Flash Hacks
Flash Hacks 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools By Sham Bhangal
June 2004
Pages: 496

| Table of Contents | Index | Sample Hacks | Colophon

Table of Contents

  1. Chapter 1 Visual Effects

    1. Hacks #1-7

    2. Fake Per-Pixel Transitions

    3. Per-Pixel Text Effects

    4. Simulate Old Film Grain

    5. Create SWFs from Animated GIFs

    6. Animate Photoshop PSD Files with Flash

    7. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

    8. Blowin' in the Wind: Simulate Tree Movement

  2. Chapter 2 Color Effects

    1. Hacks #8-13

    2. Video Color Effects

    3. Video Fade to Black and Fade to White

    4. A Custom Color Transform Class

    5. Create and Organize Custom Swatches

    6. Borrow Color Schemes from Nature

    7. Simulate Sepia Effects

  3. Chapter 3 Drawing and Masking

    1. Hacks #14-25

    2. Create Filled Circles Quickly at Runtime

    3. Create Synthetic Art

    4. Create Seamless Tiles

    5. Fill Areas with Patterns

    6. Imitate Escher

    7. Fix Alpha Property Inaccuracies

    8. Use Complex Shapes as Masks

    9. Interference Patterns and Ripple Effects

    10. Feather Bitmap Edges

    11. Add a Vector Edge to a Bitmap

    12. Solve the Bitmap-Shift Bug

    13. A Page-Turn Effect (Exploit Symmetry and Masking)

  4. Chapter 4 Animation

    1. Hacks #26-34

    2. Smooth Scripted Motion

    3. Time-Controlled Movement

    4. Quick, Bandwidth-Efficient Character Animation

    5. alt-Flash: Motion Graphics Alternatives

    6. Deja New Animations

    7. Hacking The Matrix

    8. Computer-Generated Character Animation

    9. Particle Effects

    10. Shape Tweening Complex Shapes

  5. Chapter 5 3D and Physics

    1. Hacks #35-41

    2. Simulate 3D

    3. Panoramic Images

    4. An Optimized 3D Plotter

    5. Use Acceleration to Simulate Gravity and Friction

    6. Simulate a Throw

    7. Detect Multiple Collisions

    8. Turn Toward a Point

  6. Chapter 6 Text

    1. Hacks #42-51

    2. Fonts

    3. Keep Text Legible

    4. Autocomplete Text Fields

    5. Store a List of All Input Words

    6. Import Complex Formatting in Flash

    7. HTML and CSS in Flash

    8. Use Accessibility Text as Help Text

    9. Text Effect Framework

    10. Typewriter Effect

    11. Time-Based Text Effects

    12. Timeline Text Effects

  7. Chapter 7 Sound

    1. Hacks #52-60

    2. Create a Flash Speech Synthesizer

    3. A Talking, Lip-Synched Avatar

    4. The Ubiquitous Sound-Kicker Hack

    5. Turn Low-Bandwidth Monaural Sounds into Stereo Sounds

    6. Real-Time Sound Effects

    7. Quickly Create UI Sounds

    8. Optimize Sound

    9. Sound Time Codes (Cue Points)

    10. A Custom Sound Transform Class

  8. Chapter 8 User Interface Elements

    1. Hacks #61-64

    2. Amit's Dials (Interactive Testing)

    3. Right and Middle Mouse Buttons

    4. Button Movie Clips

    5. Dude, Where's My Scrollbar?

  9. Chapter 9 Performance and Optimization

    1. Hacks #65-73

    2. Optimize Filesize and Download Time

    3. Optimize Graphics

    4. Increase Code Performance

    5. Beat Flash File Bloat

    6. Bandwidth Testing for Complex Sites

    7. Hide Low-Quality Settings

    8. Optimize Graphics for Performance

    9. Benchmark Runtime Performance

    10. Adjust the Animation Complexity Dynamically

    11. Performance Budget

    12. Substitute Bitmaps for Vectors

    13. Optimize Component Downloading and Usage

  10. Chapter 10 ActionScript

    1. Hacks #74-85

    2. Changes in Flash MX 2004

    3. External Script Editors

    4. Strict Typing and Casual Scripters

    5. Code Hints

    6. Clone an Object

    7. An Idle Timer (Timeout Event)

    8. Fast ActionScript Searches

    9. Lock the actions Layer

    10. Debug with trace( )

    11. Undocumented ActionScript

    12. ASnative( ) Back Door

    13. Obscure Operators

    14. Import ASC Files as XML

  11. Chapter 11 Browser Integration

    1. Hacks #86-96

    2. Keep Your Site Browser Friendly

    3. A Universal Flash Plugin Sniffer

    4. Test Multiple Flash Plugins

    5. Preferences and Publishing Defaults

    6. Center Your SWF Without Scaling

    7. CSS-Based Browser Centering

    8. Dynamically Resize Content

    9. Create HTML Links in Flash

    10. Integrate the Back Button with Flash

    11. Give the Flash SWF Keyboard Focus

    12. Add Key Shortcuts to Your Site

  12. Chapter 12 Security

    1. Hacks #97-100

    2. Privacy Settings

    3. Cross-Domain Policy

    4. Handling Local Executables

    5. Recover Content from a SWF

    6. Protect and Obfuscate Your Flash Files

    7. Make Your SWF Phone Home

    8. Review Compiled ActionScript

  1. Colophon

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