SWiSH Max3 users that have used the New Project… feature will realize that Max3 is supplied with number of example projects that can be easily customized using the wizard interface. The projects, galleries, sites and banners available under the New Project dialog are all examples of Max3 Wizards. This tutorial gives an example of how to create a simple wizard to alter the text, shape color and background color of an object. 

The wizard concept is an extension of the components used in SWiSH Max2. A Component applies to a movie clip, a Wizard applies to an entire movie (or in some cases, multiple movies). Using Wizards you can create templates that present a simplified interface to users who will carry out the final customization. The items that are available for customization are determined by the Wizard author.

To enable Wizard and Component authoring, from the main menu go:
Tools | Preferences | Editing
and check the “Enable Authoring Options for Components and Wizards” checkbox.

If the Author Wizard panel is not enabled, from the main menu go:
Window | Author Wizard (set the checkbox)
Personally, I find it convenient to dock the Author Wizard panel with the Layout and Script panels.

Create a new movie using the Blank Movie option.
Add some text and some shapes to your movie.
Wizard creation is simplified if each item within your movie is given a name. In my example movie, I have named the text “t1″ and the shapes “s1″ and “s2″.

The easiest way to set the color fill of shapes is via the content library. Please refer to the blog article Using Content Library.

I have set the fill color of both shapes to link to the content library color resource named “shapefill”. This item should be visible in the Content panel. As both shapes refer to the same color resource, changing the resource in the library will change the color for both shapes. This feature can be used to simplify configuration as color themes can be a applied to a number of objects simultaneously with the one color edit. In addition, it will reduce the number of wizard parameters that must be presented to the end user. Alternatively, if it is desired to give each shape a different color fill, then each shape could refer to its own individual color resource in the library.

Pressing the Author Selected button on the Author Wizard panel will open the panel with the currently selected movie as its target.

The Wizard parameters will be displayed by default. In this panel you can define the parameters that are presented to the user.
Press the + Add button
Add items according to the table below:

The above items have defined a parameter named Text of type String. When text is placed into the wizard edit box, it will be written to the associated property which is in this case Scene_1.t1.text. This will cause the text field to be updated with whatever the user types into the wizard edit box.

Press the + Add button again and add the following items into the Parameters panel:

This parameter allows the user to alter some of the Text Properties of the text field. Note that the name entered is TextProperties - parameter names should not contain spaces. However the Display Name field (if defined) allows the user to dispaly a name that does contain spaces, ie. “Text Properties”.

The Type and Control fields are both set to Object Properties. This allows a properties panel to be presented to user so that they can modify specific properties associated with the text field. The Control Parameters field is set to “-all+fontdetails” -all means disable all user modifiable items in the properties panel,  +fontdetails means re-enable only the items that allow the font details to be modified. In this way the end user can be prevented from modifying items that they are not meant to, eg. the name of the text field. Finally the Assoc Property field is set to Scene_1.t1 to associate the Properties panel with a specific object within the movie.

Press the + Add button
Add items according to the table below:

This parameter allows the color of the shapes to be modified. This is done via the Assoc Property field which associates the parameter with the library shapefill resource. This is done via the Property library.shapefill.color

Finally, press the + Add button
Add items according to the table below:

This parameter sets the background color via the movie property “backgroundColor”. The control that was used is “color” as the backgroundColor property does not support alpha.

After adding the above parameters, press the Apply button in the Author wizard panel.

The Wizard panel should now show 4 parameters for the movie.

Using these parameters it is now possible to alter the text, shape color and background color.

This is just a simple example to demonstrate what is possible through the use of Wizard authoring. The example1.swi movie discussed in this article can be downloaded from here.

More complex parameter modification is possible using the other views that are available in the Author Wizard panel.

The forum topic Authoring Wizards and Components contains additional information as well as a link to the Authoring Wizards manual which lists the additional movie properties that are available to wizard authors.

There is also a screencast Creating a Simple Wizard Project which will help give an overview.

Good luck wizarding!

Tags: example, Max3, tutorial, Wizard

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 10:16 am and is filed under Max3, Wizard, tutorials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.