Why Use Dreamweaver with Flash?
Dreamweaver is much more than an HTML authoring tool. It provides many options for site management; not only is it a great tool for HTML and CSS pages, but it's also excellent for keeping track of site assets such as images, source files, XML content, and Flash movies.
Flash movies are rarely viewed as stand-alone objects. People point their browsers to HTML pages that contain .swf files; they don't usually load a stand-alone Flash movie if they are browsing the Web. Although Flash can generate basic HTML pages using the Publish feature, Macromedia Dreamweaver enables you to gain more control over the visual placement of your Flash movie, to customize plug-in settings, and to manage your Web site more effectively.
Dreamweaver 8 includes many excellent page layout templates and examples. These include image placeholders and sample text for a range of common pages — from text layouts to registration forms to shopping carts, these files give you a jump-start on building various HTML frameworks that you can enhance with Flash objects.
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Dreamweaver 8 also includes new CSS-based layouts in addition to the existing CSS (cascading style sheets) for text content. Many developers are moving toward CSS-based pages and the new, unified CSS panel makes it easier to author and visualize CSS layouts.
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Building sites with Dreamweaver can vary in complexity. Developing data-driven sites or rich Internet applications always involves several other necessary components — a Web server and a database, to name but two. In this chapter we're going to explore the simpler option of adding Flash to basic HTML pages with Dreamweaver.
Of course, of all the features in Dreamweaver, we are particularly interested in those features that make our lives easier as Flash developers. These include the following:
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Flash elements: Dreamweaver MX 2004 took Flash integration to a new level by enabling developers to convert Flash movies into Dreamweaver components that can be distributed and customized in the Dreamweaver authoring environment using settings and properties in the Tag inspector. The Image Viewer that was introduced in Dreamweaver MX 2004 is still the only Flash element that ships with Dreamweaver 8, but the program architecture supports the potential for developers to easily create and share (or sell) Flash elements for Dreamweaver and opens new possibilities for expanding your toolkit.
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Flash elements can be authored by other Flash developers and added to the Flash elements category of the Insert bar, so you are not limited to using the original element or Flash objects that ship with the program.
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Launch and edit Flash from within Dreamweaver: If you have used this feature with any of the other Studio programs, you'll realize how helpful this can be. It's very easy to change an .swf file from a Dreamweaver page. By just clicking one button, Dreamweaver opens Flash with the correct .fla and enables you to make your changes. When you finish editing, one more click automatically exports the .swf, saves the .fla, and takes you back to the updated page in Dreamweaver.
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ActionScript editing: The Dreamweaver coding environment supports code hinting and color-coding for ActionScript and the ActionScript Reference Guide is built-in. Because Dreamweaver also supports several other key scripting languages, some developers prefer to use Dreamweaver for authoring and editing all code files on complex projects. You can save code files in a variety of formats from Dreamweaver, including XML, JavaScript, ColdFusion, and ActionScript (.as format), which you can then import to Flash for integration or modification.
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Dreamweaver's capability to transfer code back and forth between applications, keeping your preferred formatting intact, is referred to as "round-trip" editing — Dreamweaver will not overwrite or reformat your custom code as many other HTML authoring tools are known to do.
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Link updates: From within Dreamweaver, you can change URL links within Flash movies and have the change propagate to both the Flash movie (.swf) and the Flash document (.fla).
