RE: FLASH: Programmable Menu Object: FREE if you want it

[Len Harrison]

Hi John,


I believe you probably have done something like this before, possibly many

times with various variants. Judging from the range of questions asked here,

though, I believe many others will find this instructive and possibly even

useful. Let me explain in a bit more detail:

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> -----Original Message-----

>

From: ownershocker [dot] com [ownershocker [dot] com]On">mailto:ownershocker [dot] com]On Behalf Of John

> Croteau

> Sent: Friday, October 23, 1998 8:20 PM

>

To: flashershocker [dot] com

> Subject: Re: FLASH: Programmable Menu Object: FREE if you want it

>

>

> Hi Len,

>

> I have no idea what your control does, I am more than slightly confused.

It's pretty simple. I built a movie clip popout that is reusable without

modification. It's a programmable menu object.


> Can you post a sample swf on the Web showing what it does?

That wouldn't help. The technique is only exposed in the .fla.


> It is possible that your technique is common already.

I imagine it might be. It was the first thing I thought of doing once I

understood <telltarget /movieclipid>. Of course I'm more of a programmer

than a designer so it's possibly less common than I assume.


It's pretty simple really. Take a popout menu and assign <begin telltarget

/navigator goto label btn# end telltarget> to each button where the # in

btn# is the button number. Build "empty" movie clips with one frame for each

button which does a telltarget to (nominally) _level0 followed by whatever

action you want from that button. Label each frame as btn#. Drop the menu

object on the timeline and "program" it by dropping the controller clips

along the timeline labeling the instance of each as "navigator" (being sure

you only have 1 navigator in any given frame, of course).


The value is the thing is reusable and reprogrammable. The reusable part is

less significant in my mind that the reprogrammable part, unless I can

figure out how to make the number of buttons virtual, which might be

possible. That raises its value significantly. As it is, you'd need one of

these objects for each number of branches you had within your content, i.e.

3 button, 4 button, 5 button, etc. You'd also need to add text labels in

most cases. However, if your content was amenable to the same menu treatment

in multiple instances, it would work fine. For example, if you had a set of

products and wanted to display description, options, and pricing for each,

you could use one of these for all products. That's the real reason I think

its been done before. This situation has to have arisen and it's an obvious

solution if you're a Flash guru, just not so obvious to the rest of us.


That's why I thought to share it. I've read posts around aspects of this a

number of times and probably looked at .swf's that used these aspects

without knowing that. But it was only yesterday that I actually "got it". So

I figured other people would be in the same boat as me and could use some

source to examine and play with.


> Secondly we have

> no idea if you have done things in the most efficient manner.

Hard to say there, but its pretty basic.



> Popup

> Glossaries are extremely easy to implement with Tell Target.

Yes. The specific value here, which is the reprogrammable part, is that you

have context sensitivity.


>So I'm not

> sure what is special enough about this to agree to your conditions.

I doubt it's special at all if you've worked in Flash a lot. But if you look

at those "conditions", they ain't much. Just ask for it and send me a URL if

you use it. No payment or credit of any kind is asked for. If you improve it

and want to share, feel free to do so. If you don't want to share, no

problem. If I improve it, I'll send you the updated version(s). Don't blame

me if something bad happens in your universe after I send this to you (no

it's not hexed!).


That part of the post is a bit of a joke, really. Something like "[this is

what] keeps this piece from fully realizing the artistic impulse which so

obviously motivated it" and other bits in my ff5 post. Perhaps I should

broaden my satire a bit. People seem to be mistaking it for its target.


>As I

> said before an example URL might be helpful.

Not really as mentioned up top. You'd just see some recycled Flash 2 buttons

doing jumps to frames labeled "section 1 frame 1" etc. As I mentioned quite

a while ago, there are a number of reasons I don't want deal with putting

stuff like this and the sample I distributed earlier up on the Web. I'd like

to just attach the .fla to the post (it's something like 40K zipped and will

shrink even smaller after I remove a gratuitous mc with a gradient and

dropshadow I added to make a point with a coworker) but enough list members

are adverse to that to make it a no-no. So emailing on request is the best

alternative.


For those of you who have requested this thingy, I'll be sending it out

Sunday evening California time if not before. I need to remove the

gratituous comment to my coworker and may try to virtualize the number of

buttons it handles. Also I want to add a bit of explanation and "directions

for use" to the thing itself or the accompanying email.


len harrison

instructional designer

lenhabtcorp [dot] com

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