Re: FLASH: Flash functioning in Director

[John Dowdell]

At 3:35 PM 3/22/0, Michael Dunn wrote:

>If I have a navigation system setup in Flash (that calls different labels in

>movies) can that be easily modified within flash to function in Director (to

>call different labels)? Or would I have to import the Flash elements into

>Director and rescript them. The reason I'm asking is I have a complex

>actionscripted interface (see http://www.reydo.com) and want to port parts to a

>director project I'm working on. Any help appreciated.



I'm not sure which path would be best for a particular project. I do know

that, generally, it's safest to design with the destination environment in

mind.


(In a browser everything has to fit within the single SWF file. In

Director, it's usually easier to use multiple simpler SWFs, and choreograph

them all at the top level.)


If your existing work calls Flash labels, then those wouldn't necessarily

be Director labels. You might consider making a new piece, similar to the

first but with tuned functionality, by opening up the old FLA file as a

library to reuse these elements.



Tip: When passing messages from a Flash sprite to the Director host, keep

messages high-level and generic, rather than detailed and specific. For

instance, if a Director section was labeled "quiz answers", and if you

inserted this literal name into the SWF navbar, then it could get a mess to

edit if one of the designers needs to change the name to "quiz 2 answers".

    Instead, try passing high-level messages out from Flash, and then

interpret these within the Director host.


Bad: Get URL ("lingo: go to label 'quiz answers'")


Good: Get URL ("event: FlashNavCommand "quiz")


The accompanying Lingo behavior would be something like:


  on FlashNavCommand me, theDestination

    case (theDestination) of:

      "quiz": go to label "quiz answers"

      "intro", "start": go to label "startup sequence"

      "help": if the movieName = "intro" then OpenWindow ("introHelp.dcr")

              else OpenWindow ("mainHelp.dcr")

    end case

  end


I hope you can see what I'm getting at here... the latter handling offers

you much faster and reliable access to changes in naming, organization, and

even conditional tests such as taking different actions in different

movies.


This goes into some of the core concepts of object-oriented design: An

object really only knows its own internals, and doesn't manipulate the

internals of other objects. Instead, they communicate through a high-level

interface, of very general messages. The intent is transmitted, and the

actual implementation is determined by the other object.


Summary: Because Director can host multiple SWFs, you don't need to nest

things as deeply as in a browser.


See also: "What are some tips for using Flash sprites in Director?"

http://www.macromedia.com/go/14115


jd





John Dowdell, Macromedia Tech Support, San Francisco CA US

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