SCROLLER TUTORIAL

[velez]

Open Swish 2
Insert Sprite - call it Button
Insert Sprite - call it Scroll
Now add all the objects per tutorial ...
The point where it says Merged Shape ... just draw a triangle for each one. Two triangles for UP. Two triangles for DOWN. Give each one a different color so you won't get confused. Don't worry about grouping. (I grouped 2 objects together to give the arrows a 'shadow' effect.) You don't need to group!

Let me know if you need anything else ... post any questions. A stupid question is one that is not asked.

[CELERYHART]

See...I didn't even know you could do that....yipee...Now what you might have mentioned is that when you insert your second sprite....to make sure that your SCENE 1 was selected....or you will end up with a sprite within a sprite...which I just did...!!!! ..thank God for the delete button.....lolo
well..now at least you have given me a fighting chance.....THANKS....see!!!!!!...and you just took it for granted that we all knew....lolo....something so simple can cause such misery and despair....!!!! lolo...thanks

[Unc]

Hi,

At long last I got it working. The most difficult thing for me was understanding why you need 4 button (2 up arrows + 2 down arrows). Also I didn't catch what you meant by P,R and M in your movie. Heres the key for other thickos like me.


P - Place
R - Remove
M - Move

You need two of each buttons so you can get a continous mouse over effect, otherwise the mouse only registers once. By alternating them swish it always returns a mouse over = true! Now I understand.

Hope this helps someone else.

Cheers,


Unc

[poorpaddy]

Hey Velez nice tut. I was wondering if you could post the swi for some idiot like my self to look at.

[persaltier]

Rykor-

That's what this whole post has been about...tryin' to figure it out w/o posting the swi

[poorpaddy]

Originally posted by persaltier
Rykor-

That's what this whole post has been about...tryin' to figure it out w/o posting the swi

I know but my resources get pretty low with this page open and Swish open at the same time.

[velez]

Unc,
I'm glad you got it. Was that your email I got?
---------------------
Life is much more rewarding when you accomplish something on your own. With an swi file people don't really learn. They just copy and change items around. With this tutorial I'm actually making you do all the work. Thus, the completion is more rewarding.

[persaltier]

print the page out? i actually do that a lot on here when i wanna follow a thread. reading off the screen kills me at 1280 res. btw....just a browser window and swish drains ur resources?? ***hands rykor a 128 MB chip**

[velez]

Rykor,
Turn off footers.

[alan73]

I like the format of the scroller tut', but could you make an option to print the instructions(tut) please. As it means staying on line to do the tut' and in the UK staying on line can be expensive.

Looking forward to more interesting tuts' like that.

Alan

[CELERYHART]

I"m sure some people do just copy and paste...but honestly....I DON'T...I agree with you that you have to do it in order to learn....it just gets frustrating when you are stuck before you even start.....
I do appreciate what you are trying to do.....and your last nudge will at least get me going....AND.. if you aren't really concerned that I am in a collapsed mental state,splashing tear drops on my keyboard and ready to pitch the whole puter in the trash.....then you are doing the right thing....!!!! lolo
Glad Unc figured it out...lolo....I will to....I HOPE...!!
HURUMPH.....!!!! Now I don't even want to look at the stupid .swi till I've tried again....!!! lolol

[persaltier]

alan-
you don't need to stay online to do the tutorial. once the page is loaded, the swf will still run even if you go offline. velez just threw this together..the intention wasn't for this to be a full blown scroller tutorial...more just something for people to use as a starting point.

velez-
i think the one place where a little cleaner explanation could be given is during the add action part to the buttons. the goto frame can be interpreted as either being an action to an event, or for the person to goto the actual frame before adding the new action / event sequence to the new button. did that make sense?

[poorpaddy]

Nah i just went and copied the swf out of my Temporary Internet Folder... Solved that problem! Oh and I already have a 128mb chip do they make higher. I dont really focus on it much.
[Edited by Rykor on 08-07-2001 at 02:34 PM]

[persaltier]

[swf width="304" height="288" background="#FFFFFF"]http://www.makisupa.com/flash/scroll3swi.swf[/swf]

aight....i tried to put it together...kinda looks funky (the buttons flicker).

btw...Velez-

I tried the transparent content .gif, and it came out to be about 3KB larger than if I just had the text originally entered in Swish. What'd we do differently? (optimize the .gif?)


[Edited by persaltier on 08-07-2001 at 03:47 PM]

[velez]

I just made a pdf file to download. If you don't see the link on the swf you need to refresh and/or clear your cache.

persaltier,
It's 'cause you copied the first sentence and pasted numerous times. Swish only needs to store one copy of each letter. Thus, Swish only copied the first sentence and reused the letters to make the rest. (I hope I'm clear.)
If you checked teh prior post you will see the numbers I generate with an image and with text (inserted directly into Swish). It's always good to check and see the difference. Every byte saved is always good for the viewer.

If you have a large paragraph an image would be wise. However, if you only have a few sentences to post I'd suggest you insert text directly into Swish. On the other hand, if you want the text to be crisp and clear I'd suggest you go with an image.

PS. Nice job on the scroller. Now stop the flicker.

[persaltier]

velez-

i didn't follow you completely on that one. actually, i just read it again...so if i woulda had diff't content then the file would be larger...interesting. i'm goin' to The Word at Irving Plaza tonight, so tomorrow I'll try that one out (and get the flickering to stop..i think i just have to make it a button).

[CELERYHART]

Your killing me today....!!! Okay...I've made something....looks not bad..but it's not scrolling.....Where do I go to ENABLE SCROLL AS MASK.....like you said.....I"m going to end up sending you my swi....so you can tell me what I 'm doing wrong before I cry.....!!!!!!

[velez]

When you insert Sprite look at the Sprite tab and click on 'Masked'.
Make sure all the objects are the same order as I have them in the tutorial.
-------
I know having the tutorial in such a cramped place makes things difficult. So, I decided to create a pdf file of the tutorial. It is color coded. Hopefully, that will make it easier to understand.

[monkeypants]

Mabe some step-by-step would help

1. draw a box, and fill it with a color.

2. type some text. make the text as wide as the box, and too long (in paragraph size) to fit in the box.

3. position the text over the box

4. select the text and the box by dragging the pointer around both objects.

4. group the objects as a sprite

5. name the sprite "scroll"

6. on frame one of the sprite timeline, place the box and the text.

7 on frame 2 stop the timeline (sprite)

8 on frame 3 place a transform action on the text that moves it up by it's own height. Make this action 200 frames long.

9 place a stop action in the sprite timeline at the end of the text's transform

10. go back to the scene timeline

11. with the sprite selected, look on the "sprite" panel and check mask. This will clip the sprites content to the FILLED area of the botto mmost layer of the sprite. In this case, it is the box you drew in step 1.

12. Draw another box in the scene. Select the box, and convert it to a sprite. name the sprite "up"

13 In the "up" sprite timeline, use the following

on frame 1 ...place the box

on frame 2 ...stop

on frame 10... tell target "scroll" goto next frame. uncheck the "play" box.

on frame 11... goto frame 10

on frame 15... stop

on frame 20... goto frame 0

on frame 25... stop

actions for the box in the "up" sprite

onrollover... goto frame 10
onrollout... goto frame 20

Now when you mouseover the box in the "up" sprite, it tells the "scroll" sprite to run that action that moves your text up one frame at a time. As soon as you take your mouse away, it stops.

To scroll back down, you just need to copy the "up" sprite, and replace the go to next frame action on frame 10 with go to previous frame.

That's all there is to it.

[velez]

Hey monkeypants ...
No matter how you put it ... there will always be somebody out there that cannot understand the steps. Hopefully, your steps will clarify a few things.