June 20, 2001 - Scaling a Flash Movie Vertically

Yehuda Shiran June 20, 2001
Scaling a Flash Movie Vertically
Tips: June 2001

Yehuda Shiran, Ph.D.
Doc JavaScript

In some of your applications you may need to use Flash movies and JavaScript directly, without any prepackaged APIs such as FlashSound JavaScript API. You will enjoy more features, methods, and properties, but you'll have to take care of all the tiny details that are taken for granted when using FlashSound API, for example.

One of the "tiny" details is embedding the Flash object. The JavaScript file flashcheck2.js does exactly this, as well as other stuff. For example, it checks whether a Flash player exists (Flash plug-in or ActiveX control), and whether its version is higher than the minimum required by the application.

Use the TSetProperty() Flash method to set attributes of the Flash movie. One of the properties is Y SCALE. You may both set and get this property. The Y SCALE property designates the scaling factor of the movie frame in the y direction. You can set and get Flash properties by their sequence numbers. You get a property like this:

  mySwf.TGetProperty(timeline, propertyNumber);
And you set it as follows:

  mySwf.TSetProperty(timeline, propertyNumber, value)
The Y POSITION property is no. 3, so you get its value by going:

  mySwf.TGetProperty(timeline, 3);
And you set it in a similar way:

  mySwf.TSetProperty(timeline, 3, value);
Play the following movie by clicking the Play link. Get the Y SCALE of the movie by clicking the Get Y SCALE link. Scale the movie frame in the y direction by 300% by clicking the Set Y SCALE link:

Rewind | Play | Get Y SCALE | Set Y SCALE

Here is the source code:

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" SRC="flashcheck2.js"></SCRIPT>
<A href="javascript://" onclick="javascript:mySwf2.Rewind(); return false">Rewind</A> | 
<A href="javascript://" onclick="javascript:mySwf2.Play(); return false">Play</A> | 
<A href="javascript://" onclick="javascript:alert(mySwf2.TGetProperty('/', 3)); return false">Get Y SCALE</A> | 
<A href="javascript://" onclick="javascript:mySwf2.TSetProperty('/', 3, 300); return false">Set Y SCALE</A>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
  var mySwf2 = Flash_embedSWF("opener.swf", "opener");
</SCRIPT>