Player Utilities

You can also reformat and modify stand-alones for both Windows and Macintosh. A few software companies create applications specifically designed to modify Flash movies and standalones. Here is a list of Web site URLs for those companies:

• www.flashjester.com

• www.multidmedia.com

• www.northcode.com

• www.screentime.com

• www.alienzone.com/screensaver_features.htm

• www.goldshell.com

Some of these companies offer more than just one utility for Flash movie development, such as the JTools of FlashJester. For updates to this list, check out this book's Web site, listed in the Preface of this book.

Tip 

You can find directories of Flash utilities at www.flashmagazine.com and graphicssoft.about.com/cs/flashtools.

One of our favorite utilities is Versiown, created by Goldshell Digital Media. This handy utility allows you to modify the properties of a Flash (or Director) projector file, specifically .exe versions for Windows. With Versiown, you can

• Add or modify the version information that shows up in the Properties dialog box, accessible by right-clicking the .exe file and choosing Properties.

• Add a custom icon for the .exe file of the projector. Together with an icon utility such as IconBuilder from Iconfactory (which is a filter plug-in for Adobe Photoshop), you can make custom .ico files to be used as icons for your Flash projectors.

You can download trial versions of Versiown at www.goldshell.com/versiown. A trial of IconBuilder is available at www.iconfactory.com/ib_home.asp.

Note 

You can use the Get Info dialog box (Mac OS X) on Mac files to easily replace the icon image for Flash projector files on the Mac. Open the .ico file made from IconBuilder in an image editor such as Adobe Photoshop, use Edit ð Select All to select the entire image, copy it to the Clipboard (Edit ð Copy), and paste it into the picture area of the Get Info dialog box.

Web Resource 

We'd like to know what you think about this chapter. Visit www.flashsupport.com/feedback to send us your comments.