A Little Flash MX help (will gladly trade Director help!)

Factual Questions
1

Please excuse my asking instead of figuring it out myself, but I’m hoping this is simple enough to get some quick answers off the top of some of your heads…

[Long boring intro]
I have used Flash version 3, 4 and 5 a bit, by my real expertise is in Macromedia Director (through version 8); I used to teach a class on Director and Lingo. What I want to do would be fairly simple for me to do in Director, but I would rather use Flash for two reasons: 1) I can read the writing on the wall, and as each version of Flash takes on more and more complexities it can do more and more of the complicated things Director could do, so Flash is seen more and more and Director (Shockwave) less and less. I think one of these days, Director and Shockwave will no longer be supported. 2) Flash was designed to be much more web-friendly from the get-go (Director was around before there was a World Wide Web), and it has always created smaller file sizes. For this project, I think the smaller file size will be significant.
I never learned Flash real well, but in earlier versions I (think) I could certainly do what I cannot now figure out how to do in it’s newest version. I cannot do what I need the same way as in the older versions. I have started to go through the tutorials that come with the program, but it’s taking just too damn long to get to what I need, so I am turning to you for some quick help!
[/long boring intro]

I want to create a simple “slide show.” First a screen or two of introductory and explanatory text, then a series of images that appear one at a time, with each image remaining until the end-user clicks a button to go to the next one. If I want to get real fancy, maybe a button to return to the previous one.

I know how to create the text.

First problem: While authoring, when I click on a different frame to create a second screen, it doesn’t seem to leave the frame I did already. I tried creating a keyframe on a different blank flame, but still no go. What am I doing wrong?

Second problem: The system for putting in “actions” has changed dramatically. It sort of looks more like “Lingo” from Director, but not exacly. Anyways, I just need two “actions” to work.

First, how do I get the Flash Movie to “stay in the same frame” so the same image remains until the user clicks a button to go to the next image?

Second, how do I program the “button” to send the playback head to the next (or previous or any particular) frame?

I am assuming that the method of creating buttons (which was always much better than in Director) has remained the same. If anyone knows different, please let me know before trial and error lets me know different.

From my exeramenting with importing graphics so far, I am assuming I need to clean up my graphic images beforehand and resize them before I import them. Any tips on this process?

And finally, will the Flash Movie on the website start immediately and download graphics after it starts playing, or are there some controls over this that I need to include?

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can give me.

2

Wow… end of the (work) day and NO ONE can offer any help? And only 5 people have even read my plea?

I had assumed that since Flash content is so prevalent on the Web several dopers would find this easy… but apparently not.

Is it that my questions are actually hard to do and I am underestimating the skill needed to do this?

Is that Dopers are all programmers at heart and everyone just programs Javascript for their own pages and doesn’t need the help of a program like Flash?

Is Flash MX too new, and everyone just has older versions?

Or maybe all the Flash users have real jobs that keep them too busy from perusing these boards until they get home at night?

Is it something else? Is it my breath?

3

I haven’t worked with Flash for a long while and I’ve only opened MX up once or twice so bear with me. Make each keyframe have a picture with a “stop” action. Right click on the frame, select “actions”, in the actions window select Actions, then Movie control, then double click on “stop”, this will halt the movie on that keyframe. You’ll probably only need to create one button, open the library window by clicking “Window” on the toolbar, then libray, click the plus sign to create a new symbol, choose button, create the various frames of the button, once the button’s done, drag it from the library into the first keyframe, right click, choose actions if it’s not already there, make sure the button has a blue frame around it, then in the actions window, choose “movie control”, double click “on”, then check the box next to “Event: Release”, then double clcik “goto” in the “type” menu slect “next frame”, in the next frame, of course, there will be the next picture in the slide show in a keyframe with a stop action and another button. You won’t have to make another button, just drag the old one out and apply the properties. Hope this helps. Any questions, ask.

4

Richard, try out the forums on www.flashkit.com They are full of people who do nothing but answer Flash questions all day, just like we do but in a niche :slight_smile: