Comments on: New symbol icons in Flash CS4

By: dave

dave — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 15:03:32 +0000

Ian, above, just NAILED it. There are other things Adobe has’t addressed since running the show.

By: Kevin Newman

Kevin Newman — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 00:01:49 +0000

It’s great that they added new sub type icon for Sprite based library items.

Now if they would just add Bitmap, DisplayObject, etc. we’d be good to go (and add it to the Instance Behavior and Symbol Type drop downs too).

By: Rich

Rich — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 21:28:36 +0000

I don’t know about CS3, but in CS4… when I create two duplicate symbols (with timeline animation) and make one a MovieClip and one a Sprite, several things happen.

First. When placed on the stage, the MovieClip runs through it’s timeline while the Sprite does not.

Second. If I try and use MovieClip specific methods like gotoAndPlay() etc., they fail with a compiler error.

Third. When I trace tests to see what type of object they are…
The MovieClip traces…
MovieClip : true
Sprite : true
Object : true

The symbol defined as Sprite in the library traces…
MovieClip : false
Sprite : true
Object : true

It would seem to me this is more than just casting as a Sprite. I’m not sure what flash does with assets placed after frame 1 in the Sprite, or if there is a significant change in memory with a large number of instances; but I plan to check it with a particle monster I have on my home system.

Anybody else tested this?

–Rich

By: JT

JT — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 12:40:41 +0000

Bastian:
The Flex Component Kit does not work i Flash CS4, I have found no clue as to when a new version will emerge.

By: nickyma

nickyma — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 16:16:52 +0000

wow,that is cool

By: Steven Sacks

Steven Sacks — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 23:25:26 +0000

Well the issue is that a Sprite symbol is actually a MovieClip still. Even though you’re setting the base class to Sprite, that’s the same as casting a MovieClip to Sprite. You can do it, but it’s still a MovieClip. Technically, you can add frames to a “Sprite” symbol in the IDE, so it’s not really a Sprite. There is a performance difference between a “Sprite” in the Library and a Sprite purely as a class, even if they have the same thing in them (say, a vector shape). The reason for this difference is that the Library symbol is still actually a MovieClip, regardless of what you set the base class to.

I used to set my base classes on single frame MovieClip symbols to Sprite until I realized it didn’t make a difference, they were still MovieClips.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:53:54 +0000

This along with the new library searching functionality will REALLY help when it comes to sorting through long libraries.

Andrew Christensen | Geek.Blog | http://blog.728media.com

By: DaveFlash

DaveFlash — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 08:33:26 +0000

Nice findings Lee, keep it up

By: James Thompson

James Thompson — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:34:44 +0000

Only the icon in the Library changes – the icon at the top of the screen is the same when you double-click to enter, and you can still use the timeline. Nice to have the icon though.

By: Ian

Ian — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:25:23 +0000

Adobe could still stand to do a lot of other things as far as library organization goes. This is a step in the right direction, but I have gripes with the way folders behave not just in the library, but also the Actions panel toolbox.

For example, why is it that collapsed folders arbitrarily open when I start creating new symbols or messing with unrelated actions? When you’re dealing with large applications, this makes it unnecessarily difficult to navigate to other sections of the FLA that need to be modified.

Also, why can’t library items be sorted by type and then alphabetically? It seems like if I sort by type the various symbols are grouped together in a completely random order.

New icons are nice, but in terms of usability it seems to me that there are more important things to address.