I’m currently investigating how long it will take to implement a design given to my department by the design group. I’m timing how long it takes to implement a certain component based on the design they gave.
I have a window component I made and am comfortable with. I should have a good judge of how much time and effort is involved based on how long and how hard it was to implement the interface as a whole based on just doing a small part, the windows (think Flash panels).
However, the design consists of a multi-layer Flash document utilizing many complex shapes, masks, etc. Since Flash does not have intelligent flattening abilities like Photoshop, it is very diffucult for me to keep the integrity of the design. Additionally, since it’s not my design in the first place, there may be details lost that I don’t even notice. So, I’ve decided to save time, effort, and processor by exporting them out as bitmaps. Since export image as PNG(usually) gives you an accurate representation of what your viewing in Flash (super-ceded by Print Screen), I immediately pull it into Fireworks to crop it up into the necessary window pieces. However, it has excessive amounts of transparency.
A trick I used to use in my Director days still seems to work. Basically, copy the shape. Then, do a new document. Then paste. Fireworks will trim the extra transparency (assuming there are no rogue shapes in it). Copy the image again, and do a new document, and then paste. Fireworks should have made the document the same size as the image, and the extra transparecy is trimmed. You’ll now have a more efficient bitmap for use in Flash.