Flashthusiast

31 Responses to “About”

1. Brajeshwar
   February 25th, 2008 at 12:19 am

   

   Sounds like xTreme Flash Enthusiasm. :-)

2. ryan
   February 25th, 2008 at 2:59 am

   

   flash is better than crack! frack…

3. ryan
   February 25th, 2008 at 3:00 am

   

   hahaha just realised: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frack

4. Mike:)
   March 12th, 2008 at 8:41 am

   

   \De*sel”op*er\, n.

   1. One who, or that which, develops and designs.
   2. Jen deHaan
   3. Lacklustre web site
   4. Coming soon

   A spark….

   Thank you….

   Mike:)

   http://campusone.ulster.ac.uk/

5. jdjdllc
   March 18th, 2008 at 3:44 am

   

   I do not know where to go to ask such very basic questions. If someone can direct me to where the newest of newbies can ask questions, I will appreciate it. I want to use the Adobe product(s) to encode, edit, create, etc. the very short videos I take. After I encode, which single Adobe product can produce the most basic video that I can post on my website? Lastly, I can not discover the best way to import music I load on my computer into one of the Adobe products so I can add that music to the video, i.e. replace whatever sound was originally recorded with the video. For now I only need the simple basic how to.

   Thanks.

6. Jen, a flashthusiast
   March 18th, 2008 at 8:34 am

   

   Hi there, That’s a lot of good questions! There are certainly Adobe tools to do everything that you describe above, although you might want to use a few different ones for the easiest solution (and will depend on the kind of site you want to build or already have, whether you already have the replacement music, etc).

   One place to ask those questions would be the Adobe forums, since they encompass all tools. Look around a bit to find one that’s busy before posting (some of the quieter ones , you might have a tougher time getting an answer): http://www.adobe.com/support/forums/. You could start with the Flash or Dreamweaver forums about posting video on a web page, or Soundbooth about creating audio for your video.

   Because Flash users deal with a lot of the things you mention, the next place to try is probably a Flash forum. A couple of the busier ones out there are Kirupa (www.kirupa.com/forum/) and Flashkit (www.flashkit.com/board).

   All of these places are perfect for asking the absolute basic how-tos. I used to run a forum, and those are some of the most common questions asked, and other people are very happy to answer (after all, we are all there at some point with a new tool!) Good luck!

7. robin
   April 6th, 2008 at 6:06 am

   

   need to find a designer who can create an adobe flash player to accommodate an aac+ audio stream for our online radio station Cafe Cody. any ideas how I can find someone?

8. Tom Williams
   May 21st, 2008 at 7:07 am

   

   Following your “Getting started” tutorial for Flash CS3, everything going swimmingly until half way through the 2nd lesson where I am trying to animate the Join us instance.

   “4.With the Selection tool, click and drag around the content that’s inside the movie clip and press F8 to convert it into another new movie clip symbol.
   5.In the Convert to Symbol dialog box, type the name nested_mc in the Name text box, select Movie clip, and then click OK. ”

   All of a sudden I don’t know what I am meant to do, pressing F8 has no effect, what’s the alternative route? Did you get bored or something?

   Regards,

   Tom Williams

9. Jen, a flashthusiast
   May 21st, 2008 at 2:25 pm

   

   Hi Tom,

   Perhaps F8 isn’t assigned to Flash on your setup. Instead of F8 you can use Modify > Convert to Symbol. That will open the dialog box noted where you can give it a name and convert it to a clip.

   Hope that helps,
   Jen.

10. Jen, a flashthusiast
    May 21st, 2008 at 2:25 pm

    

    And, I wish I was bored - I’d perhaps have time to actually do a new blog post ;)

11. Mark
    July 15th, 2008 at 11:24 am

    

    Hey Jen- great blog! Your buttons tutorial saved my life. Any idea where I can find a tutorial on how to import a .mov file into a button? I have a .mov clip and I need to make it the intro page, but of course you have to click it to get to the home page. Lost again :(

12. Jen, a flashthusiast
    July 17th, 2008 at 11:48 am

    

    Hi Mark,

    The easiest way would be to create an invisible button. So when you create the button symbol, draw a square in the “Hit” frame of the button and don’t add any content in the Up/Over/Down frames. When you return to the Stage that “hit” area will be blue, and you can resize it and move it so it’s over your video.

    Then give it an instance name, and add the same kind of button code as you would for any other button.

    Hope that helps,
    Jen.

13. Bill in Miami
    July 19th, 2008 at 1:19 pm

    

    I have spent the better part of the day researching the simplest way to install a group of continuously changing photos on a website home page. I am so frustrated as there seems to be clear answer. One forum says use Adobe Fireworks with a third party extension, another forum says use dreamweaver and a third party extension, and yet another says you can create one from scratch in Flash if you are adept with Flash.

    If I were adept at Flash I would never have found this site while Googling through a myriad of html looking for an answer.

    So I will throw out a very general question in hopes someone can provide a very general answer. Does Adobe Dreamweaver CS3, Flash CS3, or Fireworks CS3 have a template for a nice flash frame that can be inserted into an existing web page to show maybe a dozen photos on a fade in and out sequence?

    Many thanks for any input!

14. Bill in Miami
    July 19th, 2008 at 1:21 pm

    

    I meant to say “ther seems to be NO clear answer” above.
    Thanks,

    Bill in Miami

15. Jen, a flashthusiast
    July 19th, 2008 at 5:41 pm

    

    Hey Bill,

    I understand your frustration - there is so much info out there, it can be pretty overwhelming.

    I can answer for Flash at least (I’m not too familiar with DW or FW templates) - my favorite component (template, pretty much) is Slideshow Pro: http://slideshowpro.net/. It isn’t free, but it’s cheap, looks nice, and very easy to use so I found it well worth the $25 or whatnot. It will do what you describe above, and you can customize how it fades in/out and so on. The Flash part is not much more than drag-and-drop, and the instructions are very clear on how to set up the gallery. You can even export the XML for your images from Lightroom, iPhoto, etc. Another plus is it’s heavily used by others out there, so you can probably find quite a bit of info/help on this specific tool online.

    Hope this helps! By the way, no affiliation with the creator (don’t even know him), just impressed with the component.

    Jen.

16. Bill in Miami
    July 29th, 2008 at 5:59 pm

    

    Hi Jen,

    One more question for a struggling Flash noob. I followed your suggestion and checked out Slideshow Pro and its companion Slideshow Director and was very impressed. After checking several other products, I bought the Slideshow product and successfully installed it and Slideshow Director on my computer. I then was able to load photos on Director on my web server.

    I use Dreamweaver and Flash MX 2004 version and Slideshow is compatible with those versions. I also have uploaded photos to Director and can see them on director running on my web server.

    I can even create an fla, swf, and html file by publishing my dynamic slideshow document in Flash. It will rotate through the photos that are in Director except for when I try to load it as a web page on the web server. I am stuck and cannot figure out how to make a web page that has this nice looking flash gallery in it.

    II have tried creating an fla from scratch and using insert/ media I put flash and both swf in the webpage. However when I upload it to my server I cnanot get it to load the photos.

    Have I given you enough info to make a suggestion? I am missing some vital link in the process I feel and cannot figure out what it is. I have watched the slideshow and slideshow director tutorials and feel I am doing what they require, I just do not know flash that well to know if I am making a mistake there or not.

    Maybe even a simple walk through of what it takes to publish a webpage with a flash image in it??

    Any help would be greatly appreciated.

    Thanks,

    Bill

17. Rafael Campanha
    November 20th, 2008 at 5:38 pm

    

    Hello! Found your site on google (tell me something new…) because i´m in search of a way to make a strip of photos run forever on my stage. Now i can get all my thumbnails on a movieclip, throw it on another movieclip with classic tween and make it move on the stage, but on the end the thumbnails go away and i wanted to the first thumb enter on the stage immediately after the last, to make a infinite loop.
    Can you give me directions?

    Thanks a lot!

18. saif-ur-rehman
    January 31st, 2009 at 8:02 am

    

    i am write tutorial this page http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash
    please information send me how do this?

19. Linda C
    February 17th, 2009 at 4:01 am

    

    Hi I’m new to flash and was following an online tutorial about tracking banner advertisments. This is the code suggested.

    on (release) {
    if (_root.clickTAG.substr(0,5) == “http:”) {
    getURL(_root.clickTAG, “_blank”);
    }
    }

    But the banner doesn’t go anyway when I click on the banner. Is this normal? Is there a way to hardcode the tracking link and destination in AS3?

    Thanks,

    Linda.

20. jenny
    May 1st, 2009 at 2:11 pm

    

    HI,
    months ago I started getting into flash, created my index page, than my Mac was stolen now I cannot even edit the swf file on my website. Do you have a recommendation for a decompiler? I tried the trial from trillix and it extracts into pieces I don’t know how to reassemble.
    Also tried the Sothink trial which hangs up right a way.
    Can you think of any solution to that nasty loss of work??
    Thanks so much Jen,
    Jenny

21. João
    August 10th, 2009 at 6:34 am

    

    Hi! I need some help but i wasen´t capable of find the right place to put the question. I work with “Macromedia flash mx 2004″ and i have made two animations. One with the document properties 700X300 pixels and color background black, and another one with document properties 700X700 and color background white. When i put the two animations in the same animation, “Macromedia flash” only accept one of the two document properties. Is there some way of change document properties for one keyframe only? Like they were independent? Thank you for the help!

22. Jen deHaan
    August 10th, 2009 at 7:11 am

    

    Hi,

    You cannot change the document properties of the FLA, but the easiest way to do what you’re attempting is to fake it. For the background color “changing” have a layer in your FLA file that holds background colors, and make a shape with the color you want the background to look like, and when you change the frame/SWF the appearance of the background will change.

    For the size, you will need to work on the smaller of the two dimensions. The actual size of the SWF will still be 700×700 (the larger of the two), but make the remaining area of the small SWF the “extra” background [the area between the 300px and 700px] the color of your HTML page so the SWF looks like it shrunk.

    Hope this makes sense,
    Jen.

23. João
    August 10th, 2009 at 8:02 am

    

    Hi Jen, and thanks for the explanation. But could you explain me how i can fake that part of the background? Cause after you answer to my question i try to create a layer for the background color, but when i change frame or add a new layer the new frame or layer assume the color of the “layer background”. I don´t write very well the english, but i hope you could understand my new doubt. Thank you again!

24. Jen deHaan
    August 10th, 2009 at 9:21 am

    

    @Joao: You will need to create a new keyframe at the second frame and draw a new shape for the second background color. So on frame 1 you would (for example) have a background layer with a black square. At frame two, insert a new keyframe, delete the black square and draw a white one.

25. João
    August 10th, 2009 at 11:34 am

    

    Ok Jen! I get it!!! Thanks a lot for the help!!! Now i can go on on my animation!!! Cheers!!!

26. G-dog
    October 16th, 2009 at 11:47 am

    

    Greetings…anyone got any advice on prepping for the Expert exams. There used to be certified developer guides back in the days of MX2004 but nothing seems to be available for the current version. I’ve passed the Associate exam from Certiport and now would like to prepare for the next level. Any thoughts/suggestions would be most appreciated.

27. Dchills
    October 19th, 2009 at 5:06 am

    

    Can anyone help? I have created a simple, invisible button that I need to goto a URL when “clicked”. I used actionscript 2.0 and “button behavior” to create the button. I also made sure to put the button behavior action on the button and not the frame, but still can’t get it to work and I am out of ideas. Can anyone suggest something, or could I send my little flash file to someone to autopsy? Thanks in advance.

    Derek

28. screamerct
    November 6th, 2009 at 11:46 pm

    

    Wazzup! Bored in class here, decided to introduce myself.
    Umm so like does anyone know how to browse just about any site easily while at school?

29. dizasteroid
    December 28th, 2009 at 4:08 am

    

    Hi Jen. I’m emailing as I can’t find the solution anywhere. I’m doing a 3min vid in flash CS4. I’ve psd symbols moving about on layers of their own. One is causing major probs. Im using the classic tween and a symbol is moving along wagging up and down like a dog’s tail. I set it up - move on to the next instance - and when I return to the original - it’s all over the place. I fix it up. Go on the the other - now that’s shifted all over the place. I converted it to keyframes - still jumping everywhere.

    I gave up.

    Would you please please have any idea?

    regards - Ken

30. Igor
    January 21st, 2010 at 5:06 am

    

    Hi Jen!
    I need your help in looking for files (finished tutorials and single files wich have to use) wich was following on CD with book named “Animation Effects in Flash MX 2004″. If you can help with this, it will be very good!

31. saif ur rehman
    February 19th, 2010 at 8:35 am

    

    i miss all flash developer….