Flash MX 2004 Games : Art to ActionScript

Chapter 24: Embedding Flash
can be any string that is useful for the context. To respond to all fscommand events we need to
add a member function to the main window of our wrapper.
void CFlashTalkDlg::OnFSCommandFlash(LPCTSTR command, LPCTSTR args)
{
if (_stricmp(command, "click")==0){
AfxMessageBox("Flash passed click fscommand");
}
}
You test for the command string using the function ‘strcmp’ for a case-sensitive comparison or
‘_stricmp’ if you want it to be case insensitive. If the strings are the same then the string comparison
function is set to zero. In this way you can send any message from Flash. Having sent a message
your wrapper may want to query the current state of variables in Flash.
If you need to get the value of a variable in Flash then use:
m_flash.getVariable(variablename)
Regardless of the type of the variable this function returns a string.
If you want to set a variable in Flash then use:
m_flash.setVariable(variablename, variablevalue)
where both ‘variablename’ and ‘variablevalue’ are both passed as strings.
You will be able to see from the list of exposed methods in the Flash ActiveX control that
there are a considerable number of other ways that you can communicate between the wrapper
and Flash. The wrapper can control the playback by setting the frame and the play mode for both
the main timeline and any Movie Clips, but the principal methods you will use are ‘setMovie’,
‘setVariable’, ‘getVariable’ and the event callback ‘OnFSCommand’.
Embedding Flash on a PocketPC 2003
The 2003 version of PocketPC software brought some changes to the platform. To embed
Flash you will need to create an HTML View window and then populate this with an
HTML file that accesses your Flash file. It is perfectly possible to embed both the HTML
file and the Flash file so you can create a single executable that will appear to the user to
be a self-contained executable. To do this you will need a copy of Embedded Visual C++
4, which is freely available from Microsoft. The URL at the time of writing is http://msdn.
microsoft.com/vstudio/device/embedded/download.aspx. After installing you should install any
service packs and finally install the SDK for PocketPC 2003. Having successfully installed
all the development tools you should be able to compile and execute on your PocketPC
the program ‘HTMLHost.exe’; the project file for this is found on the CD at ‘Examples/
Chapter24/PocketPC/ppcflash.vcw’. This code is just a slightly amended version of the
‘HTMLHost’ sample that comes with the PocketPC 2003 SDK. The default installation puts
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