Mirror Magazine

 

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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