dynamic text boxes

I've been trying to do an off-shoot of the 3rd part of Ben's flash series, altho i was trying to do a dynamic text box that fades in. For some reason tho, I am unable to get flash to allow me to set fade in a dynamic text box. The same setup works fine for a static text box. As a matter of fact, i can get it to fade in / fade out if i just press enter and play it in the current scene, but if i try to preview it in a browser (IE 6.0) or hit ctrl+enter to play the movie in a full window in flash, neither one works.

To make the text fade in, i create a dynamic text box, set it to whatever text properties i like, and then make it a symbol ( i choose to make it a graphic). Then i select that symbol in the first frame and set the alpha to 0%... then lets say in frame 24, i created a keyframe and set the alpha for that symbol to 100%... after adding a motion tween, it works fine in the scene preview, but fails to work in a browser. Any ideas? by the way... it does successfully pull the info from the mysql database.

Thanks!

Rich

instead of setting the alpha back to 100% select none from the menu and try that, what you mentions sounds right tho?? weird

Thanks for the reply Ben... I just tried your suggestion, but got the same results. I thought it was weird as well :-( I'm clueless on this one...

Rich

Ok guys... found some info on another site about this problem. It seems that flash requires you to have outlines on any editable text boxes when you are creating effects such as the alpha effect I mentioned above. The way to fix this in MX is to create your text box and in the properties inspector, set your type of text to dyanmic text and on the right side, click on character. Then choose Embed Font Outlines for ***ALL CHARACTERS***. This allows the alpha effects to work after you make the text box into a symbol. It does have a slight tradeoff, it slightly increases the file size. Happy coding!

Weird, i have never had to do that for my fade in/out?? its very strange that you should have to do that

it's only for dynamic text...static text works fine the other way. supposedly this fix is something that macromedia has published... i've finally got it working tho it's a fade in/fade out version of what you did Ben with a database connection (Flash - Part 3). Once it's fine tuned, i'll post the finished code... Thanks for all your tutorials, they've really helped me to think in areas that i never would have before. By the way... what happened to the coding contest?

the coding contest got canned. not enought ppl!

oh well, anyway im currently developing a script section for devarticles, its almost done, just need to test it and make a few cosmetic changes. Should be up soon, so stay posted

hiya slither,
i came across this problem a while ago, there is a work around solution which basically works on the "KISS" method.
on the layer above the dynamic text box create a rectangle the same colour as the background of the movie and the same size as the dynamic text box you want to fade, convert it to symbol, pick graphic, then goto the effects panel for the rectangle insert some keyframes in the timeline where you want it to fade add a tween and jsut change the alpha from 0-100% or vicesaversa deprnding on which way you want it to fade, another option is to put the graphic into a movie clip,(for example frame 1 graphic set at aplha 100% with stop action, frame 10 set alpha to 0% with stop action in frame, frame 20 set alpha to 100% with stop action in frame, and motion tweens between 1-10 and 10-20) then you can make it either fade in or out using some simple actionscript. telling the mc to play from 1 or from frame 10
this is basically the only way you can achieve the effect your after with a dynamic text field.
hope that helps
andrew

Take a look at www.flashcomponent.nl
alpha without embedded fonts, dynamically loaded text.