Actionscript 3 Designer Toolkit

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Entries from September 30th, 2009

Displaying Text on a Transparent Background: HTMLTextBG Class

September 30th, 2009 · No Comments · AS3 Custom Classes

This post describes the HTMLTextBG class which displays HTML formatted text on a bordered and filled background. The transparency (alpha) of the text and background is also specified so that an instance can be placed on top of a graphic or image without blocking the design entirely.

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Loading Scrolling Thumbnails: ThumbnailScroller Class

September 28th, 2009 · 2 Comments · AS3 Custom Classes

The ThumbnailScrollerFromArray class displays a user specified number of vertically aligned thumbnails and employs a scrollbar to bring others into view. Arrays are used to define the arrangement of the thumbnails, the scrollbar and the url’s and titles of the thumbnails.

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Building a slideshow: ThumbnailLoaderFromArray Class

September 23rd, 2009 · No Comments · AS3 Custom Classes

This post combines the ThumbnailLoaderFromArray class with the ImageViewerFromArray class to construct a slideshow.
Two arrays are created, the first thumbsArray, is created defining the urls of the thumbnails displayed, their widths and heights; the second array, imagesArray, holds the same data for the larger images.

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Loading a rollover with navigation: ImageRollover Class

September 22nd, 2009 · No Comments · AS3 Custom Classes

This ImageRollover class loads two images with only the base image initially visible. A mouse rollover hides the base image and makes the rollover image visible. Clicking on the image navigates to a specified url. A small radial loading indicator of a user specified color is displayed until the loading is completed.

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Loading images from a XML list: ImageViewer Class Part I

September 21st, 2009 · No Comments · AS3 Custom Classes

The ImageViewer class displays a series of images, one at a time, in the same frame and, when the image is clicked, loads the next image in a XML list.
Unlike the ImageLoader class which is passed the url of an image to load, the ImageViewer class is passed the url of a XML file [...]

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Navigating with custom menus: Menus Class Part II

September 18th, 2009 · 1 Comment · AS3 Custom Classes

This post concludes the description of the Menus class and details the code necessary for navigation. With the additional code, clicking on any active menu tab navigates to either a html or a flash based page depending on how the tab nodes in the menuTabs in the XML file are configured.
Each tab has two [...]

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Creating custom rollover menus: Menus Class Part I

September 16th, 2009 · No Comments · AS3 Custom Classes

The Menus class creates menus with data supplied from an external xml file. The xml file defines both the appearance and navigational properties of the menus. In this post, I will describe all those xml settings that control the appearance of the menus and then, in the following post, the navigation settings will [...]

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Loading thumbnails with XML: ImageLoader Class Part III

September 15th, 2009 · 2 Comments · AS3 Custom Classes

Building on the last post, this improved example of using the ImageLoader class displays both landscape and portrait images, is driven by an external XML file and displays the title of each thumbnail.

Below is a sample XML file that drive the example. There are two primary sections: setup determines the appearance and dimensions [...]

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Loading thumbnails: ImageLoader Class Part II

September 15th, 2009 · No Comments · AS3 Custom Classes

In this post I will go through the code required to create a series of thumbnail images that are both clickable and identifiable as seen below. In this particular example only landscape images are used simplifying the code somewhat. In a follow up post, the code will process both landscape and portrait [...]

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Loading a text file with scrollbars: HTMLTextScroller Class

September 15th, 2009 · No Comments · AS3 Custom Classes

The HTMLTextScroller class shares much in common with the HTMLTextFromFile class in that it renders a multiline text field with HTML tag formatting. For this class, the user specifies both the width and height of the text field and, if all the text cannot be displayed within the specified field, the class automatically adds [...]

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