SWiSHzone.com - SWiSHzine HTML Newsletter

Click here if you can not see the images correctly.

It's been a few months since the last SWiSHzine. Since then we've released some great new components and some excellent tutorials. There is something here for everyone.

Enjoy!

Components

Components help you get complex tasks done quickly and easily. Although the installers contain a lot of components, new components are first released to the blog which also describes how to use the component and where to get it. Check these out...

COMPONENT UPDATES
This article offers a download for all the components mentioned below. Update SWiSH Max3, and SWiSH miniMax3, with all the latest components before you read on.

Entry Form
It is often necessary to create web pages that collect user data. This new component simplifies that task. Based on the ClipClone component this component allows the user to create user input forms with a large amount of creative control. Like the ClipClone component, each field within the form is based on a 'Master' movie clip, userinput, which is duplicated for each required field. If layout, font or other changes are required, only the Master movie clip needs to be modified to update the entire form.

Animated Tick and Cross
It is often necessary to report success or failure on a web page that accepts user input. An animated tick or cross can add a nice touch to such a page. The components described in this article provide an animated tick, cross and a combination of tick and cross. The objects are fully scalable. The color and default behavior can be altered using the Parameters panel.

New Wizard - Hiddenwords
Puzzles are good fun and a popular way to draw people to your website. The object of this puzzle is to find the listed words within the square of characters. The words can be arranged up, down, left, right and in any diagonal direction, up-right, down-right, up-left and down-left. This type of puzzle can also be very useful for teaching purposes.

Ruler
The grids and guides provided with Max3 work very well, however they only allow easy alignment along the horizontal and vertical axis. If you want to align objects along a set angle, or measure the point to point distance between two objects, this new autoshape component may help.

Measure
This new autoshape component allows you to easily add dimension arrows to your movie. To place the ends of the arrows, simply drag the green handles to the desired position. By default, the measurement will be the number of pixels between the arrows, however this can be altered to a user defined quantity via the Dimension Type parameter in the Parameters panel.

Coil
The new component 'Coil' allows you to create a 3D representation of a coil or spring. The single handle is used to adjust the length of the flat area. Clicking on this handle increases the number of segments in the component. Alt-Click can be used to reduce the number of segments.

Autoshape Sunburst
This new autoshape component allows the user to easily create the sunburst shape popular with graphic artists and illustrators - expanding rays radiating from a central point.

New Flow Charting
The component set accompanying this article includes some basic flow chart shapes as well as new connector / arrow autoshapes called Connector_arrow and Line_arrow. These new components, in conjunction with the Show and Snap grid options, allow quick and easy creation of various chart types including organizational, genealogy and flow charts. The components and installation instructions are given at the end of this article.

ImageZoom
The ImageZoom component allows you to add an image to your website with an inbuilt zoom control. It provides a convenient way to display an entire image, but still allow the viewer to zoom in and out to see more (or less) detail. Once the object is zoomed, it can be moved within the window using the familiar mouse click and drag.

Well-Rounded Rectangles
As a designer, I prefer to have precise control over object position and alignment. I frequently use the Rounded Rectangle Autoshape - whether it be for buttons, borders, or other interface elements, and I have always had a few complaints with the way it functions. This article contains a new component that addresses some of these problems; however, let's go over the how and why first.

Numeric Keypad
A numeric keypad can be a useful addition to your Flash animation or webpage. Apart from the obvious calculator / numerical entry applications, it can also be used as a more secure way of entering PINs (Personal Identification Numbers). It is also a useful alternative to Captcha devices (ie. display a random number and ask the user to enter it via the keypad). Although a numeric keypad is a straight forward thing to make, its construction can be tedious because of the number of buttons that need to be constructed and aligned.

Film Scratch
Have you ever wanted to simulate the scratches and flicker that occur when you watch those old movies? This component makes it easy. Simply choose the size and place over your image. The example shows how dramatic the effect can be.

FREE TOOLS!

FREE TOOLS!
Everyone loves free stuff. We've added a new section to our website for free tools you might find useful. For starters we've offering SWiSH Lite, SWiSH Pix and SWiSH Guide for FREE. These are old products we used to sell and are perfectly good aside from being a little dated. Feel free to make use of any of these tools because as I've already mentioned ... they're FREE!

Tutorials

Good tutorials help everyone so we spend a lot of time working on topical articles. Check out these recent tutorials...

Passing data to Flash with URL query strings
Like ASP and PHP, Flash can access query strings supplied in the URL. This tutorial discusses how to pass data to a Flash movie (.swf) via the URL reference.

Modifying a Banner Template
SWiSH Max3 and miniMax3 come with a number of animated banners. To use one of these banners simply go File | New Project and then choose from one of the available Vertical or Horizontal banners. We recently had an inquiry from a user who wanted to add a custom banner size. Although not obvious, this modification is reasonably easy to achieve. Below is the modified banner with a custom size of 220×180 pixels. Read on to find out how to make the modifications.

Device vs Embedded fonts
Have you ever wondered what the 'D' button in the Text Properties panel in SWiSH Max does? It allows selection of Embedded or Device fonts. Selecting between Embedded and Device font can affect the clarity and accuracy of the displayed font as well as the size of the exported movie. As the choices, Embedded or Device may sound cryptic, I have described the differences, advantages and disadvantages of each of the font options below.

Code: Fade to Volume Level
If you want to gradually fade out the audio in your .SWF file, it can be done using Actionscript. It isn't always necessary to provide an actual volume control bar, and in some cases you might simply want to fade the audio out during some other event (such as fading out the background audio while a video plays). The code snippet below will help you do just that.

Code: Fade to Alpha Level
If you are looking for a convenient way to fade the alpha level (transparency) of an object through Actionscript, then this simple code snippet may be what you need. Without relying on any overhead in the timeline or increasing the file size, this function allows you to animate the alpha level of any object over a specified period of time.

Introducing the Timeline (part 1)
The aim of this tutorial is to give users a better understanding of the use of the timeline in a SWiSH Max movie. The timeline can be used to define when objects appear, disappear or have effects applied to them. It can also be used to define when various 'Script Actions' occur.

The Timeline in MovieClips (part 2)
This is a continuation of the tutorial, Introducing the Timeline. Movie Clips are 'mini movies', they have independent timelines relative to the Scene and other MCs. However, the MC must exist in the scene for its timeline to exist and its timeline cannot extend beyond the scene's timeline (i.e. not to the next scene).

Disable All Buttons
In many projects, you might have a need to disable a button or two. In some projects, you might need to disable all buttons at once. This process can be tedious if using the most common methods, but we'll show you how to do it quickly and easily in this short tutorial. One practical example of this might be in something like an image 'lightbox' - where you have an image opening on top of your movie and don't want the buttons beneath it to be clickable.

Exploding Text
Turning a text object (or any object, for that matter) into a pile of rubble is quite simple in SWiSH Max. This quick tutorial will show you how to break an object into tiny pieces - without the usual guilt and expense!

Texture Frame
Premade components and filters make it easy to add a textured frame to an image. This example uses the new 'roundedRect' component for a mask object, the 'Texture' component, and the bevel and drop shadow filters, and of course, an image.

Broadcast player in a simple web site
SWiSHzone.com's Labs project, Broadcast, allows you to stream both live DJ programs and scheduled playlists. At the client side, there is the Broadcast player which is a Flash movie we created using SWiSH Max3. The player is designed to be embedded on a web page. If you want users to be able to move around the site, without the player reloading each time a new page is loaded (and so pausing the music while re-buffering takes place), then there are several techniques to do this. This article discussed a solution using AJAX and mentions some other techniques which achieve similar results.

Game high score using Databank
Here we revisit the SWiSH Wars game and add a high score facility that is maintained using Databank.

SWF-to-SWF Communication
Sending commands from one SWF to another often involves using very specific Javascript and FSCommands. This method is limited in functionality and is time consuming to update. A more efficient method can be used directly inside the SWF files. This is the 'LocalConnection' method available in Actionscript.

Horizontal Calculator Banner
One way to get people to book mark your website is to provide a useful tool they'll come back to use. This tutorial describes how to fit a calculator into a 468×60 banner. The calculator is based on the NumericKeyPad, Texture and MathUtil components.

Stopwatch Banner
Continuing with the useful banner tools theme (see Horizontal Banner Calculator too) this article describes a useful Stop Watch / Count Down timer that fits in a standard 468×60 banner.

Support

SWiSHzone Community - http://forums.swishzone.com

Support - http://support.swishzone.com/support.asp

Manage your subscription

To unsubscribe from this mailing list click on this link:
https://my.swishzone.com/users/maillist.asp?act=unsubscribe&email=email@address

This email was sent to: email@address

We have sent you this newsletter because you have opted-in to our mail list via our web site or by agreement with the use of our products or services (e.g. product trials).

This email contains product information and advertising material. SWiSHzone.com Pty. Ltd. of 33 Albion St., Surry Hills, Australia 2010, complies with the Australian Government Spam Act 2003 and the USA CAN-SPAM Act 2003.