flash (macromedia): does anyone know how the text effect seen on
http://www.addition.com.au/#welcome (under the details section) is made? Also,
can it be made by loading an external text file? if anyone can help or point me
in the right direction of a tutorial, it would be greatly appreciated.


thanks-

I'm not exactly sure how they were making this one, although i can imagine
several different ways to achieve it. one could simply place a MC over the top
of the 'actual' menu and run an animation through several different characters
moving the MC to the right, one character space at a time. You could concat
the string and 'roll' through random characters until reaching the correct one
that equals the one in that section of the menu list. Or probably a couple of
other methods.

As to how it could be done with loaded text, I think one would treat it in the
same way. first load up the text in a var, 'roll' through RND text characters,
until it equates to the correct one in the string at that location. I think
you would want to use some looping here, but you would want to 'break' out of
it on each iteration to display the character, or at least call an
updateAfterEvent() or something to cause it to be redrawn. Neat effect.

To the toturial part, read the Flash help sections on Strings, that should
give you some ammo.

thanks for the reply. i figured i could make the menu button effect by
changing the individual characters (seems like there should be an easier way),
but i didn't think about using the string. i'll look it up. thanks.

i was actually talking about the text field that seems to fade up line by
line. under the "detail" line. any idea how that was done?

thanks again-

well, I hadn't seen the text under the details section, I hadn't even selected
one of the menu items. So after doing so i think I have an answer for you, and
did test the theory. If you adjust the 'leading' property of a the
setTextField() function using a variable that is redefined within a loop, you
can change the width of the line spacing. On the first frame used the code,

var leading_fmt:TextFormat = new TextFormat();
leading_fmt.leading = 30;
leading_txt.setTextFormat(leading_fmt);

onEnterFrame = function() {

if(leading_fmt.leading > 0) {
leading_fmt.leading -=1;
}

leading_txt.setTextFormat(leading_fmt);

}

Looks like you could adjust things however you would like using this method.
I'm not certain how they created the color change though, I guessing that you
could do that with a translucient mask effect over the top of the field, or by
using the text as a mask rather. Just make sure that the character set you
wanting to use is embed within the dynamic field, and you should be set.

sorry, that was the setTextFormat() function, (bad typist, bad typist ...)

first of all, thanks a lot for helping.

i think i'm missing something. here is what have. a button that loads text in
a text feild. on this button i have my load vars code and the code you gave me.

on (release) {
loadVariables("aboutUs.txt", "");
var leading_fmt:TextFormat = setTextFormat();
leading_fmt.leading = 30;
leading_txt.setTextFormat(leading_fmt);
onEnterFrame = function () {
if (leading_fmt.leading>0) {
leading_fmt.leading -= 1;
}
leading_txt.setTextFormat(leading_fmt);
};
}

this isn't working, but i know i'm missing something. do you know what i'm
doing wrong?

sorry, i should have told you i'm not the best programer.

thanks-

Well, a couple of things here. First, make sure you have the instance name
assign to the Textfield, in this case it should be 'leading_txt'.

Second, when using the loadVariables() call, the second parameter should point
to a MovieClip, but in this case, the Textfield (ie. 'leading_txt'), I'm not
certain this will work as the target? you may need to switch the call to a
loadVars object, then assign the string to the text property as in, "
leading_txt.text = textObjectX; " of course you need to set up your object
variable first.

Another thing of note, you should add to the 'if' statement in the
onEnterFrame function, my bad, didn't put it in the initial code. add this ...

}else{
onEnterFrame = null;
}

this will 'kill' the onEnterFrame function and stop it's continued looping
when the leading variable = 0.

So just a couple of things to try, everything else look fine.