The Best Naming Convention, EVER!
by Josh on Apr.20, 2005, under Development, Flash, wtf?!
(I’ve omitted the client’s name in order to protect the not-so-innocent.)
In developing a project for one of our clients, we needed access to some of the .fla files that the client had already created for portions of the site.
Now, sometimes, the source files we get from clients aren’t always put together the best way possible. The client will usually have someone in-house that has used Flash before, and they try their best. You get the swf, and it seems to work out ok. But then, you get the .fla, and about die looking at the contents. I’m sure we’ve all had experience with this before.
When the Library to this particular .fla was opened up, we soon discovered the Greatest Naming Convention Ever! Look how beautifully it was organized. By looking at the name, you can obviously tell what each symbol is without clicking on it. Later on, a convention of “lv-help”+asffe, “lv-help”+qwrea, etc. was established, adding even more clarity to things.
Now, I’m not in the position to be setting standards or anything, but if I could suggest that we all start using this system, the world could be a much, much better place.
April 20th, 2005 on 7:35 AM
Wow. Do you know if they did this on purpose, or just thought they were in too much of a hurry to actually write meaningful names??
April 20th, 2005 on 8:37 AM
I’m honestly not sure what happened here. They had plenty of time to put this together, so I’m thinking that a little bit of laziness set in.
April 20th, 2005 on 8:47 AM
hmmm… library obfuscation. good idea.
April 20th, 2005 on 8:50 AM
I always like getting files from old projects with librarys filled with Symbol 1, Symbol 2… Symbol 250.. it just keeps going, why dear lord why!
April 20th, 2005 on 9:43 AM
I like to call this alphabet soup.
April 20th, 2005 on 10:47 AM
The ’symbol 1′.. ’symbol n’ thing is just lazyness, it’s what Flash automatically creates when you try to create a motion tweening on an object which is not a symbol (or paste masked objects copied from illustrator).
Now, this… this is pure voluntary crap.
April 20th, 2005 on 10:57 AM
I went through the same thing. My client paid for a template before he contacted me, he showed me the website, told me what he wanted to do, which was basically fill it up with text and images and gave me the files. It was very well designed and so far, I thought it worked pretty good. Until I opened the fla.
There were on the main timeline, 50+ layers, not of them named. (The timelines inside the many movie clips had just as many layers, and of course, not named).
In the library, there were 100+ movie clips, graphics, images, buttons… not named, BUT, to make matters worse, they were duplicates of each other. So, thee was a effect155 copy 1, effect155 copy 2, effect155 copy 3, and so on, and they all did different things!
It got even worse when I tried to figure out which movie clips were nested under what. There were nested movie clips everywhere with no aparent reason as to why…
In all, it was hell. it took me a few days just to organize it.
April 20th, 2005 on 11:08 AM
Obviously, the FLA is obfuscated. Maybe with one of these programs:
* ActionScript Obfuscator
* Viewer Screwer
* etc
These programs convert all the names of library objects and actionscript functions and variables into hard-to-read code, like the one you showed
(http://builder.com.com/5100-6375-5111586.html)
April 20th, 2005 on 11:13 AM
hehe. too bad that there are icons, otherwise it would be even more fun.
April 20th, 2005 on 11:18 AM
Opera362 -
Actually, this is the fla straight from the client. This is the one that he worked with, the only obfuscation being the method he typed in himself.
If you go through the fla, you’ll find a few symbols that have good names assigned to them, but then you can view the progression into the mess that we have now.
April 20th, 2005 on 12:20 PM
Sorry, I have most of you beat. I worked for a company (~1999) that was the first to use Flash in emails, personalized audio of their names even! Was big and fun. . . .
Now, you’d think they’d use their inhouse Flash team (me+others) to do the company site in Flash… nope. Marketing had a “friend” who started a “company” that “did” Flash. There were some issues, so I asked for the FLA and had to receive CPR! It was over 1,000 frames long and had well over 200 layers (mostly empty) and scattered assets, but not as bad as shown above. Anyway, I trimmed it to 16 frames long and about 9 layers total, and yes I cleaned the assets.
Too bad I got yelled at for “changing their file,” but I was in the right. I mean, it was Flash 4/5 days and I was the only one certified there. Go figure.
- - - - -
Library Asset naming tip: Use folders, folders, folders! I usually title them: MCs, Media (or Audio if no video), Bitmaps (with a _RAW sub-folder for the raw bitmaps), Buttons, Graphics /Assets (regular symbols not bitmaps or MC’s). If you have animation pieces (lens flare MC, etc.) then you should make an Effects type folder. Also, Fonts for font symbols, and TextFX for those cool text effects MC’s we make or install. Also, any Components you’ll want to definitely keep those nice and clean together!
Hope that help some, or at least spurs some better ideas.
April 20th, 2005 on 1:41 PM
When and if you have to work QUICKLY, naming symbols something like “adf9aadfoia” can be wonderful if you import/export symbols from one file to the next. you’re very unlikely to have two “adf9aadfoia”, but VERY likely to have two Symbol 1’s…. it’s saved my butt sometimes… i could care less what that client who would never peer into the library thinks..the symbol name is irrelevent… be more anal retentive about instance names…that’s where perfection helps much more than keeping a clean library.
April 20th, 2005 on 3:48 PM
Dear Flabbygums,
Keep on flapping. To say that it speeds things up is Heeee-Lar-e-us. If you can’t tell this is a bad thing and decreases productivity no-matter-what. Please send Josh some examples of your code and library so that the public humiliation can continue.
April 20th, 2005 on 3:56 PM
It’s not about caring if the client ever sees your code. It’s about optimizing your own workflow, or that of the person that may have to follow you. If the name is garbage when you enter it in, it makes it even harder to find what you’re looking for in your own library.
When I’m working, I like to know exactly where to find the assets I need. If I have to click on every single thing in the library to see what it is because I can’t tell what it is from the symbol name, it just makes more work for me or for anyone else that has to use that .fla in the future.
April 21st, 2005 on 11:33 AM
No words about the actionscript (if any) in there: what about those variable names, were these along the same lines? Hell is OPF (other people’s Flash)
April 21st, 2005 on 3:40 PM
Other than some stop(); and gotoAndPlay() stuff, there really wasn’t any AS in this thing. (Thankfully!)
May 22nd, 2008 on 10:47 AM
[...] column), do you have any idea what these symbols are, or what they do? This is an extreme example (and real), but you get the idea. Be smart when naming things, be it variables, components, graphics, [...]
February 25th, 2009 on 11:45 PM
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