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Flash Reference Guide

Aug 22, 2003

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In this section of the guide, I’ll explain how to use ActionScript to both add content and change text styles dynamically.

Working With External Files

For this tutorial, you’ll need to begin working with external files, which are files that are used by Flash but not included in the Flash movie itself. By using external files, you can share the balance of your final movie over several files and better control the final size of the movie by only delivering the files you need when you need them. This is especially important when working with very large files.

For this tutorial, I’m using the following external files:

Sample.html
Sample.jpg
Sample.gif
Sample.png
Sample.css

These files are files you can see on any Web site. This is an important distinction to make: Adobe is letting you use the same file types both in your Flash movie and on your Web site. For example, a typical image used on a Web page is a JPG with some HTML and CSS formatting. It can look like this:

Figure 1

Now, however, even if you use different text, styles, or image files—like GIF or PNG—on your site, you can use them in your Flash movies as well. This means your Web site and your Flash movies can pull and link to the same media repository, which is a huge time-saver.

You can download all of the files you need to follow along with this tutorial here. You’ll see that there are three graphic files in JPG, PNG, and GIF format—all of the same image, just sized differently. I will use these images later to demonstrate how image files can be easily swapped in and out. You’ll also see HTML and CSS files. The HTML file contains all of the content for your Flash movie. The HTML code has been formatted in XHMTL format, which is an XML derivative of HTML. The formatting is important as XHTML format is a grammatically strict code language. The HTML code looks like this:

<body>
 <headline>LOREUM IPSUM</headline>

 <subheadline>Ut rutrum velit mattis tortor. </subheadline>

<biline>Lorum - Ipsum Ipsum </biline><mainBody>Sed sollicitudin pulvinar libero. Praesent ac diam eu ante tempus laoreet.
<img align=’right’ src=’sample.gif’/>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Quisque commodo. Vestibulum ac nunc a tortor consequat suscipit. Ut hendrerit. Phasellus ultricies lacus vel velit. Nunc sodales. Etiam libero. Aliquam mattis pretium nibh. Fusce ut risus eu nibh ullamcorper dictum. Fusce mollis consequat dui. Suspendisse in arcu ac nisi facilisis interdum. Aliquam quis tellus condimentum nunc viverra mollis. Vestibulum urna. Ut quis quam. In semper feugiat ipsum. Vivamus volutpat pellentesque magna. 
Nullam consequat est a lorem. Suspendisse vitae urna. Vivamus ornare accumsan purus. Mauris dapibus congue ligula. Aenean venenatis lectus semper nibh aliquam blandit. Vivamus ornare. Proin tempor. Vestibulum sem enim, ultricies eget, feugiat eu, convallis in, ipsum. Maecenas sem diam, mollis sit amet, posuere ac, volutpat vitae, lacus. Proin semper risus a urna. Nam nec lectus ut nisi semper varius. 
Suspendisse vulputate, tortor et cursus venenatis, lorem dolor suscipit felis, vitae mollis quam dolor at tellus. Nullam arcu. Donec pede nulla, tempus at, ultrices eu, sagittis ut, nibh. Morbi purus lectus, pretium eu, feugiat sed, cursus id, orci. Sed posuere turpis vitae nisl. Curabitur sit amet metus ut risus mattis placerat. Nunc varius, felis eu vestibulum fringilla, quam lectus dictum augue, ut ornare nibh elit vel neque. Sed nec urna ac ipsum imperdiet egestas. Sed elementum purus id velit. Pellentesque ultrices libero id neque. 

<A HREF="http://www.informit.com">Click here for more.</A> </mainBody>
</body>

The HTML code itself will be formatted with a Cascading Style Sheet (CSS). The file named sample.css contains all of the CSS needed for this project. It looks like this:

headline {
 font-family: Times New Roman, Roman, serif;
 font-size: 16px;
 font-weight: bold;
 display: block;
}
subheadline {
 font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;
 font-size: 13px;
 font-weight: bold;
 display: block;
}
mainBody {
 font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;
 font-size: 10px;
 display: block;
}
biline {
 font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;
 font-size: 11px;
 font-style: italic;
 display: inline;
}
A {
 font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;
 color:cccccc;
 font-size: 10px;
 display: inline;
 text-decoration:underline;
}

Pull all of these elements together and you have the Web page sample above. These elements can now be pulled into Flash dynamically.

Using ActionScript To Link Files Together

Let's start using Flash. Open Flash 8 or later and create a new file. Save this file and call it "sample.fla." You’ll want to save sample.fla in the same folder you have sample.html, sample.css, sample.jpg, sample.gif, and sample.png.

On the Stage add a Dynamic text field. Name the text field "content_txt." It should look something like this:

Figure 2

I have added a background color of dark blue.

Go to your Timeline and create a new layer and label it "scripts." This is where you’ll add the ActionScript that will dynamically link the content in the HTML, CSS, and images to your Flash movie.

Add the following ActionScript:

//the following code applies a CSS style sheet to the text field
var myStyle:TextField.StyleSheet = new TextField.StyleSheet();
myStyle.load("sample.css");
content_txt.styleSheet = myStyle;
content_txt.multiline= true;
content_txt.wordWrap = true;
content_txt.html = true;

//The following code add the formated content
var story:XML = new XML();
story.ignoreWhite = true;
story.load("sample.html");
story.onLoad = function () {	
	content_txt.htmlText = story;
}

As you can see, there’s not a whole lot to this ActionScript. Essentially, you have two parts. The first part applies the CSS formatting to the dynamic text and the second applies the content that will show in the text.

When you’re done, you can test your Flash movie. It should look like this:

Figure 3

Adding a Scroll Bar Component

As you look at your new Flash movie with the externally linked content and formatting, you’ll notice that not all of the content appears on the screen. You can still get to the content, but it requires using the arrow keys. That’s not much fun and certainly not intuitive. A better way is to use the UIScrollBar Component.

From the Components panel, drag the UIScrollBar Component onto the text field on the Stage. Release your cursor and you’ll see that the UIScrollBar snaps into place on the right side of the text field. In addition, the UIScrollBar resizes itself to the same height as the text field. Test the movie. You’ll now see that you have an easy-to-use scroll bar along the left side of the movie.

Figure 4

Changing Files Outside of a Flash Movie

In the past, if you wanted to change something in your Flash movie such as the text, an image, or the style, you’d have to open the original Flash FLA file and then re-export it as a SWF file. This is fine if you have Flash, but if you’re just a content contributor it can be a real problem.

The ability to link to external files through Flash, however, makes it very easy for non-Flash users to update content in a Flash movie. Now, I can open up my HTML file and change the content in Dreamweaver or any other HTML editing tool.

Figure 5

As a content user, I can also change the image and its format. In this example, I’m going to change the format to PNG by editing the HTML to look like this:

<body>
 <headline>Vestibulum ac nunc!!</headline>

 <subheadline>Fusce ut risus eu nibh ullamcorper dictum. Fusce mollis consequat dui. </subheadline>

<biline>Lorum - Ipsum Ipsum </biline><mainBody>Sed sollicitudin pulvinar libero. Praesent ac diam eu ante tempus laoreet.
<img align=’right’ src=’sample.png’/>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Quisque commodo. Vestibulum ac nunc a tortor consequat suscipit. Ut hendrerit. Phasellus ultricies lacus vel velit. Nunc sodales. Etiam libero. Aliquam mattis pretium nibh. Fusce ut risus eu nibh ullamcorper dictum. Fusce mollis consequat dui. Suspendisse in arcu ac nisi facilisis interdum. Aliquam quis tellus condimentum nunc viverra mollis. Vestibulum urna. Ut quis quam. In semper feugiat ipsum. Vivamus volutpat pellentesque magna. 
Nullam consequat est a lorem. Suspendisse vitae urna. Vivamus ornare accumsan purus. Mauris dapibus congue ligula. Aenean venenatis lectus semper nibh aliquam blandit. Vivamus ornare. Proin tempor. Vestibulum sem enim, ultricies eget, feugiat eu, convallis in, ipsum. Maecenas sem diam, mollis sit amet, posuere ac, volutpat vitae, lacus. Proin semper risus a urna. Nam nec lectus ut nisi semper varius. 
Suspendisse vulputate, tortor et cursus venenatis, lorem dolor suscipit felis, vitae mollis quam dolor at tellus. Nullam arcu. Donec pede nulla, tempus at, ultrices eu, sagittis ut, nibh. Morbi purus lectus, pretium eu, feugiat sed, cursus id, orci. Sed posuere turpis vitae nisl. Curabitur sit amet metus ut risus mattis placerat. Nunc varius, felis eu vestibulum fringilla, quam lectus dictum augue, ut ornare nibh elit vel neque. Sed nec urna ac ipsum imperdiet egestas. Sed elementum purus id velit. Pellentesque ultrices libero id neque. 

<A HREF="http://www.informit.com">Click here for more.</A> </mainBody>
</body>

You can see that I have now changed the HTML. The change is subtle, only the image was modified, but I could have changed all of the text, added more images and more links.

Finally, CSS formatting can also be changed. In this example, I’ve modified the first two formats to this:

headline {
 font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;
 font-size: 36px;
 font-weight: bold;
 display: block;
}
subheadline {
 font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;
 font-size: 18px;
 font-weight: bold;
 display: block;
}

The Flash movie has now dynamically changed without anyone having to open Flash and re-author the original file! Your new Flash movie should look like this:

Figure 6

Why Have Files In Two Or More Places?

You may be asking yourself, "Why have files in two places, such as on my Web site and in my Flash movie?" I can sum up the answer in one word: convergence. It used to be that Flash and Web and other content were all mutually exclusive. That really isn’t the case anymore. Content is spilling off the Web onto the desktop and everywhere else. You need to build your solutions so that your content can be re-used in many different ways, including Flash and other formats such as PDF, the Web, your Office files, and more.

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