Flash Tips and Tricks,

Volume Five

By Craig Campbell

Running Time: 3 hours, 45 minutes

  Overview

This compilation is the fifth in a series of Flash Tips and Tricks tutorials that have been featured in our LearnFlash.com newsletter. This collection of Flash tutorials is a must have for any Flash enthusiast.

  1 - JavaScript Popup Windows

Unfortunately, there's no way to create a customizable popup window using only Flash. But the good news is that with a little help from JavaScript, you can create popup windows with no scrollbars, no toolbars, no menubars, and you can even specify the size of the popup window. In this tutorial, you'll learn how to do just that.

   2 - Creating Tooltips for Buttons

Sometimes if a button's purpose is unclear in an application or on a website, you can hover over that button and a small tooltip will pop up describing the button in more detail. In this tutorial, you'll learn how to create just such a tooltip for your Flash buttons!

  3 - Linking to a PDF File

Unfortunately, linking to a pdf file isn't as easy as putting the name of the file inside the getURL() function call . . . at least not if you want it to open up in a browser window. In this tutorial, you'll learn how to embed a pdf file in an html document and then link to that document in Flash.

  4 - Creating and Animating Clouds

One of the most popular features of Flash Professional 8 is the new 'Filters' feature, which lets you add blurs, drop shadows, glows, and other filters to your objects. In today's tip, you'll learn how to use the 'blur' filter to create some very realistic clouds, and then you'll learn how to animate those clouds in Flash. Unfortunately, if you don't have Flash Professional 8, you'll just have to sit back and watch.

  5 - Creating a Multiple Choice Quiz

Thanks to Flash's numerous User Interface components, creating things like multiple choice quizzes can be pretty simple. In this video, you'll learn how to create your own multiple choice quiz using radio buttons and some Actionscript.

  6 - Graphics vs Movie Clips

Many beginning Flash users have a mistaken concept about the differences between graphic symbols and movie clip symbols. Many people think that graphic symbols can only store graphics, whereas movie clips can store animations. In this video tutorial, you'll learn that this is not necessarily the case.

  7 - Illustration Optimization

Many artists prefer using hand-drawn illustration techniques for their Flash graphics, but there's often a big hit on your file size when using these types of illustrations. In this tutorial, you'll learn why this is the case, and you'll also learn a couple of techniques for optimizing those illustrations in order to reduce file size.

  8 - Automated Slideshow

In today's tutorial, you'll learn how to create a slideshow thatautomatically changes pictures every five seconds. This task is accomplished using setInterval(), which allows you to create a delay between pictures so you don't have to insert a bunch of needless frames.

  9 - Problems with Rotating Animations

Creating an animation of an object rotating is very easy to do, whether you do it with tweens or in Actionscript. Unfortunately, sometimes the rotations don't occur exactly how you would want them to, because by default, the anchor for the rotation is the center point of the object being rotated. In this tutorial, you will learn how to change that anchor point for both tweened animations and Actionscript animations.

  10 - Text Gradient Fills

Unfortunately, applying a gradient fill to text in Flash isn't as easy as selecting the text field and then choosing a linear gradient from the Color Mixer panel. So in this video, you will learn two different methods to achieve this effect.

  11 - Creating a Gyroscope Animation

Creating a spinning ring is as easy as flipping it over and tweening it. In this video, you'll learn how to create a gyroscope effect using multiple instances of this simple technique.

  12 - Text Swipe Effect

In today's tutorial, you'll learn how to create an animated text swipe effect, where the text is quickly and smoothly revealed from left to right. Text effects like this can be a little tedious to achieve, but the end result is usually well worth the effort.

  13 - Rotating Sunburst Effect

In this basic tutorial, you will learn how to highlight your logo by putting a rotating sunburst effect behind it. You'll also learn an important lesson about reusing graphic elements whenever possible.

  14 - Symbol Instances

I was asked recently about how to alter the label on one instance of a button without having the labels of the others instances of the same button change along with it. In this video, you'll learn an important distinction between the way symbols work and the way symbol instances work.

  15 - Animating Lines

In today's tutorial, you'll learn how to animate a series of lines to make it look like they're drawing themselves onto the stage. This is done using a simple mask.

  16 - Using the Tween Class for Button Animations

Learning how to animate using Actionscript instead of keyframes will eventually become essential if you plan to continue growing as a Flash developer. In today's tutorial, you will learn how to import and use the Tween class to create a rollOver and rollOut effect for your buttons.

   17 - Typewriter Effect

Today's tip is a simple, though somewhat tedious effect, that allows us to create a typewriter animation where the user can see the text being typed onto the stage. The animation will be synced up with a sound file.

  18 - Changing Backgrounds

In this video, you'll learn a very simple way to create a series of buttons that will allow the user to change the background image in your Flash website. The methods described in this video can also be used to make a simple photo gallery in Flash.

  19 - Semi-transparent Buttons

In today's beginner-level tutorial, you'll learn how to create a very simple, yet elegant, button symbol with a semitransparent background that loses its transparency on rollOver.

  20 - Transparent Movie Clip Buttons

In the previous tip, you learned how to create a simple button symbol with a semitransparent background that brightens up when the user hovers over it. In today's video, you'll learn how to achieve an identical effect, except in this video, you'll learn how to do it using a movie clip symbol and a little bit of ActionScript.

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