Re: FLASH: Flash for Director (was: SWA)

[John Dowdell]

At 3:42 PM 8/27/98, Marc Hoffman wrote:

> Could you post the command for the Flash button to request that Director

> play a sound? I know it's probably in the Director 6.5 documentation, but

> I have only Flash3 and need to prepare Flash for embedding in Director.


Can do. Because this area may be of interest to others, I've renamed the

thread, and will add background info.


Big thing: If you're making Flash movies for use in Director, then export

as SWF 2.0 format right now. The Flash Asset Xtra was created before Flash

3, and so we've currently got a version difference. People are working on

this right now, but in the meantime, export from Flash 3 as SWF 2.0 for use

in Director.



That said, when you import Flash to Director the two movies can talk back

and forth. It's sort of like FSCommand and the play/zoom/pan controls in

the browser, but you don't have to worry about non-compliant browsers, and

the range of commands is greater.


Flash can talk to the Director host by three different methods in the

GetURL Action: one gives Director a literal string, one gives Director the

name of an event, and the third gives Director a line of Lingo to execute.


I usually have Flash send Director an event message, myself. The URL you'd

type in the button's action would be "event: nameOfEvent". It's like

"FSCommand:" or "javascript:" that way.


Now, what's the name of the event Flash would send Director? That's where

you'd need to agree with your local Lingoslinger... the event can have any

valid message name, just so long as you both agree on the same name. They'd

catch the event in a behavior script or some other appropriate place.


For instance, suppose you decide the piece will have three buttons in Flash

itself, one to pause the Flash, one to start it, and one to rewind it. You

could then give each button an action URL of "event: PlayFlash", or "event:

PauseFlash" and so on, and the scripter could write a behavior such as:


  property spriteNum


  on PlayFlash me

    puppetSound "whirrr"

    play sprite (spriteNum)

  end


  on PauseFlash me

    puppetSound "bing"

    stop sprite (spriteNum)

  end


  on RewindFlash me

    puppetSound "kashook"

    rewind sprite (spriteNum)

  end



You could also set it up so that the movie will only play if they answer a

question correctly in a Director part of the screen, or have Flash repeat a

certain section three times before advancing, and so on. There's a lot more

here than can be done in a browser, because Lingo is so much stronger than

JavaScript.



Summary: When preparing Flash movies for use in Director, be sure to export

in SWF 2.0 format right now. One way of having a Flash button talk to the

Director movie is by using "event: nameOfEvent" in a GetURL action. The

name of the event would be up to you and the scripter.



Does this bring you where you wish to be...?


jd





John Dowdell, Macromedia Tech Support, San Francisco CA US


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