Tutorial: how to create flash movie using SWF Scout library and Visual Basic

Quick Start Guide: How to create SWF file from Visual Basic: "Hello, World" example

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

This guide will teach you how to create simple SWF flash animation using SWF Scout library and Visual Basic

1) Install SWF Scout library on your computer and run Visual Basic. Go to File and click New

The Project Wizard will appear:

2) Select Standard EXE project type and click Open to create a new project.
Visual Basic will generate new project called Project1 and will automatically open the main form of the generated project:

3) Click on Form1 surface and Visual Basic will show the code window for Form_Load event:

Visual Basic form load event code handler auto generated

4) Now you have to add the code that will create SWF flash movie file using SWF Scout library.

Here is the source code that you can simply copy and paste into Visual Basic:

W = 640 ' width

H = 480 ' height

Set Movie = CreateObject("SWFScout.FlashMovie")

Movie.InitLibrary "demo", "demo"

Movie.BeginMovie 0, 0, W, H, 1, 12, 6

Movie.Compressed = True

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

Dim Font As Integer

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

' create and place text

Dim Text As Integer

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 Integer

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

This function will create SWF file "Shapes.swf" on drive C:\

Hint:

You can simply copy the source code from the snippet above and then paste it in the Visual Basic code editor as it's shown on the screenshot below:

5) Press F5 to run the application (you can also use "Run" | "Start" menu command).

6) Visual Basic will run the application and application will generate SWF file "c:\Shapes.swf".

You can view generated flash file (.SWF) using Internet Explorer or another application that is capable of viewing and playing of flash animations.

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