I've been trying to teach myself flash for a couple of weeks and am totally lost. I have had experience with programming in the past, so I understand logic, etc, but I really am not grasping this forced time based system.What I need to do seems pretty simple. I have a jpg of a washing machine front panel. I need to be able to put some transparent "buttons" over it, and have some areas "light up" when the buttons are pressed. So far I understand that I have to work in a chronological setup, with key frames for each state of interaction, and use buttons with some kind of gotoframe action script. what I can't do:
1. get the background jpg to stick to the stage. it apparently has to be either a symbol or a layer?
2. make transparent buttons. in flash catalyst I can just set the opacity to 0, but I'm not sure how to do this in flash pro.
I guess those are the pressing issues. I had tried to import the jpg as a psd background, but then I had to put the button on a separate layer, and it was always either behind the background, or I had to have it's action refer only to the timeline of it's own layer and not the background.
I am looking at taking on a project that will be a considerable challenge since I come from a LAMP development environment. I am wanting to create a Flash driven community with chat and profiles. In PHP I know how I would go about handling the data as everything is put together on the server and returned to the user completely formatted, however adding a flash layer on top of it present a problem. I am not sure how to transport data from the server to a flash file without using XML. The obvious problem that I see is as more people are online, Sending updated XML files to flash could become a bandwidth hog and make for a slow UI. best method of moving result data from a PHP script to Flash without using XML or is that going to be the only viable option? My concern is load time. Also is there a good way of unloading data once it is no longer used (ie Photos).
I have a video embedded in Flash as an FLV. I'm able to get the video to play through the way I want, but when the video plays through and ends, I want to have two options/"buttons" display that allow the user to either replay the video a la youtube, or link to another web page.
I know it must a very basic question but I can't seem to find any answers. I've included a screen capture of the end of the video.
I wish to be able to use a Flash animation (call it "one.swf, loaded into "one.html"") as a control panel to control the activities in another animation (say "two.swf" which of course will reside in "two.html")The control panel ("one.swf") will have 10 buttons for the navigation around "two.swf" and "on release" of the butons, I would like for BOTH 1. the navigation in "two.swf" to happen AND 2. "one.swf" to be (preferably) minimised or else closed.What sort of coding is needed to enable this interaction between the two swf files?here will be a button on "two.swf" which will be used to call up "one.swf", but presumably the coding there will need to be different if "one.swf" is minimised to how it is if it is closed. Whilst I can hack opening "one.swf" from fresh if it has been closed, how do I code the button to restore it from being minimised?
I created a huge flash application and I need it to interact with an ASP file that interacts wiht a database. But when i loadvars in flash it take a very very long time to load. My guess is that becaus there are sooo many variables, passing them all takes a long time. Is there anyway I can pass only a few variables or speed up the process?
I have search all forum, but didn't find any good example with sources of as3/css/js integration. I need that swf could send itself dynamic height's value through javascript and css (div). Or, as last hope, to another swf with redirectiong to another page.
I am looking for a way to capture the user interactions with a text input control in Flash over a period of time (not a screen cast)?For example: If the user enter some text, then delete, then enter something, I would be able to store that interaction as it happens and replay that later.
I have been tasked with tracking user interactions with a flash movie that contains several chapters. I need to track which chapters the user decides to watch. But I have no access to the flash movie itself and I can not modify it. The movie loads in a modal. I do have access to the HTML page from which the modal is spawned. This is a screenshot of the interface. There are 6 chapters. Users can select the chapters they want to watch. They can then click Play Your Demo. Alternatively there's a Play All button. I would like to track which chapters users select. This can be easily done with flash, but this is not an option. I hope I can use jQuery on the page to monitor user clicks. I am inclined to say this is not possible though, since JS can not track events/interactions with the flash movie, but I could be wrong.
I'm trying to create a basic interaction between flash and ASP.net v1.1.In flash code I'm using the LoadVars function and on asp.net page I'm using "Response.write" to return the value to flash.I have a flash button which send the load to the asp.net.(meaning the first time I click the button , the asp.net page is called and return the value , but the second time nothing happens!)
Here is my code:
FLASH: ---------------
Code: function doCheck() { checkSessID = new LoadVars(); checkSessID.onLoad = function (serverIsOnline)
[code]....
The first time in click on the flash button the doCheck() function is called and the sendResponse function (which is in the "IMService.aspx") return the value to flash.Then , when clicking the second time on the button , nothing happens.
I'm really stuck on this - I'm supposed to be delivering the project today. I need to be able upload a PPT without user interaction (so no FileReference)
On load - Get the current position of the movieclip object on stage which is stored in MySQL through PHP.When the user moves the movieclip object, update the x and y position of the object by sending it to MySQL through PHP.It's a pretty simple way of understanding Flash/PHP/MySQL Integration and I find it much less complex than a socket server but I don't think it's efficient enough to use with the constant queries. [URL] Does not really work very well, dont think the Y position works at all lol, when you refresh the page it is suppose to save your current object position into the database then load it again but it appears a bit buggy, not completely sure why - I'm pretty new to Load/Send but it doesnt matter much. Also the movement appears to be lagged too and opening a new window as a 'new user' does not share the same instance of the object on stage (I think that would require me to make seperate ID's for each user though to give them their own unique objects on stage.)Is there any better (more efficient and reliable) way of creating a stage for multi-user interaction (like player characters for a game which move around by user key input, not a chat room)...Which does not involve the use of a socket server?
I would like to start a timer on a button release which will trigger a "time up" on the user when a reasonable time to respond has been reached. I think I know how to use getTime to set a starttime variable but how do I trigger the "time up" without any user interaction?
This is the code I have: var starttime=getTimer() // put this where you want to start tracking time var elapsedTime=getTimer()-starttime; // put this where you want to know the time. while (elapsedTime>4000)
I am creating a Flex application with a component that displays various dynamically loaded SWFs, one at a time (kind of like a kiosk). These loaded SWFs are created in Flash IDE, not Flex. They will not be created by us (we will provide a .fla template but that's it), so I am loading them into a separate SecurityDomain.
My Questions:
I want the application to be able to call methods inside the loaded SWF. To do this, would I just call Security.allowDomain("domain original app was loaded from") in the startup process for the loaded SWF? I want the loaded SWF to be able to throw events that are caught by the application. Can I accomplish this through the SWFLoader.swfBridge property? I am defining an interface for the methods inside the loaded SWF. But, I don't want to leave the implementation up to the customer. Instead, I want to provide another SWF that contains the interface implementation and have it be a constraint that the customer includes it in their SWF. I am not very familiar with the Flash authoring environment, how would it work so that the interface implementation SWF exposes its methods in such a way to be accessible to Flex? Is there a way to sign the SWF so that the Flex application knows that it is dealing with the original, not a spoof? How would the Flex code pass in arguments, since it is across SecurityDomain boundary -- is there marshalling involved (say if I want to pass in a Dictionary or some kind of object graph)? The Flex application may load hundreds of these smaller other SWFs during its lifetime. How do I make sure it doesn't keep using up more memory? I plan on using SWFLoader.unloadAndStop() and clearing all references in the Flex object that refers to it. Is this enough? Will the AppDomain for the loaded SWF be torn down automatically so that the class definitions are no longer in memory?
I have a .swf file. From there I use a MovieClip witch is associated with a class. The information is inside of a separate .as file. On Runtime i create several instances of this object. This all works. Now I would like to let functions inside of th .as file give access to variables set in the action layer on frame 1 where i handle the code that is associated with the .swf file. Or the other way around. Is there a way to manage this communication?
Is it possible for flash to access the windows xp system volume controls?I assume flash can't by it's self, but can flash be used to trigger a function in another language that can access and alter the system volume? At least detect if the audio is muted on the system and give the option to turn it on.The flash movie would be embedded in a browser. The content of the movie has audio that is required. We want the user to be able to control the system volume from within the flash movie.
At the moment I'm using Selenium-Flex to write functional tests for a video playback app.At the moment, I need to test that the app behaves appropriately when switched to fullscreen mode - make sure that the control bar is in a reasonable spot, the video resizes appropriately, etc., and of course to do that I need an automated way to make Flash Player go fullscreen.
For good reason, Flash's security features prevent being able to fullscreen except in response to user input. Actual user input, a javascript callback being called does not count.Is there any way to disable this security feature on my test rig, so I can actually run my automated tests on fullscreen mode? Barring that, is there any way to put Flash into fullscreen mode externally, so I can hack it up to work that way?
im making my portfolio in flash. And the designing goes oke etc, but now im at the programming part, and thats not what im good at.[URL] If you mouse your cursor over the most right (black) button you see "contact" fading in, thats oke, and when you click on it a big orange shape slides in, some text is needed to put in here. But! When you move the mouse of the button the orange shape slides back.
So my question is, how can I make the orange shape stay while the mouse is of the button? And when the mouse moves out of the contact button and over another it should fade in that name to, (like it does now).
After adding a floating cloud layer on top of the map all the elements below the cloud layer are inaccessible as the cloud layer is the only object getting mouse events.Is there a way to to tell flash to ignore the cloud layer for purposes of interaction?
I am looking for an app or apps which I can use to demonstrate many of the specific graphics, animation, and interaction capabilities available using Flash CS4 Pro. Basically something just like the Tour de Flex app only for Flash CS3/CS4 Pro. The Adobe site has a sparse set of some examples, but again I am looking for something more comprehensive like Tour de Flex.
Background: I've been coding in VIM/C++/OpenGL for a long time.I've come to realize that this (VIM/C++/OpenGL) isn't the way to learn about programming fancy/cool-looking/futuristic UIs; and that the design of such UIs belongs more so in the artistic/designer world of Flash.
Anyway, I currently have a machine with MacOSX. What software should I install? What book should I read to learn about the artistic/design side of these futuristic UIs? [It's okay if the tools to design them are mouse clicking + graphical rather than coding based].
Question: what software packages + books to read to learn about creating fancy-looking / futuristic UIs in flash?
Does anyone know which programs work best together with flash for importing graphics that are vector based. I need to know what program a graphic designer should use, so the programmer (me) can easily import the design into flash without much fuss. I know that illustrator is kind of good, but i heard that you could also use indesign.If you know of any limitations or little quirks one has to watch while exporting importing to / from flash or illustrator, had a problem with an illustrator file once that used many effects, it crashed my flash ide durring import.
I am looking to learn Actionscript 3 but have not been able to find the best way to do this. I have knowledge with HTML and CSS and have used Flash to create simple web banners, etc., but I want to get into more advanced Flash design and use Actionscript. I have looked through books but they all seem to require some knowledge of programming already. What is the best way for someone who has no programming experience to begin to learn Actionscript? Is there a specific book someone can recommend, or training course or a person who does 1-on-1 training?
I am doing some academic research on Flash and I would like to find what is Flash the most used for, or what it is the best at, in designing web sites. I would need some quantitative figures, charts, stats to illustrate this research. I have found many websites presenting the Flash player penetration but I am looking at the actual use of Flash (in video, animation, User Interaction, ...). For example, "96% of the video on the web is displayed with Flash (3% JS, 1% HTML5 video tag, ...)" ; or "vector graphics are mostly created with Flash, rather with SVG or JS".
I've got in over my head trying to learn programming, but love it.How would you teach a designer to migrate from design to object oriented programming?
My interest is AS3 in Flash IDE, but any advice is welcome. Looking for a full explanation.
I'm looking to get some good books on design patterns and I'm wondering what particular pattern you'd recommend for a Realtime Strategy Game (like Starcraft), MVC?. I'd like to make a basic RTS in Flash at some point and I want to start studying the best pattern for this.
So I have this project I'm working on and I'm trying to build the website part of my project. I have experience with Flash AS3, but not so much or none with JavaScript. My co-workers are telling me that they are almost the same and you can just build the site in JavaScript. But people can have JavaScript turned off, and not everyone uses Flash.
I'm having difficulty knowing what to use to build my website...by the way, this website is generally an application. It's going to have a menu with features and stuff. I figured I can probably do HTML and PHP, but there's some features I need that will be dynamic. I really want this site to be available to as many people as possible.
Just curious. TweenLite/TweenMax is a very common animation library, and I was wondering how someone would classify the design pattern used in TweenLite.For those of you unfamiliar, here's some example code from their website:[code]
I've run into this problem twice in all the site's I've designed and I can't figure out how to fix it. (The flash compiler has not given me any errors for this.) Here is the link first of all[URL] Once you're in the site click on portfolio and then click on "the excelsior" what happens is that for the first 4-5 clicks it won't do what it's supposed to do and it'll start randomly either stopping at a frame or playing a from a frame. Once it's done it's randomness it all works perfect again, but those initial clicks do not take you anywhere.
This is an externally loaded SWF and I've loaded it with 2 different techniques hoping it was that but that didn't fix it. I've tried simply placing a UiLoader and linking it and what it is now, a var myLoader. Anyone run into something like this before?
Flash Builder's design view is worse than 3's (which at least was usable if you ignore some quirks), so WHAT do Flex UI designers (those who don't have paid design teams...) do to design a complex UI? Because Design View (also based on what a lot of people say about it..) gets more useless with every release.See image for some differences in design view vs.Flash. WHAT is causing this? css also posted..("Duration", "hr", "min" are mx Labels, the image size text is an mx Text comp.Project is an "mx only" SDK 4.1 project.) I don't even care that the spinners look different, I just need it to show me correctly sized stuff so I can position things via Canvas, or properly size containers.
