Event Handling and Advanced Buttons: Key to an Interactive Flash Website

Most websites of today are more interactive and dynamic. Gone are the days when static web pages were created for the sole purpose of informing general issues to the public. The one dimensional approach is being replaced by dynamic and interactive websites, thanks to flash. With the help of this versatile software, designers involved in flash web pages design can add more dimensions to a page and engage and entertain.  
Interactivity is a two-way approach between user and an application. For example, in a flash game, users may react to something by clicking the mouse button, pressing any key on the keyboard or moving the mouse pointer. This reaction leads to an opposite action from the flash game, which in turn provokes the user to do something else to win the game. These actions initiated by the user are called events. Flash, with the help of functions and listeners, takes note of such events and responds to any mouse-clicks or key presses, a process commonly called as event handling. Using ActionScript you can create event listeners and other functions to make a partial completion of interactivity in a flash web page design.

However, interactivity is not fully complete without the inclusion of advanced buttons. For building interactivity, the designer creates a simple class called the SimpleButton class. He can even extend the functionality of this simple class by creating animated, invisible and other sophisticated buttons. To create a simple button, a flash designer has to define keyframes such as UP, Over, Down and Hit. These keyframes defines how a flash application will behave when someone clicks or hovers around the button with a mouse. All these properties are applied to the button via ActionScript.
There are many ways to define a button symbol through keyframes. The designer creates invisible buttons by manipulating the keyframes. Similarly advanced buttons like pull down menus can also be incorporated custom flash web design to add complex interactivity.

About the Author:

I am the webmaster at www.synapseindia.com ' A web development company offering flash web page design to businesses in India and abroad.