Flash 8 Cookbook

22.5. User Navigation for Flash Lite

Problem

You want to allow the user to navigate your Flash Lite movie.

Solution

Add button instances to the stage and assign actions to the press event.

Discussion

Perhaps the most complex user interface challenge you will face when designing your Flash Lite movie will be that of user navigation. When designing Flash movies for the Web, you can rely on the user having access to a mouse, trackpad, or other user input device that allows direct access to any area of the stage. When designing for Flash Lite, you cannot make such an assumption. Although PDAs and even some mobile phones (UIQ phones, such as the Sony Ericsson P910, for example) support stylus input, most phones do not.

The most basic Flash Lite 1.1 devices support three-way navigation: Up, Down, and Select. More advanced models additionally provide support for the Left and Right keys (five-way navigation). In either case, Flash Lite provides built-in key-based navigation for the movie based on button instances on the stage. An example of five-way navigation is shown in Figure 22-2.

A button instance is an instance of the Flash button symbol type and is used to respond to user input through various events. Note that unlike Flash movies published for the desktop Flash Player, Flash Lite 1.1 movies do not support movie clip events such as onKeyDown( ), so you will need to use button instances extensively when responding to user input.

There are five basic steps to creating a button instance for ...