Review: Flashtuning ScrollBar Component

I know that probably every time when you have to design a website, at a certain moment you want something to be scrolled (a movieclip, textfield). You can do a basic scroller or use the default one from Flash of course, but instead why don’t you use something that can do all that and much more with no limitations and save you precious time.

The Advanced Scrollbar component developed by Flashtuning provides extended scrolling control over any content type within movie clip and adapts automatically for both static and dynamic types of content.

Requirements

The Scrollbar is available in two versions one for Actionscript 2.0 and the other for Actionscript 3.0. You can download a trial version (click on the Free Download link above the examples) that has a limit of max 350 X 200 pixels for the visible area size and watermark attached, as a trial limitation. To get the full version with no restrictions you need to purchase a license for $7.00.

Features

• You can use it in either vertical or horizontal modes and you can configure two component instances to create a Scroll Pane.
• Switch scrolling targets during runtime
• Choice and adjustment of scroll easing types (basic, bounce, elastic, inertia)
• Choice of scrollbar layouts (buttons and slider, buttons only, slider only)
• Run-time resizable visible area
• Free/Snap to visible area modes support
• Autohide/disable mechanism
• Mouse wheel support
• Customizable skins on per instance or global basis
• Skin elements color overlays
• Dynamic control through Actionscript API
• Fixed Track Body option
• Fixed Slider Body option
• Use Invisible Mask option
• Scroll Percentage option
• Built in Help Book that can be accessed via the Flash Help Panel

How to use it

We’ll set up a simple scrolling movie clip with text inside.

1. Start Adobe Flash, open a new document and set a 30 fps or higher in the Document Properties Panel to achieve a smoother animation.

2. Open the Components panel (Window/Components). You will find the component in the  Flashtuning folder.

3. Drag the component (FtScrollBar) from the Components panel to the stage. The component graphic symbol should now be displayed on the stage.

4. Create a new Movie Clip to be scrolled:

• Create a Text Field on the scene and type in few text blocks.
• Select the Text Field and convert it to a Movie Clip symbol ( Modify/Convert to Symbol) with the registration point top left.
• Give the new Movie Clip an unique instance name (in the Properties Panel).

5. Select the Scroll Bar component on the stage and configure its parameters in the Parameters panel or in the Component Inspector panel (Window/Component Inspector):

• Instruct the component to scroll the newly created Movie Clip as the target movie clip ( targetMovieClip).
• Set the viewAreaHeight and viewAreaWidth.
• Set the snapMode to snapToView value.
• Leave the rest of the parameters unchanged unless you want to adjust some values, as they are already populated with default settings.

6. Test the scene (Control/Test Movie).

Conclusion

It’s probably one of the best flash scrollbars on the market. You will find it useful any time you want to scroll a textfield, an image,a  movieclip and has some great features.

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Hi, there! I'm Alin the founder of Flashuser.net. My passions are related to web and graphic design, photography and climbing. You can find me at Twitter and Facebook