Flash MX 2004 Games : Art to ActionScript

20
Using Flash on a PocketPC
PocketPCs are selling like the proverbial hot cakes now that the prices are more in line with
people’s ability to pay. The little beasts are quite capable of running games. Macromedia has
created a highly optimized Flash player engine for the PocketPC. In this chapter we look at tips
and advice when creating content for a PocketPC.
Starting with Flash on PocketPC
The first step is to install Flash Player on your PocketPC. Flash Player is freely available from
Macromedia at http://www.macromedia.com/software/devices/products/pocketpc/. At the time
of writing the version number was 6 and this was available for PocketPC 2002 and 2003. You
should also download the development kit that is available on the same page. This gives example
project files and lots of tips and advice. Flash Player for PocketPC runs inside Pocket Internet
Explorer although it is possible to create stand-alone movies either using the software available
from Macromedia for a charge or following the instructions in Chapter 24, which you should be
able to do for free. That alone should make buying this book worth the money!
A quick introduction to PocketPC 2003
A PocketPC comes with Pocket Internet Explorer (PIE) already installed in the ROM. Figure 20.1
shows the default out of the box screen for a Dell Axim X3. To use the device a stylus is supplied.
The screen is touch-sensitive and allows you to click on the screen at any location. A rollover event
does not occur. The default setup for PIE has a navigation and address bar at the top, taking up
48 pixels and a command bar at the base of the screen occupying 26 pixels. The main display area
starts at (0, 49) and extends to (240, 293) giving a maximum size for a Flash movie of 240 × 245
pixels. When textual input is required the Soft Input Panel (SIP) screen is shown which allows the
user to enter text from an on-screen keyboard or via handwriting recognition. This panel takes
up a further 80 pixels. So if you want to accommodate for this then the available area for a Flash
movie is just 240 × 165 pixels. In many games you will not require the SIP so for most purposes
you should make your movies 240 × 245 pixels.
Figure 20.3 shows a simple animation embedded into PIE; the HTML required is very similar
to that for a desktop machine. Some of the details required on a desktop can be eliminated – no
EMBED is required – but it is recommended to set the quality to ‘medium’. On the small screen
of a PocketPC a quality setting of ‘high’ is virtually indistinguishable from that of ‘medium’, yet
the processor has to do a lot more work. One thing you must get used to when developing for a
PocketPC is to optimize wherever possible. One of the simplest ways to achieve this is by setting
quality to medium.
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