Common mistakes in Flash development (part2)

Embedding fonts for dynamic text fields (continued)

When you click on these buttons a pop up will open and give you the choice to embed All or part of the font see pictures below :

Flash 8	Flash MX 2004

If you are just planning to display numbers in your dynamic text fields just embed the numerals. Always try to embed what you are really going to need since embedding characters have a significant impact on the final size of your SWF.

If you don't want to embed any font I suggest you use the device font "_sans" that should display on most machines the same way you see it in the authoring environment.


Ultimate preloaders ?

There is a "preloadermania" going on all over the Web with Flash developers claiming that they created the ultimate preloader. Unfortunately most of these preloaders are not taking in account two important factors that will affect their functionality. These two factors are :
1. If any class is set to export on frame 1 the preloader won't show on the screen until this class is loaded.
2. If any component is set to export on first frame the preloader won't show on the screen until the components are loaded.

To sort out these two issues do the following :

In the library right click on the components and select Linkage then in the window unselect Export on first frame (pic1). Then go in File > Publish Settings, select the flash tab and next to Actionscript version click on Settings, in the window that pops up enter 2 in the field export frame for classes. (pic2)

pic1 pic2

Now you might be able to add the word "ultimate" in front of your preloader :)

These are just a few pitfalls to avoid, this article will be updated regularly since, as you can guess, there is a lot more to come :)

Calwen
flashvalley.com