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Techno Page
By
Harendra Alwis
Symbols
in Symbols
We have covered quite a lot of ground in our Flash 'esca-pade' and
I am sure most of you are now familiar with basic animation techniques
and buttons. This week, I thought I'll introduce you to a concept
in flash that may be new to most of you. When you created all those
symbols, be it 'Graphic Symbols', 'Buttons' or 'Movie Clips', you
may have noticed that all of them are automatically added to your
library (Ctrl+L). What you may not have known is that you can embed
any of those symbols within another symbol's timeline. For example,
you can embed a movie clip within the timeline of a button symbol.
In this instance you can place it in the button's 'Over' state to
make it play when the mouse hovers over the button. The following
example will take you through the steps.
- Begin by
creating a circle on the Main stage. Now we need to turn it into
a button. You may be familiar with the fact that we do this by
selecting the button and pressing F8. This will bring up the symbol
properties. Choose 'button' and click 'OK'. Double clicking the
button will take you into the edit mode.
- Insert a
key frame in the "over frame" by pressing F6 or right
clicking on the "over frame" and choosing insert key
frame.
- Next change
the colours of the image on your stage as you deem fit. Select
the circle; the colours of which you just changed and convert
it to a Movie Clip by pressing F8. Double click on the symbol
to edit the movie clip. Select the Circle, once more press F8
and Choose "graphic". Select the graphic and go to Edit>copy.
- Create another
layer in the timeline by going to Insert>layer. Click on the
first frame of the newly created layer and chose 'Edit>paste
in place'. (Paste in place pastes the graphic in the same location
it was when we first copied it).
- Click on
frame 15 and insert a frame by pressing F5. (Do this for both
layers).
- Next insert
a key frame on frames 8 and 15 of the upper layer. Go to frame
8 and select the "scale" button from the toolbar. Increase
the size of the circle until it is about twice as big. Once you
have scaled the circle to a desired size go to Modify>instance.
- Choose the
"effect" tab from the instance panel. Select "Alpha"
from the scroll menu and change the Alpha to 20% or a similar
figure of your choice.
- Select frame
1 and click on the "frame" tab of the instance panel.
Set the tween type to 'motion tween' and set the "easing"
to 100. o Then click on frame 8 and chose 'motion tween' as the
Tween type and set the easing to -100.
Now you are
ready to test your movie by selecting 'Control>Test Movie' (or
Ctrl+Enter). Have fun with the animated button you just created,
but more importantly, take note of the lesson you learned about
embedding Symbols within Symbols.
Techno
news
The Techno Page reliably learns that Sri Lanka Telecom is planning
to give out ADSL Internet connections in the near future. The technology
is currently being tested in Colombo and it is expected that the
first commercial connections will be available by August this year
in Colombo.
The service
is primarily targeted at domestic Internet users and it won't be
long when you may be able to boast of a 512kbps download (and 128kbps
upload) speed from your home. If 512kbps is not enough for you,
you could even choose a 2Mbps download speed by paying extra.
The pricing
of the service is yet to be decided on, but the 512kbps connection
is expected to cost a flat fee of Rs. 4000/= to Rs. 5000/= per month,
whereas the 2Mbps connection could cost about Rs. 10,000/=.
Reader's
corner
Q: What is 'GPRS'? Please explain what the GPRS technology is
and what it offers.
- Ahmed Javed
A: The
General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a new non-voice value added
service that allows information to be sent and received across a
mobile telephone network. It supplements today's Circuit Switched
Data and Short Message Service. GPRS facilitates instant connections
whereby information can be sent or received immediately as the need
arises, subject to radio coverage. This is why GPRS users are sometimes
referred to as being "always connected".
GPRS enables
services such as colour Internet browsing, e-mail on the move, powerful
visual communications and multimedia messages at speeds of up to
171.2kbps.
Email: technopage_lk@yahoo.com
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