Flash MX 2004 Games : Art to ActionScript

Figure 20.4 Layout problems from a direct port of a desktop game
Chapter 20: Using Flash on a PocketPC
3 Edit the new symbol by selecting it from the Library or the drop-down ‘Edit Symbols’
button.
4 Paste the frames into the new symbol.
5 Place your new symbol on the root-level timeline and resize while maintaining the aspect
ratio by clicking on the ‘Scale’ option button for the ‘Free Transform Tool (Q)’.
You should now resize your movie to 240 × 234 using the Document Properties panel, which
is accessed by clicking in a non-occupied part of the stage and pressing the Size button in the
Properties window.
In the original version of the game we had just one button on screen and two highlighting
panels displaying who the current player is. The aim of the reshaping is to maximize the board
area. If users have the Address bar hidden then the layout shown on the left in Figure 20.5 is
ideal. This uses a movie area of 240 × 268 pixels allowing room for the buttons below the board.
Unfortunately surveys indicate that the majority of users have the Address bar active, therefore it
is recommended that the shape of the game is restricted to 240 × 234. The screenshot on the right
of Figure 20.5 shows how we achieved this.
Using panels to display additional data
The screen space available on a PPC is easily big enough for a crossword puzzle. In Chapter 13 we
looked at developing a crossword puzzle game. The game used the additional screen space available
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