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Visual SourceSafe is a registered trademark or trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Copyright © 2005 Macromedia, Inc. All rights reserved. This manual may not be copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated, or converted to any electronic or machine-readable form in whole or in part without written approval from Macromedia, Inc. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the owner or authorized user of a valid copy of the software with which this manual was provided may print out one copy of this manual from an electronic version of this manual for the sole purpose of such owner or authorized user learning to use such software, provided that no part of this manual may be printed out, reproduced, distributed, resold, or transmitted for any other purposes, including, without limitation, commercial purposes, such as selling copies of this documentation or providing paid-for support services. Acknowledgments Project Management: Mary Leigh Burke Writing: Tim Statler Managing Editor: Rosana Francescato Editing: Linda Adler, Geta Carlson, Evelyn Eldridge, Mary Kraemer, Lisa Stanziano Production Management: Patrice O'Neill, Kristin Conradi, Yuko Yagi Media Design and Production: Adam Barnett, Aaron Begley, Paul Benkman. John Francis, Geeta Karmarkar, Masayo Noda, Paul Rangel, Arena Reed, Mario Reynoso Special thanks to Lisa Friendly, Bonnie Loo, Erick Vera, the beta testers, and the entire Flash Lite engineering and QA teams. First Edition: September 2005 Macromedia, Inc. 601 Townsend St. San Francisco, CA 94103 Contents Chapter 1: About Flash Lite 1.x ActionScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Flash Lite 1.x ActionScript overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Differences between Flash Lite 1.0 and Flash Lite 1.1 ActionScript . . . 6 Flash 4 ActionScript not supported by Flash Lite 1.x ActionScript. . . . 6 Features not available in Flash Lite 1.x ActionScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Chapter 2: Flash 4 ActionScript Primer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Getting and setting movie clip properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Controlling other timelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Using variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 Emulating arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 Working with text and strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Using the call() function to create functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Using the eval() function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Chapter 3: Common Scripting Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Determining device and platform capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Opening a web page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Initiating a phone call . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Initiating a text or multimedia message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Initiating an e-mail message. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Loading external SWF files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Loading external data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 3 4 Contents CHAPTER 1 About Flash Lite 1.x ActionScript You use ActionScript to add programming logic and interactivity to your Macromedia Flash Lite applications. The version of ActionScript in Flash Lite 1.0 and 1.1--referred to collectively as Flash Lite 1.x ActionScript--is a hybrid of Flash 4 ActionScript, plus additional commands and properties specific the Flash Lite player, such as the ability to initiate phone calls or text messages, or get time and date information from the device. This chapter contains the following topics: Flash Lite 1.x ActionScript overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Differences between Flash Lite 1.0 and Flash Lite 1.1 ActionScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Flash 4 ActionScript not supported by Flash Lite 1.x ActionScript. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Features not available in Flash Lite 1.x ActionScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1 Flash Lite 1.x ActionScript overview Flash Lite 1.x ActionScript consists of the following parts: This includes operators (for example, comparison and assignment operators), movie clip properties (for example, _height, _x, and _y), Timeline control functions (for example, gotoAndPlay() or stop()), and network functions, such as the loadVariables() and loadMovie() functions (Flash Lite 1.1 only). For a list of unsupported Flash 4 ActionScript, see "Flash 4 ActionScript not supported by Flash Lite 1.x ActionScript" on page 6. Phone integration commands and properties Flash Player 4 ActionScript Flash Lite provides commands that let you, for example, query the date and time information from the device, initiate a phone call or short message service (SMS) text message, or start external applications installed on the device. Platform capability variables (Flash Lite 1.1 only) These properties provide information about the capabilities of the device or Flash Lite runtime environment. For example, the _capLoadData variable indicates if your application can load data over the network. 5 fscommand2() function Like the fscommand() function, you use fscommand2() to communicate with the host environment or system--in this case, the mobile phone or device. The fscommand2() function provides enhancements to fscommand(), including the ability to pass an arbitrary number of arguments and to retrieve immediate return values (rather than having to wait until the next frame, as with fscommand()). Differences between Flash Lite 1.0 and Flash Lite 1.1 ActionScript The following Flash Lite 1.1 ActionScript features are not available in Flash Lite 1.0: Network access or network status information. For example, in Flash Lite 1.0 you cannot use the loadVariables() or loadMovie() functions to load external data or SWF files, or the various fscommand2() commands for determining a device's connection signal strength or the status of a network request. Getting time and date information from the device. Platform capability variables, which provide information about the capabilities of the Flash Lite platform and of the device. The fscommand2() function and its associated commands, such as SetSoftKeys and FullScreen. The scroll and maxscroll text field properties. Flash 4 ActionScript not supported by Flash Lite 1.x ActionScript The following Flash 4 ActionScript features are unsupported, or only partially supported, in Flash Lite 1.x ActionScript: The startDrag() and stopDrag() functions. Flash Lite 1.x ActionScript supports a subset of the button events supported in Flash Player 4. For more information about handling button events, see Chapter 1, "Creating Interactivity and Navigation" in Developing Flash Lite Applications. Flash Lite 1.x ActionScript supports a subset of key events supported in Flash Player 4. For more information about supported key events in Flash Lite, see Chapter 1, "Creating Interactivity and Navigation" in Developing Flash Lite Applications. The _dropTarget property. 6 About Flash Lite 1.x ActionScript The _soundBufTime property. The _url property. The String() conversion function. Features not available in Flash Lite 1.x ActionScript Because Flash Lite player is based on an older version of Flash Player, it does not support all the programming features available in more recent releases of Flash Player or other programming languages that you might be familiar with. This section discusses programming features not available in Flash Lite 1.x ActionScript and available alternatives and work-arounds. User-defined functions Flash Lite 1.x does not support the ability to define and call custom functions. However, you can use the call() function to execute code that resides on an arbitrary frame in the timeline. For more information, see "Using the call() function to create functions" on page 13. Native arrays, objects, or other complex data types Flash Lite 1.x does not support native array data structures or other complete data types. However, you can emulate arrays using pseudo-arrays, a technique that involves using the eval() function to dynamically evaluate concatenated strings. For more information, see "Emulating arrays" on page 11. Runtime loading of external image or sound files Unlike the desktop version of Flash Player, Flash Lite 1.x ActionScript cannot load external JPEG files or MP3 files. In Flash Lite 1.1 you can use the loadMovie() function to load external SWF files. For more information, see "Loading external SWF files" on page 22. Features not available in Flash Lite 1.x ActionScript 7 8 About Flash Lite 1.x ActionScript CHAPTER 2 Flash 4 ActionScript Primer Flash Lite 1.x ActionScript is based on the version of ActionScript that was first available in Flash Player 4. Consequently, several programming features available in later versions of Flash Player (for desktop systems) are not available to Flash Lite 1.x applications. If you're unfamiliar with Flash 4 ActionScript syntax and features or if you've forgotten some of the details from previous Flash development work, this chapter provides a primer on using Flash 4 ActionScript in your Flash Lite applications. This chapter contains the following topics: Getting and setting movie clip properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Controlling other timelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Using variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Emulating arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Working with text and strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Using the call() function to create functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Using the eval() function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17 2 Getting and setting movie clip properties To get or set a movie clip property (if settable), you can use dot syntax or the setProperty() or getProperty() functions. You can also use the tellTarget() function. To use dot syntax, specify the movie clip i ...