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Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Flash Text Rollovers

f you have used Fireworks before you must be knowing what are text link rollovers. You can create these rollovers even in Dreamweaver! Follow these steps.

Step 1 : Place the cursor where you want the rollover text to be positioned. Click on Insert>Media>Flash Text. The following window will be displayed.

Step 2 : Select a font and size. Click on color option and select a color for the text and next select a rollover color. Type your text in the text box. If your text has a link browse the page. Select a target. If you wish you can give a background color for your text. Lastly save it with an extension .swf and click OK.

Step 3: To preview the flash text select the image, you will see a play button in the properties window. Click on the play button and move your mouse over the text to view the rollover effect after which you can click on stop to end the preview.

Step 4 : Below is my result. Move your mouse over the text for the rollover effect. You can also edit the font type, color and size by clicking on the edit button.

Basic Flash Password Protection Parts 9,10

Part 9

Now we’ll need to write the actual script that compares the value of the input, but first we’ll need something to attach it to. Create a button near to your password input field; you can add the text “Submit” to let the user know that it’s clickable, or hide it by making it the same color as your background or turning it into an invisible hotspot button.

Right-click on the button and open the Actions panel.


Part 10

on (release, keyPress “”) {
if (password eq “aikotoba”) {
gotoAndPlay(2) ;
password = “”;
} else {
gotoAndPlay (3) ;
password = “”;
}
}

That looks like a lot, but it’s not. It’s an function that tells Flash to use an if statement when the mouse clicks the Enter key is pressed.

The if statement checks to see what the characters entered for “password” are, and compares them to a value set by you: the actual correct password, inside the quotes. If the two are the same, then Flash will go to the “access granted” frame/scene (frame two, for me).



Basic Flash Password Protection Parts 7,8

Part 7

On your timeline, right-click on the frame containing your password entry screen, and select Actions to open the Actions pane.

Part 8

Switch to Expert Mode so that you can type freely, and then below your stop, enter password = “”; (with the name of your variable in your input field substituted out for “password”).

This makes sure that when the movie loads at frame one, the value of password is set to nothing, and thus isn’t retaining anything from past attempts.

Basic Flash Password Protection parts 5,6

Part 5

Now, if you’re working on a real application/movie/game/website/etc., then you’ll have another scene that contains all of your actual content, and you’d normally direct the user there if they’re successful in entering the password. In this case, however, I’ve created just a simple (if snarky) “correct” screen on another keyframe, just displaying a message to tell the user that they’ve entered the correct password.

Part 6

Because each frame is a static screen and it should remain visible until the user takes some direct action, make sure to insert a stop on each of your keyframes.

Basic Flash Password Protection part 3,4

Part 3

Once you have the password input screen, you’ll need another screen to display if they enter the incorrect password. On a separate frame from your password input screen, copy all of your graphics, etc. and then add text telling the user (in whatever words you choose, but let’s try to behave here) that they’ve entered the wrong password. Then create a “Try Again” button; this can be a graphic or text, whatever you choose.

Part 4

Right-click the Try Again button, select Actions, and then assign the following script to the button:

on (release, keyPress “”) {
gotoAndStop(1) ;
password = “”; }

What this does is tell Flash that when the user clicks on the Try Again button or presses the Enter key, the movie should go back to frame one (the password input screen) and stop. It should also reset the value of “password” to nothing, so that it doesn’t auto-populate mistakenly with the incorrect password (or the correct one).

Basic Flash Password Protection

Here in this tutorial I show you how to protect you password in flash. My final impression was amazing. I really liked this thing.


Part 1

In order to use password protection, you’ll need first a scene, then an input field. Once you’ve set your scene, then draw a new text field with the Text Tool. Set the type to Input Text, using the dropdown in the Properties pane.

An Input Text field isn’t like a normal text field; instead of displaying text we specify as part of the movie, it exists so that the user can enter text. In this case, they’re going to enter password text so that our Flash movie can check to see if it’s the correct value.

Part 2

With the Input Text field selected, select Password from the display type dropdown (usual options are Single Line, Multiline, and Multiline no wrap). This is an added security option that causes all characters entered to be displayed as asterisks (*) instead of as alpha characters.

Click the icon to display the bounding box (the little box with horizontal lines), and then in the Var field, type the name of a variable by which you’ll reference the value of your password.

Don’t confuse this with an instance name; the instance name would be referring to the actual text box itself, but the variable is used to refer to the text entered into the input field. So if I typed “purple monkeys” into the input field, then password=”purple monkeys”.


This tutorial is in 10 parts. I'll post new two part tomorrow, and it will be going like that until the end of the tutorial. I hope you will be satisfied with thi tutorial.
See yaaa :)

Avoiding the System Resource Bog

Keeping Your Computer Running Quickly While Animating

We've all experienced it: while working on our computers, things begin to run abysmally slow, and no matter how many programs we close, nothing seems to speed things up. Programs start locking and freezing, and eventually we're forced to reboot--either voluntarily or by a sudden system crash prefaced by the infamous Blue Screen of Death. (Let's have a momentary pause while our Apple, Linux, and Unix-using readers take a minute to point and laugh.) This can be a real pain when you're animating, especially if you're working in 3D and rendering a long, detailed file that takes up a great deal of system resources on its own.

Can You Avoid Bogging Down Your Computer's Resources?
There are ways around it. One way to free up resources for your animation is to close any programs that you don't desperately need open; yes, that includes your media player with the playlist of 5,000 MP3s that you just can't animate without listening to.Burn them to a CD and plug them into your stereo or portable CD player instead, or better yet, move them onto your MP3 player. You'd be amazed at how much of your computer's resources are eaten up by programs like media players, chat and IM programs, browser sessions and browser plugins, and mail clients. Unless you have an extremely powerful processor, odds are you're bogging down your system just by going a little overboard on the multitasking. Close down anything you don't need to get the job done. Odds are you'll work faster without the distractions anyway.

Watch Out for Sneaky Hidden Processes.
Another thing that could be eating up your resources is background processes. Sometimes when you close a program, it isn't completely closed; the program window may be gone, but depending on the program settings it may still have left a process or two running in the background. You may also have other processes scheduled to run on their own, that you might have forgotten about; and in the worst-case scenario, you could be dealing with some rather nasty spyware, which will happily spawn dozens upon dozens of memory-eating processes just for the fun of dragging your computer into the slow-motion mud. For the latter, your best bet is to run a good spyware-cleaning program, such as LavaSoft's Ad-Aware or Yahoo's Toolbar with Anti-Spy.

For other processes, however, just try opening your task manager and clicking on the "Processes" tab; while you should really ignore any processes run by user name "SYSTEM" (or the equivalent) unless you're entirely familiar with each process running on your system, you should check all the others. Look for unfamiliar processes that don't seem to be associated with any programs running, and check to see their CPU usage and memory usage. You may just find your culprits there, and killing those processes by clicking "End Task" could clear up your system for the time being. If you aren't sure what you should do or if you should close it, Google the file name with extension included and you'll probably find out fast enough.

Be Aware That These are Only Short-Term Fixes.
It's a possibility that those tricks will magically fix everything, but it may only be a short-term solution; the memory-eating process could be set to respawn itself. Even if it's not, it could restart when you reboot your computer; so while the short-term solution works as a quick fix, you should still try to trace the process back to the root program and find a way to disable it. (A quick and easy way to do this is to plug the filename into your search function, which should lead you to the folder of the program that it's associated with.)

Know What Your System is Capable of, and be Ready to Clean it Out.
If none of the quick fixes are working, you should really consider your system's capabilities in contrast to the system requirements of the software you're using. If your computer barely has enough power to run the software, it's going to drag a lot regardless of what you do to clear up system resources. If, however, you have more than enough power and yet you still can't seem to free your computer of tangles of resource-hogs that refuse to release their stranglehold, you may have to fall on the last resort: backing up all your files to disk and external hard drive, before completely wiping your system drive and restoring it to its original state.

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

How to capture and download Google videos?

Do you like watching online videos? Do you feel sometimes you really want to keep some of these in your Favorites? Do you want to enjoy Flash videos anytime offline. If the answer is yes, then just read on.
FLV has become a very popular video format, that’s why we can enjoy videos online with ease. Now if you want to save them in your computer or enjoy them offline, first of all, you must download them. You may ask how, don’t worry. It’s very easy to download Flash videos.
This tutorial introduces you how to download those videos and enjoy it offline, taking video.google.com as an example.

Software Required

Step 1 Make sure you have installed Mozilla Firefox and Web Video Downloader correctly.
After installation, you can see the icon of Web Video Downloader on the tool bar. It's more convenient to open the sidebar of Web Video Downloader by clicking on its icon.

Step 2 Click the icon of Web Video Downloader on Firefox tool bar to open the sidebar. You can also choose "Tools -> Web Video Downloader" to open the sidebar.

Step 3 Open the page containing the video you want to capture and download. Then an Interception Tip would pop up if the program detects any Flash video. Click "OK" to start downloading the FLV video file.

Click "Cancel" to cancel downloading. Then if you want to restore downloading, right-click the file in the sidebar and choose "Download...".

If you don't like Interception Tip to pop up always, there are two ways to temporarily disable the video downloader in Firefox without a restart of the browser.
Just right-click the icon "video" and uncheck the option "Video Capture Notification",

or open the sidebar and uncheck "Video capture notification" to disable the popup windows.

Step 4 Play downloaded flv with FLV Player.

OK! That’s all for how to download Flash videos. Just enjoy it with your own FLV player!

LifeBook Presentation

Read this tutorial and learn how to make Lifebook presentation in flash 8 with no Action Script. You can use this animation for any business presentation, any flash site.... You will also learn how to create fade in fade out effect and more....



Step 1

First off all, create a new Flash document, set its width to 450 and height 450. The fps should be >28 for this time. Also, set the background color to white. See the picture below.



Step 2

Download my picture.



Step 3

Go back in flash, choose File > Import > Import to Stage (shortcut key: Ctrl+R) and import that picture into the Flash.

Step 4

While the picture is still selected, go to the Align Panel (shortcut key:Ctrl+K) and do the following in the Align panel:

1. Make sure that the Align/Distribute to Stage button is turned on,
2. Click on the Align horizontal center button and
3. Click the Align vertical center button.



Now, you have aligned the picture with the background.Doble click on layer 1 to rename its name in Lifebook.

Step 5

Take the Selection Tool (V), click once on the picture to select it and press once Ctrl+B key (Break Apart) to break apart it.

Step 6

Now, we will use some flash tricks to remove the existing picture from the LifeBook. So, lock the Lifebook layer and create a new layer above the LifeBook layer (layer 2).



Step 7

Using the Rectangle Tool (R) and Selection Tool (V), draw a shape over the picture in Lifebook. See the picture below.



Step 8

Select the shape that you just created and press Ctrl+X key (Cut). Then, unlock Lifebook layer, select it and press Ctrl+Shift+V key (Paste in Place). While the "shape" that we have created in layer 2 is still selected, press Delete key on the keyboard to delete it. Now you have the blank area on the place where the picture of Lifebook was.



Step 9

Find somewhere a few picture (any picture - nature, peopel....) that will be represent our presentation. After that, Import all that picture into the flash Library (File > Import > Import to Library).

Step 10

Lock again layer LifeBook, Select layer 2 and using the "drag and drop" technique, move the first picture from the Library on the stage. See the picture below.



While the picture is still selected, press once Ctrl+B key (Break apart) to break apart it.

Step 11

Using the Selection Tool (V) and Free Transform Tool (Q), place the picture on the blank area position on the Lifebook (in an equivalent way like we have created the shape in step 6). See the picture below.



Step 12

While the picture is still selected, press F8 key (Convert to Symbol ) to convert this picture into a Movie Clip Symbol. See the picture below.



Step 13

Click on frame 15, 40 and 55 of layer 2 and press F6 key.

Step 14

Go back on frame 1, take the Selection Tool (V), click once on the new made Movie Clip (picture) to select it and go to the Properties Panel (Ctrl+F3) below the stage. On the right, you will see the Color menu. Select Alpha in it and put it down to 0%.



Repeat this step, but for this time, do that for frame 55.

Step 15

Right-click anywhere on the gray area between frame 1 and 15 and frame 40 and 55 on the timeline and choose Create Motion Tween from the menu that appears. See the picture below.



Step 16

Double click on layer 2 to rename its name in picture1.

Step 17

Click on frame 150 of Lifebook layer and press F5 key. After that, create a new layer above picture1 layer and name it picture2.



Step 18

Click on frame 50 and press F6 key. Then, using the "drag and drop" technique, move the second picture from the Library on the stage.Now, in an equivalent way like we have created, converted to Movie Clip....make this and every other picture.

Good luck!

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Bouncing Flash Menu

In this tutorial, You have a chance to learn how to make advanced bouncing flash menu using the action script code and some special flash tips and tricks. You can use this menu for any web site and on that way make it a little dynamic. Using this tutorial, you will also learn:

1.how to design this menu,
2.how to animate it,
3.how to apply action script code on it,
4.how to apply alpha effect on animation and more.



Step 1

Create a new flash document.

Step 2

Select Modify > Document (shortcut key: Ctrl+J ). Set the width of your document to 200 pixels and the height to 200 pixels. Select #FDFDFD as background color and set your Flash movie's frame rate to 28 fps. Then, click ok.



Step 3

Take the Line Tool (N) and draw a five shapes like it is shown on the picture below.



Step 4

After that, while the Line Tool (N) is still selected, go to the Properties Panel (Ctrl+F3) below the stage. Then, choose the following options:

1. Enter #BDBDBD for the stroke color
2. Select dotted options as the type of outline, with the line thickness set to 2.



Then, draw a five horizontal line like it is shown on the picture below.



Step 5

Take the Text Tool (A) and go to the Properties Panel (Ctrl+F3) below the stage. Then, choose the following options:

1. Select a Static Text field,
2. Select a Courier as font.
3. Choose 17 as font size and bold it,
4. Select #5C5C5Cas color,
5. As the rendering option, select Use Anti-alias for readability.



Then, type the name of buttons like it is shown on the picture below.



Now we have designed our menu and it's time for animation.

Step 6

Take the Selection Tool (V) and select the first buttons text (in my example “COMPANY”) and the shape on left side and dotted line.See the picture below.



After that, press F8 key (Convert to Symbol) to convert this buttons name, dotted line and shape into a Movie Clip Symbol.



Step 7

While the new made Movie Clip is still selected, go again to the Properties Panel below the stage. On the left side, You will find the Instance name input field there. Call this Movie Clip whatever you like. I have called my “company_mc”. See the picture below.



Step 8

Double-click on the movie clip on stage with the Selection tool(V).You should now be inside the Movie Clip.



Step 9

Take the Selection Tool (V), select only a text (in my example "COMPANY") and press Ctrl+X key (Cut). After that, create a new layer above the layer 1 and name it text.Then, select the text layer and press Ctrl+Shift+V key (Paste in place).

Step 10

Go back on layer 1 and select only the shape on the left side using the Selection Tool (V). See the picture below.



Step 11

Then, press again Ctrl+X key (Cut). After that, create a new layer above the text layer and it shape.

Step 12

Select the shape layer and press Ctrl+Shift+V key (Paste in Place).

Step 13

While the shape that you just cuted is still selected, press again F8 key (Convert to Symbol) to convert this shape into a Movie Clip Symbol.

Step 14

Click on frame 5 and 10 of layer shape and press F6 key.

Step 15

Go back on frame 5, take the Free Transform Tool (Q) and enlarge the shape a little. See the picture below.



Step 16

Go to the Property inspector (Ctrl+F3) and click on the Properties tab. On the right, you will see the Color menu. Select Alpha in it and put it down to 0% .



Step 17

Right-click anywhere on the gray area between the frame 1 and 5 and frame 5 and 10 on the timeline and choose Create Motion Tween from the menu that appears.See the picture below.



Step 18

Go back on frame text and press F8 key (Convert to Symbol) to convert this text into a Movie Clip Symbol.



Step 19

Click again on frame 5 and after that on frame 10 of layer text and press F6 key.



Step 20

While you're still on frame 10, take the Selection Tool (V) and click once on the text to select it.After that go to the Properties Panel (Ctrl+F3) again.On the right, you will see the Color menu. Select Tint in it. For Tint Color set #854A1F and put it down to 100%.



Step 21

Go back on frame 5 and move your text (in my example "COMPANY") a little down using the mouse or by arrows key. After that, take the Selection Tool (V) and click once on the text to select it. Then, go to the Property inspector once again and click on the Properties tab. On the right, you will see the Color menu. Select Alpha in it and put it down to 0%.

Step 22

Right-click anywhere on the gray area between the frame 1 and 5 and frame 5 and 10 on the timeline and choose Create Motion Tween from the menu that appears.

Step 23

Click on frame 10 of layer 1 and press F5 key.



Step 24

Go back on the main scene (Scene 1).



Step 25

Double click on layer 1 to rename its name in menu. After that, create a new layer above the layer 1 and name it invisible button.

Step 26

Select the invisible button layer and create the invisible button over the first button in menu. See the picture below.



Step 27

Take the Selection Tool (V), click once on the invisible button to select it and go the Action Script Panel (Shortcut key: F9). Then, enter the following action script code inside the actions panel:

on (rollOver) {
_root.mouse_over_company_mc = true;
}

on (rollOut) {
_root.mouse_over_company_mc = fstartlse;
}

on (release){
getURL(" http://www.flashfridge.com/ ");
}

Step 28

Create a new layer above the invisible button layer and name it action.

Step 29

Click on the first frame of layer action, go again to the Action Script Panel (F9), and enter this code inside the action panel:

_root.company_mc.onEnterFrame = function() {
if (mouse_over_company_mc) {
_root.company_mc.nextFrame();
} else {
_root.company_mc.prevFrame();
}
};

We're done with the first button . Repeat this process for every other buttons in menu.Only difference is that you must use another instanca name.

Have a nice day!