After you have mastered the basics of Flash, and have a good understanding ofanimation, symbols, and basic ActionScripting, it's time to expand on thoseskills with Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Beyond the Basics Hands-On Training . Thereis a giant gap that exists with Flash training resources. Content is geared eithertowards beginners or advanced developers. This book was crafted to bridgethat gap and provide a way for beginning designers and developers to furthertheir Flash knowledge without leaping into the "Advanced" realm of pureActionScripting. This book teaches intermediate-level techniques andActionScripting in the context of building a Web site, entirely within Flash. It'sone thing to understand how basic animations and ActionScripting work, it's anentirely different matter to put all those pieces together to build a coherentWeb site. This book not only focuses on site construction techniques, but alsoon learning more advanced ActionScripting; thus bridging the "great divide"between "Learning" and "Advanced" content. You will also will learn how todynamically load in text and images, format dynamically loaded text usingHTML, CSS, and nested images, create scrollable text, build a preloader, addmusic and allow the user to control its volume, add video and allow the user tocontrol its playback, build a slideshow, build a feedback form, create a Flashplugin detector, and more.The accompanying CD-ROM includes a complete set of starter and finishedexercise files to accompany all projects in the book, plus dozens of QuickTimetutorials.

Contents

Introduction.

1. Background.

What Is This Book? What Is ÒBeyond the BasicsÓ? Modular, Modular, Modular Whats New in Flash MX 2004 Upgrading from MX to MX 2004? Exercise 1_What Am I Building? Updates.

2. Where Do I Start?

What Is the Site Construction Process? What Program Do I Start In? Exercise 1_Installing the Site Font. Exercise 2_Integration. Workflow Suggestions.

3. Getting Started.

What Is a ÒMasterÓ SWF? What Are Classes, Objects, Methods, and Properties? What Is ÒStrict Typing?Ó What Is a Function? What Is the MovieClipLoader, and How Does it Differ from loadMovie? Exercise 1_Creating the Master SWF and Setting Up the MovieClipLoader. What Is a Shared Library? Exercise 2_Creating and Precaching the Shared Library

4. LoadVars Class.

Exercise 1_What You Are Building. Exercise 2_Setting Up the Shared Fonts. Commenting. Exercise 3_Writing the LoadVars Object. What Is LoadVars? Exercise 4_Loading the ÒOur HistoryÓ Text. Exercise 5_Making the Text Scroll.

5. HTML and CSS.

Exercise 1_What You Are Building. Exercise 2_Modifying the Loaded Text Using HTML. About CSS and Flash MX 2004. Exercise 3_Using CSS.

6. TextFormat Class.

Exercise 1_What You Are Building. What Is the TextFormat Class? Exercise 2_Adding the Submenu. Exercise 3_Auto-Sizing a Text Field. Exercise 4_Creating the Roll Over/Roll Out States of the Submenu Options. Exercise 5_Disabling Interactivity for Usability. Exercise 6_Copying and Pasting Functionality. Exercise 7_Enabling Interactivity for Usability. Exercise 8_Finishing the Submenu. Exercise 9_Creating the Our Staff Subsection.

7. Building a Slideshow.

Exercise 1_What You Are Building. Exercise 2_Setting Up. Exercise 3_Loading the First Slide. Exercise 4_Loading the Total Slides Variable. Exercise 5_Adding the Next Slide Functionality. Exercise 6_Adding the Previous Slide Functionality. Exercise 7_Adding the Slideshow Descriptive Text. Exercise 8_Adding the Current Slide Counter.

8. Building a Preloader.

Exercise 1_What You Are Building. Exercise 2_Getting Started. Exercise 3_onLoadProgress.

9. Building a Form.

Exercise 1_What You Are Building. Exercise 2_Setting Up. Exercise 3_Simple Form Validation. Exercise 4_Using LoadVars to Send the Form Results. Exercise 5_Styling the Form.

10. MP3 Player.

Exercise 1_What You Are Building. What Is Progressive Download, and What Is Streaming? Sound Compression for Streaming. Exercise 2_Setting Up. Exercise 3_Loading the MP3. What Is the Sound Class? Exercise 4_Stopping and Playing the Music. Exercise 5_Displaying the ID3 Information. Exercise 6_Changing Tracks.

11. Building a Video Player.

Exercise 1_What You Are Building. Exercise 2_Setting Up. How to Create an FLV. To Embed or Not to Embed. Exercise 3_Peek-a-Boo. Exercise 4_Loading and Playing the Video. Exercise 5_Play/Pause Toggle. What Is the NetStream Class? Exercise 6_Building the Playback Progress Slider. Exercise 7_Using the onStatus Event Handler. Exercise 8_Cleanup.

12. The Main Menu.

Exercise 1_What You Are Building. Exercise 2_Setting Up. Exercise 3_Scripting onRollOver, onRollOut, and onRelease. Exercise 4_Bringing It All Together.

13. Getting It Ready for the World.

Exercise 1_Adding Your Flash Content to an HTML Page. Potential Upcoming Embedding Changes. Flash Plug-In Detector Options. Exercise 2_Building a Flash MX 2004 Plug-In Detector. Conclusion.

A. Technical Support and Troubleshooting FAQ.

B. Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Resources.

C. Getting Your Work Online/Using CGIs.

Index.