Post by Aron / April 17th, 2009
We recently finished a pretty untypical project. The client wanted to have a portfolio site, where the “cases”-pages were so different, that they did not fit in any cms or xml structure. And since the client has their own flash developer (well, more of a designer type…) they wanted to be able to maintain the FLA files themselves.
So we built the basic structure in an index.swf. The “cases” FLAs had a document class which inherited from a super class. So what if something in the superclass changes? Yes, you have to open every FLA and export it all over again.
For this case we wrote a little JSFL script with a XUL user interface. Interestingly this feature exists since Flash MX 2004 without much notice.
Read on ›
Post by Aron / November 5th, 2008
Recently we had the problem to change the embed setting of tons of textfields instances inside of at least a gazillion MovieClips. We got the FLA-file from a designer (we maybe haven’t briefed enough… :) ) and wanted to use them in a lib swc for a AS3-only project. So we started to change them “by foot”, internship work, damn it!
Finally we came up with the idea to write a jsfl script which does the job.
There you go: Change Textfield Embed Settings.jsfl
As zip: ChangeTextfieldEmbedSettings.zip
Copy the file inside the command folder here:
Mac: /[user]/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Flash CS3/en/Configuration/
Windows: \Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Adobe\Flash CS3\language\Configuration\
How to use:
Create a dummy TextField on the timeline and set it to the embed setting you want to apply to all TextField instances of all MovieClip timelines inside the library. Make sure that this TextField has the same font name as the TextFields you want to apply the setting to. Select this TextField and run the script by clicking “Change TextField Embed Setting” inside the Command menu of Flash.
The script now opens every MovieClip of the library and searches for TextField instances. If found and the font matched with the previously created dummy TextField, the new embed setting will be copied.
Note: The script only works with MovieClip library items and TextField of the type “dynamic” or “input”. Only the embed settings of the dummy TextField will be applied, all other properties will be ignored.
Post by Aron / Dezember 15th, 2007
In AS3 you finally have the possibility to close a Loader request using the Loader.close() function. The so far loaded data is cached, so when you initialize a new Loader it continues. This is working pretty well.
But: Not inside the Flash IDE! It took me hours to find out. Yeah, i know, i should have known better… :) So don’t worry, inside the Browser it works just fine.
BTW: We’re using Charles to test the preloading functionality. Charles also allows you to protocol the sent and received remoting data both inside the Flash IDE and Browser (Firefox / IE). Charles is not free, but it’s worth the money!