• • • • • • Table of Contents Index Reviews Reader Reviews Errata Academic Flash Hacks By Sham Bhangal Publisher : O'Reilly Pub Date : June 2004 ISBN : 0-596-00645-4 Pages : 480 This collection offers expert Flash tips and tricks for optimization, creating interesting effects, ActionScript programming, sound and video effects, and much more and you don't need to be an expert to use them (although you'll certainly look like one) Ranging from practical hacks to the fun and quirky, the book covers Flash MX, Flash MX 2004, and Flash MX Professional 2004 If you want more than your average Flash user, Flash Hacks is for you • • • • • • Table of Contents Index Reviews Reader Reviews Errata Academic Flash Hacks By Sham Bhangal Publisher : O'Reilly Pub Date : June 2004 ISBN : 0-596-00645-4 Pages : 480 Copyright Credits About the Author Contributors Acknowledgments Foreword Preface Why Flash Hacks? Who This Book Is For How This Book Is Organized Using Code Examples How to Use This Book Conventions Used in This Book Comments and Questions Chapter 1 Visual Effects Hacks #1-7 Section 2 Per-Pixel Text Effects Section 4 Create SWFs from Animated GIFs Section 6 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Section 1 Fake Per-Pixel Transitions Section 3 Simulate Old Film Grain Section 5 Animate Photoshop PSD Files with Flash Section 7 Blowin' in the Wind: Simulate Tree Movement Chapter 2 Color Effects Hacks #8-13 Section 8 Video Color Effects Section 9 Video Fade to Black and Fade to White Section 11 Create and Organize Custom Swatches Section 10 A Custom Color Transform Class Section 12 Borrow Color Schemes from Nature Section 13 Simulate Sepia Effects Chapter 3 Drawing and Masking Hacks #14-25 Section 14 Create Filled Circles Quickly at Runtime Section 16 Create Seamless Tiles Section 18 Imitate Escher Section 20 Use Complex Shapes as Masks Section 22 Feather Bitmap Edges Section 24 Solve the Bitmap-Shift Bug Section 15 Create Synthetic Art Section 17 Fill Areas with Patterns Section 19 Fix Alpha Property Inaccuracies Section 21 Interference Patterns and Ripple Effects Section 23 Add a Vector Edge to a Bitmap Section 25 A Page-Turn Effect (Exploit Symmetry and Masking) Chapter 4 Animation Hacks #26-34 Section 26 Smooth Scripted Motion Section 27 Time-Controlled Movement Section 29 alt-Flash: Motion Graphics Alternatives Section 31 Hacking The Matrix Section 28 Quick, Bandwidth-Efficient Character Animation Section 30 Deja New Animations Section 32 Computer-Generated Character Animation Section 33 Particle Effects Section 34 Shape Tweening Complex Shapes Chapter 5 3D and Physics Hacks #35-41 Section 35 Simulate 3D Section 37 An Optimized 3D Plotter Section 39 Simulate a Throw Section 36 Panoramic Images Section 38 Use Acceleration to Simulate Gravity and Friction Section 40 Detect Multiple Collisions Section 41 Turn Toward a Point Chapter 6 Text Hacks #42-51 Fonts Section 43 Autocomplete Text Fields Section 45 Import Complex Formatting in Flash Section 47 Use Accessibility Text as Help Text Section 49 Typewriter Effect Section 42 Keep Text Legible Section 44 Store a List of All Input Words Section 46 HTML and CSS in Flash Section 48 Text Effect Framework Section 50 Time-Based Text Effects Section 51 Timeline Text Effects Chapter 7 Sound Hacks #52-60 Section 52 Create a Flash Speech Synthesizer Section 54 The Ubiquitous Sound-Kicker Hack Section 56 Real-Time Sound Effects Section 58 Optimize Sound Section 53 A Talking, Lip-Synched Avatar Section 55 Turn Low-Bandwidth Monaural Sounds into Stereo Sounds Section 57 Quickly Create UI Sounds Section 59 Sound Time Codes (Cue Points) Section 60 A Custom Sound Transform Class Chapter 8 User Interface Elements Hacks #61-64 Section 61 Amit's Dials (Interactive Testing) Section 62 Right and Middle Mouse Buttons Section 63 Button Movie Clips Section 64 Dude, Where's My Scrollbar? Chapter 9 Performance and Optimization Hacks #65-73 Optimize Filesize and Download Time Increase Code Performance Section 66 Bandwidth Testing for Complex Sites Section 68 Optimize Graphics for Performance Section 70 Adjust the Animation Complexity Dynamically Section 72 Substitute Bitmaps for Vectors Optimize Graphics Section 65 Beat Flash File Bloat Section 67 Hide Low-Quality Settings Section 69 Benchmark Runtime Performance Section 71 Performance Budget Section 73 Optimize Component Downloading and Usage Chapter 10 ActionScript Hacks #74-85 Changes in Flash MX 2004 Section 74 External Script Editors Section 76 Code Hints Section 78 An Idle Timer (Timeout Event) Section 80 Lock the actions Layer Section 82 Undocumented ActionScript Section 84 Obscure Operators Section 75 Strict Typing and Casual Scripters Section 77 Clone an Object Section 79 Fast ActionScript Searches Section 81 Debug with trace( ) Section 83 ASnative( ) Back Door Section 85 Import ASC Files as XML Chapter 11 Browser Integration Hacks #86-96 Section 86 Keep Your Site Browser Friendly Section 87 A Universal Flash Plugin Sniffer Section 89 Preferences and Publishing Defaults Section 91 CSS-Based Browser Centering Section 88 Test Multiple Flash Plugins Section 90 Center Your SWF Without Scaling Section 92 Dynamically Resize Content Section 93 Create HTML Links in Flash Section 95 Give the Flash SWF Keyboard Focus Section 94 Integrate the Back Button with Flash Section 96 Add Key Shortcuts to Your Site Chapter 12 Security Hacks #97-100 Privacy Settings Cross-Domain Policy Section 97 Recover Content from a SWF Section 99 Make Your SWF Phone Home Handling Local Executables Section 98 Protect and Obfuscate Your Flash Files Section 100 Review Compiled ActionScript Colophon Index Copyright © 2004 O'Reilly Media, Inc Printed in the United States of America Published by O'Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472 O'Reilly books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use Online editions are also available for most titles (http://safari.oreilly.com) For more information, contact our corporate/institutional sales department: (800) 998-9938 or corporate@oreilly.com Nutshell Handbook, the Nutshell Handbook logo, and the O'Reilly logo are registered trademarks of O'Reilly Media, Inc The Hacks series designations, Flash Hacks, the image of a spotlight, "Hacks 100 Industrial-Strength Tips and Tools," and related trade dress are trademarks of O'Reilly Media, Inc Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks Where those designations appear in this book, and O'Reilly Media, Inc was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in caps or initial caps While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and authors assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein Credits About the Author Contributors Acknowledgments About the Author Sham Bhangal began on the route to web design in 1991, designing and specifying information screens for safety-critical computer systems, as used in places like nuclear power plant control rooms He soon discovered more conventional interface design, animation, and multimedia tools, such as 3D Studio Max, Photoshop, and Flash He has been writing books on them since the turn of the century "clip" versus "this" object simulating grainy film simulating gravity and friction simulating physics [See physics] site testing against browsers against Flash plugins FPS (Flash Plugin Switcher) search engine compatibility sliders use in fractal trees Slides and Forms smooth dragging class snow, animating [See particle effects] Sonify sound abandonware allophones, importing into Flash clients, generating effects on converting low-bandwidth mono to stereo custom sound transform class, creating distortion effects, creating groovyLoop.wav lip-synching character animations optimizing aliasing errors cutoff frequencies for export bit rate settings digitization downsampling maximum quantization level need for normalizing sound quantization error, noise, and levels real-time sound effects royalty-free sound sources sound class sound envelopes control points sound-editing applications speech, synthesizing stereo, obtaining at low bit rates synchronization to keyframes time codes beatcode array UI sounds time stretching volume envelopes sound-processing applications Sound.attachSound( ) method Sound.fadeIn( ) method Sound.fadeOut( ) method Sound.loadSound( ) method file extensions and Sound.onSoundComplete( ) method Sound.start( ) method 2nd Sound.stop( ) method SoundTrans class spatial compression speech synthesizer sprite data objects SSAS (Server-Side ActionScript), security issues stack Stage class static properties Stage dimensions, measuring Stage.onResize( ) listener event stageResize( ) function staircasing star fields, animating [See particle effects] start( ) function stereo sound from low-bandwidth mono source stereo, obtaining at low bit rates storing a list of input words saving the list source code stream sounds strict typing ActionScript 2.0 advantages limitations string concatenation operator (+) String.substr( ), Flash version checking SVG content and browsers Swatches tab, Photoshop swatches, custom sway( ) function SWF centering CSS based using Flash MX 2004 using HTML using Publish settings without scaling SWF decompilers SWF files assigning keyboard focus building in location dependency compilation process decompilers for embedding font information in GIFs, creating from Photoshop files, creating from 2nd recovering content from Swift 3D 2nd SWiSH symbols linkage identifiers symmetry page-turn effect use in scripted drawing problems synthesizing speech synthetic art, creating system fonts system fonts and text effects System.capabilities property System.capabilities.version property [SYMBOL] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [J] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [U] [V] [W] [X] [Z] temporal compression tessellation TexFormat.getTextExtent( ) method text accessibility text, using for help source code antialiasing and performance autocompleting text fields changes and enhancements source code CSS, formatting with ensuring legibility fonts animated text and embedding in SWF files rotating HTML, formatting with images, embedding in importing complex formatting math-formatting storing a list of input words saving the list source code vector shapes, converting to vector-based Flash text text effects and fonts at the pixel level examples on the web framework dynamic placing on the stage generators, third-party morphing "The Matrix" movie, falling green text effect third-party text effects generators time-based effects drop effect fade-in and zoom effects stand-up effect time-based text effects timeline text effects breaking apart Envelope tool typewriter effect TextFormat.getTextExtent( ) method threeDPlotter( ) function throwClip( ) function throws, simulating "clip" versus "this" object tiler( ) function tiles, creating time stretching time-based text effects time-based transitions timelines code storage in locking scripts to text effects using timeline-based code timeout events timer property Toledo-Bend trace( ) class properties, access using omitting actions trans( ) function onEnterFrame( ) handlers Transform class transform objects Transform( ) function transition( ) method tree generator fractal growth growth parameters tree motion, simulating turning towards a point adding inertia tween frames tweens, limitations of type checking conditional statements and typeClick linkage identifier typewriter effect "_typewriter" font typewriter( ) function [SYMBOL] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [J] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [U] [V] [W] [X] [Z] UI (user interface) button movie clips standard buttons dials interactive testing right and middle mouse buttons detecting state scrollbars sounds time stretching undersampling of data undocumented ActionScript features ASnative( ) back door ASSetPropflags( ), accessing with caveats trace( ), accessing with updateAfterEvent( ) handler and scripted motion utility patent [SYMBOL] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [J] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [U] [V] [W] [X] [Z] v1 components v2 components 2nd compatibility with Flash Player versions impact on animation performance v1 compatibility issues variables, passing by value vector graphics bitmaps, compared to performance and versus bitmaps vector-based rendering engines vector-based text $version (environment variable) video color effects fades to black or white transitions over time sepia tone and other colorization effects video keyframes video output design considerations visual effects faking per-pixel transitions masks per-pixel text effects PSD files, animating simulating grainy film SWFs, creating from GIFs tree generator tree movement, simulating visual equations [SYMBOL] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [J] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [U] [V] [W] [X] [Z] W3Schools walk cycle 2nd Warnings tab, IDE preferences web sites search engine compatibility text effects examples web-safe palettes WebSpeed Simulator WinFlasm Wygonik, Gregg [SYMBOL] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [J] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [U] [V] [W] [X] [Z] XML to UI XML, importation of ASC files as xpos offset variable [SYMBOL] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [J] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [U] [V] [W] [X] [Z] z-lib compression Zarin, Rouien ... O'Reilly logo are registered trademarks of O'Reilly Media, Inc The Hacks series designations, Flash Hacks, the image of a spotlight, "Hacks 100 Industrial- Strength Tips and Tools, " and related trade dress are trademarks of O'Reilly Media, Inc... bought by Macromedia, and the first version of the renamed application, Flash, was released in 1996 Late in 2003, Macromedia released Flash MX 2004 (and Flash MX Professional 2004) and the corresponding Flash Player 7...than your average Flash user, Flash Hacks is for you • • • • • • Table of Contents Index Reviews Reader Reviews Errata Academic Flash Hacks By Sham Bhangal Publisher : O'Reilly Pub Date : June 2004 ISBN