flash website redone in jquery? feasible?

Question

I'm considering attempting a redesign of a flash website with jquery effects and transitions in place. I just wanted to reach out to the community to maybe see how feasible this really is considering the particular transitions and effects this website has.

Here's the link:

http://antonynicoli.com/english.html

The gallery I guess can be recreated by carousel plugin, but there are so many out there so maybe could suggest a stable one that would be be best suited to this job. The other items that really caught my attention in which I wouldn't really know where to start is the navbar and the effect that looks like a book opening when you click on a link on the navbar. Any and all input would be appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

This is probably doable, but I'm wondering about the motivations behind changing to an HTML/jQuery solution when it looks pretty good right now (as Brad pointed out above, it would require a total rework). I see a couple of things going on:

• Carousel: jCarousel (http://sorgalla.com/jcarousel/) (never used it but it is popular)
• Animations: jQuery Animate (http://api.jquery.com/animate/)
• Other widgets/interactions: jQueryUI: (http://www.jqueryui.com)

Not sure how you would go about the open-book animation, but I suspect you could accomplish it with some clever jQuery animations.

The best way to see if it could be done is: start doing it! jQuery has tons of resources and you'll get good help here on StackOverflow.

Answer 2

After looking at the site i do believe most of the effects can be recreated fairly well using jQuery. Of course, your end-result might not be as smooth as the flash implementation but i think it can be done.

If you look at using HTML 5 i believe a lot of animations such as page transition with the opening book can be simulated with the canvas element. Same with the navigation elements.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/canvas_tutorial

http://diveintohtml5.ep.io/canvas.html#divingin

As you mentioned some of the effects such as the carousel can be recycled from existing plugins. The only holdback really is how much time do you want to invest in porting a design to a language not as well suited to do the job. jQuery is an excellent framework but it is far from a drop-in replacement to create effects that are trivial to create in Flash/Actionscript.

Answer 3

the whole site can be done with jquery. all you have to do is map out all the animation done on the site and write it on paper. then look for the jquery alternatives online and check them off one by one. some things might not be exact but it will do the job.