Tutorial: how to create flash movie using SWF Scout library and ASP.NET (on ASP.NET web-server)

How to create SWF flash animations movies using SWF Scout library in ASP.NET environment. "Hello, World!" example

You can download the source code of this example here: swfscout_asp_net.zip

This page contains step by step tutorial how to create SWF flash animation file in ASP.NET using SWF Scout library.

IMPORTANT NOTE: To use SWF Scout library on web-server you have to have additional "Web License"

SWF Scout library is capable of generating of in-memory SWF files so file needn't to be stored as a file on hard drive and can be streamed right into the browser window.

There is a special "GenerateInMemoryFile" property for such purposes. Set this property to TRUE and the library will generate and keep your SWF as in-memory stream without using of any temporary files.

1) Install SWF Scout library on your computer and run Visual Studio.NET

2) Go to File menu and select New Project:

Select ASP.NET Web Application project type and click OK

3) Visual Studio.NET will create new empty ASP.NET project. Double-click on the empty space of the form:

This will open source code editor window on procedure handling Page_Load event. We will place our code for SWF flash animation generation into this procedure:

Page load handler procedure generated by ASP.NET IDE

4) Use the following code for procedure (you can simply copy and paste this code from this page into ASP.NET source code editor window):

'Put user code to initialize the page here

Dim Movie

Dim Size As Long

Dim MemoryImage As System.Array

Movie = CreateObject("SWFScout.FlashMovie")

Movie.InitLibrary("demo", "demo")

Movie.BeginMovie(0, 0, 640, 480, 1, 12, 6)

Movie.Compressed = True

Movie.GenerateInMemoryFile = True

Movie.SetBackgroundColor(255, 255, 255) ' set background color to white

Dim Font As Long

Font = Movie.AddFont("Arial", 18, True, False, False, False, 0) ' add font

' create and place text

Dim Text As Long

Text = Movie.AddText("Hello, World!", 0, 0, 0, 255, Font, 0, 100, 250, 160)

Movie.PlaceText(Text, Movie.CurrentMaxDepth) ' place text into current depth

Movie.PLACE_FadeOut(0.5) ' fade out text

Dim Shape As Long

Shape = Movie.AddShape ' add new shape

Movie.SHAPE_Rectangle(0, 140, 150, 285) ' draw rectangle

Movie.SHAPE_SetSolidColor(50, 255, 50, True, 255) ' set solid fill for shape

Movie.PlaceShape(Shape, Movie.CurrentMaxDepth) ' place shape into current depth

Movie.ShowFrame(10) ' show 10 frames

Movie.EndMovie() ' end movie generation

' get size of generated in-memory SWF file

Size = Movie.BinaryImageSize

' create new buffer with size equal to generated SWF file

Dim Buffer(CInt(Size)) As Byte

' get in-memory swf file as byte stream

MemoryImage = Movie.BinaryImage

' copy byte stream into buffer

Array.Copy(MemoryImage, Buffer, Size)

' clear http output

Response.Clear()

' set the content type to SWF

Response.ContentType = "application/x-shockwave-flash"

' add content type header

Response.AddHeader("Content-Type", "application/x-shockwave-flash")

' set the content disposition

Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "inline;filename=shapes.swf")

' write the buffer with swf file to the output

Response.BinaryWrite(Buffer)

Response.End()

' disconnect from library

Movie = Nothing

5) Now run ASP.NET project using Debug | Start command:

Visual Studio.NET will run ASP.NET project on web-server and you will see Internet Explorer window with generated SWF flash animation:

SWF flash movie generated by ASP.NET application

You can download the source code of this example here: swfscout_asp_net.zip