User manual MACROMEDIA FLASH MX 2004-USING ACTIONSCRIPT IN FLASH

[. . . ] Using ActionScript in Flash Trademarks Add Life to the Web, Afterburner, Aftershock, Andromedia, Allaire, Animation PowerPack, Aria, Attain, Authorware, Authorware Star, Backstage, Bright Tiger, Clustercats, ColdFusion, Contribute, Design In Motion, Director, Dream Templates, Dreamweaver, Drumbeat 2000, EDJE, EJIPT, Extreme 3D, Fireworks, Flash, Flash Lite, Flex, Fontographer, FreeHand, Generator, HomeSite, JFusion, JRun, Kawa, Know Your Site, Knowledge Objects, Knowledge Stream, Knowledge Track, LikeMinds, Lingo, Live Effects, MacRecorder Logo and Design, Macromedia, Macromedia Action!, Macromedia Breeze, Macromedia Flash, Macromedia M Logo and Design, Macromedia Spectra, Macromedia xRes Logo and Design, MacroModel, Made with Macromedia, Made with Macromedia Logo and Design, MAGIC Logo and Design, Mediamaker, Movie Critic, Open Sesame!, Roundtrip, Roundtrip HTML, Shockwave, Sitespring, SoundEdit, Titlemaker, UltraDev, Web Design 101, what the web can be, and Xtra are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Macromedia, Inc. and may be registered in the United States or in other jurisdictions including internationally. Other product names, logos, designs, titles, words, or phrases mentioned within this publication may be trademarks, service marks, or trade names of Macromedia, Inc. or other entities and may be registered in certain jurisdictions including internationally. [. . . ] You can use a debugging password to protect your work. To enable remote debugging of a SWF file: 1. On the Flash tab of the Publish Settings dialog box, select Debugging permitted. 3. To set a password, enter a password in the Password box. After you set this password, no one can download information to the Debugger without the password. However, if you leave the Password box blank, no password is required. 4. Close the Publish Settings dialog box, and select one of the following commands: Control > Debug Movie File > Export Movie File > Publish Settings > Publish Flash creates a debugging file, with the extension . swd, and saves it along with the SWF file. The SWD file is used to debug ActionScript, and contains information that lets you use breakpoints and step through code. 5. Place the SWD file in the same directory as the SWF file on the server. If the SWD file is not in the same directory as the SWF file, you can still debug remotely; however, the Debugger has no breakpoint information, so you can't step through code. 6. In the Debugger, select Enable Remote Debugging from the Options pop-up menu (at the upper right of the panel). Debugging your scripts 155 To activate the Debugger from a remote location: 1. In a browser or in the debug version of the stand-alone player, open the published SWF file from the remote location. The Remote Debug dialog box appears. If this dialog box doesn't appear, Flash can't find the SWD file. In this case, right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Macintosh) in the SWF file to display the context menu, and select Debugger. 3. In the Remote Debug dialog box, select Localhost or Other Machine: Select Localhost if the Debug player and the Flash authoring application are on the same computer. Select Other Machine if the Debug player and the Flash authoring application are not on the same computer. Enter the IP address of the computer running the Flash authoring application. 4. If the movie doesn't play, the Debugger might be paused, so click Continue to start it. 156 Chapter 4: Writing and Debugging Scripts Displaying and modifying variables The Variables tab in the Debugger shows the names and values of any global and Timeline variables in the SWF file selected in the display list. If you change the value of a variable on the Variables tab, you can see the change reflected in the SWF file while it runs. For example, to test collision detection in a game, you can enter the variable value to position a ball in the correct location next to a wall. The Locals tab in the Debugger shows the names and values of any local variables that are available in the line of ActionScript where the SWF file is currently stopped, at a breakpoint or anywhere else within a user-defined function. To display a variable: 1. Select the movie clip containing the variable from the display list. To display global variables, select the _global clip in the display list. 2. Click the Variables tab. The display list updates automatically as the SWF file plays. If a movie clip is removed from the SWF file at a specific frame, that movie clip, along with its variable and variable name, is also removed from the display list in the Debugger. However, if you mark a variable for the Watch list (see "Using the Watch list" on page 158), the variable is removed from the Variables tab, but can still be viewed in the Watch tab. To modify a variable value: · Double-click the value, and enter a new value. www. macromedia. com", false). [. . . ] When you create a custom class using a constructor function, or when you define methods for a custom class using a function, you can invoke call() and apply() for the function. Invoking a function using the Function. call() method in ActionScript 1 The Function. call() method invokes the function represented by a Function object. In almost all cases, the function call operator (()) can be used instead of the call() method. The call() method is primarily useful when the this parameter of the function invocation needs to be explicitly controlled. [. . . ]