Free! - Not Just Another Image Gallery

I feel like I’m treading in somewhat unfamiliar waters, writing for FLzone. My name is Nancy Gill and I’m an author, technical editor and Community Expert for Adobe Dreamweaver. So what am I doing writing an article on Flash? My first thought also when I was asked to write something about FLzone’s fabulous new 3D ImageFlow Gallery for Flash. But hey, I like new things so I started playing with this component.. and playing .. and I’m still playing with 10 hours to get this thing finished. Time to write. Read More

Creating a Gallery that gets its images dynamically from flickr

In this tutorial we’ll show you how easy it is to create a dynamic photo album with 3D ImageFlow Gallery For Flash that loads the images from Flickr. You can even use the search function of Flickr and display the photos inside your gallery! Click the image below to see the gallery that we’re going to create.

 

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Free - Creating a Jukebox in Eight Simple Steps

In this tutorial we’ll show you how easy it is to create an MP3 jukebox with 3D ImageFlow Gallery For Flash. Below is a screenshot of the jukebox that we’re going to create.

Check out the Video

Get 3D ImageFlow Gallery for Flash

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Free - Dynamic Animation with Fuse Kit

At some point, most Flash developers get a project where you have to do motion animation in code instead of tweens in the timeline.  Video games, simulations or custom UI components are obvious places where code based animation may become necessary.  But animating with code can require a lot of lines of code.

The Tween class

When Macromedia made the v2 UI Components in Flash MX 2004, they included a class used in the component infrastructure called "Tween".  The Tween class allows you to change a property (such as _x, _y, _rotation, _alpha, etc.) of a MovieClip over time, with various built in easing effects.

There are a few problems with using the Tween class.  The first is that a single instance of a Tween class can only animate one property of a MovieClip.  So, if you want to adjust _x, _y, _rotation and _alpha, you need four Tween instances (one for each property).  The second draw back of Tween, is that there are a large number of parameters needed to create an instance, so it's a long line of code.  This compounds the first problem of needing to create multiple Tween instances, but making each instance a painfully long line of code.

The last major drawback with Tween is that if you don't manage it well and clear out completed or unnecessary Tweens, you can end up in a situation where Tweens just keep on animating uncontrollably, similar to having a setInterval call run off on you when you don't clear the interval religiously.

Fuse Kit

An open-source alternative to the Tween class called Fuse Kit, written by Moses Gunesch, combines a number of previous people's work into a single and very powerful ActionScript Animation kit.  It's a kit because you can choose which assets you want to use and only those assets will be compiled into the SWF.  So if you are only going to use limited assets in the Fuse Kit, you can choose to create very light SWFs.  But if you are going to use some of the higher-end features, you'll end up with a larger SWF file, but you'll have some great code based animations.

We'll take a look at each of the classes that make up Fuse Kit and how you can use them to create some very robust code driven animation.

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Free! - Configure your Flash application using XML

Configure your Flash application using XML

If you’re anything like me, you don’t particularly enjoy having to launch Flash for a quick little fix, export again and deploy it on a website.

Well using the power of XML you can make your life a lot easier. What I’ll be discussing in this article is the concept of a configuration XML file and how to use it most efficiently for your Flash projects.

Getting started

What exactly is a configuration XML file I hear you saying? It’s not difficult at all; in simple terms what it does is define some properties and corresponding values that overwrite the default values in your Flash application.

 

Let’s look at an example of such an XML file:

The XML file above shows a typical configuration XML file that allows you to change the companyName and companyLink variables without having to recompile the Flash application.

This XML document is saved as config.xml and placed in the root folder of your Flash application. Of course that’s not enough to get it to work; we need a little bit of code in the Flash application to load in the XML and get hold of the configuration parameters which we’ll look at next.

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Free! - What’s new in Flash 8

This article is a sneak preview of the new Flash 8 e-book that will be released this month.

Welcome to the first in a series of articles about the new release, Flash 8. Like Flash MX 2004, Flash 8 comes in two versions - Basic and Professional.  Flash Professional 8 is aimed at advanced web designers and application developers. It includes the same features as Flash 8 Basic but adds some extra tools to help with more complicated animations and video.

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Free! - Active Slideshow, the movie!

DMXtutorials.com has done it again; here is a great movie that shows you how to create a Flash slideshow with the Active Slideshow extension for a PHP page.

About Active Slideshow
Bring your photos to life in an amazing Flash slideshow. This extension uses amazing effects from the famous director, Ken Burns. The slideshow slowly zooms in and pans across your photos, bringing your photos to life. Furthermore, you can add your favourite sound or music track, making it the most enjoyable slideshow ever!

The extension allows you to create and customize your slideshow within a few clicks in Dreamweaver. Fireworks is used to convert the images to the specified size. The Flash player is used for displaying the slideshow to the user.

 The slideshow generates an instant user experience by streaming the images and sounds directly. This way the user can enjoy your slideshow instantly even with a low bandwidth connection.

Note: You need Fireworks MX (2004) to use this extension

Get active slideshow>>

 

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Free! - Integration of Active Slideshow and PowerPoint

Integration of Active Slideshow and PowerPoint

Consider being able to add any slideshow produced using Active Slideshow to a PowerPoint presentation. Is this something that appeals to you? Read on!
In this tutorial I will show you how to display an Active Slideshow in a PowerPoint presentation giving you the ability to add an animated slideshow in your presentation. I will talk you through adding the slideshow to the PowerPoint slide and enable you to produce stunning PowerPoint presentation using the Active Slideshow extension.

Why use Active Slideshow in PowerPoint?

You have produced a great slideshow using the fantastic Active Slideshow extension – Why leave it at that? The slideshow is on your website, attracting visitors and interest, why not also use it in a PowerPoint presentation? Whether your slideshow includes a product range, portfolio, latest project or your company image, it could be used in a PowerPoint presentation. We all now know how easy it is to produce great slideshows for the web using Active Slideshow but wouldn’t it be great to include them in PowerPoint presentations for those all important marketing pitches. Well now you can!

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Free! - Flash Album Generator the movie

About Flash Album generator
Have you ever had the need to whip up a very fast image gallery? Not only fast but a bit flashy as well? The newest extension released by DMXzone allows you to do both. Flash Album Generator is the type of album that keeps you on the same page--no moving from page to page to see each image.

Everything is all right there. In this tutorial I'll show you how incredibly easy it is to build an album. Then I'll show you how you can jazz it up and make it even cooler.

Watch the Movie now!

This video tutorial is all about our latest extension Flash Album Generator the video is diveded into three parts;

» Part 1: Generating the album This video shows you how to startup your extension and how to create your own photo album (turn on your speakers).» Part 2: Editing your album Joyce shows you how you edit the properties of the photo album using the property inspector of Dreamweaver.

» Part3: Styling your album The final movie shows you how to enhance your photo album using Fireworks.

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Free! - An Audio/Video messaging application with Flash MX 2004 & Flash Communication Server - Part 1

 

 

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• Required software
• Skill level
• Source Files
• Introduction to Macromedia Flash Communication Server MX
• General workflow of this application
• Setting up the application’s directory under flash communication server
• Creating the User interface of this application
• Writing the Actionscript to make the application working
• Testing the movie
• Conclusion

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Flash Related Articles on DMXzone

So you've decided that to snazz up your site a little animation is needed. Something a little - ahem - Flashy.

Can DMXzone help you out? Of course we can - check out our array of Flash based articles and see how easy it is to sprinkle some Flash wonder onto your site.

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