Searching for the elusive code...

[SeanHannon]

Greetings to all who hang out here... this is my first visit and I am just cutting my teeth on Flash4. I'm in need of an icecold pacifier about now...

Okay, so I've viewed the Flash4 videotape, I'm plowing through the Flash4 Bible and Flash4 Magic, and I'm looking over the veddy cool FlashKit samples from this site. I am starting to really understand how the individual pieces work together, but I am stymied by the overall process at this point.

When I explore .fla files and take them apart to see what makes them tick, I find that there are often pieces of code that are buried somewhere and I can't find them, or there are layers with a keyframe that seem to have no purpose whatsoever. I'm doing a lot of detective work and many times unsuccessfully. Is there a simpler way to examine a project, to view all the constituent parts in an outline, that can clarify what went into the creation of that project?

Thanks to you all,


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Sean Hannon
Stardial Productions, Inc.

[Sasha]

dive deeper. i took apart my first movie 2 days ago. especially examine movie clips. i started a notebook that explains in detail exactly why and how an element works. yesh, and i thought javascript was a difficult language to learn (not that i know js or anything since i cant find a book to explain it in a way i can understand).

i just wish there were more good "simply elegent" flash pages out there. i love flash, dont get me wrong, but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

[Pope de Flash]

There is now real way to do what you want to do. There is common approch to solving problems using defined arguments but thats where it ends. Each piece is a problem solving session for each flash programer. When you crawl into these fla's you are inside the head of the dude / dudes that created the file. So while I do somtihg one way today does not mean that I will do it the same the next or the day after that. I would suggest that you start with just learning the "tell target" command as far as code goes. The way you eat an elephant is "one bite at a time" Get the basics down then move into the deep stuff. A house is only as strong as its foundation. If the base is the weak when you get to the roof the whole building can colapse. If you have any question please call on me, or the other moderators here. Regards, Bill

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Macromedians 1:1

In the beginning the web was without shape and color, and the hype covered the darkness of the net. Then there was a Flash and life came to the web and vision became reality.
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[SeanHannon]

Thanks, Pope de Flash, and to you Sasha, for your replies.

I agree with the gist of both your messages which is essentially to knuckle down and learn this bit by bit, and that all the pieces will fall into place eventually. That is why I am pouring over the Flash books and instancing symbols in my sleep!

When the .fla examples are cobbled together with thought out organization (i.e. actions placed on a separate layer) I can usually follow the weaving paths of Calls and Tell Targets. But I am frustrated in my attempts to understand what I suspect are relatively simple practices. If you don't mind, for the sake of discussion, please look at the .fla file found in Flashkit/Movies/Animations. It's called "Funny Eyes". The author was kind enough to flag certain layers for removal in order to view only the essential layers for study. Here are my questions:
1) There is a button instance called eye.motion.invbtn. It's in the library, but I cannot find it anywhere on the stage, or referenced by any other object. When I look at the instance in editor mode, I see a graphic under the Hit region. But no clue again how this functions to cause the eyes to follow the mouse pointer around.
2) In the motion eye instance there are two layers. One seems to contain the vector graphic of the eyeball, but what is the other one for? It seems to be there serving no purpose, but I suspect it does.

Do both of you, when exploring other people's .fla work, find yourself toggling through the tabs "Label/Sound/Actions/Tweening" a zillion times only to find nothing set in them? I am, because I don't know any other way to explore these files, and the lack of any settings in these tabs is telling me three things - one, I'm trying too hard and it's really simpler than I think it is; two, the key is hidden somewhere else; and three, I'm going to get carpal tunnel in my wrist if I continue to explore these files in this way.

Needless to say, any guidance on how to interpret the example at hand is greatly appreciated.



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Sean Hannon
Stardial Productions, Inc.

[Sasha]

im looking at that one right now. its unfortunate that the author didnt include more notes (or a readme.txt file). something that might help you is if you hover your mouse in the timeline (win, not sure on mac), it will give you info about any actions on the frame. but the key to this one seems to be disabling buttons. something so simple shows so much. once you disable buttons, it shows you some sort of guide on each of the eyes that somehow pulls the eye (animation) to the proper spot in the movie. id have to look at it further to see how it realy works.

[SeanHannon]

Sasha,

sorry it took me awhile to get back. Your suggestion of unchecking the "Enable Buttons" was an excellent archaelogical step. It allowed viewing the eye buttons and revealed more of the puzzle. In fact, I think I have the answer and it is rather convoluted but makes sense.

I found for each eye there is a Layer 1 that contains a radial array of 180 thin slivver buttons emanating from the center of the eyeball. Each slivver has an Action script that goes like this:
On (Roll Over)
Begin Tell Target ("/reye")
Go to and Stop (62)
End Tell Target
End On
The number after "Stop" is different for each button. It references the eye.motion movie clip and causes it to cycle to the the frame number indicated.

The 180 slivver buttons are all instances of the eye.motion.invbtn button. In examining this button, I was confused that all it seemed to contain was a single slivver pointing south in the HIT column, with blank keys in the other states. Then it "hit" me. All the instances of that button in the radial array were rotated into place! The author defined each slivver button as a tiny piece of screen real estate that used an action script to send the eye movie clip to the right location.

Mmmm... this IS a good morning. :^)

Sean

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Sean Hannon
Stardial Productions, Inc.

[jydnas]

If you think that one is tough check out
Cleo Player
Have you ever downloaded a .fla only to find that it is in another language?

It can be frustrating sometimes.


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