Publishing Flash 8 via Flash 7 (continued)
Here are those useful URLS, as promised:
Using the above URLs...
1. Install the Flash 8 player for your browser.
2. If desired, also download the standalone Flash 8 player.
Now we're going to facilitate the publishing of Flash 8 files through Flash MX 2004 (ie Flash 7)…
3. Download this file flash8_xml.zip. Unzip it and place the xml file in the following directory:
Win - C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Local Settings\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash MX 2004\en\Configuration\Publish Profiles
Mac - /Users/[username]/Library/Application Support/Macromedia/Flash MX 2004/en/Configuration/Publish Profiles
Two minor changes have been made to the default.xml publish settings file, to the "flash_profile" and "version" nodes - I've provided the file so that
you don't need to worry about these changes, but obviously take a look if you're curious.
4. Open up Flash MX 2004, create a new document and save it on your desktop.
5. From Flash, in FILE -> PUBLISH SETTINGS you will see that your current profile shows as "default".
The first button to the right of this dropdown box allows you to import a new profile:
Press it. It should automatically take you to the publish profiles folder where we put our new xml file (if not, then you'll need to browse to it).
6. Now select the flash8.xml file by double clicking it.
The current profile should now read "Flash 8". If not, don't worry too much. Sometimes just writing some Flash 8 specific code and
then publishing it forces the change to occur. It seems that Flash is still a little flakey with this way of doing things.
It is also important to note that when creating a new file, Flash may automatically revert back to using the default xml file.
If you publish content intended for Maelstrom and it doesn't work, the first thing you should check is whether or not you
need to re-import the Flash8.xml file, as described in the above steps.
Hello Maelstrom!
You are ready to publish Flash 8 files! Time to test, so let's roll out the old "Hello World!" example.
Copy and paste the following code on to the first frame of your timeline. Save your movie, and press CTRL & ENTER to publish it.
The result is that you should see a very normal looking line of text.
createTextField("myTxt", 1, 0, 0, 200, 100);
myTxt.text = "Hello Maelstrom!";
var dropShadow = new flash.filters.DropShadowFilter();
myTxt.filters = [dropShadow];
Why so normal? This is because the Flash IDE is still using the Flash 7 player.
In order to view this movie using Maelstrom you need to either:
a) open up a browser window and drag the swf in to it
b) double click the swf (assuming you downloaded the standalone player)
...or...
c) publish your movie using the F12 key, which both publishes and opens the swf in a new browser window at the same time
- be careful if you use F12 though. If, for example your main browser is Firefox and you downloaded the Flash 8 plugin for Internet Explorer -
so that your normal viewing of websites via Firefox remains unaffected, Flash will open your default browser (Firefox) when you press F12 - not the one with the Maelstrom plugin!
When viewing the swf via Maelstrom you should see a small but noticeable change. The line of text now has a default drop-shadow effect applied to it. Woo!
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