Recipe 21.7. Publishing Projectors

Problem

You want to publish a standalone executable version of your Flash document.

Solution

Publish a projector file.

Discussion

Flash may be most frequently associated with the Web, but there are many ways in which Flash can be utilized. In some cases, you may want to publish Flash content as a standalone executable. The benefit is that you can distribute the Flash content without requiring the user to have Flash Player installed.

The simplest way to publish an executable version of your Flash content is to publish a projector. From the Publish Settings dialog box, you can select Windows Projector and/or Macintosh Projector. When you select one or both of those options, Flash will export the projector file(s) when you publish. You can then just double-click the projector file to launch the Flash content.

There are third-party applications that export projectors from Flash content as well. The third-party applications have additional options not normally available to standard projectors. For example, they allow you to customize the titlebar and the file icon.

• Zinc: http://www.multidmedia.com

• Flash Jugglor: http://www.flashjester.com

• SWF Studio: http://www.northcode.com

• mProjector: http://www.screentime.com