Flash Fan

As a good logo design，the logo image must be describable, memorable, scalable and effective. In general, graphic and text in logo design should clearly convey a message to advertise their products or services aimed at their target audiences & target market. But how can you make your logo attract attention of viewers, easy to remember, get into the minds of viewers? I use 5 simple actions to optimize logo design, I find they are practical skills to make a common image become amazing, follow me to view:

 1.    Auto Color –Scheme:

       Original logo

       Modified logo

2.    Beautiful Gradient Color

Original logo

Modified logo

3.    Diverse Effect

     Original logo

     Modified logo

4.    Remarkable Text Effect

     Original logo

     Modified logo

5。 Great Background image

    Original logo

Modified logo

These simple actions make your logo designs wonderful! In fact, I just click once or twice to create such beautiful logo with the help of  Logo Maker. If you are beginner, I think this is the great logo design tool to help you easily get the remarkable effect on logo design. Hope you like it.

No matter you are running an entity shop or a virtual store online, as long as your intension is to sell goods, you have to create an appropriate logo to advertise your product in a simple but effective way. Logo is also known as trademark, which will give the very first impression to customers as visual description about our product.

When you have just established a new company, people may not pay much attention to your product features or company introduction, but a remarkable logo design may arouse their interest and make them recognize or even remember your product. In other words, a well-designed logo will promote the percentage of potential customers’ back looking on your products, which is worthy of much more time and effort.

Just like cloth companies release new style to guide the coming season fashion trend, even the leading companies in every industry should improve logo design according to different tastes and interests of people as time goes by.

In my opinion, logo design can be mainly divided into three categories as follows. Let’s take three famous car brands as example separately to understand them.

1. Character Based;

In this category, we can just use company name directly into logo design which connects company to brand visually. Ford is one of brands belongs to this category.

From the process above, we can easily find that the company determined to use name as brand when generated the very first design, and this idea exists through hundreds of years’ development. The logo design is based on word Ford mainly and the only difference is its background color which becomes lighter and brighter.

2 . Abstract Based;

In this category, we will try to express our company’s spirit by specifying abstractive elements in logo design. And these elements may have their own meaning. I believe Benz gives us a very impressive example.

From the very one, it only contains characters, but from the second version, the three-pointed star is supposed to symbolize the ambition of universal motorization – “on land, on water and in the air” and it has been used till the current version. The current logo seems like a steering wheel to me, which means smart and easy to use.

3. Figure Based;

In this one, we can build an actual signal as brand. It can be any designed from any existed object. Let’s take a look at Peugeot logo for example to illustrate this category.

We can see from this history that the producer specified a lion to represent his car product, which gives me stateliness and royalty impression. As long as I think of Peugeot, this lion appears in my mind!

From all mentioned above, we can easily understand that improving logo design will help making brand and product popular with customers. So it is crucial for us to save the previous logo design’s resource file in case of further editing in future. There is an old motto goes as a long journey is started by taking the first step. When we would like generate the first version of logo, we may ask for some help to get started, thus I recommend you an easy-to-use Logo Maker. You can not only create a logo from scratch in minutes, but also save as its own format to effectively re-edit logo further.

Logo design is becoming more and more crucial and it plays an important role in marketing strategy nowadays. No matter you have already owned a beautiful and meaningful logo design or have just started to create the very first logo for your business, please keep in mind that your logo would have always asked for fresher elements to enrich its content, smoother curves to polish its shape and prettier colors to brighten its skin!

Make a Good Drop Down Menu for Your Website

One of the main things you must determine when designing a web site is what kind of navigation/menu system you will use to make it easy for your visitors to find their way around the site. You need an intuitive, professional, and fast-loading menu. SEO friendly and good looking.

There are many ways to create a navigation menu, such as through DHTML and JavaScripting or make drop down menu in Flash. Moreover, professional Flash Menu Builder is a better choice. Let’s compare!

Build Drop Down Menu in Flash

You can create one drop down menu in Flash, which gives you a greater breadth of customization and can let you make your menu’s appearance and animation more unique. However, not everyone knows how to use Adobe Flash, and getting started with this Flash tool is not so easy.

Even though the Flash technology offers the best and richest multimedia experience, it still has a serious disadvantage, Flash content is invisible to search engines. Perhaps this is the reason for some people to reject building drop down menu in flash.

Please refer to http://www.entheosweb.com/Flash/video_tutorials/drop_down_menu.asp for the video tutorial of building a drop down menu in Flash.

In this video tutorial you will learn how to create a simple drop down menu in Flash. The tutorial covers the basics behind developing a simple drop down menu by using transparent buttons to create the rollover effect.

Make Search Engine Friendly Drop Down Menu with Flash Menu Builder (Suggested)

Since it is not so easy to make drop down menu in Flash, and the most important is, the output Flash content is invisible to search engine. So many professional Flash menu builders come into the market, such as Sothink Flash Menu, which not only requires NO Flash and ActionScript skills, but also allows you to generate search engine friendly code.

Sothink Flash Menu provides plenty of preset menu styles which can be applied to menu items in one click; to make a distinctive Flash menu that satisfies your imagination, you can customize menu styles with thousands of combinations for menu display, special effect, background, distance, space, color, font, image, cursor, separator and icon. In a word, with Sothink Flash Menu, you can make a unique SE friendly web menu in just 5 minutes.

Download Sothink Flash Menu >> (30-day free trial)

Sothink Flash Menu is friendly to the search engine spiders by following three ways:

• Generate the SE friendly code and insert it to webpage
• Make XML sitemap and submit it to main-stream Search Engine
• Generate sitemap to help navigate site and make it to be indexed by Search Engine

1. Search Engine Friendly Code Maker

Intro: This tool enables to generate special codes which are readable for web crawlers; and these SE friendly codes can enhance the presence and visibility of a website on search engine listings. The maker will behave like sitemap if JavaScript is forbidden in the browser, which the menu is shown in text link.
Usage: After publishing the menu into page, you can check button in the program to open dialog, and click “Copy All” button to copy these codes, and paste them behind the menu code between tag within webpage.
Button:

Dialog:

2. Google XML Sitemap

Intro: This tool can generate XML sitemap, which is special for Google search engine. This XML sitemap makes good use of the search engine spiders’ time by make the engines index pages from your site efficiently; and provides the opportunity to make search engines know priority, update time and change frequency.

Usage: Finishing the menu configuration, you can check button in the program to open dialog; input your website link and check the related options to set sitemap; click “Save XML” button to save XML sitemap to defined path. At last, submit this XML sitemap to Google.
Button:

Dialog:

3. Generate Sitemap

Intro: Sitemap allows search engine crawlers index the website easily; it enables to make SE find all the pages. Even some internal links, sitemap still improves Page Rank or link popularity to all pages it links. Also sitemap helps with usability and site navigation based on existing menu structure used in website.
Usage: Completing the menu creation, you can check button in the program to open dialog; choose theme, attach CSS and check the related options to set sitemap page; click “Save…” button to save HTML page to defined path.
Button:

Dialog:

We have introduced above-mentioned SE friendly ways in Flash menu creation. You can choose the best way based on your website.

Create unique web buttons with Sothink Flash Menu. These buttons can be used for navigation bars as well as buttons throughout a website. In this tutorial I will show you how to create a unique web button. Remember that the colors that are provided in this tutorial are just for this example, you can try a lot of different colors/gradients etc and get some very unique styles.

Sample web button of this tutorial:

Preparation: Design considerations for web buttons

1. Rollover state. The rollover state of a button is the new appearance it adopts when the mouse moves over it. Typical rollover state features include: colour change of text and background, underline. The rollover state is the simplest and most basic feature for any menu, and yet, strangely, for some technologies it is very difficult to achieve, javascript menus (also known as DHTML menus) require tortured code for this, because for years almost every browser version needed different code for this. Buy a DHTML menu, and it may not even do the rollover state properly in all browsers. For true java, on the other hand, there are no such problems. True java web buttons really will give you reliable rollover states.

2. Image buttons. The next key feature to think about when choosing a web button is images. Does your chosen menu have the ability to read in images (GIF’s, JPG’s) which you have designed yourself, and turn these into attractive buttons? Many web developers have difficulty with images, so you may need to see if the product of your choice comes with a good set of images for you to choose from. But if your skills include graphic design, look carefully at the options for using your own images.

3. Animated effects. Very cool animated effects can be obtained. A good button menu can apply dramatic image processing effects to your own images. Remember that image processing is memory intensive, so don’t make animated buttons too large, especially if you are running other memory intensive media plug-ins on your page.

4. Press-in effect. You can obtain menus which have more states than just a rollover state. Do you want your buttons to “press-in” when clicked? Or do you want them to have an “active” state showing that the hyperlink in question is the current choice and current page?

5. Multiple buttons. The old FrontPage hover buttons encouraged designers to have one applet for each button! This is inefficient. Look for menus which will handle all your button needs in a single applet – arranging them in a column or bar as required.

6. Remote rollover effects. Have you seen menu items which, when you place the mouse over them, cause changes elsewhere on the page, such as instantly exchanging one image for another? Advanced web buttons may have the capacity to trigger changes elsewhere on the page when rolled over. If you want this feature, look for java buttons which support user-definable onMouseEnter and onMouseExit events.

Suggested Web Buttons Builder: Sothink Flash Menu 1.0

Download suggested web buttons builder >> (30-day free trial)

Step 1: New a project for creating web buttons

Launch the web buttons builder, and then you will see the following Startup window. Choose “New horizontal menu”.

Step 2: Customize web buttons as you like

You can customize properties for the web buttons from the Tasks panel:

• Add Text

Choose “General” from the Tasks panel to add text.

Now the web button is as follows:

• Edit Font

Choose “Font” from the Tasks panel to edit font for the entered text.

• Set Background Color

Choose “Background” from the Tasks panel to set background color.

• Add Icon

Choose “Icon” from the Tasks panel to add appropriate icon for the web button.

Now the web button is as follows:

Step 3: Add link for the web buttons

Choose “General” from the Tasks panel, and then enter the link URL in the “Link” field.

Step 4: Publish the web buttons

Now you can click the “Publish” button from the toolbar and follow wizard to publish the created web button.



Designing your own internet page or site is a project that might be as fun and creative as you like. You’re putting your work out there for potentially millions of people to read. Whether your site showcases your prized collection of stamps, your photos of family and pet[s], or you’re putting forth effort to build a new business; your internet site is the best window of opportunity to make a good impression. Keep in mind that most surfers will give your page about 15 seconds. This means one thing: make it memorable! To do this, here are eight important gaffes to avoid.

1. There are hundreds of available fonts from the standard size Times New Roman to extra huge and bold Goudy Stout. Using more than two, possibly three, fonts are’t recommended. It’s fun experimenting with the right font for your page, but unless you’re creating a internet site where you’re featuring fonts, keep it simple. Also, script fonts look horrible when they’re done in all capital letters.

2. With the advent of animated graphics [GIF’s], most of them available for the rock bottom price of nothing, people can go nuts decorating their site with the visual equivalent of Disney World. Some of the animations do more than move; they make noise! Remember, folks, less is more! One or two appropriate animations per page can enhance it. Yes, animation is fun. But too much can be distracting.

3. Spell check your page. Read it. Then read it again. Even if you have a graphics’ intensive site, you will have some text. When that text is misspelled and/or full of grammatical errors, you’ll turn away a proportionate quantity of traffic. I once discovered a site with TWELVE misspellings on one page! No matter what you’re selling or showing on the WWW, being able to do so in proper English [or whatever your language] is always appreciated. Most word processing programs include a spell check. And if you’re in doubt, have somebody who likes to read and write proofread it.

4. Text only sites are BORING! If we want to read a book online we’ll go to an e-book company and download one! Or to the library — get the point? Even if you’re designing a serious reference site, there’s always a way to include an elegant little graphic, a non-white background, or a line to break up the paragraphs. The Internet is a visual medium for most of us [except those who run their browser in a text-only format], so make it look attractive. After all, you are inviting people to share something with you.

5. The other extreme would be sites that are so graphics’ intensive that we purchase several minutes waiting for the final picture to load. While it may be a very entertaining site, the epoch it takes to show us how cool those photos/graphics really are may be too lengthy for impatient surfers. Balance pictures with text. Find a way to make the photos into thumbnails, or at least decrease the size so they don’t take as lengthy to unfold into their full glory.

6. Broken links don’t increase your popularity. Who likes seeing that ‘404 File Not Found’ on their screen? CHECK YOUR LINKS before launching your site.

7. If you must add music to your site, please have an off switch. That somebody will share your taste in music isn’t always going to be the case. During the weeks before Christmas how lots of sites did we come upon that played various versions of “Jingle Bells” and other carols? While music can enhance a site, it can also detract from it. I came upon the most appalling example of what a internet site shouldn’t contain some months ago. The blaring techno music was so relentless that I immediately searched for the off button. I never found it. I was next visually assaulted with a growing font that searched such as it was going to jump out of my computer. Instead, it froze. The screen, now almost completely lime green with font, had just enough space for me to read the words: “…will design a site such as this for you.” As my speakers were SQUEALING from the stuck music and the monitor displaying that parody, I shut my computer off. Enough said?

8. Update your site periodically. Signs such as ‘last updated 1998’ give clues to the surfer that this is a cobweb. The more you freshen your contents, the more likely your site is to remain fresh in people’s minds. Plus it helps your rankings in the search engines.

Hope you have fun designing your internet page. It’s your way to show off what you know.

As youre designing your new internet site, youll be tempted with internet design ideas that could turn into fatal mistakes. This is especially real if your internet site represents your business. Below are five of the most common mistakes to avoid at all costs…

1. Too Many Graphics

Having too lots of graphics (particularly huge graphics), can cause your site to load entirely too slow. Visitors will get impatient and frequently times click out of your site — never to return.

SOLUTION: When possible save your graphics as GIF files (gif.htm) rather than JPEG (jpg.htm). Also, reduce your graphic in actual size as much as you can without distorting the graphic or picture.

2. Counters

A visitor counter or hits counter should not be seen on your site unless you have trememdous traffic. The reason for this is visitors really do not want to know which visitor they are, especially if theyre visitor number four. Theres no benefit to your visitor, nor is there benefit to you. The only way showing a counter is advantageous is if youve had millions of visitors and wish to display the popularity of your site or would want to attract advertisers with the huge numbers. Otherwise, you can use this space for a benefit-packed headline that leads your visitor to another segment of your site.

SOLUTION: Most internet hosts offer internet statistics that reveal daily visitors, hits, referrers, etc. This feature will let you know how lots of people are visiting your site without the entire world seeing the information. If youre just starting out, make sure your internet host offers this free service.

3. Banners

Limit your banners to the bare necessities. Why? Because banners are graphics that is able to slow loading time and are a turn-off for lots of surfers on the internet. For most, “banner” is just another word for “ad” and they avoid clicking on them.

SOLUTION: If you do have a banner or two, place the banner at the very top or bottom of your page. Or you could place a small banner in your sidebar. Most people will look at the first picture they see and then start reading below the picture, so writing or links that are above the banner may remain unnoticed. Also, the banners on your site should be related to your product or service. Remember, everything on your site should work together to benefit your target customer.

4. Scattered Web Site

When designing your site, make sure it has a pattern that leads your visitor. Get several people (friends or relatives) to visit your site and view them as they navigate. Notice the places where they stop (as if theyre finished) and also links that they click on. Organizing your site to lead visitors is very important whether youre leading them to buy something or just to click and go to another place in your site. Customers are silently begging to be led.

SOLUTION: Take a look at the flow of your site. Design it in a fashion that always continues such as this…

Make sure that graphics do not get in the way of your lead. If the visitor stops in the middle of the home page to click on a graphic or banner before getting to your sales page, they may never return. Youve got one chance to get the visitors attention and keep it. Make the most of it.

5. Generalization

The most effective way of selling on the net is to personalize your internet site to reach your target audience. Many internet sites are general and attempt to reach everybody. The reality is that you can not be everything to everybody. The business owners who are successful on the internet normally have very specific products or services that target a niche market.

SOLUTION: Make your site as personal as possible. As youre writing, pretend that you are face to face with the customer. Present your internet site in such a way that the visitor feels such as he just walked into a store in his hometown. Also, stay focused on your target customer (one who would be interested in “your” product.)

These five mistakes should be avoided at all costs if you want to build an effective and successful internet business.

Design your site to sell!

How to export the FLASH sequence pictures in the FLASH animation process, we often encounter some cases, to export some of the software in the FLASH sequence of pictures in the previous tutorial we learnedhow to export a clear picture, but only export a single image, how to export the image sequence it, we start with this tutorial it. In the previous tutorial we learned how to export a bitmap clear, but some cases we need to export a series of pictures, I remember 7-8 years ago for the TV animation, you also need to export a series of consecutive images , often took a few DVD disc to get the sequence diagram. TV stations can now use the SWF file to play, and eliminates the tedious sequence of images export operation. Although the production of video sent to television stations no longer need to export the sequence of pictures, but some cases we still need to export the sequence using the FLASH images. Such as the production of GIF animation, FLASH GIF Export function that comes with being the color of the restrictions, often rough exported GIF images, colors, very large particles. At this time we need to export the sequence using the FLASH pictures. First, we need to export the sequence to open the source file FLASH images.

1. Select “File” – “Export” – “Export Movie.”

2. Open the “Export Movie” panel, where we played for the file a name, and in the Save as type drop-down list, select “JPEG Sequence.”

3. Open the “Export JPEG” setting panel, we can in the “Panel” box enter the central resolution is set higher resolution, set the resolution, the stage of the “wide” and “high” pixels will be modified to follow If we want to use the default value, just click the “panel” in the “matching screen” button. 4. Press the “OK” button to export the finished sequence of images, images stored in the directory, we get the sequence of pictures. With the sequence of images we can operate according to the different needs, such as the use of GIF animation software for PS production.

There’s the iPad, and there are Android tablets, but the most intriguing dark horse of them all might still be Windows 7. Despite many products we’ve seen that have been awkward grafts of Windows 7 touch technology, the imminent arrival of the Dell Inspiron Duo re-confirms that Windows 7 convertible tablets aren’t dead yet.

However, are they shaping up to be better than what we’ve previously seen?

We reviewed the Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t earlier this year, a well-designed but flawed convertible Atom / Windows 7 convertible tablet that felt bulky and slow. Recent designs such as the HP Slate 500 and the Inspiron Duo offer sleeker solutions.

In this thoroughly explained, detailed flash lesson, I will show you how to create photo model button with url using the action script code and some special flash tips and tricks. You can use this button for some web site, for some presentation, or for some banner. Using this lesson, you will also learn how to import any photo into a flash stage, how to convert it into a movie clip symbol, how to apply action script code on it and much more!

Example:

Move your mouse cursor over the photo!

Step 1

Find any photo which you like to use for this lesson.

Step 2

Create a new flash document. Press Ctrl+J key on the keyboard (Document Properties) and set the dimensions of your document as the dimensions of photo. Select any color as background color. Set your Flash movie‘s frame rate to 32 and click ok.

Step 3

Call the current layer photo. Double-click on its default name (Layer 1) to change it. Press Enter once you have typed in the new name!

Step 4

Choose now File > Import > Import to stage (Ctrl+R) and import any photo into a flash stage. While the photo is still selected, go to the Align Panel (Ctrl+K) and do the following:

1. Make sure that the Align/Distribute to Stage button is turned on,
2. Click on the Align horizontal center button and
3. Click the Align vertical center button.

Step 5

While the photo is still selected, hit F8 key (Convert to Symbol) to convert it into a Movie Clip Symbol.

Step 6

Double-click on the movie clip on stage with the Selection tool(V).You should now be inside the Movie Clip.

Step 7

While the photo is still selected, hit again F8 key (Convert to Symbol) to convert it again into a Movie Clip Symbol!

Step 8

Click now on frame 20 and hit F6 key.

Step 9

Go back now on the first frame, select the Selection Tool (V) and click once on the photo to select it. After that, go again to the Properties Panel (Ctrl+F3) below the stage! Then, select Filters tab from the left side. Click after that on the plus icon and select the Adjust Color filter. Make the adjustments as follows:

Step 10

Right-click anywhere on the gray area between the two keyframes on the timeline and choose Create Motion Tween from the menu that appear.

Step 11

Call the current layer photo inside. Double-click on its default name (Layer 1) to change it. Press Enter once you have typed in the new name!

Step 12

Create now a new layer above the photo inside and name it action script.

Step 13

Click now on the first frame of layer action and go to the Action Script Panel (F9). Then, enter this code inside tha actions panel

stop ();

this.onEnterFrame = function(){
if(rewind == true){
prevFrame();
}
}

this.onRollOver = function(){
rewind = false;
play();
}

this.onRollOut = function(){
rewind = true;
}

this.onRelease = function(){
getURL(“http://www.toxiclab.org”);
}

Step 14

Click now on frame 15 of layer action and hit F6 key. After that, go again to the Action Script Panel (F9) and enter this code inside the actions panel:

stop();

We’re done now!

Test your movie and enjoy!

From:  http://www.flashperfection.com/tutorials/Photo-model-button-with-url-97544.html

Web browsers don’t automatically track the user’s actions within Flash. Therefore the browser can’t record the history of the user. This is because Flash elements are single movies embedded into HTML pages. All the actions are called within Flash, and only Flash. A very basic way around this problem is to separate your Flash sites into individual SWF’s for each major section, then embed each one into their own HTML file. This is not recommended since it would take away the continuity of a Flash site and defeat a major value of using Flash in the first place.

So we need a way for Flash to trigger page changes, so that the browser can track the history of the user. How do we do this? Well a brilliant man by the name of Robert Pennerhas developed an awesome workaround that uses frames and a JavaScript function that sends variables to Flash. This works very well, except one problem: it only works on Internet Explorer 5+ on PCs. While this does cover the majority of the web population, statistics show over 30% of users are on different browsers or platforms. Statistics of visitors to our site ( TM5150 ) show that almost 50% are on browsers other than Internet Explorer for PC. Getting the back button to work for 50% of the users is good, but getting it to work for 99% of the users is BETTER!

I started to research why it doesn’t work in other browsers. I quickly found out that the way JavaScript and Flash communicate is different on the other browsers. I then set out to find a workaround. Since our Mac’s in-house use Safari, I started to search for articles about JavaScript and Flash communication on Safari. After a few searches on Google, I found a tutorial on MustardLab.Developer about JavaScript communication with Flash. This was the help I needed to get the back button to work with Safari and other browsers.

How I got it to Work

I read over the tutorial at MustardLab.Developer a few times, and downloaded the source files. I also had a version of the Flash 99% Good back button script setup and working. I now had to combine the MustardLab.Developer script with Robert Penner’s script

.

Pre-requisites

I recommend you study both tutorials before doing this one. You need to be familiar with how each one is set up to get this to work properly. This tutorial only covers combining the Robert Penner script with the MustardLab.Developer tutorial.

The How-To

First thing you need to do is edit flashframe.html from the Flash99good.com source files. Look for Robert Penner’s script:

< script language = "JavaScript" >
//back button javascript, Flash actionscript provided by Robert Penner
//source@robertpenner.com
function setPage ( newPage ) {
        //check if Flash object exists
        if ( window . document . mymovie ) {
                //set page variable in _root timeline of Flash movie
                window . document . mymovie . SetVariable ( "page" , newPage );
        }
}
</ script >

We are going to remove this JavaScript and replace it with the MustardLab.Developer JavaScript include file:

< script type = "text/javascript" src = "pathToScript" ></ script >

The src = “pathToScript” is the path to the .js file. If you have an include or a JavaScript directory you can path to it here.

The code looks like this:

< script type = "text/javascript" src = "MLAB_flash_setvariables.js" ></ script >

Now we need to modify the Flash embed code a little bit.

Our current embed code is:

< OBJECT classid = "clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase = http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/Flash/swflash.cab#version=5,0,0,0 WIDTH = 742 HEIGHT = 1500 id = "mymovie" >
< PARAM NAME = movie VALUE = "test.swf" >
< PARAM NAME = quality VALUE = high >
< PARAM NAME = menu VALUE = false >
< PARAM NAME = bgcolor VALUE = #999999 >
< EMBED src = "test.swf" quality = high bgcolor = #999999 width = 742 height = 1500 NAME = mymovie swLiveConnect = true TYPE = "application/x-shockwave-Flash" PLUGINSPAGE = "http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash" >

First note the id name of your Flash movie. This gives the Flash element a unique name so that JavaScript can communicate with it. Now notice in the OBJECT tag, at the end is id = “mymovie” this is the id . You can change this to anything you want. I changed mine to main. Now look in the EMBED tag. The EMBED tag is the tag used to embed Flash on web browsers OTHER than Internet Explorer. The EMBED tag doesn’t have an id attribute. It used the NAME = name attribute. Make sure that you change the name attribute to the same name as the id attribute in the OBJECT tag. Now JavaScript knows who to talk to.

Next we need to add an additional PARAM tag to the Flash embed code. Add a new line after the last PARAM tag and before the EMBED tag.

On the new line put:

< PARAM NAME = "FlashVars" VALUE = "movieid=mymovie" >

Make sure movieid= the id you gave Flash. Now one last edit to the EMBED tag and we should be set.

After:

PLUGINSPAGE = "http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"

Add:

FlashVars = "movieid=mymovie"

The EMBED tag should now look like:

< EMBED src = "test.swf" quality = high bgcolor = #999999 width = 742 height = 1500 NAME = mymovie swLiveConnect = true TYPE = "application/x-shockwave-Flash" PLUGINSPAGE = "http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash" FlashVars = "movieid=mymovie" >< /EMBED >

Now that that is done, we need to change all the numbered frame pages (i.e. 1.html , 2.html , etc.) to call the right function. This is important because they are trying to call Robert’s setPage () ; JS function. We need to change this to call the new MustardLab.Developer function that is in the MLAB_flash_setvariables.js file. If you open up the MLAB_flash_setvariables.js in your editor you use, you’ll notice there is a function called setFlashVariables (); This is the function we want to call from each frame page. So open up 1.html.

In your editor and find the javascript:

< script language = "JavaScript" >
parent . flashframe . setPage ( 1 );
</ script >

parent . flashframe is the path to the setPage () ; function. 1 is the variable passed to the function that tells Flash which page it’s on. Since there is no longer a setPage () ; function we need to change setPage ( 1 ) to the new function setFlashVariables ( ‘movieid’ , ‘page=newPage’ );

Now setFlashVariables (); has 2 parameters that need to be passed to the function. The first being the ‘movieid’ . The movie id is used to tell JavaScript which Flash movie to talk to. This is very helpful if you have multiple Flash movies embedded on one page, and want to communicate to each one differently. Since we are dealing with one Flash movie at the moment, you just set movieid to mymovie, since mymovie is the id name of the Flash movie.

The next parameter, ‘page=newPage’ is the string to tell Flash which page just loaded in the historyframe. This is the same as Roberts’s script, except it is passed differently.

Since we have 1.html open, we want to set this parameter to tell Flash that page=1 . For 2.html we would set it to page=2 , and so on for the other pages.

So the script in 1.html should now read:

< script language = "JavaScript" >
parent . flashframe . setFlashVariables ( 'mymovie' , 'page=1' );
</ script >

Now go ahead and edit the other frame pages, and change the script, but changing page=1 to page=2 for 2.html and so forth.

Okay, that should be it for the actual JavaScript portion of the script.

Now we need to do a couple things in Flash. So open up test.fla in Flash.

In the first frame on the “action” layer in Flash we need to add a line of code to include the external Actionscript file that is within the MustardLab.Developer source files.

So in the ActionScript editor put:

# include "MLAB_flash_setvariables.as"

When published, Flash will include the code from this file into the first frame of the Flash movie. The MustardLab.Developer tutorial explains in detail what this is for. We just need to make sure it is published with our movie.

Publish the file, and open index.html in your browser to make sure it works.

NOTE. If you’re receiving a JavaScript error, it’s because that script is trying to talk to Flash before Flash is fully loaded. What I did to fix this problem was open the index.html page and edit the frameset code to load a blank page in the historyframe. In my Flash file I call getURL (“1.html”,”historyframe”); when the Flash file is done loading, i.e., after the Preloader if you have one in your current movie.

Conclusion

There is now no excuse not to enable the back button within Flash. If you just take some time when developing your Flash driven sites, and you work this script into your arcitecture, then you can please your clients, and their audiences.

If you have any questions or comments feel free to contact me.

From: http://www.actionscript.org/resources/articles/142/1/Enabling-a-back-button-within-flash/Page1.html