I am making an AS3 project in FB4. In our workflow, we have artists compile art into SWC files which the I then link as 'Referenced Libraries' in FB4.
Then I set the "Link Type" of the SWC files to "external" instead of merged into code. This should create SWFs corresponding to the SWC files in the output folder, right?
This doesn't seem to be the case. I am only seeing one SWF file: the main_app's.
I was trying to make it so that I can use a library manager to load the files dynamically.
I tried extracting the swfs manually, but it seems the main_app still compiles all the swcs to itself. I made sure the Link Type was set to external. The file size for the main_app between "external" and "merged to code" seem to be the same.
I've made a simple project in Flash Builder 4 and the only way I got the SWC->SWF happening is by creating a Flex Project instead of an ActionScript Project and selecting "Runtime shared library (RSL)" instead of "External". This is because the Flex framework have some classes that work out the loading of those libraries for you. It also automate the conversion (I should say extraction) process.
Now, if you don't want to create a Flex project just for this, you can extract the SWF yourself. The SWC file format is just a Zip containing a SWF and an XML file describing the content. You can then load dynamically this extracted SWF file using a Loader and setting the correct Application Domain. Here's a snippet of my sample project.
public class Web extends Sprite
{
public function Web()
{
//you will not be able to instantiate classes of your library until it's loaded
var loader:Loader = new Loader();
loader.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, onLoadComplete);
loader.load(new URLRequest("library.swf"), new LoaderContext(false, ApplicationDomain.currentDomain));
}
protected function onLoadComplete(event:Event):void
{
//here you can create instances of classes defined in your library
new Asset();
}
}
You might think that's a pretty tedious job to unzip+copy every time your designers update the library. You could automate this process with a script or an Ant file. Unfortunately, unless I'm missing something, it looks like Flash Builder doesn't want you to extend your build process, so you will still need a bit of hand work or completely convert to Ant (or something similar) to build.
Good luck!
From the moment the SWC is added to your Library, you should be able to access the SWC's assets by directly calling their specific class names . There's no need to try to get a SWF and load it with the Loader class. This actually defeats the purpose of using a SWC in the first place!
Let's say that , in your SWC, you have a MovieClip with a class name of GraphicAsset, to create a new instance , you simply do this:
var mc:MovieClip = new GraphicAsset();
In FB4's folder structure , have a look at your SWC in the Referenced Libraries folder & check the default package, you should see a list of all your assets.
Related
Say I want to create a library.swf file that will contain most of the definitions for images, sprites and (most importantly) code for custom components, that will be used by other sub projects by only linking the library.swf asset without actually importing anything in the resulting SWF file.
Here is the naive way I tried with Adobe Animate:
Create library project.
Create scripts needed.
Add scripts to project files without specifying main script of the main scene.
Expectedly, last step caused troubles because nowhere in the application I see a way to add scripts. The most promising is Library tab where I can add New Symbol..., but I would think I don't need to create MoveClip for every script I want to add.
In the meanwhile I was trying to find a way I could use this library in other projects, which I believe must be done by importing assets, but the same problem again - I can't find a way to import/reference some SWF file from which I can import packages.
Do I need some other IDE, say FlashDevelop, or is there a way inside Adobe Animate I totally missed?
What I want is to convert a flash project to an openfl project (which is written in haxe) in order to use its cross platform feature. I used as3hx to convert actionscript classes of a flash project to haxe. Then I fix compile errors by hand, and fix a run time error too. When I compile the project, I see a blank black window, which means that graphics are not loaded. I convert the code and code is working fine, but I don't know what should I do with graphics. There is a fla file in flash project, which I don't know how to convert it to openfl.
Adobe Flash CC, which is the program used to write flash project, does the linkage of a symbol to a actionscript class, and I don't know how to do this in openfl.
In openfl, as far as I know, giving graphics to a class is done like this :
import openfl.display.Bitmap;
import openfl.display.BitmapData;
import openfl.display.Sprite;
import openfl.Assets;
class Main extends Sprite {
public function new () {
super ();
var bd:BitmapData = Assets.getBitmapData("img/openfl.png");
var b:Bitmap = new Bitmap(bd);
addChild(b);
}
}
Where the openfl.png is a graphical file in a special folder named img, which declared to be an assets path.
I use HaxeDevelop IDE.
Thanks for any help
You can't use FLA files inside OpenFL, there's only support for SWF files exported by Flash from those FLA files:
http://www.openfl.org/learn/tutorials/using-swf-assets/
OpenFL's "native" SWF playback functionality is limited but for simple graphics and animations it's usable as long as you figure out what features are actually being supported and limit yourself to those.
I want to know how to load external class files(.as files) in actionscript but don't have to know the class file's name. Think of it like loading mods in minecraft with forge mod loader, it doesn't know the main class of the mod's file name, yet it successfully loads the mod. I want to know if something like this is possible in actionscript 3.0 because I feel like making a tower defense game that isn't like the others out there but have it so it can be modded and have mods loaded but of course I have to load the class file without knowing the class file's name.
Note: I don't got access to Adobe Air so I can't use anything that requires Adobe Air.
You want to load a particular .as file AFTER or BEFORE compilation? After the compilation it is hardly possible - the file would not be compiled and therefore it would be useless. Why don't you use a swf or some kind of XML/JSON with settings in that case? Before the compilation you would still need to identify it by it's package name/name.
Basically, you want a plugin management system.
In AS3, it is not possible to "load" a .as file on execution, because it is a (uncompiled) source file. But, it is possible to load another swf and to use the classes within it.
Your process should probably be something like this :
Get a list of the plugins/addons. If you were using AIR, it would have been possible by browsing the content of a folder. Since you're not, you'll probably need to use a listing file (basically, a file that say "Here's the list&path of the plugins you need to load".
Load each swf file
(possibly) call a initialization method for each plugin.
You may wish to look into the way OSMF manages plugins, for example : http://osmf.org/dev/osmf/OtherPDFs/osmf_plugin_dev_guide.pdf
I am developing an AIR application. This application needs some hardware accesses that are not possible with AIR. I decided to use the NativeApplication class in AIR, which launches a C# executable. The AIR application and the "native" application then communicate with the standard output and standard input streams.
A bit like that:
private var np:NativeProcess = new NativeProcess();
private var npi:NativeProcessStartupInfo = new NativeProcessStartupInfo();
private var args:Vector.<String> = new Vector.<String>();
private function creationCompleteHandler(event:FlexEvent):void {
args.push("myCommand");
args.push("myParameter");
npi.arguments = args;
npi.executable = File.applicationDirectory.resolvePath("MyNativeExe.exe");
np.addEventListener(ProgressEvent.STANDARD_OUTPUT_DATA, onData);
np.start(npi);
}
private function onData(e:ProgressEvent):void {
while(np.standardOutput.bytesAvailable != 0) {
trace(String.fromCharCode(np.standardOutput.readByte()));
}
}
I put MyNativeExe.exe file in the application directory, set the "extendedDesktop" value in the *-app.xml supportedProfiles, and it works fine.
Now, I would like to create a kind of AS3 SWC library that embeds MyNativeExe.exe and which provide an AS3 class to manage the interaction with MyNativeExe.exe. Therefore I could easily reuse this work in other AIR projects by simply addind the SWC file as a library. I may have to manually add the "extendedDesktop" value to the new AIR projects, but it is not a problem.
And I am stuck. I can embed an EXE file in a SWC file, by manually selecting the resources to embed with Flash Builder but...
it will not be automatically embeded in the final SWF file as only the needed parts of the SWC file are merged with the SWF
even if it is (enforcing the merge with an [Embed] tag, ...), how can I access and execute the embedded EXE file? NativeProcessInfo.executable needs a File object, and not a byte stream.
The only idea I have would be to embed the EXE file with [Embed], load it as a byte array, create a new file with the byte array as data, and then execute the file. I don't know if it works, but I do not like the idea, as it implies having the EXE kind of duplicated.
Does someone have an idea?
Thank you!
You should look into the Air Native Extensions. Simply put, one of the a new features in Air 3.0 was the ability to compile and link to custom language extensions directly from air. I haven't found an example of using C# directly, but there is a link on that page to doing with managed C++.
I found it is very useful to load a swf into AS as class (what Embed metadata did). However, I am in trouble to do exact the same thing to content that is not load in compile-time (Loader and URLRequest). How can I do that?
If you want to load a specific class to instantiate it there are two ways. One is to use the getDefinitonByName() method and the other is to import the class normally from a SWC but excluding the SWC at compilation.
In both cases you need to make sure the SWF containing the class is loaded when you attempt to instantiate it.
Example:
1/ Create a library.fla with your assets
2/ Export library.swf (tick export .swc if you want to use the 2nd solution)
3/ In another document load library.swf
4/ When library .swf is loaded try :
var MyClass:Class = getDefintionByName("Ball");
var ball1:MovieClip = new MyClass();
var ball2:MovieClip = new MyClass();
If you want to use the SWC method just add the library.swc to your classpath and make sure you exclude it from you when you compile (just check your environnement's documentation, or let me know what you're running). Then proceed the same way as previously by preloading the library.swf before instantiating. The nice thing is that you will be able to write : new Ball(); transparently...