Flash Hacks (Paperback)

Description:

If you've ever seen an especially cool Flash effect on the web, gone straight to your trusty Flash book to find out how to do it, then turned away empty-handed--Flash Hacks is for you. This unique book offers a collection of expert Flash tips and tricks for optimization, creating interesting effects, ActionScript programming, sound and video effects, and much more--and you don't need to be an expert to use them (although you'll certainly look like one).

With Flash technology, you can create compelling web content, expressive user interfaces, and rich applications for the Internet--all of which dramatically enhance the user experience. But Flash is not just practical, it's a wellspring of opportunities to unleash your creativity and have fun. Flash Hacks dives straight into all that's fun and creative about Flash, while presenting useful programming techniques and practical--although never mundane--hacks that can make your work easier.

Geared to cover Flash MX, Flash MX 2004, and Flash MX Professional 2004, Flash Hacks begins with hacks on authoring, testing, and web environments. You'll learn how to beat the Flash bloat bug, realistically simulate the web, create a JavaScript-free Flash sniffer, and hack a spellchecker for Flash. Other hacks in the book are grouped in the following areas:

• Primitives
  
• Timelines
  
• Symbols
  
• Flash Assets (sound, video, and bitmaps)
  
• Code hacks
  
• Events and event handling
  
• Advanced animation
  
• UI design hacks

True to O'Reilly's popular Hacks series, Flash Hacks tackles problems and solutions that aren't dealt with elsewhere. You'll pick up insider tips from the experts, and learn about amazing and sometimes quirky aspects of Flash. If you want more than your average Flash user--you want to explore and experiment, unearth shortcuts, create useful tools, and come up with fun things to try on your own--Flash Hacks is the book you'll need.

Table of Contents:

Foreword

Credits

Preface

Chapter 1. Visual Effects

      1. Fake Per-Pixel Transitions

      2. Per-Pixel Text Effects

      3. Simulate Old Film Grain

      4. Create SWFs from Animated GIFs

      5. Animate Photoshop PSD Files with Flash

      6. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

      7. Blowin' in the Wind: Simulate Tree Movement

Chapter 2. Color Effects

      8. Video Color Effects

      9. Video Fade to Black and Fade to White

      10. A Custom Color Transform Class

      11. Create and Organize Custom Swatches

      12. Borrow Color Schemes from Nature

      13. Simulate Sepia Effects

Chapter 3. Drawing and Masking

      14. Create Filled Circles Quickly at Runtime

      15. Create Synthetic Art

      16. Create Seamless Tiles

      17. Fill Areas with Patterns

      18. Imitate Escher

      19. Fix Alpha Property Inaccuracies

      20. Use Complex Shapes as Masks

      21. Interference Patterns and Ripple Effects

      22. Feather Bitmap Edges

      23. Add a Vector Edge to a Bitmap

      24. Solve the Bitmap-Shift Bug

      25. A Page-Turn Effect (Exploit Symmetry and Masking)

Chapter 4. Animation

      26. Smooth Scripted Motion

      27. Time-Controlled Movement

      28. Quick, Bandwidth-Efficient Character Animation

      29. alt-Flash: Motion Graphics Alternatives

      30. Deja New Animations

      31. Hacking The Matrix

      32. Computer-Generated Character Animation

      33. Particle Effects

      34. Shape Tweening Complex Shapes

Chapter 5. 3D and Physics

      35. Simulate 3D

      36. Panoramic Images

      37. An Optimized 3D Plotter

      38. Use Acceleration to Simulate Gravity and Friction

      39. Simulate a Throw

      40. Detect Multiple Collisions

      41. Turn Toward a Point

Chapter 6. Text

      42. Keep Text Legible

      43. Autocomplete Text Fields

      44. Store a List of All Input Words

      45. Import Complex Formatting in Flash

      46. HTML and CSS in Flash

      47. Use Accessibility Text as Help Text

      48. Text Effect Framework

      49. Typewriter Effect

      50. Time-Based Text Effects

      51. Timeline Text Effects

Chapter 7. Sound

      52. Create a Flash Speech Synthesizer

      53. A Talking, Lip-Synched Avatar

      54. The Ubiquitous Sound-Kicker Hack

      55. Turn Low-Bandwidth Monaural Sounds into Stereo Sounds

      56. Real-Time Sound Effects

      57. Quickly Create UI Sounds

      58. Optimize Sound

      59. Sound Time Codes (Cue Points)

      60. A Custom Sound Transform Class

Chapter 8. User Interface Elements

      61. Amit's Dials (Interactive Testing)

      62. Right and Middle Mouse Buttons

      63. Button Movie Clips

      64. Dude, Where's My Scrollbar?

Chapter 9. Performance and Optimization

      65. Beat Flash File Bloat

      66. Bandwidth Testing for Complex Sites

      67. Hide Low-Quality Settings

      68. Optimize Graphics for Performance

      69. Benchmark Runtime Performance

      70. Adjust the Animation Complexity Dynamically

      71. Performance Budget

      72. Substitute Bitmaps for Vectors

      73. Optimize Component Downloading and Usage

Chapter 10. ActionScript

      74. External Script Editors

      75. Strict Typing and Casual Scripters

      76. Code Hints

      77. Clone an Object

      78. An Idle Timer (Timeout Event)

      79. Fast ActionScript Searches

      80. Lock the actions Layer

      81. Debug with trace( )

      82. Undocumented ActionScript

      83. ASnative( ) Back Door

      84. Obscure Operators

      85. Import ASC Files as XML

Chapter 11. Browser Integration

      86. Keep Your Site Browser Friendly

      87. A Universal Flash Plugin Sniffer

      88. Test Multiple Flash Plugins

      89. Preferences and Publishing Defaults

      90. Center Your SWF Without Scaling

      91. CSS-Based Browser Centering

      92. Dynamically Resize Content

      93. Create HTML Links in Flash

      94. Integrate the Back Button with Flash

      95. Give the Flash SWF Keyboard Focus

      96. Add Key Shortcuts to Your Site

Chapter 12. Security

      97. Recover Content from a SWF

      98. Protect and Obfuscate Your Flash Files

      99. Make Your SWF Phone Home

      100. Review Compiled ActionScript

Index