Category: Flash

Here’s a Class that creates a simple slideshow. Create an instance of the class and pass the URL to an XML file describing the slideshow. Treat SimpleSlideshow instances like movieclips. Add it to the display list to view, set the x and y property to position etc. This class uses Tweener to animate the transitions. So you must include the Tweener classes.

SimpleSlidehsow Example

A question about Joshua Davis and his techniques came up in my online Class. I thought I post to the answer here as others might be interested in how to print the stage in an SWF.

Joshua Davis is pretty inspiring. I like the idea of creating art with Flash via an automated system. He uses a script that creates art automatically by crating movieclips on the stage dynamically. THen he prints these our.

This is not so hard to and doesn’t require any special software other than flash. You can also import the work into Illustrator and work with it there.

Note that randomly generated art may or may not be art. The color choices and other elements may need to be adjusted and added or removed to make a really artful design. That said the process can add interesting elements to your work.

Try it for yourself. Follow these steps.

1) create a Flash movie with some art on the stage. You could just place elements on the stage for now. As you learn AS you can write a script that generates things on the stage.

2) Launch the SWF.

3) Right Click the stage and choose Print…
In the print dialog box print to PDF. This option may show up in different places on different systems.

But the secret is that the PDF can be imported into Illustrated. Printing to the PDF format creates a record of the current content on the stage as vectors in the PDF document.

Note that Illustrator will change a few things or not interpret them correctly. Stroke weight for example, is scaled in Flash but not scaled in Illustrator.

Here’s an AS3 class that creates a simple scroll bar. Set this as the Base Class for any movie clip. The container clip must have two movie clips named drag_mc and track_mc. These clips act as the dragger and track for the scroll bar

Add an event listener to call a handler when the scroll bar is dragged. SimpleScrollBar dispatches the ScrollBarEvent.UPDATE which includes the property scroll_value. This property holds a value from 0 to 1 representing the position of the dragger.

Here’s some example code. Assume that scroll_mc is a movie clip that contains two clips drag_mc and track_mc. This clip has SimpleScrollBar set as it’s base class.

scroll_mc.addEventListener( ScrollBarEvent.UPDATE, on_update );
function on_update( e:ScrollBarEvent ):void {
	var n:Number = e.scroll_value; // Get the value of scroll bar
	scroll_txt.scrollV = Math.round( ( scroll_txt.maxScrollV - 1 ) * n ) + 1;
}

Download the sample: simplescrollbar-class

Here’s a simple class that wraps the URLLoader. I called this XMLLoader but it will load any text. The class itself illustrates the basic code required to load a text file. The class can be used to simplify the process in any project.

Save the following as XMLLoader.as

package {
	import flash.events.*;
	import flash.net.*;

	public class XMLLoader extends EventDispatcher {
		public var data;

		public function XMLLoader() {

		}

		public function load( _xml_url:String ):void {
			var loader = new URLLoader();
			loader.addEventListener( Event.COMPLETE, on_complete );
			loader.load( new URLRequest( _xml_url ) );
		}

		private function on_complete( e:Event ):void {
			data = e.target.data;
			dispatchEvent( new Event( Event.COMPLETE ) );
		}
	}
}

Use the class like this. Add the following code to any project:

my_xml = new XMLLoader();
my_xml.addEventListener( Event.COMPLETE, xml_loaded );
my_xml.load( "file.xml" );

Here’s a few tips from one of the Tweener developers.

http://www.stimuli.com.br/trane/2007/nov/07/tweener-tips/