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Macromedia Flash Professional 8 Unleashed (Unleashed S.) (3rd Revised edition)
Macromedia Flash is a key technology for designing and delivering low-bandwidth animations, presentations, and web sites. More recently it has become development environment, complete with scripting capabilities and server-side connectivity. Flash has the ability to easily integrate with, and add interactivity to, complex media types with powerful
and intuitive tools. Developers can rapidly develop high performance, accessible content using pre-assembled building blocks and expand their authoring capabilities with custom extensions from independent developers. Macromedia Flash MX Unleashed covers these high-end topics, providing a solid and complete reference for developers. Fundamentals are covered quickly in the first part of the book, with the majority of the content devoted to coverage of ActionScript and how Flash works with varied middleware.
Contents:
Introduction
I
GETTING STARTED
1
What's New? The Interface Tabs on the Mac Tabs in Panels Are Back One Library to Rule Them All Bigger Pasteboard Two Levels of Undo Object Drawing-The New Grouping Content on the Go Hide and Seek Is Over Welcome Back, Normal Mode The Fastest Flash Player Ever FlashType Cache as Bitmap Blending Filters Stroke Improvements Video in Flash New Dynamic Content BitmapData File Upload Summary 2
Getting Started with Flash Professional 8
Humble Beginnings-Where Flash Came From The Interface The Stage The Properties Inspector Panel Flash Panels Check Your Spelling Preferences The General Category The ActionScript and Auto Format Categories The Clipboard Category The Drawing Category The Text Category The Warnings Category Shortcuts Making a Better Workspace Summary 3
Creating Graphics in Flash
The Toolbar The Colors Section The View Section The Tools Section Colors and Gradients The Color Swatches Panel The Color Mixer Panel Grouping and Drawing Objects Groupies Drawing Objects Stacking Groups Importing and Working with Bitmaps Creating a Bitmap Fill Tracing Bitmaps Swap Bitmap Summary 4
Flash Animation
Welcome to the Timeline The Layers Section The Frames Section Frame by Frame Your First Animation Tweening Your First Tween Shape Hints Summary 5
Symbols, Instances, and the Library
What Is a Symbol? What Is an Instance? The Graphic Symbol When Should You Use a Graphic? Converting to a Symbol The Button Symbol An Interactive Button Memoirs of an Invisible Button The Movie Clip Symbol The Library Back to the Timeline Your First Motion Tween The Tween Editor Nested Animation Motion Guides The Mask Layer Summary 6
Working with Sound and Video
Why Sound? Adding Sound Sound in the Properties Inspector Sound Effects Creating a Custom Effect Syncing and Looping Compressing Sound Sound with ActionScript Video in Flash Importing Video into Flash Summary 7
Publishing
The Publish Settings Publishing Profiles The Formats Tab For the Web Graphics Projectors and QuickTime Flash Player 8 and SWFs The Flash Tab The Version Field The Sound Settings The HTML Tab Detect Flash Version The GIF Tab The PNG Tab The JPEG Tab The QuickTime Tab Summary II
ACTIONSCRIPT
8
Welcome to ActionScript 2.0
What Is ActionScript? Object-Oriented Programming What Is an Object? Properties of an Object Methods of an Object Events of an Object Where Do Objects Come From? Prototyping an Object Introduction to ActionScript 2.0 Declaring Variables and Instance Names Strict Data Typing Variables Strict Data Typing with Functions The Actions Panel Actions Panel Preferences Reference/Help Panel Behaviors and the Behaviors Panel ActionScript Fundamentals Comments Code Hints and Naming Conventions ActionsPanel.xml Triggering Code Hints with Comments Strict Data Typing to Trigger Code Hints Dot Syntax The Movie Clip Object Functions Conditionals Loop Statements Summary 9
Strings, Numbers and Variables-In Depth
Types of Data Types The String Data Type Creating a String Empty Strings Quotes Escape Sequences Manipulating Strings Joining Strings Indexing Characters in Strings Unicode-Style Strings The Number Data Type Creating a Number Solving the Problem of Repeating Decimal Points Predefined Values for Numbers Bonus Numbers Boolean Data Type Null Data Type Undefined Data Type Array Data Type Variables Making a Variable Changing Data in Variables Incrementing and Decrementing Variables Empty Variables Comparing Variables Combining Types of Values in Variables Converting Variables Using Functions and Methods The Scope of a Variable An Applied Example Summary 10
Arrays
What Is an Array and How Does It Work? Deconstructing an Array Creating an Array Retrieving Information from an Array Adding Elements to Arrays The push Method The unshift Method The splice Method The concat Method Naming Array Elements Removing Array Elements The delete Operator Removing Elements Using the length Property The splice Method Revisited The pop Method The shift Method Changing Elements in Arrays Advanced Nested Arrays Additional Array Methods The toString Method The join Method The slice Method The reverse Method Sorting Arrays The sortOn Method Applied Example Summary 11
Statements and Expressions
Statement Syntax Statement Block Object Statements The with Statement The for in Statement Flow Modifiers Conditional Statements Comparison Operators The if Statement The else Statement The else if Statement switch, case, default, and break Loop Statements Summary 12
Functions
Creating a Function Running the Function Using Parameters in Functions Functions That Return Values Nested Functions Function Scope Mapping to a Function The global Identifier Variables and Functions The Arguments Class The length Property Functions as Objects Functions as Methods Functions Built In to Flash The call Function Conversion Functions Mathematical Functions Deprecated Functions Summary 13
The Movie Clip Object
Creating Movie Clips Creating Movie Clips Manually Creating Movie Clips with ActionScript Manipulating Movie Clips Animating Movie Clips with ActionScript The cacheAsBitmap Property Using Math to Help Animate Movie Clips Using the Color Object The blendMode Property Filters Depth and the Stacking Order Duplicating Movie Clips Removing Movie Clips The removeMovieClip() Method The Drawing API The lineStyle() Method The moveTo() Method The lineTo() Method The lineGradientStyle() Method The beginFill() Method The beginGradientFill() Method The curveTo() Method Summary 14
Events
Handling Events The Callback Listeners Duplicating Effort Callbacks Versus Listeners-The Showdown Button Events Movie Clip Events Movie Clips Handling Button Events Events of the Mouse Object Events of the Key Object Events of the TextField Object Cross-Object Events Summary 15
Working with Text
The Text Field Interface Spell Checking Text Fields Creating Text Fields Static Text Dynamic Text Input Text Creating Text Fields in ActionScript Formatting the Text in Text Fields The TextFormat Object Cascading Style Sheets Scrolling Text Fields The Mouse Wheel Event HTML Text in Text Fields The Image Tag HTML Text Fields and JavaScript Multilanguage Text Unicode-encoded Strings The Strings Panel Summary 16
Components
What Is a Component? Getting Started with Components The Components Panel Adding Components to the Stage The attachMovie() Method Setting Parameters The Properties Inspector Changing the Parameters of a Component The Component Inspector Panel ActionScript Capturing Component Events Getting Data from Components Skinning Components Manually Skinning a Component Using the style Property The dataProvider Property Data Binding Creating a Version 2.0 Component Summary 17
Debugging
What Is Debugging? Planning Ahead Names That Make Sense Documentation Strict Data Typing Prototyping and Testing Tools of the Trade The trace Function List Options The Error Object Sizing Up Your Project The Debugger Remote Debugging Summary II
OUTSIDE OF FLASH
18
External ActionScript
Why Use External ActionScript? #include Versus Classpath Getting Started with External Class Files Defining a Class Public, Private, and Static Declaring Properties with a Constructor Function Creating Methods Creating Getter/Setter Methods Creating Events Creating Callback Events Creating Listener Events Bringing It All Together Summary 19
Loading Visual Content
Why Load External Content? What Content Can Be Loaded and Where? Loading Images Dynamically The loadMovie() Method Inheritance The loadMovieNum() Method The unloadMovie() Method The removeMovieClip() Method The unloadMovieNum() Function The Loader Component Loading SWF Files into Flash Manipulating Loaded SWF Files Loading External Content into Text Fields Manipulating Embedded Content in Text Fields Preloaders The getBytesTotal() and getBytesLoaded() Methods The ProgressBar Component Summary 20
Introduction to Data Integration
Why Dynamic Content? The getURL() Method The MIME Format The escape() and unescape() functions The loadVariables Method The onData Event The loadVariablesNum() Method The LoadVars Object The load() Method The onLoad Event The Undocumented onData Event The ExternalInterface API The Call Method The addCallback Method Summary 21
ASP and Flash
What Is ASP? How Does ASP Work? Getting the Server Intro to ASP Scripting Your First ASP Page Sending and Receiving Data Receiving Data in ASP Sending and Receiving in Flash Accessing Access Summary 22
PHP and Flash
Setting Up Your Server Installing Apache Server Installing PHP Installing MySQL Now That It's All Installed Learning More About PHP PHP and Flash-Receiving Data Example 1-Hello World Example 2-Hello, Goodbye World Example 3-Multiple Values and Multiple Variables Example 4-Sending Mail with Flash and PHP PHP and Flash-Sending and Receiving Data Example 5-Confirming sentMail Incorporating a MySQL Database Example 6-Address Book File Uploads-Flash 8 Specific Example 7-File Upload Summary 23
Flash Remoting with ColdFusion
What Is Flash Remoting? The Application Server Technical Requirements ColdFusion and Flash Flowchart Flash Remoting Setup Process Setting Up the Server Installing IIS Installing ColdFusion MX7 Setting Up Your Database Creating a ColdFusion Data Source Reviewing the Application Let's Begin: ColdFusion Components (CFCs) Flash Remoting and ActionScript 2.0 Import Flash Remoting ActionScript Classes Establish a Gateway Connection and Service Communicate with the CFC and Handle the Results Building Your Application Summary 24
XML and Flash
What Is XML? Formatting XML Rules of XML Attributes Elements Versus Attributes XML and Flash The XML Object The XMLConnector Component The trigger() Method The result Event The Tree Component Summary 25
Web Services and Flash
What Is a Web Service? Why Use Web Services? Creating a Web Service Consuming Web Services with Flash Using the XML Object Flash Remoting The Web Services Panel The WebServiceConnector Component Data Binding Consuming Outside Web Services Absorbing the Amazon Web Service Summary 26
Streaming Media
Why Stream Media? Creating a Flash Video The NetConnection Object The NetStream Object The play() Method The pause() Method The close() Method The seek() Method The setBufferTime() Method The onStatus Event Properties of the NetStream Object The Video Object The attachVideo() Method Streaming Video The FLVPlayback Component The Camera Object The get() Method The activityLevel Property Summary 27
Extending Flash
Why Extend Flash? Commands The History Panel Saving Commands from the History Panel Creating Commands Manually with JSFL Managing Commands XML-to-UI Controls Creating Behaviors Creating Your Own Panels Creating Custom Tools Creating Custom Effects File I/O in JSFL Summary 28
Beyond Flash
Flash Alternatives SwiSHmax SwiSHpix PowerCONVERTER Wildform FlixPro Sorenson Squeeze Swift 3D Captivate Enhancing Flash Files Optimaze Action Script Viewer 4.0 SWF Encrypt(tm) Beyond the Web ScreenTime SWF2Video SWF Studio 3.0 MakingThings Summary IV
Appendix
A
ActionScript Reference
The BitmapData Class Properties Methods The ExternalInterface Class Properties Methods The BevelFilter Class Methods The BlurFilter Class Methods The ColorMatrixFilter Class Methods The ConvolutionFilter Class Methods The DisplacementMapFilter Class Methods The DropShadowFilter Class Methods The GlowFilter Class Methods The GradientBevelFilter Class Methods The GradientGlowFilter Class Methods The ColorTransform Class Properties Methods The Matrix Class Methods The Point Class Properties Methods The Rectangle Class Properties Methods The Transform Class Properties The FileReference Class Properties Methods Events The FileReferenceList Class Properties Methods Events The TextRenderer Class Properties Methods Index.
Brief Description:
Macromedia Flash is a key technology for designing and delivering low-bandwidth animations, presentations, and web sites. This book covers fundamentals with the majority of the content devoted to coverage of Action Script and how Flash works with varied middleware. It also helps you learn how to integrate Flash with several other technologies.
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