Tutorial: how to create flash movie using SWF Scout library and Visual C# (Visual Studio.NET)

Quick Guide on how to create "Hello, World!" flash movie using C# and SWF Scout library

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

This page will show how to use Visual C# and SWF Scout library to create "Hello, World!" flash movie (.SWF)

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

Go to New menu and click Project... to create new Visual C# project

The New Project Wizard will appear. Select Windows Application in Visual C# Projects group:

2) Visual C# will create a new empty project:

New project generated by C# project wizard

3) To use SWF Scout library in Visual C# application we should add the reference to SWF Scout. Select Project in the main menu and then select Add Reference command:

Switch to COM tab and find SWF Scout library in the list of available ActiveX/COM objects:

Click Select button to add the reference to SWF Scout library and click OK:

4) Double-click on form Form1 to create the Form1_Load procedure (this procedure will be execute on Form1.OnLoad event):

The source code editor window will appear:

5) The following code snippet generates simple "Hello, World!" SWF flash movie and saves it into "c:\shapes.swf" file:

SWFScout.FlashMovie Movie = new SWFScout.FlashMovie();

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

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

int Font = Movie.AddFont("Arial", 18, true, false, false, false, 0); // add font

// create and place text

int 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(0.5F); // fade out text

int 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

Movie.SaveToFile("c:\\Shapes.swf"); // save generated SWF into file

Hint:

You can simply copy the source code from the snippet above and paste into Visual C# source code editor:

6) Press F5 to run the application (you can also use "Debug" | "Start" menu command) and Visual C#.NET will run the application:

The application will create "Hello, World!" flash animation movie and save it into "c:\shapes.swf" file.

You can view generated flash animation using any application that can play flash movies: Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and etc.

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