June 4th, 2010
by Jen deHaan
There are a number of forum posts about code hinting not showing up as expected in Flash CS5 documents. There are a number of possibilities about why code hints do not show up, but the following post will collect some troubleshooting tips that may help you out.
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Posted in ActionScript 3.0, Flash CS5, workaround | 5 Comments »
May 5th, 2010
by Jen deHaan
Some people have been asking how to create button code in Flash (CS3, CS4, or CS5) that progresses the playhead in a SWF to the next or previous frame using ActionScript 3.0. This is not too difficult, and is a super simple code modification from any other button in AS3 (and is actually a touch easier than AS2 due to scoping issues).
This post includes an example of how to create two buttons that click between a few different frames. I’ll also include a (CS4) FLA file for you to look at and the AS2 equivalent.
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Posted in ActionScript 2.0, ActionScript 3.0, FLA files, Flash CS3, Flash CS4, Flash CS5, Migration, buttons | 3 Comments »
July 24th, 2009
by Jen deHaan
One of my frequently asked questions in the comments is how to control what window a button click opens using ActionScript 3.0. For example, you might want your button to open in the same window, a particular part of your frames layout, or a new window. It’s similar to ActionScript 2.0, but there is a bit of a difference.
In ActionScript 2.0, you set a target for your button using code such as the following:
The following steps for ActionScript 3.0 will apply to either Flash CS3 or Flash CS4, just make sure that your document is an ActionScript 3.0 button and you’re adding the code to a frame.
- Create your button in your FLA, and give it an instance name in the Property inspector, such as
my_btn.
- Select a frame on the timeline at the same frame number of your button.
- Open the Actions panel, and add the following code:
my_btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, myHandler);
function myHandler(event:MouseEvent):void {
navigateToURL(new URLRequest("http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/"), "_self");
}
- Publish preview your work in HTML (File > Publish Preview > HTML). Note: When testing locally, you will need to set your security to allow access to the SWF. If you haven’t set this up, click Settings in the dialog that opens when you first test your FLA, select a directory on your hard drive, and save the FLA to that same directory and test again.
By default, without adding this parameter, ActionScript assumes _blank which opens a new window. You can modify the _self in the code above to be _top or _parent (or _blank if you want). Here’s what each of them does:
_self opens the link in the current frame of the current browser window._blank opens the link in a new window (or tab if that’s what the user has their browser set to do).-
_parent opens the link in the parent of the current frame.
_top opens the link in the top-level frame of the current browser window.
Posted in ActionScript 2.0, ActionScript 3.0, Flash CS3, Flash CS4, Migration, buttons | 34 Comments »
September 4th, 2008
by Jen deHaan
You may have tried creating a shape that has a hole in it for a mask in Flash, and it may not have worked. Or maybe it did work and sometimes it didn’t, and you grew some extra gray hairs and threw your laptop at a wall. Or maybe you’re thinking “what the hell is she talking about now?”. I’ll start from (almost) the beginning [if you're not sure about making masks in Flash, read this super old tech support article.. it hasn't changed].
More after the jump.
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Posted in ActionScript 3.0, Flash CS3, animation, instances, masking, masks, symbols, workaround | 9 Comments »
March 13th, 2008
by Jen deHaan
So there have been a number of questions on my kinda recent post about making a button in Flash CS3 or Flash CS4 using ActionScript 3.0. I will do the next couple posts on how to do the things in the questions (and actually check em out in Flash, and make an FLA to download). Update: More links about buttons and button code at the end of this post.
So if you haven’t already read or don’t know how to make a single button, head on over to the post linked above. Here, I’ll continue on to multiple buttons.
Say you have a couple buttons on a page, and you want one to go to one URL, and the second one to go to a different URL – you need to change your function names in your code so you don’t have multiples with the same name. So, you would need to do something like this:
thumbsdown_btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, thumbDownHandler);
function thumbDownHandler(event:MouseEvent):void {
navigateToURL(new URLRequest("http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/silverlight/default.aspx"));
}
thumbsup_btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, thumbUpHandler);
function thumbUpHandler(event:MouseEvent):void {
navigateToURL(new URLRequest("http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/"));
}Note the thumbDownHandler and thumbupHandler in the code.
The source file: Mutliple buttons to URLs
So some people are instead targeting multiple frames. In that case, the code would look like this:
stop();
first_btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, mouseDownHandler1);
function mouseDownHandler1(event:MouseEvent):void {
gotoAndStop(5);
}
second_btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, mouseDownHandler2);
function mouseDownHandler2(event:MouseEvent):void {
gotoAndStop(10);
}The source file: Mutliple buttons to frames
MORE INFORMATION ON BUTTONS:
Posted in ActionScript 3.0, Flash CS3, Flash CS4, Migration, buttons | 132 Comments »
March 2nd, 2008
by Jen deHaan
A pretty common thing to do with Flash is to play an FLV file. In ActionScript 2.0, you would do the following:
1. Create a new Video object in your Library (choose New Video from the Library’s Options menu).
2. Drag the video onto the Stage, and give it an instance name.
3. Add the following code to frame 1 of your document:
// ActionScript 2.0
var nc:NetConnection = new NetConnection();
nc.connect(null);
var ns:NetStream = new NetStream(nc);
ns.onMetaData = function(item:Object):Void {
trace("metaData");
// Resize video instance.
myVideo._width = item.width;
myVideo._height = item.height;
// Center video instance on Stage.
myVideo._x = (Stage.width-myVideo._width)/2;
myVideo._y = (Stage.height-myVideo._height)/2;
};
ns.onCuePoint = function(item:Object):Void {
trace("cuePoint");
trace(item.name+"\t"+item.time);
};
myVideo.attachVideo(ns);
ns.play("http://www.helpexamples.com/flash/video/cuepoints.flv");That will play your video and also trace a couple cuepoints. Sample file: Load video with ActionScript 2.0
It’s kind of cool in ActionScript 3.0 in that you can open an empty AS3 FLA file, paste this code onto frame 1 of your document, and you’re off to the races (meaning, that’s all you have to do). As you can see, the code isn’t that much different either – so if you added video in AS2, things should seem pretty familiar. This is the same thing as above — it will also play a video and trace some cuepoints.
// ActionScript 3.0
var video:Video = new Video();
addChild(video);
var nc:NetConnection = new NetConnection();
nc.connect(null);
var ns:NetStream = new NetStream(nc);
ns.client = {onMetaData:ns_onMetaData, onCuePoint:ns_onCuePoint};
video.attachNetStream(ns);
ns.play("http://www.helpexamples.com/flash/video/cuepoints.flv");
function ns_onMetaData(item:Object):void {
trace("metaData");
// Resize video instance.
video.width = item.width;
video.height = item.height;
// Center video instance on Stage.
video.x = (stage.stageWidth - video.width) / 2;
video.y = (stage.stageHeight - video.height) / 2;
}
function ns_onCuePoint(item:Object):void {
trace("cuePoint");
trace(item.name + "\t" + item.time);
}Sample file: Load video with ActionScript 3.0
Posted in ActionScript 2.0, ActionScript 3.0, FLV, Flash CS3, Migration, Video | 30 Comments »
February 25th, 2008
by Jen deHaan
So I used to monitor comments coming in from the CS3 Video Workshop, which contains a few hundred video tutorials on the CS3 products. Some of the comments that came in regarding the Flash videos was how people were having frustrations about how to set up button code with ActionScript 3.0. I thought that’s where I’d start out, with a simple example that compares the two. So I’ll show you how to make a button work in Flash CS3 or Flash CS4 using ActionScript 3.0.
Luckily, the set up is pretty much the same assuming you put code on the Timeline. If you didn’t, it will be a bit of a change and you’ll need to follow the steps below.
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Posted in ActionScript 2.0, ActionScript 3.0, Flash CS3, Flash CS4, Flash CS5, buttons | 375 Comments »