Since the last Component update article, we’ve released a lot of new components which are discussed elsewhere on this blog. This summary includes a download of all the lastest components for SWiSH Max3 and miniMax3. It’s a quick way to get up to date. We have also corrected some minor reported problems with other components.
It is often necessary to create web pages that collect user data. This new component simplifies that task. Based on the ClipClone component this component allows the user to create user input forms with a large amount of creative control. Like the ClipClone component, each field within the form is based on a “Master” movie clip, userinput, which is duplicated for each required field. If layout, font or other changes are required, only the Master movie clip needs to be modified to update the entire form.
The component comes with some prototype methods that check various aspects of the data that is entered by the user. This simplifies the verification of the data entered.
The sample below demonstrates the type of input forms that can be created.
Read on to find out more…
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Many users may be unaware that Max3 and miniMax3 come with a number of menu components. The main menu component, Menu from the Components/Menu area is a strip menu that can be arranged horizontally or vertically. A number of styles allow the sub menus to be displayed in a tabbed, or flat, or perpendicular fashion. The movie below gives an example of some of the different layout possibilities.
Read on to find out more about the Menu component…
It is often necessary to report success or failure on a web page that accepts user input. An animated tick or cross can add a nice touch to such a page. The components described in this article provide an animated tick, cross and a combination of tick and cross. The objects are fully scalable. The color and default behavior can be altered using the Parameters panel.
Read on for more information and the download location.
Puzzles are good fun and a popular way to draw people to your website. The object of this puzzle is to find the listed words within the square of characters. The words can be arranged up, down, left, right and in any diagonal direction, up-right, down-right, up-left and down-left. This type of puzzle can also be very useful for teaching purposes.
The example puzzle below was constructed from the names of planets and various stars.
The puzzle square is animated so that mouse clicks, or dragging over a square with the mouse button down, will cause the square to change color indicating that the letter is included in a word. Once the word has been marked, it can be crossed off the left hand side clue list by clicking on the word.
For the competitive people among us, you can time your progress with the inbuilt stopwatch.
Read on to see how to construct, customize and deploy these puzzles.
The grids and guides provided with Max3 work very well, however they only allow easy alignment along the horizontal and vertical axis. If you want to align objects along a set angle, or measure the point to point distance between two objects, this new autoshape component may help.
The Ruler autoshape is used like a conventional ruler to measure and set distances between objects. Its angle can be set via the Parameters panel, or the angle between two objects can be read back from the Parameters panel after positioning the ruler via its handles.
In the example below, the ruler is used to align two ellipses along a 30 degree line at distances of 100 and 300 pixels from the bottom left hand corner of a rectangle.
Badgets of Honor.
