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Flash Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools Review by calvinnme
100 tricks for working with Flash with something for everyone
This book is about coming up with new ideas for your Flash web designs, ActionScript, and Flash content. It is not just about showing you some interesting hacks, it is about showing you some of the nonobvious techniques and ideas that will make your Flash designs more original and your applications more effective.
If you want to get some quick ideas for new directions in your designs, the first four chapters look at the core techniques that affect the look and feel of a site, such as drawing, animation, and effects. Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, and Chapter 8 revolve around media and content, so visit them for inspiration and information pertaining to 3D, text, sound, or UI elements. Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, and Chapter 12 cover specialized topics such as browser integration, optimization, and security plus a healthy dose of ActionScript for good measure. You should peruse them for answers to question like, "How do I center the Flash Stage in the browser?" or "How can I prevent someone from stealing my design?"
Flash is a versatile authoring tool and consists of a number of separate areas that usually need to be combined to produce the finished effect or piece, so don't take the chapter titles and synopses as anything other than broad headings. For example, many chapters contain some element of animation, and most hacks contain ActionScript because it lets you do some really interesting things. The following is a brief description of the table of contents:
Chapter 1, Visual Effects
This chapter looks at ways you can make your graphic content more interesting by adding various effects and transitions.
Chapter 2, Color Effects
The savvy designer uses color in addition to animation. Color is often overlooked, but this chapter shows how color changes can transform the atmosphere of a piece or add video-like effects, such as fades and wipes.
Chapter 3, Drawing and Masking
Combining Flash's graphic animation facilities with ActionScript increases your creative horizons considerably. This chapter shows graphic effects created at both authoring time and runtime. Masking, which underlies many of the graphics tricks and techniques, is also discussed.
Chapter 4, Animation
The hacks in this chapter offer content creation shortcuts for manually drawn animation, plus ways to optimize animation created under ActionScript control.
Chapter 5, 3D and Physics
Flash Player is somewhat underpowered in terms of computational and animation speed. Therefore, processor-intensive applications, such as 3D, are problematic in Flash. Flash doesn't include any native 3D ActionScript commands or 3D hardware support, unlike Macromedia Director which supports the Shockwave 3D format. This chapter provides a number of hacks that bypass Flash's performance limitations to add physics simulations and 3D effects to your repertoire.
Chapter 6, Text
This chapter covers ways to store, display, and manipulate text, as well as create animated text effects.
Chapter 7, Sound
Without sound, your carefully crafted content will feel flat and uninspired. The main thrust of this chapter is to show hacks that allow you to create sounds for Flash without having to go to a usually very costly off-the-shelf sound source CD-ROM and without having to nurture any music talent. This chapter also looks at a number of issues that can stop Flash sound from working as advertised and which have put off many Flash sound experimenters in the past. A secondary aim is to present a few sound-related hacks that are not normally attempted. These techniques are hacks because they are sound applications that are not mainstream, such as Flash-based spoken word input and output.
Chapter 8, User Interface Elements
This chapter covers hacks related to user interface issues, such as buttons, scrollbars, and mouse input. However, this book is not about interface design but about stretching Flash in ways Macromedia might not have foreseen or intended. Therefore, the hacks in this chapter cover several nonobvious uses of UI elements within Flash. Some of them overcome apparent limitations in the UI facilities provided by Flash. But the first hack shows that UIs are not just for the end user, sometimes they can make development easier, too.
Chapter 9, Performance and Optimization
This chapter includes hacks to keep your filesizes small and your applications speedy. Flash's animation engine isn't the fastest one around because the Flash Player is optimized for a small download size, not for performance. Also, it is designed with web use in mind; therefore, it is optimized for small, low-bandwidth files rather than large, complex animation. In order to maintain its small footprint and ensure maximum compatibility, the Flash Player does not support hardware acceleration. Therefore, performance issues are often paramount for the Flash designer.
Chapter 10, ActionScript
Although almost every hack in the book includes some ActionScript, this chapter covers ways to get the most out of ActionScript, including undocumented features. ActionScript adds true power to Flash. Without ActionScript, Flash can create only linear animation. With a little ActionScript, you can create basic navigation via clickable buttons and hotspots. Learning more advanced ActionScript techniques gives you access to features such as creating a local shared object also known as a "Flash cookie". Without ActionScript, you cannot create Flash sites that communicate with the browser, exchange data with server-side applications, or download MP3 files.
Chapter 11, Browser Integration
This chapter looks at ways of maximizing browser compatibility so you can maximize the audience and enhance their enjoyment of your content. Ironically, part of the world's love-hate relationship with Flash is based on misconceptions. Many web developers and users don't realize the extent to which Flash works with browsers. In this chapter, we'll see how to integrate Flash with standard browser conventions, such as the Back button, which is highlighted in Hack #94, and search engines like Google.
Chapter 12, Security
This chapter provides a few ways to protect your content and designs, despite the vulnerability of the SWF format.
There are 100 total hacks, with an accompanying thermometer. The "temperature" indicates novice, intermediate, or expert hack.