CIS 155 – Web Multimedia – Flash Pro 8
Slide Show
A slide show can be created on the main timeline, or on a movie clip symbol’s timeline.
A slide show can appear along with other content in a scene (in fact, it is better if you do
include other content, such as a background layer, and possibly a “frame” for the slides).
You can create a slide show from scratch, by assembling several separate imported
bitmaps. You can also create a slide show from an imported animated .gif. When you
find an animated .gif online, and you import it, Flash will ask you if you want the entire
sequence. You should choose “yes”. Flash will import all the images that combine to
make the animated .gif; in the library, the individual images will be numbered.
If you put each image on a separate frame, you basically create a frame-by-frame
animation. To turn this into a slide show, you need to add buttons (typically, labeled
“next” and “prev”). Use these buttons to click through the slides in the slide show. Of
course, you will need to add ActionScript to the buttons so that they actually either
advance the playhead, or move it backwards.
If you add another layer (in addition to the layer with the images, one with a background,
one for frame actions, etc), you can write two different scripts: the second script will send
the playhead backward from image 1 to the last image and another script will send the
playhead back to the starting image when it is at the end of the series of images (slides).
When you put the images on the timeline, you should test the slide show. You do not
want to allow the playhead to display the slides one after the other on the main timeline
without any controls. One reason is that the images will go by too fast. Another is that
one major feature of Flash is building-in interactivity: giving the user control over what
s/he sees at any given time.
For a typical movie, you should include not fewer than 6 images in the slide show.
So, to repeat the steps: import an animated .gif. When you import, Flash will recognize
that the file contains multiple images and will ask you if you want to import them all.
Choosing “yes” will cause Flash to import each part of the animated .gif as a separate
bitmap; they will be numbered, in order, as they appear in the animated .gif. Move the
bitmaps, in number order, onto the timeline. Each bitmap will be in its own frame.
Doing this creates a frame-by-frame animation (each frame is a keyframe). But leaving
the timeline as is at this point, defeats the purpose of a slide show. Without buttons, the
animation will just flash by.
Add buttons (on their own layer) and attach ActionScript. Your script will advance the
playhead one frame (next) or move the playhead backwards by one frame (prev). Make
sure your buttons work.
Example of slide show: