The windows sidebar has been removed from Windows 7. However, Gadgets are still supported. Our earlier blog article ‘Make a Vista sidebar gadget’ explained how to make a gadget for Vista, this followup article explains how to convert these previously described gadgets for use on Windows 7.
One of the more powerful features of SWiSH Max3 (and Max2) is the availability of the Content Library. (Sorry, the Library is not available in miniMax products.) The Library allows various Resources to be shared across multiple objects in your movie. Not only does this reduce the size of your movie (i.e. it will load faster), it can also simplify editing changes to your movie since editing the single library resource will cause the change to be reflected in all of the objects that link to this common resource.
If your .swf movie loads external movies or files, those files can be added to the dependencies palette so that they are added to the .exe and are available when the movie is played. For more information, see the help file.
Many modern digital cameras come with software that allows you to “stitch” multiple photos together. This can be used to create a spectacular panoramic image. With the addition of a scroll bar, you can add some intrigue to your website by allowing a user to scroll the panorama within a 4:3 aspect ratio window.
This article will show you how to add a scrollbar and a preloader to your movie to scroll wide images. The sample file can be found here.
Max2 tip: Device fonts text – the D symbol in the text panel – apart from allowing smaller movies, these generally provide clearer text if the font size is small. However, it may not display at all if the text, the containing object or movie is scaled.
Many components – Buttons, Combo box, Grid use an events function to signal when the selection has changed. The general format for this function is Events(name, status) where name is the name of the object that calls the function and status is the new state. You can choose to use a common events function for all components or have each component call a specific function.
Max2 Tip: Consider using the library to hold objects that are re-used often. This can simplify configuration and improve loading time.