General Flash Question

Hey everyone – new to flash and to new to this board.

A long time ago, our company paid someone to develop a flash site for us.

He flaked out and just ended up giving me a CD full of .swf files.

At the time, I did’nt have the flash developer program to look at what was done.

Now, I do. My question is this: What is the publishing procedure in order to put all the files togetherto make a page?

For instance, I know with HTML, you just create an index page to pull it all together. Is there something similar with Flash?

Please help.

Oh boy…this is probably something you don’t want to hear, but I’m going to tell you this anyways.

With flash, it’s different, by just naming the swf files and placing them in a folder doesn’t mean that they automatically link together like how you can do it with HTML pages.

Depending on how he setup the site, you will have to use an actionscript called loadMovie to load each swf into the main swf.
That’s the equivalent of linking HTML pages together.

He only left you the swf files? No FLA’s? Because you can’t really edit the swf without the original FLA files.

If you want to know more about loadMovie then take a look at this link on how to build a full flash site. Hopefully it will give you an idea. Good luck. =)

http://www.kirupa.com/developer/mx/full_site.htm

well, it depends on what exactly the swfs are. just content pages, then you could create a main swf containing navigation that uses loadMovie for the content. but it all depends on what you’re working with.

Thanks for the help, electron.

I think it’s what you said, because Flash MX won’t let me open the .swf files.

and yes, there’s no FLA’s anywhere on the disk.

I just looked at that link. I can’t understand how I could edit the script in the flash program (I’m assuming that’s what he’s saying in the 2nd page of the tutorial) when I can’t open any of the files in Flash.

Yeah, you’ll need the original FLA files to work on it…sorry. :-\

ALthough, I’ll say it’s starting to make a little bit of sense. Tell me if I got this right:
The actual flash program is just to help you create the components that you use actionscript to manipulate.

In other words, action script is what makes the flash do what it does, right?

What about a ripper or resource extraction program? Would anything like that be of use in this situation?

Originally posted by electrongeek
Yeah, you’ll need the original FLA files to work on it…sorry.

You mean I can’t even compile it into a site, even if I don’t want to change anything? It’s all just a waste of a CD-Rom?

Dam.

*Originally posted by hybrid *
**ALthough, I’ll say it’s starting to make a little bit of sense. Tell me if I got this right:
The actual flash program is just to help you create the components that you use actionscript to manipulate.

In other words, action script is what makes the flash do what it does, right? **

You’re kinda of right there hybrid, but it’s not just actionscript, there are other things that are involved too that makes it works, but you’re on the right track.

The swf files you have are a product produced by the flash program and actionscript is just one of the tools used to create those swfs. You don’t even necessary need actionscript to creat something in the Flash program. It is just used to add in interactivity and advanced features.

Referring to Randome Hero’s post, yes there are swf decompilers out there are capable of opening swf files without the FLA files, but I’ve never used one so I have no idea how they work.

You mean I can’t even compile it into a site, even if I don’t want to change anything? It’s all just a waste of a CD-Rom?

you can use these swfs as they are if you use loadMovie. elaborate on what these swfs actually are and we can be of more help.