Macromedia Flash 8 Bible

Robert Reinhardt and

Snow Dowd

Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc.

111 River Street Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774 .
www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2006 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

ISBN-10:

0-471-74676-2

ISBN-13: 978-0-471-74676-8

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

1B/RZ/QR/QW/IN

Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana
Published simultaneously in Canada

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About the Authors

After discovering Macromedia Flash while working on an art project, Robert soon realized that there was a need for more comprehensive documentation of its capabilities. In 1998, not many people had even heard of Flash and publishers were wary of the limited market, but IDG Books Worldwide, Inc. (now Wiley Publishing, Inc.) committed to doing the Flash 4 Bible . The rest, as they say, is history. After studying and working together in Toronto for five years, Robert Reinhardt and Snow Dowd established a multimedia consulting and design company in Los Angeles in 1999, called [the MAKERS]. Five years in the Hollywood Hills saw them through the dotcom boom and bust and gave them the chance to work on a wide range of projects — without ever having to wear wool socks. Now based in Portland, Oregon, [the MAKERS] continue to do work for entertainment companies, educational institutions, entrepreneurs, independent artists, and nonprofit organizations — and enjoy wearing stylish rain boots.

Robert Reinhardt — With a degree in photographic arts, Robert takes a holistic approach to the creation of compelling multimedia. In addition to development and content creation through [the MAKERS], Robert works with Schematic (www.schematic.com) as Vice President of the Multimedia Platforms Group. Robert has led various assignments including multimedia data analysis applications for Nielsen's Media and Entertainment division and creating interactive applications for The Weather Channel's WeatherClassroom.com, DC Comics, and Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition spotlights for major cable networks.

When he isn't building or consulting on Flash projects, Robert loves to teach and write about Flash. In addition to this book, he is the coauthor of the Flash MX 2004 ActionScript Bible (Wiley, 2004), as well as Macromedia MX: Building Rich Internet Applications (Macromedia Press, 2003). He has developed and taught Flash workshops for Lynda.com, Art Center College of Design, Portland State University, and Ed2Go, as well as conducted on-site training and seminars for clients in the United States and Canada such as LodgeNet and Scripps Networks. Robert has been a regular featured speaker at the FlashForward, FlashCan, FlashBelt, and SIGGRAPH conferences. Robert and Snow were members of the Web Graphics committee for the SIGGRAPH 2004 conference. Robert is also a writing partner for CommunityMX.com.

Snow Dowd — Snow initially collaborated with Robert Reinhardt on multimedia, film, and photography-based installation projects while earning a BFA in Image Arts and New Media at Ryerson University. During this time, she was also the production manager for Design Archive, one of Canada's preeminent architectural photography studios. Working with renowned photographers and an exacting international client base of architects and designers helped her gain a deeper appreciation for images, architecture, and industrial design.

Fully immersed in digital production since 1998, Snow is able to synthesize her background in visual arts and communication theory with an ever-evolving software toolkit. Focusing on content architecture and interface design, Snow strives to create print and Web projects that are beautiful, functional, and memorable. Snow was honored to be featured in the June 2005 spotlight on FlashGoddess.com — a great place to go if you've been wondering where all the women are in the Flash world.

About the Technical Editors

Ezra Freedman — Ezra is a Senior Manager of the Multimedia Platforms Group at Schematic, a Los Angeles-based services company that develops interface and technology solutions for the Web, television, and mobile devices. He has served as lead architect and developer on many successful Web and mobile applications and is currently working on projects for the Macromedia Mobile and Devices team.

Zach Zsukula — Zach is a designer and technologist working for Schematic in New York City. He has worked on projects ranging from coding the recently re-launched ABCNews.com to designing and animating the Web site for Warner Bros.' Ocean's Twelve . After escaping Los Angeles, Zachary now resides in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and also works with bands, photographers, and arts organizations through his studio, No Printcode (www.noprintcode.com).

Credits

Senior Acquisitions Editor
Michael Roney

Project Editor
Katharine Dvorak

Technical Editors
Ezra Freedman
Zach Zsukula

Copy Editor
Lauren Kennedy

Editorial Manager
Robyn Siesky

Vice President and Executive Group Publisher
Richard Swadley

Vice President and Publisher
Barry Pruett

Senior Permissions Editor
Laura Moss

Project Coordinator
Michael Kruzil

Graphics and Production Specialists
Beth Brooks
Lauren Goddard
Denny Hager
Joyce Haughey
Barbara Moore
Lynsey Osborn
Melanee Prendergast
Alicia B. Smith
Julie Trippetti

Quality Control Technicians
John Greenough
Jessica Kramer

Media Development Specialist
Shannon Walters

Proofreading and Indexing
TECHBOOKS Production Services

To the summer I lost writing this book. I hope to see you next year. And to Jon Stewart, for making me laugh out loud after dark.

RJR

To Oregon … for being almost "Canadian" and to Rob … for being almost perfect.

SD

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Acknowledgments

This book would not have been possible without the dedication and talent of many people. Although much of the content in this edition has changed to reflect changes in the tools, there is also a good deal of content from dedicated contributors that has been carried over from the previous edition. We are always grateful for the added breadth and depth the tutorials from our guest experts bring to the content. First and foremost, we would like to thank the Flash development community. In our combined experiences in research and multimedia production, we haven't seen another community that has been so open, friendly, and willing to share advanced tips and techniques. It has been gratifying to be involved as the community keeps expanding and to see the innovators in the first wave of Flash development become mentors to a whole new generation. Thank you all for continuing to inspire and challenge audiences and each other with the possibilities for Flash.

We would like to thank everyone at John Wiley & Sons who supported us as we researched and revised, week after week. Katharine Dvorak, our project editor, was clever, kind, and charming enough to get the job done while maintaining a cheerful demeanor. Lauren Kennedy is the best copy editor we've ever had. She polished up rusty sentences that had made it past our editors on earlier editions and caught a few things that slipped by our tech editors, too. As always, our endless gratitude goes to Michael Roney, our acquisitions editor. Steadfast, optimistic, and supportive, Mike was a human shield who kept the faith and ran interference for us even as we pushed deadlines (repeatedly) to overhaul a best-selling book.

Ezra Freedman and Zach Zsukula, our technical editors, were dedicated and creative, as they waded carefully through example files and reams of text in a determined effort to anticipate our readers' perspective. We always prefer to hear "it's broken" before the book has gone to print!

A special thanks to all of the Schematic Flash team who tested examples as we created them, especially John Barton and Billy Shin. Jennifer Goodie provided weekend (and nighttime!) support for many PHP questions for the Gallery component in Chapter 35. Peng Lee gave us timely advice for several examples in the book, and Beau DeSilva spent many nights rendering the 3D wasp footage used in Chapter 17.

Many of the scripts provided in this book would not be complete without the "instant messenger" help provided by Joey Lott, Paul Newman, Danny Patterson, Guy Watson and Rob Williams,. We'd also like to thank Richard Blakely and Jerry Chabolla at Influxis.com for providing the Flash Media Server hosting for this book's streaming video examples.

David Fugate, our literary agent at Waterside Productions, has been through every revision of the Flash Bible series. The bad news and the good news is that David has left Waterside to launch his own company (LaunchBooks), so this will be his last edition of the Flash Bible, but the start of many new endeavors.

Of course, this book about Flash wouldn't even exist without the hard work of the people at Macromedia who make it all possible. Many thanks to the developers, engineers, and support staff at Macromedia, especially Mike Downey, Mike Chambers, Doug Benson, Gary Grossman, Erica Norton, San Khong, Jeff Kamerer, Mally Gardiner, and Jen deHaan, who stayed up day and night to answer our questions and ease our learning curve during the development of Flash 8. Scott Unterberg worked magic as he oversaw one of the most enjoyable and productive beta programs that we've ever been involved with. We're also indebted, as always, to all our intrepid fellow developers and authors, who helped us to get our bearings in early versions of Flash 8.