last I (or you) would have heard of him, but of course he had to keep at it and post this comment to my blog…
the page resizing tutorial didnt work, so i mailed. was told i had to resize the stage also, but its not covered in the tutorial so i asked how to resize the stage and got this reply
I GAVE YOU A LINK TO ADOBE, I CAN NOT FORCE YOU TO READ IT!
DO NOT WRITE ME AGAIN UNLESS IT’S TO APOLOGIZE, OTHERWISE YOUR IGNORANCE WILL BE PUBLISHED ON THE FRONT PAGE OF MY BLOG FOR ALL THE WORLD TO SEE!
good price for the file, but the support could be better.
How’s that for selective criticism. My PageFlip support is weak because I wouldn’t write a tutorial for him explaining how to resize the stage.
So you see, I had to use ALL CAPS and I had to publish this article about it…
Comments(24)
RSS Feeds
hi there fix, just would like to thank you for your free PageFlip. I did some make over and now im trying to learn from your code… by the way im just a newbie to flash…
but a direct instruction on how to change the size of the stage is less stress fix.
thanks again,
Easy Fix: Make a video showing how to use your product, including this scenario.
The reason I suggest a video is because a lot of the individuals you will sell your product to, are complete and utter newbies to flash and as1/2/3 programming; yet, they are visual learners, and quick on the uptake. Sure there are the coders that have deadlines to meet that may be interested in buying your files, so supporting them will be a snap, and of course making a video can be tedious work; however, a video that explains everything, including the problems of implementation you have found users come across, would save you time responding to e-mail. As well, not only would it negate the need for many long e-mail conversations, video would show your consumer base that you are serious about supporting your product.
Posts like this do nothing but hurt your image, and they make potential clients uneasy about handing money over to you due to fear you may plaster unflattering information about them on the web, when, as in this case, it is absolutely uncalled for. These days support is a part of the product, and if it’s is not, people won’t buy it from you. In fact, considering your product has a lot of competition, I would say support is the key reason someone would want to buy anything from you.
You could have just shown him.
I only came here because I used google to search for a sample of an implementation, so I could breakdown the math to make my own; yet, since this is for a client, I might have been interested in buying your files to get it working asap, but this post turned me off completely, and I will roll my own(it is extremely easy after all).
Your site could use a major design overhaul too; especially if you want to not only attract consumers to your page, to actually keep them on your site, and eventually bait them into buying your product.
You can sell average to mediocre product(not saying you are), but the client will return to you for service, and perhaps purchase more of the products that you offer, as long as you treat him or her with reverence and never with speak with disdain.
The experience is what you are selling, along with the product.
This is not a personal attack, it is an attack on the poor customer service mindset your have shown you are in(or at least were in when this post was made).
If I were you I would remove this post… it makes you look bad.
Thanks,
Anthony
Hello Anthony,
Thanks for taking the time to voice your opinion. Just out of curiosity, did you happen to read this analogy?
1) Make a Video: Although I won’t be taking this path very soon, I am currently working with a customer who purchased the Improved PageFlip to make a tutorial which explains how to use the PageFlip from a complete Flash newbie’s perspective.
2) Posts Like This Hurt My Image: I can’t explain why, but this post actually increased sales while it was on the front page of PixelWit.com. Most of my clients are Flash designers, not complete newbies, 1 reason being that newbies generally don’t purchase Flash (which costs a few hundred dollars) just to make a pageflip. The support I provide for the Free PageFlip and the Improved PageFlip is rather solid and the ONLY person to EVER complain about it was Ryan. If anyone asks me for help with a tutorial on my site I’ll help them out and if the problem is common enough, (meaning it might be useful to more than one person) I’ll modify the tutorial so others don’t encounter the same problems.
3) Just Tell Him: I did tell him he needed to resize the stage. And after he failed to investigate that concept, I even posted a link to Adobe’s site which provided detailed step by step directions. He still complained that it was not part of “my” documentation. A Flash expert such as yourself surely understands that there’s a vast amount of detailed minutiae which must be understood before one can become proficient with the use of a complicated software application such as Flash. Adding all of that detail to every PageFlip tutorial would increase the size of tutorials exponentially and in turn, they’d become cumbersome to every other person who at least has a basic working knowledge of Flash.
4) This Post is Sour: Contrary to what you may believe, this site is not geared toward “selling” pageflip software. Nor am I “selling the experience” as you put it, I’m giving it away for free. The Improved PageFlip is a way for me to provide something more to the people who have asked for it as well as a chance for the people who have learned from the “free experience” to give a little back to me and this site.
I can appreciate your choice not to purchase the Improved PageFlip based on this post alone, but if you look around the rest of pixelwit.com you might see that I’m not such a bad guy after all and that the PageFlip and its documentation are pretty good too.
In Defense of Ryan
I am also a Flash novice who had trouble resizing my flip book.
I had no trouble resizing the stage with CTRL+J.
I simply made the stage height equal my book height,
and the stage width TWICE the length of my book.
That was easy.
But, that was not what Ryan wanted to know.
Ryan wanted to know how to resize the stage AND
make it work with his flip book.
Danz, Tim, Ryan, Chris, David, and I each had flip books larger in size
than the given stage: 610×460.
When I changed the stage size,
my flip book, like theirs, was cropped and off-center.
It wasn’t until I read Katti’s question and the answer
that I realized what Sean meant when he wrote
“REPOSITION THE PAGES CLIP”!
Oh! So, I needed to move the registration point (+ sign)
of the Bound Pages movie clip
to the center of my resized stage.
Here’s how:
1. With arrow pointer tool, click key FRAME 5 on Pages layer
2. You should see a plus sign with a small circle inside a square.
This is the Pages clip registration point. Click on it.
3. If you do not see the PROPERTIES panel,
toggle it on with CTRL+F3.
4. If you do not see the X: Y: W: H: blue parameters,
click POSITION AND SIZE.
5. Change the X parameter to half your stage width.
Change the Y parameter to half your stage height.
For example: If Ryan’s flip book was 400w x 600h,
his stage size would be 800w x 600h,
with X: 400 and Y: 300
Thanks, Katti for the question.
And thanks to Sean for the beautiful book.
So as I read this, I wondered, how hard is it to just tell the kid to click on the properties panel in flash and change the stage, and then I kept reading, and now I wanna know how this person can even manage to get into the actions panel… what an idiot
@KGB, I “sort of” feel sorry for the guy too, I helped him out (after writing this) and he seemed pretty rational so I wrote him an e-mail asking if he might apologize but I never heard anything from him.
@Tony, Why I oughta… :Shakes fist in the air:
Hay whats a frame?
Damn, I almost feel sorry for the guy, almost. You clearly told him to resize the stage. I mean hello?