Basic - The Basics in Flash Part II

Here is again another part of the basics in Flash, covering more topics in how to publish/export your Flash movie files.

Difficulty : Basic / Easy
Topic : Publish Settings in Flash MX 2004

Once you've save your file, you can start to fiddle around with publish setting by going to File --> Publish Settings or by clicking on the Properties panel's publish settings.


By default, there are both 2 options to choose from, both Flash and HTML format.

Look closely at the options, you'll see there are options for Projectors as well. It is actually a file that will make your SWF files to be able to run on their computer even if the user doesn't have Macromedia Flash Player or any browser installed. But Windows Projector will only work on Windows operation system while the Macintosh Projector only work on Mac OS's computer.
Projector files helps designer or developer to make their Flash contents into CD-ROMs or even helps compabitlity across different platform with different settings.


Note : Every options changed here will NOT affect the way your Flash movie will react/behave/interact but merely changes the codes within the HTML page that will render your Flash movie, example, transparent Flash Movie files, etc
As with the HTML settings, the options are pretty explainatory by itself,
Template : What platform your Flash movie will be used on? A computer or PalmOS?
Dimensions : Define the size of your Flash movie will look like
Playback :Define if you want user to control the movie by right clicking for Play/Rewind/Forward options
Quality :The default quality you want the Flash movie to run, From Low to Best, recommended High (default)
Window Mode :You should experiment around with this option, as for the transparent windowless, i've tried it only to work on Windows, while on Mac's IE, it doesn't seem to render properly, and the background of the FLash will still be in opaque colour.
HTML alignment :Which location you want the Flash movie to be located on the HTML page?
Scale :Define if you want the user able to enlarge(zoom) into your movie files, but default setting is recommended
Flash alignment :similar to HTML alignment, you will have to experiment to get the effect you want.
Show Warning Message : Alert messages when your Flash movie has broken script that might make user's computer freeze,it is recommended to turn it on to inform your user in case it asks if they want to stop the Flash movie file from playing.
Publish : Publish!(export)

That should be a brief introductory towards the settings that you will need for exporting your Flash files to SWF/EXE/HQX files. Coming up i'll feature a preloader instead which will be more useful and functional/practical.

Basic - The Basics in Flash

Although i'm supposed people that browses into this blog would have a minimum level of understanding on how Flash works, i assume. But i'll start with something light before i move on to something more advance, involving typing out custom scripts and so on.

The Basics
Just like any other software, your Notepad/SimpleText(Mac), you have to go to File -> New before you can start to do anything inside the software, the tools are standard where you can use some of the tool to draw, resize, delete, arrange your objects and so on.
Like mine, i have my Action-Frame panel opened, which is then used to write simple ActionScript. But you'll only have to understand how the Properties panel at the bottom of your screen work at the start. Because it will help you a lot in making things easy for you.




Upon opening new document, please observe the Properties panel at the bottom of your screen. There are some settings that you'll have to observe and understand what every each of it does and affect your Flash movie. It is not crucial to understand every single of it but it's useful if you do.



If you notice, there are few fields that you can adjust on the spot, such as Frame rate/Fps and with other miscellanous information about your Flash movie file. Click on the Size : 550 x 400 to check with what setting you can adjust for your new Flash movie file.


Dimensions : Setting a value for this will define the space that your movie will be, the default value would be 550px * 400px.
Background colour: Define what background colour that you want your movie to be
Frame rate : By default 12fps (Frame per second) would be sufficient for a normal animation / navigation menu bar, but if you're working towards a complex and smooth movie/animation, you might think to adjust it to a slightly bigger value, but do beware and keep in mind, even if you set your movie frame rate to 60fps, but not every single computer are able to process so many frames per second as smooth as other computer, especially with older generation of computers, Flash movie files tend to run slower than usual because the CPU couldn't process so many objects or frame at one time, making the entire movie/browser slowdown or sometimes crash. The optimum and most used around are 30 - 60fps. Unlike movies, which are either 25fps/29.97 (PAL/NTSC format) Flash movies behaves differently although there are similiarity.

If you notice below the Size setting, there are also another Publish : Settings. I'll cover more on that on the next post, as it has something to do with Exporting your Flash files into HTML and some settings to optimize your Flash movie to run faster/smoother.

There won't be any FLA file for this tutorial as it's just an introductory towards the Macromedia Flash MX 2004 interface.

Have fun.
ManMeng

Why Flash MX 2004?

I'll start this site with some basic introductory on why Flash MX 2004, and reasons of not to avoid it, or scared by it.

There are few good ones, besides from you have to type the ActionScript by yourself, which i know most of us hate to do that, with all those memorizing of alphabets in our mind.

But before this, i was like this as well, i bear the fear to approach or to use this software at all, until i started to work after i graduated, and I got in touch upclose with this software, which since last time, i worked with Flash 4, 5, MX, which i've got myself used to the predefined script inside, and rely a lot on it to make my movie work, take for an example, the simple stop(), which I'll even open up the ActionScript editor and double click on the predefined stop(). It's not to be ashamed of, indeed everyone learn from the basic, and i did. And i would say, the experience to be able to type out the ActionScript out by your hand, the satisfaction is something which is really rewarding, looking back yourself which don't know anything at all about Flash, except animating objects inside.

There are sure lots of people, especially designer turned back against Flash MX 2004 due to it's being focussed more into OOP already, but until now, although i'm a designer, but i realized Flash MX 2004 itself are more versatile then what i used to work with the older version of Flash. The .as files and so much more thing, i mean, it amazed me on how Flash can be expanded, from a single user interface application to multiplayer application, imagine, Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) on Flash!

I'm looking forward to share lots of my knowledge with you pals,

Salutes,
ManMeng

myFlashPortal!!!

Regards,

Here now you'll find absolutely no bs except when i post site news, and it will be an ongoing post of tutorials, from basics to advance and expert scripting in Flash MX 2004 (I will still feature few Flash MX files, but rarely), this is due because i'm intensively working on Flash MX 2004 recently in the past few month.

And that got me really going with it, for your information, I'll separate the tutorials into 3 category from
1. Basic (Menus/Basic animation/Tips)
2. Advance (Requires understanding of basic actionscript, such as gotoAndPlay)
3. Expert (This would require you to understand complex scripting which you might need to understand how variables in Flash works)
4. Experimental (Things that you find it has no value, but it has it's fun factor in it, basically some of my personal development or experimentation on certain combination of ActionScript)

There won't be a category separator since blogger doesn't include it, so you'll have to search within the posts if you want to look back at past tutorials, but it wouldn't be much problem, email me if you want to request for a help or tutorial, i'll be gladly to help you out, at the moment of course lol.

But no worries, i'll ensure that you'll love Flash like i would, and i really grateful and thankful to those who supported me and urged me to get my head into Flash, especially I've even shocked to know myself that i'm able to learn Flash MX 2004, with me typing out my codes. lol.

I'll do a lot of talking later. I'll start to write tutorial from today on. Why myFlashPortal you ask? I'll answer that later. For now have fun!

Salutes,
ManMeng