newbie - help

I am new to flash and 3dfa. I have been able to get modest animation results i.e. explosions, text effects, etc.

I would like to learn how to manipulate variables. Would some kind soul be willing to guide me through a simple example.

I have...
1) input text box
2) output text box
3) "calculate" button

a) So what do I need to do to get "1" added to the value in the "input box" and displayed in the "output box"?

b) does it make a differance if I start a new program as a "Movie" or should it be an "animation"; whats the differance?

Sorry for deleting your other post. You only need to post once.

It is best to start a new Movie. The Animation mode is only for simple frame by frame Gif style animations.

The basic usage is quite simple. You add elements, and then you add events to animate those elements. The samples show examples of almost every way to do this.

The 3DFA is different from the standard Flash frame based timeline method, but once you understand the 3DFA way, it is a much easier and more powerful way.

The tutorial support will improve once version 5 is completed and all of the new animation features are finished. We are not investing in writing tutorials for features that may become out of date.

Edit boxes have an "evaluate the following variable" field. In your 'input' box, enter the variable name 'a'. In your 'output' box, enter the variable name 'b'.

Open the "Movie script" in the movie window, and in the "When movie starts" field, type ...

a = 0

Then click the "On every frame" tab, and in that field, type ...

b = Number (a) + 1

The Number function is required to convert the string entered in the input box into a number so that 1 + 1 = 2 instead of 11.

Thats all you need to do.

When you understand how this works, then you should know almost everything you need to develop more complex projects.

Thanks for the help! You answered several questions :-)

However, the program assistance is not quit clear... let me give you a little additional information.

As my first project, I would like to write a conversion program. Say a person wants to know how many inches a certain number of feet is? They might enter "3" in the input box, then press the "calc" button, and should see "36" in the output box.

Once I understand how to do this, I think I will be able to go from there.

FYI I am a school teacher and bought 10 licenses for a class I will start to teach in January. Therefore I need to create some simple tutors that will accomplish meaningful tasks during 1hr class periods.

I look with anticipation to more tutorial support with v5 but can not wait :(
JZ

Try this (the movie attached to this post).

It has an input Edit Box that says "Enter feet". If you open the properties of it, you'll see that the text is tied to a variable called FeetInEditBox.

The Text command box says "calculate inches". It calls the function "ConvertFeetToInches" which is inside the script element "ActionScript Convert Function".

In general, the "Samples" menu has a lot of simple samples like this that can demonstrate lots of features.

Thanks Kusko & Sparky!

This was just the help I needed. Sparky the example you gave cleared up many things regarding accessing input.

Another quick question: I have been playing with multiple buttons...

If I had a master menu bar at the top of the program (movie), what would you suggest I use so that I would go to other "pages" and still see and use the top menu structure?

A slideshow element is easiest.. or just create pages using layers and then manually hide and show them based on menu buttons.

duplicate.....

Thanks! I'll give the hide/show layers a try...

I need about 10 radio check boxes or radio buttons that can have only one item selected. Is there a shortcut for this feature to effect a "group" of checkboxes or must a hard code this for each selection item?

JZ

Grouping goes with radio button "expression" property... if you use same expression like "radio_0" with all you buttons then they are grouped, and if needed, just assign different "value" to a value property to each so you figure out which radio is the selected one.

Great! I understand what you are telling me.

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Would you be willing to look at my code occasionally and suggest improvements? I am not asking you to write anything (I see that on the forums quite a bit - Ugh!)

Rather, head me in the right direction when I get stuck?

Thanks for all the help... JZ

Sure, just post a piece of code and attach a zipped .movie if needed..

Q1: How do I get the program to go go or start in layer #1 ?

Q2: I made the buttons in Layer 1 then copied to layer 2. Is there a way to have the buttons show up and function in all layers without copying?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jwzumwalt

Q1: How do I get the program to go go or start in layer #1 ?

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There is yellow triangle (or "play" symbol) in elements list, that toggles element visibility at the start of the movie.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jwzumwalt

Q2: I made the buttons in Layer 1 then copied to layer 2. Is there a way to have the buttons show up and function in all layers without copying?

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Just add buttons to the main movie, in this case there is no need them to be in a layer?

Wonderful! I got all that working...

Now suppose I want to have a layer that has some type of splash scene. How do I have the movie go from the splash to layer 1?

- Hide all elements at start
- Add new event "Animate Show" for splash screen and choose some transition effect to it.
- Then add "animate hide" event for splash screen and choose some transition effect to it.
- finally add show effect to element you want to appear after that splash screen.

Above is true if you have "Simple options" enabled, if you have Advanded options enabled then you have to first open up "Scene 1" and add those events there..

"Text effects" sample shows more how to use Scenes and show/hide events.

Thanks again for the help.

I have been able to get everything working with your suggestions.

How do I set the "default" radio button?

Hmm.. that at this time needs little scripting as radio button get and set values of their expression variable.. so this seems to work:
- radiobutton (or group of them) has an expression "radio_0"
- each radio button has their own value, like 0, 1, 2 etc..
- click "movie script" open and add this line to "when movie starts":
radio_0 = 1;

This set "radio_0" variable to 1 and it should show as checked radio button if you have one that contains expression "radio_0" and value "1"

Yep, that worked!

Q1: Now, is it possible to have a layer scrollable?

Lets say I have a view port 500 x 500 and I need a scrollable 500 x 2000 area, can this be reasonably accomplished?

Yes, that is easy if you have actual flash viewport size 500*500, just update layers x value manually or add "feature" to layer (2d physics) and give layer a x-velocity value and 3dfa handles scrolling automaticly using that velocity.
Scrolling background sample shows how to do that, except it uses smaller images as tiles and scrolls then over and over again..

If you flash window is larger and you want to only show 500*500 scrolling area you have to use mask element that reveals wanted area.

Thanks for the quick reply, but I didnt make myself clear.
Suppose I have a layer with buttons and menus that is larger than the stage. Can I attach a scroll (slider) bar control to the right hand side?

At the moment it seems scrollbar just works with text element.. when 3dfa starts to opensource elements we should see lots of interesting components to pop up.. including scrollbars :) For now you have to implement scrollbar with image of the scrollbar with drag & drop feature, then adjust drag & drop limits and finally manually calculate the scroll amount and apply it to the layer (little bit scripting..).
I included a sample movie. (3dfa & flash8 only..:confused: )