MACROMEDIA FLASH 8-USING FLASH Mounting instructions

Using Flash

Trademarks
1 Step RoboPDF, ActiveEdit, ActiveTest, Authorware, Blue Sky Software, Blue Sky, Breeze, Breezo, Captivate, Central,
ColdFusion, Contribute, Database Explorer, Director, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, FlashCast, FlashHelp, Flash Lite,
FlashPaper, Flash Video Encoder, Flex, Flex Builder, Fontographer, FreeHand, Generator, HomeSite, JRun, MacRecorder,
Macromedia, MXML, RoboEngine, RoboHelp, RoboInfo, RoboPDF, Roundtrip, Roundtrip HTML, Shockwave, SoundEdit,
Studio MX, UltraDev, and WebHelp are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Macromedia, Inc. and may be registered in
the United States or in other jurisdictions including internationally. Other product names, logos, designs, titles, words, or phrases
mentioned within this publication may be trademarks, service marks, or trade names of Macromedia, Inc. or other entities and
may be registered in certain jurisdictions including internationally.
Third-Party Information
This guide contains links to third-party websites that are not under the control of Macromedia, and Macromedia is not
responsible for the content on any linked site. If you access a third-party website mentioned in this guide, then you do so at your
own risk. Macromedia provides these links only as a convenience, and the inclusion of the link does not imply that Macromedia
endorses or accepts any responsibility for the content on those third-party sites.
Speech compression and decompression technology licensed from Nellymoser, Inc. (www.nellymoser.com).
Sorenson™ Spark™ video compression and decompression technology licensed from
Sorenson Media, Inc.
Opera ® browser Copyright © 1995-2002 Opera Software ASA and its suppliers. All rights reserved.
Macromedia Flash 8 video is powered by On2 TrueMotion video technology. © 1992-2005 On2 Technologies, Inc. All Rights
Reserved. http://www.on2.com.
Visual SourceSafe is a registered trademark or trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.
Copyright © 2005 Macromedia, Inc. All rights reserved. This manual may not be copied, photocopied, reproduced,
translated, or converted to any electronic or machine-readable form in whole or in part without written approval from
Macromedia, Inc. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the owner or authorized user of a valid copy of the software with which
this manual was provided may print out one copy of this manual from an electronic version of this manual for the sole
purpose of such owner or authorized user learning to use such software, provided that no part of this manual may be
printed out, reproduced, distributed, resold, or transmitted for any other purposes, including, without limitation,
commercial purposes, such as selling copies of this documentation or providing paid-for support services.
Acknowledgments
Project Management: Sheila McGinn
Writing: Chris Bedford
Managing Editor: Rosana Francescato
Lead Editor: Lisa Stanziano
Editing: Geta Carlson, John Hammett, Mary Kraemer, Noreen Maher, Mark Nigara, Lisa Stanziano
Production Management: Patrice O’Neill, Kristin Conradi, Yuko Yagi
Media Design and Production: Adam Barnett, Aaron Begley, Paul Benkman. John Francis, Geeta Karmarkar, Masayo Noda,
Paul Rangel, Arena Reed, Mario Reynoso
Special thanks to Jody Bleyle, Mary Burger, Lisa Friendly, Stephanie Gowin, Bonnie Loo, Mary Ann Walsh, Erick Vera, the beta
testers, and the entire Flash and Flash Player engineering and QA teams.
First Edition: September 2005
Macromedia, Inc.
601 Townsend St.
San Francisco, CA 94103

3
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
About Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
About Flash Player. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
What’s new in Flash. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Chapter 1: Working with Flash Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Creating or opening a document and setting properties . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Using document tabs for multiple documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Saving Flash documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
About adding media content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
About creating motion and interactivity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
About components. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Managing media assets with the library. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
About ActionScript. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
About Multiple Timelines and levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37
About nested movie clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37
Using absolute and relative target paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
About scenes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Working with scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Using the Movie Explorer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Using Find and Replace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Using the Undo, Redo, and Repeat menu commands. . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Using the History panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Saving documents when you undo steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Automating tasks with the Commands menu. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Creating custom keyboard shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
About customizing context menus in Flash documents . . . . . . . . . . . 62
About the links menu in Flash Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Speeding up document display. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Optimizing Flash documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Testing document download performance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Printing from the Flash authoring tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

4Contents
Chapter 2: Working with Projects (Flash Professional Only) . . .69
Creating and managing projects (Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . 70
Using version control with projects (Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . 73
Troubleshooting remote folder setup (Flash Professional only) . . . . . 75
Chapter 3: Using Symbols, Instances, and Library Assets . . . . . 77
Types of symbols. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
About 9-slice scaling and movie clip symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Editing movie clip symbols with 9-slice scaling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Runtime bitmap caching movie clip and button symbols . . . . . . . . . . . 81
About controlling instances and symbols with ActionScript . . . . . . . . 82
Creating symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Creating instances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Creating buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Enabling, editing, and testing buttons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Editing symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Changing instance properties. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Controlling instances with behaviors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Creating custom behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Best practices for using behaviors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Breaking apart instances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .101
Getting information about instances on the Stage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Copying library assets between documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Using shared library assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Resolving conflicts between library assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Chapter 4: Working with Color, Strokes, and Fills . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
About the Color Mixer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .112
About creating gradients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .114
Using the Stroke Color and Fill Color controls in the Tools panel. . . .114
Using the Stroke Color and Fill Color controls in the
Property inspector. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .115
Working with solid colors and gradient fills in the Color Mixer . . . . . . 117
Modifying strokes with the Ink Bottle tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Applying solid, gradient, and bitmap fills with the
Paint Bucket tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Transforming gradient and bitmap fills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .121
Copying strokes and fills with the Eyedropper tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Locking a gradient or bitmap to fill the Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Modifying color palettes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Contents 5
Chapter 5: Drawing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
About vector and bitmap graphics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .130
About Flash drawing models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
About Flash drawing and painting tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .133
Using the Object Drawing model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .134
Drawing with the Pencil tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .136
Drawing straight lines, ovals, and rectangles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Drawing polygons and stars. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .138
Using the Pen tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .138
Painting with the Brush tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .144
Reshaping lines and shape outlines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .146
Erasing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .149
Modifying shapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .150
Snapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Specifying drawing settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .154
Chapter 6: Working with Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
About FlashType . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .159
About Unicode text encoding in Flash applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .160
About font outlines and device fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .160
Creating text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .162
Creating scrolling text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .166
Setting text attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .166
Creating font symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Editing text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Checking spelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
About transforming text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Using Timeline effects with text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Breaking text apart. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Linking text to a URL (horizontal text only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Preserving rich text formatting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Substituting missing fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .180
Controlling text with ActionScript. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .182
Creating scrolling text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .189
Chapter 7: Using Imported Artwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Placing artwork into Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Working with imported bitmaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

6Contents
Chapter 8: Working with Graphic Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Selecting objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
Grouping objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .211
Moving, copying, and deleting objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Stacking objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Transforming objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Flipping objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Restoring transformed objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Aligning objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Breaking apart groups and objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .222
Chapter 9: Using Filters and Blends
(Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
About filters (Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .225
About importing filters and blends from Fireworks PNG files
(Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .226
About animating filters (Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .227
About filters and Flash Player performance (Flash
Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .228
Applying filters (Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .229
About blend modes (Flash Professional only). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .239
Applying a blend mode (Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
Chapter 10: Creating Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
Using Timeline effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
About tweened animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .248
About frame-by-frame animation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
About layers in animation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
About creating keyframes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
About representations of animation in the Timeline. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
About frame rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Extending still images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Distributing objects to layers for tweened animation. . . . . . . . . . . . . .252
Tweening instances, groups, and type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .253
Tweening motion along a path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .257
Applying custom ease in/ease out to motion tweens
(Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .258
Tweening shapes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
Using shape hints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .263
Creating frame-by-frame animations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .264
Editing animation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .265
Using mask layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .268

Contents 7
Chapter 11: Working with Video. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
About video features in Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
About using video in Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
Video and the Property inspector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
About digital video and Flash. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
Importing video using the Video Import wizard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
Encoding video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
Importing Flash Video files into the Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
About playing back external FLV files dynamically. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
Changing the properties of a video clip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .301
Controlling video playback using behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
Using the FLVPlayback component (Flash Professional only) . . . . 304
About controlling video playback using the Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
Media components (Flash Player 6 and 7) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
Chapter 12: Working with Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
Importing sounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .312
Adding sounds to a document. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .313
Adding sounds to buttons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .315
Using sounds with Sound objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .316
About accessing ID3 properties in MP3 files with Flash Player . . . .316
Using the sound-editing controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
Controlling sound playback using behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .318
Starting and stopping sounds at keyframes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
About the onSoundComplete event. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
Compressing sounds for export . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .321
About using sounds in Flash Lite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
Chapter 13: Writing ActionScript with Script Assist . . . . . . . . . 327
About Script Assist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
Using Script Assist to write ActionScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328
Creating a startDrag/stopDrag event using Script Assist . . . . . . . . . .331
Chapter 14: Working with Screens
(Flash Professional Only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
Understanding screen-based documents and the
screen authoring environment (Flash Professional only). . . . . . . . . . 336
Using the Screen Outline pane (Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . 342
About undoing and redoing commands with screens
(Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
Using the screens context menu (Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . 343

8Contents
Creating a new screen-based document
(Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .343
Adding screens to a document (Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . 344
Naming screens (Flash Professional only). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .346
Setting properties and parameters for a screen
(Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .347
About adding media content to screens
(Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
Selecting and moving screens (Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . 351
Creating controls and transitions for screens with behaviors
(Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .353
Using Find and Replace with screens (Flash Professional only) . . .356
About using the Movie Explorer with screens (
Flash Professional only). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .357
About using Timelines with screens (Flash Professional only) . . . . .357
About using ActionScript with screens (Flash Professional only) . . 357
About using components with screens (Flash Professional only) . 360
Accessibility in the Flash screens authoring environment
(Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
Chapter 15: Creating Multilanguage Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
Selecting an encoding language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .364
About fonts for Unicode-encoded text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .366
Using embedded fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .366
Authoring multilanguage text with the Strings panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . .370
Creating documents with multilanguage text without
using the Strings panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
Using external text or XML files that are not Unicode-encoded . . . .385
Chapter 16: Data Integration (Flash Professional Only). . . . . . .387
Additional resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
Creating a simple application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
Workflows for using the data components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .393
Data binding (Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394
Data connectivity (Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412
Data management (Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
Data resolution (Flash Professional only). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .427
Advanced topics in data integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431

Contents 9
Chapter 17: Publishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
Playing your Flash SWF files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 456
About publishing secure Flash documents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457
Configuring a server for Flash Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458
Publishing Flash documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459
About publishing Flash Lite documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478
Using publish profiles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478
About HTML publishing templates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .481
Customizing HTML publishing templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482
Editing Flash HTML settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488
Previewing the publishing format and settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 498
Using Flash Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 498
About configuring a web server for Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499
Chapter 18: Exporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .501
Exporting Flash content and images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .501
About export file formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 502
Updating Flash content for Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .510
Chapter 19: Creating Accessible Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511
Worldwide accessibility standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .512
Macromedia Flash Accessibility web page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .513
Understanding screen reader technology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .513
Using Flash to enter accessibility information for screen readers . . .516
Viewing and creating tab order and reading order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 525
Creating a tab order index for keyboard navigation in the
Accessibility panel (Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 526
About animation and accessibility for the visually impaired . . . . . . . 528
Using accessible components. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 529
Creating accessibility with ActionScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 530
Accessibility for hearing-impaired users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533
Testing accessible content. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533
Chapter 20: Printing from SWF Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 535
Controlling printing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536
Supported printers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537
Using the ActionScript PrintJob class. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537
Building a print job . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537
Starting a print job . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 539
Printing frames independent of the PrintJob class. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 543
Changing the printed background color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 547

10 Contents
Using frame labels to disable printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .547
Printing from the Flash Player context menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .548
Publishing a document with printable frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 550
Chapter 21: Creating E-learning Content. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 551
Getting started with Flash learning interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .552
About Flash learning interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .552
Including a Flash learning interaction in a document. . . . . . . . . . . . . .553
Changing the appearance of a learning interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .564
Testing a quiz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .567
Configuring learning interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .567
Adding, naming, and registering assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .576
Setting feedback options for a learning interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .582
Setting Knowledge Track options for a learning interaction . . . . . . .583
Setting navigation options for a learning interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . .584
Setting control button labels for a learning interaction . . . . . . . . . . . .585
Tracking to AICC- or SCORM-compliant learning
management systems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .586
Extending learning interaction scripts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 590
Appendix A: Using Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593
Using templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593
Appendix B: XML to UI. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 605
Layout tag summary for XML to UI dialog boxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 606
Control tag summary for XML to UI dialog boxes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .607
<column> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 608
<columns> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 608
<dialog> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 609
<grid> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 610
<hbox> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .611
<row> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 613
<rows> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 614
<separator>. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 615
<spacer> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 617
<vbox> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 620
<button>. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .622
<checkbox>. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .624
<choosefile> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .625
<colorchip> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .627
<flash> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .629