Flash MX 2004 Games : Art to ActionScript

Chapter 13: Small games to keep them loading
are all set to include just the number outlines. The word ‘TOTAL’ is a static text box using the
same font and the label on the button ‘STOP’ is also static.
Flash can use either embedded fonts or device font. The large text area is set to be a device font by
selecting ‘_sans’ as the font. Flash includes three device fonts: ‘_sans’, ‘_serif ’ and ‘_typewriter’.
On a Windows machine these will default to ‘Arial’, ‘Times’ and ‘Courier’.
The large text area is set to be a dynamic text box. Because it is dynamic the only way to put
multiple font formatting into the box is to use the HTML option. This is set in the text Properties
panel in the ‘Var:’ options box.
Figure 13.5 Setting a dynamic text box to use HTML formatting
When using HTML formatting you can set the font face, colour and size. You can include bold,
underline and italic formatting. You can add a hyperlink and you can set the paragraph splits. In
this example the formatting was all done in the action for frame 1 using the following ActionScript.
htmltext = "Press stop when the number is← |
less than 100,000. ";
htmltext += "Get more help using a HTML dynamic text box by ";
htmltext += "clicking← |
here";
htmltext += "HTML← |
formatting is flexible and very bandwidth friendly"
htmltext += "This is Arial Bold size← |
12";
htmltext += "This is← |
Times italic size 14 in red";
htmltext += "This is just← |
the default text"
HTML text formatting adds no resources to the size of your game, but it is a very flexible way to
put up instructions or text that can change very dynamically. All this text is formatted within the
game, or it could be loaded into the game using ‘loadVariables’.
The tags you can use are
Used to create a hyperlink,
This is the words you see on the page
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